Ten Principles for Foreign Policy Expertise

By: Dan Spokojny | Sep 5, 2024

I have been researching and writing about a curriculum for foreign policy expertise for some months now (here, here, here, and here), which gave me an opportunity to shape the principles underlying my arguments. Developing a curriculum required me to make hard choices about the most valuable sources of knowledge – choices about what to include, and what to leave out. As the adage goes, if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.

To guide my choices, I’ve tried to hew to the theory of foreign policy expertise I have espoused throughout this newsletter. This post is my attempt to break this theory down into some core principles for the advancement of expertise in foreign policy.

Created by Dan Spokojny

I. Think Causally

“Ideas are not policy,” asserted Secretary of State Dean Rusk. An expert policymaker must transform ideas into action by elucidating the steps that need to occur to achieve their goals. Some of those steps are things the United States can control, such as “place financial sanctions on illicit arms dealers,” while other steps will be reactions, such as “the militants will run short of weapons and ammunition.”

When one thinks carefully about causation, it facilitates more clear thinking about alternatives, unintended consequences, and likely failure points. This helps build a bridge between the present state of the world and the desired destination, with each policy action and expected reaction representing a new plank across the divide. Setting clear, causal goals is the foundation upon which all foreign policy expertise is constructed.

II. Embrace Uncertainty

Papering over uncertainty with bluster is an amateur move, as is paralysis in the face of risk. Every stage of the policy process contains uncertainty, which should be illuminated in the confidence levels assigned to analytical conclusions and the predicted likelihood that particular policy proposals will succeed in achieving their stated goals.

Experts are trained to be explicit and precise about uncertainty at every stage of the process. The best experts express uncertainty with quantified percentages. Suggesting that “war is unlikely” is much less helpful than assessing that “there is a 5% chance of war.” This is standard practice in the intelligence community, but devalued in the policymaking process.

Nobody can see the future, but, with training, one can accurately assess the level of uncertainty. For instance, I will be pretty bad at guessing which side of a coin will turn up when flipped, but I can be very accurate at assessing my level of uncertainty (50%). This is known as calibration.

In geopolitical forecasting tournaments, the most capable experts demonstrate nearly perfect calibration. This is a skill all foreign policy experts should aspire to master.

III. Form Beliefs as Hypotheses

All policy proposals should originate as hypotheses. A hypothesis is a proposed explanation or belief made on the basis of limited evidence. It is a starting point for further investigation rather than an assertion of belief. Testing a hypothesis means gathering evidence systematically to evaluate whether a belief is likely to be true or false.

Experts think about evidence like scientists, not lawyers. Rather than seeking evidence to prove their side of the case, they objectively weigh all of the available evidence. Philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn teach us that no theory can ever be conclusively “true” – there are only theories that have not (yet) been disproven by the evidence. Therefore, it is better to speak of hypotheses being strengthened or weakened than proven true or false.

There are no immutable laws of foreign policy or human behavior (nor even in physics, for the record). Hypotheses must therefore be subject to continual testing and evaluation. Experts know not to let their emotions or ego harden their judgment. Instead, they follow the evidence where it leads. They actively seek new evidence to test their hypotheses.

One should test hypotheses at multiple stages. On the front end, one can review historical case studies, academic scholarship, and personal experience to sharpen a hypothesis. After a favored hypothesis is selected by policymakers for implementation, pilot programs, randomized control trials, and after-action reviews can produce evidence about the success or failure of the policy.

IV. Build Feedback Loops

Building expertise requires feedback about one’s success and failure. One improves by actively addressing weaknesses and bolstering one’s strengths.

Experts are smart about developing robust systems to track progress and assess the effectiveness of their policies. They collect evidence and share findings and lessons learned widely, fostering trust and inviting alternative interpretations. Receiving feedback during a policy implementation phase also allows one to quickly identify unexpected obstacles and opportunities in order to make course corrections along the way.

