Powell Addresses When Force Will Be Used
Jan 17, 2001 -- Will President George W. Bush use U.S. troops only when it's determined to be in America's vital national interest?
If American peacekeepers are the only option for saving tens of thousands of lives in an unstable distant land, as they appeared during the 1992 famine in Somalia, will they be withheld?
Though Bush's Secretary of State-designee Colin Powell's critics suggest he might be too reluctant to advocate the use of American military muscle, he has signaled recently that he may be more flexible than they think.
Lessons From Vietnam
The so-called "Powell Doctrine," most famously applied when Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War, advocates using American forces according to three criteria:
-- A vital national interest is at stake.-- A clear strategy and objectives have been set.-- Massive, overwhelming power is used, as it was in Panama and the Gulf War.
Taking his lessons from Vietnam, the retired general has written that he would not have U.S. soldiers engaged again in "half-hearted warfare for half-baked reasons."
In his presidential campaign, Bush seemed to echo the doctrine, vowing to pull U.S. peacekeepers out of the Balkans and stressing his view that the U.S. government should "focus our military on fighting and winning wars."
Critics argue the Powell Doctrine is not suitable for dealing with the variety of troubles plaguing the world today, from ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, to Iraqi oil smuggling in the Persian Gulf, to humanitarian missions that require capabilities only the U.S. military can provide, as in Somalia. By limiting intervention only to America's immediate interests, they say, the world's strongest superpower could shirk its responsibility to promote peace, democracy and human rights throughout the world.
Powell's foreign policy approach is "out-of-date," New Republic senior editor Lawrence Kaplan wrote this month. It "sounds reasonable enough," Kaplan writes. "Just not for the world the Bushies are about to inherit."
So, too, said outgoing Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, responding during a recent interview to Powell's criticism of her approach to using force.
"I think that the circumstances, when you can have six months to prepare, be able to have hundreds of thousands of troops be deployed, have the Earth be flat, have a terrible dictator go across an international line, and have somebody else pay for it, is not the normal way that circumstances take place now," she said.
No Fixed Rule
At his confirmation hearing Wednesday, Powell told senators he expected Bush to follow his doctrine. But in describing the rules, which he said were never written down, Powell did not include its most controversial tenet: Using American force only when it's in the direct national interest.
"The guidelines that I think that president-elect Bush will be following reflect a point of view that says before we commit the armed forces of the United States, make sure we have a clear political objective, we know what we are trying to accomplish with the use of those armed forces," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"And once that political objective is established," he continued, "then it seems to me very wise to achieve that objective if military force is required in a very decisive way …"
The doctrine "doesn't say you never intervene," Powell said. "It doesn't say that maybe you can't meet those tests and you've got to go anyway. That's why we have presidents, to make those kinds of choices and decisions."
Flexibility in Action?
Over the years, Powell has given indications he would not rigidly apply any rules to all circumstances as secretary of state.
In his 1995 autobiography, My American Journey, Powell wrote that as a leader he works pragmatically, making decisions on a case-by-case basis.
"When I am faced with a decision," wrote Powell, "I dredge up ever scrap of knowledge I can … I use my intellect to inform my instinct. I then use my instinct to test all this data."
Powell would endorse no one particular solution for the world's challenges. "I believe it unlikely that a single new strategy to define our role in the world, one with the same coherence as the old strategy of containment, will emerge," he wrote.
No Firm Rule
Reluctant to declare a hard-fast rule on when to intervene, Powell in his book acknowledged the importance of using American troops as peacekeepers. "In no other way could the Somalis, for example, have been saved so quickly from starvation in 1992," he wrote.
But he also stressed the importance of weighing American intervention against "the cold calculus of national interest." When the fighting starts and American lives are at risk, he writes, "our people rightly demand to know what vital interest that sacrifice serves."
Though he initially opposed intervention in each area, Powell did eventually endorse using force against Iraq and sending American troops into Bosnia for peacekeeping — under a well-crafted NATO peace deal.
In the two areas of the world where U.S. forces are most active today, the Balkans and around Iraq, Powell has not signaled a determination to have those U.S. forces pulled back.
While Powell has said he will review the present U.S. peacekeeping presence in the Balkans, he has stopped short of advocating an immediate withdrawal, suggesting the sensitivities of NATO allies also involved in the Balkans should be considered.
And while Powell has advocated using nothing short of overwhelming force when employing American troops in combat, Powell also has not publicly opposed risky British and U.S. monitoring of the no-fly zones over Iraq, where jets regularly are targeted by and fire at Iraqi anti-aircraft sites.
Nor has he opposed ongoing Navy operations to block Iraqi oil smuggling in the Persian Gulf. In his November acceptance speech, he vowed to work to strengthen sanctions against Iraq.
Doctrine Outdated?
Powell has applied his criteria in some notable instances. And some critics have contended his doctrine proved outdated — even in his most famous hour.
His initial skepticism about involvement in the Gulf War, manifested in his reluctance to preposition supplies for moving Marine Corps forces into the region, suggests Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens, may have been one of several U.S. signals seen by Saddam Hussein as giving him a green light to invade Kuwait.
Powell had opposed U.S. intervention when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, questioning whether liberating Kuwait was in America's vital national interest and whether the American public would support involvement.
After Kuwait was liberated, Powell opposed using troops to end Saddam Hussein's regime, arguing it exceeded the U.N.'s mandate. Powell lobbied against a possible U.S. effort to stop Saddam's Republican Guard from slaughtering Iraqi civilians the United States had encouraged to revolt.
Powell also noted Arab public opinion had quickly turned against continued killing of Iraqis by the U.S.-led coalition after the media coverage of the "highway of death."
"We don't want to be seen killing for the sake of killing," Powell would tell President Bush, arguing for an end to the ground campaign after successfully driving Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
But critics continue to question the move. The Bush administration "allowed much of Iraq's army to escape — especially the Republican Guard, which has sustained Mr. Hussein in power ever since," former assistant secretary of state James Rubin, wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece this week.
Green Light for Milosevic?
In another real word test of Powell's theory, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, like Saddam, took his cue from America's perceived initial unwillingness to use force in the Balkans.
Powell had aggressively opposed using American forces to stop Serb aggression in Bosnia in the early 1990s, including air-dropping food to Bosnian Muslims trapped in Srebrenica, arguing had no vital interest in the Balkans.
But it was only after United States finally delivered a sustained bombing against Serb forces that Milosevic agreed to engage in the negotiations leading to the Dayton Accords and so far roughly six years of relative peace.
Like U.S. involvement with respect to Iraq, U.S. intervention in Bosnia successfully rolled back the aggressors with minimal American casualties.