Historically, the ’67 war offers an interesting case study through which to examine arguments about the importance of individuals vs. structural forces in determining state action; the extent to which officials follow the theoretical “rational actor model” when formulating policy; the role of misunderstanding and miscommunication in international affairs; the influence of domestic politics on foreign policy; and so on. It also offers an opportunity to study the interaction between local political forces and broader Cold War dynamics in a period of political crisis. I’ll touch on some, though for reasons of space fairly cursorily, of these issues below.
Politically, the topic is interesting for the reasons listed above, and also because of the striking gap that exists between mainstream scholarly and popular understandings of what happened.
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