Designing feedback mechanisms is much more effective before a policy is adopted rather than afterward. Doing so allows program implementers to collect useful evidence along the way to understand exactly how each step of the policy is working.

V. Invest in High-Quality Evidence

Evidence is the raw material of policy expertise. Every policymaker must immerse themself in the culture, history, and current events of the countries or topics in their portfolio. Evidence about what happened in the past is useful, but memorizing facts like a Jeopardy contestant does not qualify one to be a foreign policy expert.

The most valuable evidence is that which helps one understand when and how a particular foreign policy tool will work. This sort of evidence is much harder to produce.

A great example is from the State Department’s Learning Agenda, which identifies questions vital to the Department’s success. It asks, “How can bureaus and posts improve their ability to measure and track the effectiveness of senior leader diplomatic engagement in advancing U.S. foreign policy objectives?” This is exactly the sort of knowledge an expert must seek. Many senior officials will spend months of every year on the road, but the impact of their travel will never be assessed.

But if policymakers are to initiate such research, they must develop familiarity with cutting-edge research methods and be capable of distinguishing between high and low-quality research designs.

This is no small task. Research methodology is a complicated and ever-expanding field. It includes a vast array of techniques such as multivariate regression, random or quasi-randomized control trials, process tracing, network analysis, natural language processing, survey instruments, and more.

The quality of the evidence is only as good as the methods used to produce it.

VI. Embrace the Long View

There are many reasons why foreign policy is often reactive and focused only on immediate consequences. Officials are flooded by constant emergencies and given more responsibilities than they have the resources to effectively handle. Management systems measure compliance more than success; one is more likely to get scolded for failing to quickly respond to emails than failing to achieve a strategic objective. As officials rotate frequently between assignments, the incentives to think about the long-term challenges are weak.

Despite these pressures, foreign policy expertise requires one to think about long-term objectives. This is true for both setting the right goals and for considering the effectiveness of policies.

For instance, during the Cold War, the United States sometimes prioritized anti-Communist movements rather than pro-democracy movements. This helped precipitate the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the resulting fragile institutions and distrust of American foreign policy continue to affect the United States today.

Foreign policy practitioners confront similar choices every day in which tradeoffs need to be considered between conflicting time horizons. Experts will be clear about these tradeoffs.

VII. Prioritize Effectively

In the fast-moving world of foreign policy, one always has limited time and resources to direct toward any particular challenge. Like an emergency room on a busy night, policymakers must triage and direct their attention toward the most pressing challenges. Facing such pressures and constraints, it is easy to deprioritize time-consuming research, knowledge management, or strategy formation processes.

Yet asking whether the organization has enough time and money to do everything perfectly is the wrong question. Foreign policy experts must develop a clear sense of which challenges they absolutely must get right, and which must be left for another day. Like in medicine, an ill-considered intervention can do more harm than good.

Strong strategy processes and a clear sense of mission are vital to ensuring resources are prioritized appropriately. One useful heuristic directs strategists to evaluate their options according to whether they will be impactful, tractable, and neglected – the so-called ITN framework. This approach helps prevent investing resources in a policy environment that affects few people, will be extremely difficult to solve, or is already being attended to by many others.

There are other approaches one can use to triage and prioritize. The decision-making guru Douglas Hubbard has good advice for decision-makers: while there’s always more work one can do to improve the quality of a decision, the benefits tend to diminish quickly. Instead, one should focus information collection and analysis on the features of the decision with the highest levels of uncertainty.

Experts inside overstretched bureaucracies are adept at focusing on critical national interests while avoiding distractions and mission creep.

VIII. Rely on Your Team

The predominant view that “foreign policy is an art” makes the artist the star of the policy process. When a high-level envoy travels abroad, hundreds of officials may mobilize in support: scheduling meetings, preparing briefing memos, negotiating with counterparts, and writing talking points. Such moments can coalesce diverse perspectives and achieve breakthroughs that would otherwise be impossible. Alternatively, when the time and views of dozens of experts are subordinated to the idiosyncratic beliefs of a single official, however, it can be a poor use of resources.

