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So How Do We Choose?
- Thread starter scoober78
- Start date
Ahh, the good old days. Many would argue that the Weinberger Doctrine, which became the Powell Doctrine was supplanted by Rumsfeld's vision of a transformed lighter, smaller, faster military employing economy of force vice overwhelming strength. I'm not sure exactly where we are these days, but I do know that no single overarching doctrine on the use of force is applicable to the myriad different conflicts that we might face in the future. The short answer is "it depends" and figuring that out required a rigorous assessment and analysis of the situation.
You guys are distracting wlawr from studying his NATOPS
But... yes. And these days the American public (and the federal budget) may be ready to go back to the Powell (or Weinberger) Doctrine.
Well, if you read our current NSS and NMS (every officer should read these, BTW), you'll see the whole smaller, lighter, faster thing has evolved a bit, but those kind of ops are more likely under these strategies than MCO. I think the threshold is going to be pretty high for the next decade for MCO.You guys are distracting wlawr from studying his NATOPS
@ Squorch: THe NSS is published every 2 years, by law. It IS our overarching grand strategy.
The NSS changes from administration to administration. There are elements that persist between changes, but by and large it seems like a politicized document. Contrast the NSS of 2002, with the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war and its focus on Iraqi WMD, with the Obama NSS of 2010. The 2010 version reads like a line-by-line refutation of the spirit, if not the content, of the earlier version.
(Thanks for including the NMS - my google-fu was failing me.)
(Thanks for including the NMS - my google-fu was failing me.)
Everything is politicized at that level - that's how the game is played. Thus is the nature of our election cycle. Grand strategy sometimes changes every four years. That is one of the costs of civilian control of the military. This entire business is one big fluid juggling game of competing interests and trade-offs. Any observation one makes about the process is the product of those forces coming to some kind of sub-optimal equilibrium. Pass me the bong, bro. I just blew my mind.
While admittedly hard for politicians (or Presidents...) to articulate and/or defend as a national policy for U.S. involvement/engagement, that is probably the most accurate and honest description of "when, where and why we will fight".
Hey, it keeps the bad actors guessing...which ain't all that bad.
Personally, I think the Powell Doctrine's biggest weakness is it's unsuitability in addressing non-state actors. It is a reasonably suitable rubric for the use of force against mainstream nation-states, but is woefully inadequate when used to address, say, the idea of military intervention against marauding African warlords or against the Taliban in country X. What "non-violent policy means" can we exhaust against an enemy with no organized diplomatic apparatus or, worse yet, no interest we are capable of meeting/negotiating?
I would argue that our unpredictability keeps the bad actors acting...which is almost always bad. With no "red lines" rational (in the IR sense) actors are emboldened, not discouraged.
That's a very thoughtful reply...I need to think about that...although it implies that the "bad actors" are rational as well...which seems less the case in our times. That has surely gotten us into trouble in the past...when "bad actors" don't realize there's an undefined "red line"...until they cross it.
But I guess it begs a dialogue: Where would/should the "lines in the sand" be drawn? I assume direct attacks on the homeland, first use of CBRN against allies, some others? I almost discount current-day NATO as more of a Costco membership...but an attack on any of the other members of the "5 Eyes" would have my attention.
Now we're getting back to Athens, Clausewitz, Disraeli, Khartoum, Peking, Roosevelt...others. I guess some things never really change.
I'm curious as to what people would consider as an irrational actor in today's security environment. It's a term that gets thrown around a lot with, from what I can tell, very little understanding of what it means in this context.
I'll grant you the guys strapping bombs to themselves, but they're really more of a means for another actor, not an actor themselves.
I'll grant you the guys strapping bombs to themselves, but they're really more of a means for another actor, not an actor themselves.
Honest question, but can we say we're still fighting two wars? With the draw down in Iraq, we've more or less closed it out (minus the small amount of remaining people in support roles and massive amounts of money).
I'm not even sure I would grant the average suicide bomber irrational status. If the bomber is acting in accordance with his genuinely held belief that manna and 20 virgins await...and even more so that his/her family will be rewarded, then what makes their act irrational? I know you know this Brett, but for the non-IR indoc-ed folks, "rational" is not a normative judgement, it merely comments on the methodology used to determine their actions...namely, does an actor consider their policy goals, prioritize them, and then choose a course of action designed to attain them (optimally). The decision doesn't need to be moral or ethical. Hitler was a highly rational leader in the IR sense. For a good primer...
http://slantchev.ucsd.edu/courses/ps12/03-rational-decision-making.pdf