1698 



aiid other White House components such as NSC, CEQ, CIEP, 

 OMB, etc. More productive relationships with professional socie- 

 ties and academia and industrial groups need to be fostered. 



(8) The international aspects of food and agricultural tech- 

 nology require increased attention from the Department. 



(9) A whole new era of oceans management is emerging. OES 

 must better equip itself to cope with these important problems. 



(10) OES needs, and must earn by demonstrated performance, 

 a clear recognition of its status in the Department hierarchy .^^''' 



Some Illustrative Questions 



Long-range foreign policy planning is a complex and difficult under- 

 taking involving infinite arrangements of variables in time (past, 

 present, and future) and space (today, the world; tomorrow, the uni- 

 verse?) Many scholars and policymakers nave accordingly concluded 

 that it cannot be done successfully, especially in a democracy. Others, 

 though more sympathetic in principle, have urged that not too much 

 be expected of long-range national planning efforts, and that they be 

 conducted with flexibility and restraint. As Roger Hilsman observes 

 in To Move a Nation: 



The making of foreign policy is a groping efiFort at understanding the nature of 

 the evolving world around us. It is a painful sorting out of our own goals and pur- 

 poses. It is a tentative, incremental experimentation with various means for achiev- 

 ing these purposes. It is an unremitting argument and debate among various con- 

 stituencies about all of these questions and an attempt to build a consensus on how 

 the United States as the United States should decide on these questions and what 

 action it should take. And none of these several activities is the kind that will yield 

 to organizational or institutional gimmicks.''* 



Why,- then, talk about "long-range planning machinery and proce- 

 dures," if attempts to institutionalize the complete policy planning 

 process are likely to fail? What is to be gained by halfway, or perhaps 

 less than halfway, measures? Hasn't the United States done well 

 enough, all these years, wdthout a comprehensive national planning 

 system? And isn't the attempt to establish one likely to lead to greater 

 trouble and even danger than just meeting developments as they arise? 

 The answer to this last question is that all the evidence points the 

 other way. Survival itself may well be at stake — or, after all, has the 

 danger been exaggerated? 



The question is worth repeating in another way. There are two 

 schools of thought with respect to policy formulation. One emphasizes 

 experience in problem-solving; not getting cluttered with details; the 

 attitude that every problem is different: elaborate efforts to project 

 what may be ahead are unrealistic, and it is better to focus on each 

 problem or issue ad hoc; the bringing in of experts to explain the 

 essentials of the problem; and the governing idea that, to begin with, 

 it is impossible to foresee or even assess all consequences. The other 

 school emphasizes comprehensive data-gathering; analysis of indica- 

 tors of trends; forecasting and analysis of emerging issues; preparation 

 of positive statements; constructing taxonomies of problems; applica- 

 tion of the systems approach to policy design; and the attempt to 

 foresee the consequences of alternative courses of actionor reaction — 



3i'b Ibid., pages v-xiii. 



5" Huddle, Science and Technology in the Department of Stale, vol. II, p. 1414. 



