Emails as Archive Material for Microhistories of US National Security Decisions

• In Event: New Research Methods in Security Studies

Abstract

Close analysis of individual events, including critical national security decisions, can shed light on important historical trends for security studies. In the last three decades, email has become one of the primary media for the deliberative processes of U.S. national security decision making, revealing previously hidden data about how policy options filter up to the cabinet level from the working level, as well as how decisions at the cabinet level trickle down during the implementation process. Email is now a critical resource for preserving the historical record. This study identifies several systematic characteristics of emerging archival security studies research of microhistories using email traffic. While emails provide the opportunity for researchers to understand the context and minute content of complex national security decisions, there are also limitations to this method, including fragmented and lopsided storage methods across U.S. government agencies; ethical and legal issues surrounding working-level officials’ privacy; and the challenges of making mass quantities of emails available to the public without exposing sensitive or classified information. This study demonstrates the benefits and drawbacks of this method in security studies research by comparing the granularity of information about decision-making in two critical cases in which the decision to keep U.S. diplomatic presences in dangerous countries had tragic results: the advent of the 1983 Beirut Embassy bombing and the 2012 Benghazi Special Mission attacks. In 1983, email archiving within the U.S. government was in its infancy, while in 2012, email traffic was a key source of information during Congressional inquiries into the Benghazi attacks. This comparison underscores the value of emails and the limits of their utility as an archival source in security studies research.

Author

• Lydia Sizer, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University