A Second Look at the Powell Doctrine by Frank Hoffman, War on the Rocks
Twenty years ago, I found the Powell Doctrine profoundly flawed as a codification of false lessons from Vietnam. I was also concerned about the civil-military relations precedent of the Nation’s senior military leadership establishing conditions for why, where and how military force should be employed. Now, in light of Iraq and Afghanistan, the benefits of this doctrine are far more apparent…
Comments
1. With the radical transformation of the communist great nations at or near the end of the Cold War (China and Russia abandoning economic communism and embracing market capitalism), the focus of our strategy and foreign affairs shifted:
a. From 20th Century great nation conflict, war and "containment."
b. To 21st Century great nation peace, cooperation and "expansion."
2. Now strategy and foreign policy would be centered on maintaining and building on this great nation peace.
3. "Progress," along these lines, to be seen in transforming the states and societies of "the rest of the world;" this, so that they might come to offer these cooperating great nations fewer problems and come to offer them, instead, greater usefulness and utility.
4. Because the great nations were now thought to be operating on the same sheet of music -- and because "the rest of the world" was now thought to be completely vulnerable (it had no great nation champion to turn to for protection) -- it was thought that these required transformations -- of "the rest of the world" -- could be achieved (1) mostly voluntarily, (2) rather quickly and (3) without too much difficulty.
5. It is within this general context, I suggest (that of 21st Century great nation peace, cooperation and expansion rather than 20th Century great power conflict, war and containment), that it came to be understood that the Powell Doctrine was no longer relevant or useful and tended to stand in the way of (rather than to facilitate) "progress" (as outlined at my Paragraph 3 above).
6. Recently, however, it has been determined that our initial post-Cold War world-view and beliefs -- outlined in my Paragraph 4 above -- were faulty. It would appear that the great nations are not working together to achieve the transformation of outlying states and societies. Instead, certain great nations, in order to "contain" the United States, have set themselves up as the "champions" of conservative values and causes.
7. This suggests that we must re-think our strategy and foreign policy -- which was based on the idea of great nation peace, cooperation and "expansion."
8. Does this mean that we should, likewise, re-consider whether the Powell Doctrine -- and, indeed, other Cold War concepts and idea -- are better suited to meet our present-day needs?
The problem with the Powell doctrine or any other doctrine is that it cannot compensate for war incompetently prosecuted by the high civil and military leaders. That has been our main problem. The suits and the multi-stars inside the beltway don't know what they are doing. This is apparent from the refusal to seriously plan for what happened after Sadddam's army was defeated to the sturdy refusal to recognize the Pak Army/ISI as the main enemy in Afghanistan. The article alludes to this when talking about military "half measures" but it doesn't state it plainly. Our main trouble is our high leaders are lousy and no doctrine can make up for that.