ABSTRACT
This chapter utilizes the term "a macroscopic view", to describe the emphasis on looking at the wider environment within which political decision-makers act. A self-consciously social-scientific study of international politics is crucial to the rigorous use of the macroscopic view, in contrast to the requirements of the earlier emphasis on microscopic analysis of particular events and personalities. In the winter of 1968 the North Korean government seized the intelligence ship Pueblo and its crew, there was in fact nothing the United States could do to obtain their release. The threat or use of military force was impossible because of the circumstances: any resort to force would doom the crew at the hands of its captors. The distinction between the process of selection among alternatives and the set of choices offered is crucial to an understanding of current United States foreign policy dilemmas.
