Remember the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine?

The Pentagon during the 1980s and 1990s the Pentagon was very attached to what was first known as the Weinberger Doctrine, later more commonly called the Powell Doctrine. It was Reagan's Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger that enunciated the canonical version in a speech to the national Press Club of 11/28/1984, The Uses of Military Force.

It was a set of guidelines for the using the military in combat:

(1) First, the United States should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies. That emphatically does not mean that we should declare beforehand, as we did with Korea in 1950, that a particular area is outside our strategic perimeter.

(2) Second, if we decide it is necessary to put combat troops into a given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning. If we are unwilling to commit the forces or resources necessary to achieve our objectives, we should not commit them at all. Of course if the particular situation requires only limited force to win our objectives, then we should not hesitate to commit forces sized accordingly. When Hitler broke treaties and remilitarized the Rhineland, small combat forces then could perhaps have prevented the holocaust of World War II.

(3) Third, if we do decide to commit forces to combat overseas, we should have clearly defined political and military objectives. And we should know precisely how our forces can accomplish those clearly defined objectives. And we should have and send the forces needed to do just that. As Clausewitz wrote, "no one starts a war -- or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so -- without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war, and how he intends to conduct it."

War may be different today than in Clausewitz's time, but the need for well-defined objectives and a consistent strategy is still essential. If we determine that a combat mission has become necessary for our vital national interests, then we must send forces capable to do the job -- and not assign a combat mission to a force configured for peacekeeping.

(4) Fourth, the relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed -- their size, composition and disposition -- must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary. Conditions and objectives invariably change during the course of a conflict. When they do change, then so must our combat requirements. We must continuously keep as a beacon light before us the basic questions: "is this conflict in our national interest?" "Does our national interest require us to fight, to use force of arms?" If the answers are "yes", then we must win. If the answers are "no," then we should not be in combat.

(5) Fifth, before the U.S. commits combat forces abroad, there must be some reasonable assurance we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress. This support cannot be achieved unless we are candid in making clear the threats we face; the support cannot be sustained without continuing and close consultation. We cannot fight a battle with the Congress at home while asking our troops to win a war overseas or, as in the case of Vietnam, in effect asking our troops not to win, but just to be there.

(6) Finally, the commitment of U.S. forces to combat should be a last resort. [my emphasis]

Sadly, that final point seems quaint today, where the military has become a far more prominent tool of regular US foreign policy than it was in 1984. Even though it should be a commonplace that the use of force should be a last resort.

These days, we get articles like this from 2017, All The Countries Worldwide With A U.S. Military Presence [Infographic] Forbes 03/28/2017:

After China (2.2 million) and India (1.4 million), the United States boasts the largest number of active-duty troops of any military worldwide, 1.3 million in total. What sets the U.S. apart from those nations, however, is its unparalleled global military presence. Earlier this year, it was reported that U.S. special operations forces deployed to at least 138 nations in 2016, equating to about 70 percent of the world.

Unsurprisingly, the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coastguard have an even more impressive global footprint. According to data from the Defense Manpower Data Center, the U.S military has 200,000 active-service members deployed in at least 170 countries worldwide. These range from a single military attaché to the Marine Corps personnel providing security at American embassies.

And like this one from last year: Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston, US at war in 7 countries — including Niger ... Defense One 03/15/2018.

Although the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine could rightly be read in part as a counsel of restraint, it had multiple meanings in the Pentagon's worldview. It also served as a way to avoid the defeat the US military suffered in the Vietnam War, an excuse for that humiliating loss, and an alibi for such losses in the future. It also functioned as a justification to keep US forces configured toward preparation for conventional warfare. US forces set up to fight the Soviet Red Army in Europe or the Korean Peninsula turned out to be not nearly so effective in a guerilla war in Vietnam.

Dominic Tierney in the Spring 2018 issue of the US Army War College's Parameters journal revisits the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine in the context of "nation-building", i.e., the construction of a new government after overthrowing the previous one, in Illusions of Victory: Avoiding Nation-Building From Nixon to Trump (p. 20-31 in the linked PDF document).

The problem is that in either the case of conquering a country and removing its government as in Afghanistan and Iraq, or in a civil war like in Vietnam, Syria, or Libya, the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine requires either (1) not engaging in the conflict or (2) conducting the conflict in a way that makes standing up a pro-American replacement government exceptionally difficult.

The military's preferred posture is to be given a free hand in conducting conventional operations to defeat an enemy conventional force and then let someone else take the responsibility and blame for cleaning up the mess afterward. Or, as in Libya after NATO's 2011 intervention, just leave a failed state behind with protracted civil war. Tierney writes, "Nation-building missions are consistently less popular with the public than interstate wars. Indeed, the term nationbuilding is a highly pejorative phrase in the United States." Conventional battlefield victories hyped by "embedded" media with failures and civilian casualties only later coming to light is more to our generals' liking.

The Persian Gulf War of 1991 fit into the parameters of the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine. Because, as Tierney observes, "only conventional interstate wars, such as the Persian Gulf War (1991), would dependably qualify." And Saddam Hussein's Soviet-trained army was configured to fight the kind of conventional war for which the US military was prepared.

An additional doctrine was added in the 1990s. "In 1996, [Clinton's National Security Adviser Tony] Lake described an 'exit strategy doctrine,' where the United States should only send troops abroad if it knows 'how and when we’re going to get them out'.” Which, as experience since then as described by Tierney has amply shown, is near-impossible in a serious conflict. Even withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan after over 17 years' war is politically controversial today.

The Winberger-Powell Doctrine also played a significant role in connection with another ingrained assumption of policymakers, including the neocon architects of the Iraq War, which is the notion that terrorism is primarily state-sponsored terrorism. In Afghanistan, that meant initial US operations were directed at removing the Taliban government rather than trying to engage as quickly as possible with Al Qaeda's forces in the country. And that assumption undergirded the false contention that Saddam Hussein was sponsoring Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. (Of course, there was also the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the sugar vial of horror, the plywood drones of death, etc.)

Tierney's warning about the problems of the current set of military assumptions is a double-edged sward:

Collectively, the doctrines encouraged the dangerous illusion that nation-building can somehow be avoided and, therefore, significant preparation is unnecessary. Since the Vietnam War, nation-building has been a ubiquitous experience for the US military — Panama in 1989, Iraq I (northern Iraq) in 1991, Somalia in 1992, Haiti in 1994, Bosnia in 1995, Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq II (post-Saddam) in 2003, and Iraq III (resisting the Islamic State) in 2014 — because the character of global warfare changed from interstate war to civil war.

He notes that the "quandary" involved with involvement in so many wars while trying to avoid post-conflict reconstruction "is perennial" and "also intractable." Which is another way of saying that the US approach to wars often borders on the frivolous. And too often crosses the line into full-blown blundering foolishness.

He describes with evident irony the "heroic" pretension and arrogance with the Cheney-Bush-Rumsfeld version of this grim cycle. "Underpinning this policy was the heroic assumption that when US troops march away from the smoking ruins, local and international actors will somehow cooperate to produce a political order compatible with American interests - and the day after will be preferable to the day before." And he expands on the point, "Missions can end up resembling what Gideon Rose called 'moon landings,' where the United States transports troops to a distant location, and then aims to bring them home safely, without regard for what is left behind."

Trump's version of American First isolationism isn't providing any solutions to these dilemmas. And is creating additonal ones.