Chris has a point with clarity
Originally Posted by Ken White
I was not clear, and Chris is right to insist on precise language when discussing war, since so much depends on getting it right. So let me try again to present this idea of increasing the adaptability of our forces to provide the political leadership as useful a military as possible.
We now have a better understanding of a limitation on this concept, as Chris made clear, we want to remain within the legal constrains of preventive war. However, as Bob's W pointed out we routinely do prevention with our SF and other units in the FID mission. So perhaps we need to sharpen this distinction between what exact actions are legal and what are not.
The changing character but enduring nature of war that Clausewitz described is helpful here, since we now face a more transparent, faster paced, more competitive, more decentralized operational environment. These factors are changing the character of war in ways we have not fully anticipated or prepared our forces to address. I hesitate to narrow our focus to the operational environment because we actually must prevail in all environments. And there in lies the problem.
Preventive war legalities do not adequately arm us for the changing character of war. For example, we live in a time when there is a deep blurring of lines of responsibilities, missions, and roles that goes beyond purely defined war as a continuation of politics with other means. This blurring now has Soldiers making political decisions like a company commander organizing local a government, or a commanding general influencing a the leadership of foreign country. Moreover, humanitarian missions like the recent earthquake response to Haiti or the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are not strictly war but rather roles where force is potentially necessary but not exactly the point of the mission. We now depend on our military to work with other federal state and local agencies, as well, as a cornucopia of international organizations, foreign governments and their military and civilian leaders.
So in this environment of multiple roles for our forces, defined as the full spectrum of operations, where Soldiers must be able to conduct, offense, defense, and the stability operations/civil support missions where does war and the use of force begin; when Soldiers are building water treatment plants, providing food and shelter or the requisite security to protect a population.
When does a Soldier have to stop preventing war; when even by the mere existence of an army can and does prevent war.
I'll give Chris his preventive war point a try as well here. Why is this a law? I imagine we would want to keep nations from using force when a less that lethal solution exists. For in it's extreme, preventive war would dictate all powers would attack all other powers to prevent being attacked.
I see the value in not using force if something better will work, but better than what. Avoiding war at all cost results in weakness and slavery. So where do we draw the line of demarcation between preventive war and preventing a war.
Exactly what is allowed under the law as it exists? Why would we not install metaphorical smoke detectors in our environment and train and equip our fire department to respond rapidly to the weak signals of the smoke alarm beeping? Should we wait for a raging fire before we react?
As a profession of arms we are tasked with the defense of the nation. Our duty is to make that profession as capable and useful as possible for ensuring that defense. In our environment of transparency, rapid change, more competition, and blurring of roles we need a profession with high resiliency, one that maximizes it's ability to see and react to weak signals so we can solve problem with the least cost in terms of blood and treasure of all parties.
Okay, I was not much clearer here, but the more I think about the tension between avoiding preventive war and how we need to build our profession, I find a clear line established by our founding fathers to provide an answer. The founders subordinated the military to the civilian political leadership. We can use structure to solve our dilemma. As Soldiers we simply build the best army we can with our signal detectors and all and allow the civilian political leaders decide when and how to use that army. In other words, military focus is on providing the capability to conduct preventive war, and political responsibility is the use of that capability.
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