Thursday
9 March 2000
0830-1130 (S)
Good strategy does not recognize the concept of permanent victory.
LTG Richard A. Chilcoat
Wars must vary with the nature of their motives and the situations, which give rise to them. The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and the commander have to make is rightly to establish...the kind of war on which they are embarking, neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature.
Carl von Clausewitz
What nation was ever able to write an accurate program of the war upon which it was entering, much less decree in advance the scope of its results? Congress can declare war, but a higher power decrees its bounds and fixes its relations and responsibilities. The President can direct the movement of soldiers on the field and fleets upon the sea, but he cannot foresee the close of such movements or prescribe their limits.
President William McKinley, 1899
Military power must be subjected to an exacting political discipline. This discipline depends upon the existence of controlling political objectives that bear a practical and discernable relation to specific policy goals.... One must add, because the rule is so frequently violated in practice, that the controlling political objectives in the use of military power must be not merely desirable but also attainable. Otherwise, there will be no practical and discernable relationship between ends and means.
Robert E. Osgood
Purpose
The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the US national military strategy, which will be evaluated throughout the course, and to analyze it as an example of the relationships identified in the previous lesson.
Learning Objectives
1. Comprehend the current National Military Strategy.
2. Analyze the NMS to identify evidence of the different roles the SecDef, the JCS and the CINCs likely played in its creation.
3. Evaluate the NMS generally as a document intended to provide unified strategic direction to the Armed Forces.
4. Evaluate the NMS generally in terms of the national security strategy and the emerging security environment as you understand it.
Discussion
This lesson is dedicated to a careful review and analysis of the National Military Strategy (NMS) of the United States.
In a later lesson, we will address the role that the NMS plays in the Joint Strategic Planning System. Suffice it to say that the NMS is derivative of policy guidance from the President and Secretary of Defense, provided formally and informally, and it is a broad, overarching statement of a strategy that is more thoroughly defined, in much greater detail, by a whole set of implementing plans. In that sense, there are two meanings to the expression "national military strategy." It can refer to the document of that name itself, which is assigned here, or to the whole set of documents that together constitute US military strategy. As that later lesson will also describe, the process of articulating American military strategy is continuous and cyclical. Therefore, the NMS not only helps provide unified strategic direction "down" to the Armed Forces, it also provides the considered military advice of the Chairman and other Joint Chiefs "up" to the National Command Authority, the Congress and the American people.
The current NMS implements recommendations made by Secretary of Defense William Cohen in the 1997 Report to Congress of the Quadrennial Defense Review, and subsequently codified by President Clinton in the NSS. As do those documents, the NMS posits three co-equal elements: shaping the international environment; responding to crises; and preparing now for an uncertain future. The centerpiece of the "prepare now" leg of the strategy is Joint Vision 2010, a 1995 document adopted by the Department of Defense in the QDR Report as the starting point for a necessary transformation of US Armed Forces for the 21st Century. We will examine it in more detail in Topic 22.
In this lesson, we want you to begin a critical analysis of both the "defense strategy" presented in the 1997 QDR Report and the NMS. For better or worse, they are the official strategic thought of the most senior military leaders in the United States. It is incumbent upon national security strategists to understand them well, and to have an informed and critical view of them. This is especially important to a class that will graduate just as a national election, leading to another quadrennial defense review and new strategy documents, gets underway.
Issues for Consideration
1. Do you see our current defense policy and military strategy as a major departure from the Cold War posture? What are the key factors of continuity and change?
2. Is the NMS consistent with the NSS as you understand it? Where are there disconnects, if any? Are there significant differences in the organization, wording or language of the NSS, the Defense Strategy, and the NMS? If so, how would you account for such differences?
3. Given that the NMS is necessarily a general statement given to abstraction because it is unclassified, does it provide meaningful "unified strategic direction" for the Armed Forces? Why or why not?
4. Does the NMS adequately address what you believe are the key military issues of national security for the next several years? Why or why not? Do you believe that the ability to fight and win two, nearly simultaneous, major theater wars is an imperative of US security now and in the future? Why or why not? Do the "strategic concepts" offered in the NMS make sense?
5. Does the NMS communicate priorities clearly enough that limited resources can be properly apportioned at reasonable degrees of risk? Are the priorities correct, in your view? How should the NMS articulate strategic priorities?
6. One of the strategic concepts posited by the NMS is that of "decisive force." However, recent US military operations such as Allied Force, Southern Watch and Northern Watch seem to be cases of using force incrementally and selectively, rather than decisively. How would you explain this apparent contradiction?
7. Archer - Does the National Military Strategy help you with the decisions you would have to make for a conflict in Korea and a developing crisis in the Gulf?
Required Readings
1. Joint Pub 1, Joint Warfare of the Armed Forces of the United States. Chapter III, "Fundamentals of Joint Warfare." (Student Issue)
2. Joint Pub 0-2, Unified Action Armed Forces. Chapter I, "Doctrine, Principles and Policy Governing Unified Direction of Forces." (Student Issue)
3. Shape, Respond, Prepare Now - The Military Strategy of the United States of America, 1997. (Reprint)
4. William S Cohen, "Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review," Joint Forces Quarterly, (Summer, 1997), pp. 8-14. (Reprint)
5. Thomas M. Kane, Comparative Strategy (xxxxxxx: Taylor and Francis, 1998), "Sins of Omission: The Quadrennial Defense Review as Grand Strategy," no.17, (1998) (Reprint)
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