This chapter introduces the National Security Institutions Data Set, an original cross-national resource offering the first systematic measurement of national security decision-making and coordination bodies across the globe from 1946 to 2015. The chapter leverages these data to probe the theory quantitatively, yielding three findings that are consistent with the theory’s propositions. First, it shows that national security institutions are more malleable than previous scholarship has suggested. Second, it finds that integrated institutions tend to perform better than institutional alternatives. Third, it shows that institutional change is associated with domestic environments in which leaders have political incentives to weaken the bureaucracy.

This chapter examines the origins and consequences of national security institutions in the United States during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations. It explains the political logic shaping continuity and change in institutional design. The limited threat of bureaucratic punishment during Eisenhower and Kennedy prompted both to maintain integrated institutions through most of their presidencies. In contrast, fears that bureaucratic leaks would derail passage of his transformative social and economic legislation led Lyndon Johnson to adopt fragmented institutions. These fragmented institutions came at a cost: They degraded the quality of information that the bureaucracy provided. As a result, Johnson based the most consequential foreign policy choice of his presidency – the escalation in Vietnam – on incomplete and biased information. The analysis suggests that the costliest American foreign policy miscalculation of the Cold War was in part a tragic consequence of how Johnson resolved the trade-off between good information and political security.

Why do states start wars that they ultimately lose? Why do leaders often possess inaccurate expectations of their prospects for victory? The central argument of this book is that institutional variation in how political leaders and bureaucracies relate to one another shapes the propensity for miscalculation at the onset of international conflict. The same institutions that provide the best information also empower the bureaucracy to punish the leader. Thus, miscalculation on the road to war is often the tragic consequence of how leaders resolve the trade-off between good information and political security. This chapter provides an overview of central concepts, briefly summarizes the argument, discusses the contributions of the theory and findings to the field, and details a roadmap of the remainder of the book.

This chapter explores the origins and consequences of national security institutions in the People’s Republic of China during the tenure of Mao Zedong. It first explains the political logic behind Mao’s choice to shift from integrated to fragmented institutions: Mao chose to weaken the bureaucracy to ensure a stable political succession after his death. It then presents a medium-n analysis to show how this shift from integrated to fragmented institutions degraded China’s crisis performance. Detailed process tracing of two cases illustrates how different institutional designs shaped crisis performance through poor bureaucratic information provision at the onset of each crisis. Prior to the 1962 Taiwan Strait Crisis, Mao’s decision-making benefitted from high-quality bureaucratic information that comparatively inclusive and open institutions afforded. By the onset of the 1969 Sino-Soviet Border conflict, however, Mao was forced to make decisions based on incomplete and biased information provided by bureaucrats who feared Mao’s retribution. The chapter thus illustrates how institutional changes can dramatically change the quality of information upon which the same leader bases their choice of conflict.

This chapter presents an institutional theory of miscalculation on the road to war. The central proposition is that leaders face a trade-off between good information and political security. This trade-off is discussed in two parts. The chapter first discusses the informational constraints faced by leaders contemplating beginning an international crisis, explaining why integrated institutions that feature inclusive and open information flows tend to deliver better information to leaders. The chapter then discusses the political logic by which many leaders choose to forgo integrated institutions in favor of institutional alternatives that deliver less complete and less accurate information but provide political protection from bureaucratic punishment.

This chapter explores the origins and consequences of national security institution in India from 1947 to 2015. It first discusses the evolution of India’s institutions. It argues that the trade-off between good information and political security explains three major institutional changes: Nehru’s choice to abandon his inherited institutions in favor of fragmented ones that protected his plans to transform the domestic economy; the choice of post-Nehruvian leaders to shift toward siloed institutions that balanced continued threats from national security bureaucracies against new international security challenges from Pakistan and China; and Vajpayee’s choice to establish more integrated institutions as apprehensions about bureaucratic punishment lessened. The chapter then presents a medium-n analysis suggesting that India exhibited better crisis performance under integrated institutions than under siloed and fragmented institutions. Case studies tracing decision-making during the 1962 Sino–Indian War and the 2001-2002 Twin Peaks Crisis illustrate how these institutional changes affected the quality of information upon which Indian leaders based their crisis choices.

The concluding chapter briefly summarizes the main findings and discusses the broader implications for the study of international relations. This book has argued that the trade-off between good information and political security helps to explain why leaders often charge headfirst into conflict that they lose. Whereas much of the existing literature posits that bureaucratic participation in a foreign policy decision-making process tends to degrade the information available to leaders as they choose between war and peace, this book has instead argued that institutions and leaders benefit from the information that the bureaucracy provides, especially when leaders pit bureaucracies against one another in competitive dialogue. Yet leaders often forgo these institutions precisely to avoid the costs that a powerful bureaucracy can impose on their prospects for political survival. As such, miscalculation on the road to war is often the byproduct of how leaders resolve the trade-off between a more accurate vision of the world and protection from bureaucratic punishment.

This chapter extends the analysis in Chapter 6 by examining the origins and consequences of national security institutions in Pakistan from 1947 to 2015. Unlike India, the persistent threat of bureaucratic punishment prevented the emergence of integrated institutions, despite the salient international threats faced by its political leaders. Instead, Pakistan has cycled between siloed and fragmented institutions, with civilian leaders tending to adopt the former and military rulers tending to choose the latter. The chapter argues that the reason for this pattern stems from differences in political agenda. Military leaders have historically pursued ambitious programs to transform Pakistan’s society and economy, which would allow the military to return to the barracks. A medium-n analysis of Pakistan’s institutional performance suggests that siloed and fragmented institutions tended to perform poorly relative to India’s integrated institutions. Process tracing of the 1999 Kargil War illustrates that this poor performance can be attributed to low-quality bureaucratic information upon which Pakistan’s leaders based their choice for conflict.