Every institution needs leaders, but one must recognize that the further up in the hierarchy one gets, the more detached they are from the details of the policy environment. This is dangerous when senior officials are overconfident or poor team players. Such officials will act as their own best information collectors, analysts, strategists, and policy implementers. This attitude ignores the expertise one’s colleagues might bring to the table. Attempting to play all of these roles ensures competence in none.

Every day in the State Department, a legion of analysts prepare summaries of the day’s news and analysis to ensure their boss is well informed. Embassies send cables to desk officers in DC, desk officers summarize cables for their directors, directors summarize news for the Assistant Secretaries, and so on. Summaries beget more summaries, all the way to the top. More and more detail and context is lost in each iteration.

This hierarchical model for the bureaucracy is a legacy of industrial age processes; great for manufacturing automobiles, but poor for policymaking. It may have sufficed 80 years ago when the system was designed in an environment in which information traveled slowly and the world was less complex. But it’s a recipe for failure in today’s fast-moving world.

In the information age, leaders recognize that the people closest to the problem typically have the best evidence. This often means devolving more decision authority downwards and empowering mid-level officials rather than subordinating them.

It also means that one of an organization’s most important tasks is effective information sharing. This means not simply summarizing information for leaders, but creating space to adjudicate conflicting evidence between multiple offices working on the same issue from different angles.

For instance, the role of the human rights bureau isn’t simply to remind everyone that human rights are important. Instead, the bureau’s task is to develop unparalleled expertise in how different kinds of interventions can be used to effectively advance human rights.

Finally, experts recognize that they must invest in the institution itself, not just their personal advancement. The policy process is only as strong as its weakest link. Indeed, process is policy.

IX. Respect Politics and Ethics

Whereas autocrats rule by fiat, healthy democracies welcome messy political debates. Designing policy solutions requires negotiating with skeptics, building coalitions, and respecting fickle public opinion.

Foreign policy experts may need to spend just as much time evaluating domestic realities as foreign politics. They need to understand that the preferences of political leaders and the amount of available resources may be dependent on factors outside of their control.

Expertise is meaningless if it is ignored. Experts are pragmatic, and seek achievable solutions within the constraints of existing political realities, finding common ground for effective compromise.

Differences in political opinions often boil down to ethical differences rather than objective evidence. Evidence-based methods are useless in distinguishing between right and wrong. Instead, divergent ethics may derive from one’s religion, culture, or moral commitments. A foreign policy expert will constantly evaluate their own ethics and develop a strong moral compass. But they will also exercise empathy to appreciate the different moral frameworks of others.

Ethics are particularly important when setting goals, choosing priorities, and assessing the distributional implications of one’s choices. But evidence-based methods help illuminate the consequences of different ethical choices. For instance, one may be deeply opposed to genocide, but deep analysis may be required to estimate how many American lives it would cost to wage a war to prevent one in a faraway country.

X. Be Humble

The demands of our political system may demand from our leaders confidence, resoluteness, and bluster. Yet one must not allow such impulses to water down the pursuit of real expertise. The world is infinitely complex. Affecting the course of history is extremely difficult, even for the most powerful. In foreign policy, as with any human endeavor, one will likely be wrong more than one is right. The expert knows their limitations and ardently learns from their missteps.

Allow me to conclude on a personal note. I try to apply this last principle to my own work. As I continue to actively study these questions, I recognize how my views are sometimes proven wrong, or evolve in new directions. I try to welcome this process. I don’t know if this is the ideal set of principles. Some of you may already see the flaws in my argumentation. I would love to hear from you on what I got wrong. Perhaps you have pointed them out to me, and perhaps I have even changed my views. Regardless, I know that my ideas will be improved in direct proportion to the quality of engagement I achieve with you, my colleagues, fellow practitioners, scholars, and motivated observers. I remain grateful to be in conversation with you, and hope to continue to work together to advance the quality of our foreign policy.