Reprising the Powell Doctrine | American Enterprise Institute
While a brigadier general and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger’s military assistant, Colin Powell began to formulate a set of questions civilian leaders should ask themselves before committing to the use of military force. What became known first as the Weinberger doctrine and later, when he became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the Powell doctrine emerged from disputes within the Reagan Administration over the disastrous end of U.S. peacekeeping deployment to Lebanon.
The ‘doctrine’ was designed to assist – or restrain – civilian leaders in determining whether to commit military force. In Weinberger’s formulation it was comprised of six determinations:
- Vital national interests were at stake
- Commitment to victory
- Clear and achievable political and military objectives
- Continuous reassessment of resourcing
- Reasonable assurance of Congressional and public support
- Force as a last resort
In the notoriously fractious Reagan Administration, Weinberger’s doctrine was aimed principally at restraining the influence of Secretary of State George Shultz, who advocated strenuously for threats and uses of force integral to diplomacy, and to whom the Defense Department was seeking to affix blame for the casualties suffered in the Beirut barracks bombing. In that intramural policy fight, Weinberger succeeded, because President Reagan endorsed the Weinberger approach.
As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell reconfigured the Weinberger doctrine in small but significant ways by adding the constraints of an identified exit strategy and international support. As with the Weinberger doctrine, Powell’s formulation was designed to discipline civilian leaders from using military force as a “do something’ option. He was insistent that force could not be effective unless victory were its purpose, because any lesser objective left political outcomes unclear. Compelling acceptance by the adversary of your political objectives was the point of it all. But he also ardently believed that was what leaders owed the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and intelligence professionals that policy choices would put in harm’s way.
Meeting the standards set out by the questions posed would prevent reflexive resort to military force when it was unlikely to be effective. Compliance with the standards would ensure military force was rarely employed, and when employed was part of a strategy that integrated other elements of national power – and not just the governmental levers of economic and diplomatic power, but also the societal power of public support. Powell viewed himself as shielding Presidents against activism by civilians when military force could not suffice as policy.
The 1991 Gulf War is what the Powell approach was designed to produce. An American president determined that allowing the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait would fracture the post-World War II precept that borders should only alter by mutual consent, a vital American national interest. The president clearly defined the objective and an exit strategy based on that victory: eject Iraq from Kuwait. He solemnly and publicly conveyed American policy and attained a Congressional authorization for the use of military force. The Secretary of State organized a United Nations Security Council endorsement of states using all necessary means to compel a return to the status quo, and undertook an expansive diplomatic campaign to build not just international support but the active participation of forty two other countries contributing funds or forces to common purpose. The Secretary of Defense marshalled 956,000 troops into a joint and combined plan to achieve the objective and ensured sufficient resources with a wide margin for error. The military executed five weeks of air and naval bombardment and just one hundred hours of ground combat to achieve the President’s objective. The military flew 100,000 sorties with only seventy five aircraft losses; U.S. forces suffered only 146 killed in action and 458 wounded. The president resisted mission creep, declining to expand the war aims once success was evident.
It could well be the best run war in American history. And the most cost-effective, since work by the Treasury and State Departments recouped two-thirds of American expenses. The war demonstrated U.S. ability to set and enforce post-Cold War rules of international behavior – the fundamental test of hegemony. It legitimated U.S. power by working through international institutions like the United Nations and doing the hard political work of gaining both a UN Security Council resolution of support and a Congressional authorization for the use of force. It showcased the glittering dominance of U.S. military forces, their ability to fight in ways adversaries could not match or subvert. It also showcased the willingness of the U.S. to address allied concerns. It garnered widespread international support, not only for the war effort itself, but for U.S. leadership of emergent international order. The 1991 Gulf War is what whole of government strategy can produce. Powell’s recommended approach to the use of force integral in broader strategy is a critical component of ending wars advantageously.
