The Use Of Three Government Models In Thirteen Days

 In the book “Managing Human Behavior…” there are three models that the author Graham Allison has provided that play an essential role in the government’s decision-making process. These three models are called rational model, organizational model, and governmental politics model. The movie “Thirteen Days” is a prime example of how the government used these three models in action.

The rational model can be seen as self-explanatory, but in government terms it is processed into five phases. First, is the pre-analysis phase which is when “situations are defined” an example of this from the movie is in the scene where there were six interpreters examining images which they then came to realize, was a SS-4 ballistic missile, therefor being a threat, so it became urgent to present to the president to be aware of.

Second, is the analytic phase, this is when “situations that affect goals are perceived and information about them is gathered”, in relations to the movie, the president was in the middle of his election while the missile threat was occurring at the same time, Kennedy was determined to come up with a plan of action to prevent their activation.

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Third, is the Design phase which is when “options are crystallized to deal with the situation”, in the Cuba case, the US had different responses on discovering these missiles, that being either, to do nothing, use diplomacy, approach Cuba secretly, use blockade, use surgical air strikes, or a full scale invasion. Fourth is the Choice phase which is when “alternatives are evaluated, and the optimal choice is selected”, blockade was the best option for a rational choice because it was a moderate course of action, it limits engagement, and has a military advantage.

Fifth is the implementation phase which is when the “alternative is chosen to meet the specific situation and is implemented” the president announced on television the situation and presented a plot of action of what is to happen.

The organizational process model in the book is mentioned as the “government being composed of many loosely allied organizations, each with its own set of leaders.” In other terms meaning you’ve got different departments, interest, trained groups, and people with different ways of thinking. There were a lot of routines that influenced the outcome of the Cuba case. One being intelligence gathering, which is when bits of information are collected for the benefits of different networks, some examples from the movie would be the lumber ships that were riding high in the water, Cuban in a bar that was ranting about what was going on, and the view of the missile profile. There was no form of routine that was aggravating these bits of information into a conclusion because they were in different parts of the organization. There were inter-agency conflicts that delayed the surveillance flights, but most importantly the example of what influenced the outcome was the map of the Soviet missile bases 

Works cited

1. Allison, G. T. (1971). Essence of decision: Explaining the Cuban missile crisis. Little, Brown.
2. Kennedy, R. F. (1969). Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. W. W. Norton & Company.
3. Allison, G. T., & Zelikow, P. (1999). Essence of decision: Explaining the Cuban missile crisis (2nd ed.). Longman.
4. Janis, I. L. (1989). Crucial decisions: Leadership in policymaking and crisis management. Free Press.
5. George, A. L., & Smoke, R. (1974). Deterrence in American foreign policy: Theory and practice. Columbia University Press.
6. Allison, G. T. (1999). Models, politics, and the Cuban missile crisis. The American Political Science Review, 93(4), 811-827.
7. Allison, G. T., & Halperin, M. H. (1972). Bureaucratic politics: A paradigm and some policy implications. World Politics, 24(1), 40-79.
8. .
9. Garthoff, R. L. (1994). Reflections on the Cuban missile crisis. Foreign Policy, (95), 163-180.
10. Allison, G. T., & Sagan, S. D. (2013). The limits of rationality. Daedalus, 142(4), 25-39.
11. Zelikow, P. (1997). The Cuban missile crisis: An analytical narrative. In M. E. Brown, O. R. Cote Jr., S. Lynn-Jones, & S. E. Miller (Eds.), The Cold War and After: Prospects for Peace (pp. 111-144). MIT Press.