Quote Originally Posted by Surferbeetle View Post
So I am reading you correctly here Ken, the Powell Doctrine is a good thing?
as it was an attempt to take the Weinberger Doctrine which preceded it and expand it into a slightly more sensible form but both were an effort by DoD to dictate policy and were too inflexible to cope with the realities of international geopolitics in a globalized world. They were an effort to make life easy for the Armed Forces by precluding harmful deployments -- they didn't work (under four Presidents from two parties) and something like them will not work in the future. If the Prez says go, the Services are going and they really need to be ready to go regardless of the scope of the job.

All that's required is the civilian leadership realize it has to bow with respect to what can be achieved to the military knowledge resident in DoD and said militarily knowledgeable folks must give their best and honest advice (something that I do not believe has happened all too often and thus credibility has been harmed). That entails knowing the perils and pitfall of intervening, FID and such and not believing that it's a dirty nasty job we shouldn't do -- we may not have a choice and trying to skew the rules patently did not work.

What I was really pointing at was the urgent need to get DoD out of being the lead agency in international relations and activities. Not their job and with all respect to many CinCs who have done a good job, I have to point out that there have been a few who did not do a good job. The competitive military environment is not conducive to raising thoughtful and patient diplomatic individuals with deep knowledge of the nations and cultures in their AO and it does not lead many of those folks to accept the advice of the occasional sharp MAJ or LTC FAO. Arrogance and egos.

Not that State or the Intel community are a whole lot better...

There's nothing wrong with trying to make the art of war into a more 'scientific' activity -- you won't succeed simply because people and their decision processes (see all the above...) are involved but there's certainly nothing wrong with trying. I've watched a large number of efforts over the years attempt that; none successful so far but one can always hope...