1883 



well as executive needs exist for both a short- and a long-range 

 policy planning service. If a single planning unit should be created for 

 the Congress it is probable that its time and attention would be 

 preempted to satisfy requests for advisory services relating to current 

 problems. On the other hand, if it were totally insulated from day- 

 to-day problems, it might — as the Murphy Commission report sug- 

 gests — drift into atrophy and irrelevance. Accordingly, it may be 

 that a two-part service, separately structured but functionally 

 related, might be as appropriate for the Congress as for the Depart- 

 ment of State. The factor of timing in the formulation of foreign 

 policy is no less important to the legislative than to the executive 

 branch. Also, coherence in planning and coherence between planning 

 and operations, both essential in the field of foreign policy, are apt 

 considerations for legislative oversight. 



Conclusions and Observations 



In a steadily constricting world facing grim future decisions of 

 national equity, power competition, resource allocation, rational or 

 irrational uses of technology, and rational or irrational governance 

 in national states with the capability or potential for mass destruction, 

 the need is evident for the highest possible quality of thought for the 

 future. 



In the cOmic strip "Beetle Bailey," one of the characters, learning 

 of the deterrent posture of mutual destruction, asks: "How did we 

 get into this mess?" It is now important to ask: "How do we get out 

 of this mess?" 



The alternatives are to seek a rational way out, or to hope that the 

 random and irrational forces at play in the political interactions of 

 nations in international anarchy will somehow avoid disaster. 



The resources of the Department of Defense to inflict ultimate 

 disaster upon an adversary have not been stinted. However, the De- 

 partment of State has been less well endowed. The reasons for this 

 disparity are complex, but reduce to the proposition that force is 

 concrete, measurable, and definite, while diplomac}^ is abstract, hard to 

 measure, and indefinite. So too are the consequences of public invest- 

 ment as between force and diplomac}^ The disparity also relates to 

 centuries-old differences in habits of thought about the conduct of war- 

 fare on the one hand and diplomacy on the other. It has always been 

 considered necessary to approach warfare systematically in organizing, 

 equipping, and drilling forces and in commanding them in battle. 

 Diplomacy, however, has tended to be approached on an intuitive, 

 seat-of-the-pants basis (often the seat of only one man's pants). In 

 short, the need for long-range planning has been acknowledged in the 

 military sphere, but disavowed — or at least neglected — in the 

 diplomatic. 



Proof of the value of long-range policy planning is hard to document, 

 but only by sound policy^ planning would it be possible to establish the 

 true ultimate value of diplomacy. The justification for a strengthened 

 planning capability for U.S. foreign policy is that it affords the best 

 hope that the great destructive power in the Department of Defense 

 and in its foreign counterpart will increasingly become irrelevant and 

 unnecessary. 



