Weinberger, Powell war doctrine - Galloway

My war doctrine says if it's a just cause go rip their motherfucking
heads off. I guess this means I won't be getting an invitation from
the Diplomatic Corp.

- LMAO

Greg


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Weinberger, Powell war doctrines now history
By Joseph L. Galloway
Knight Ridder Newspapers


WASHINGTON - Going to war ought to be a hard thing for our political
leaders to do. In fact, going to war ought to be the hardest thing
they ever do.


In the wake of this country's ill-fated adventure in Vietnam - which
killed 58,235 Americans, wounded an additional 350,000 and took the
lives of a million Vietnamese - some far-sighted military and
political leaders said, ``Never again.''


Never again would America wade so easily into a quagmire, said the
late Gen. Creighton Abrams, the last U.S. commander in Vietnam. Never
again, said Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. Never again, said the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin Powell, a Vietnam
veteran.


Concerned that the actions of the nation's political leaders had swept
the military into a conflict that the American public turned against,
Abrams began the first moves to make certain that any future venture
into war would take not only the Army but also the Army Reserve and
National Guard.


That way, he reckoned, the citizens of villages, towns and cities
across the nation would have a stake - their sons, and now their
daughters, too - in what was happening.


After terrorists bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut 20 years
ago, killing 241 Americans, Weinberger postulated a doctrine that bore
his name:


-The United States shouldn't commit forces to combat unless its
national interests or those of its allies were threatened.


-U.S. combat troops should be committed only wholeheartedly and with
the clear intention of winning.


-U.S. troops should be committed only with clearly defined and
achievable military and political objectives.


-The relationship between those objectives and the size and
composition of American forces should be continually reassessed and
adjusted if necessary.


-U.S. troops should not be committed to battle without a reasonable
assurance that the American public and Congress support the
commitment.


-Committing U.S. troops should always be the last resort.


With the Persian Gulf war, Powell, who had worked for Weinberger,
added a couple of refinements:


-Always use overwhelming force, not proportional force.


-Always have an exit strategy, and when the fighting is over, exit.


During the Clinton years, these sound principles were eroded, most
famously by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who once
asked: "What's the point of having this superb military that you've
always been talking about if we can't use it?"


So that superb military was used, or misused, in places such as
Somalia and Haiti.


The erosion of both the Weinberger and Powell doctrines now seems
complete in the Bush administration. First in Afghanistan and then in
Iraq, Bush's aides talked of pre-emptive strikes and of how the
marriage of air power and special operations forces had made
overwhelming force obsolete. The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs
even told Congress that the Pentagon didn't plan for postwar Iraq
because planning might have precipitated war.


Now Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wants to throw out Abrams'
cherished and deliberate dependence on the National Guard and Reserve
so it's easier to go to war. He wants to pull the Guard and Reserve
units the Army can't leave home without - including engineers, civil
affairs and military police - back into the active Army.


Rumsfeld says he wants to be able to deploy military forces faster and
to create a more efficient mix of active and reserve forces. But he
also wants to make it easier for America's political leaders to go to
war without disturbing the American people by calling up their sons
and daughters.


Right now, 35 percent of the 120,000 American troops in Iraq are Guard
and Reserve. Some small communities have sent half their police and
fire departments to bolster the undermanned, overworked regular Army.
That hurts, just as Abrams intended, and it ensures that folks in
those communities are paying close attention to the political
decisions being made in Washington.


If Rumsfeld has his way and the Guard and Reserve roles are curtailed,
that clarifying pain and the resulting public stake in diplomacy and
decision-making will recede. Going to war will become quicker and
easier. At least until some future, and hopefully wiser, defense
secretary writes a new doctrine that makes it harder to go to war
again, harder to make the kind of mistakes that fill our national
cemeteries and our military and Veterans' Administration hospitals.


War should always be the hardest thing to do.


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ABOUT THE WRITER


Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight
Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller "We Were
Soldiers Once ... and Young." Readers may write to him at: Knight
Ridder Washington Bureau, 700 National Press Building, Washington,
D.C. 20045.