"Hard Power" + "Soft Power" = "Smart Power"

L'article qui suit complète la reflexion de Robert Gates présentée dans le billet précédent.

Les auteurs sont deux personnages influents de la pensée politique étrangère et stratégique américaine représentant les deux camps, républicain et démocrate.

Le premier, Richard L. Armitage a été sous-secrétaire du Département d'Etat sous Colin Powell. Le second Joseph S. Nyles Jr. a été un des premiers théoriciens du "Soft Power" et a occupé des fonctions de sous-secrétaire aux Départements d'Etat et de la Défense sous les administrations Carter et Clinton.

Maintenant ils dirigent conjointement une commission sur le "Smart Power" (Pouvoir Intelligent) au "Center for Strategic and International Studies".

Le "Smart Power" est une combinaison de "Hard Power", par nature coercitif, et de"Soft Power" atractif, destiné non pas à rendre le Monde semblable aux USA, mais à contrer les durs défis que ce pays aura à faire face.

Pour le bâtir, il faut revigorer les alliances , partenariats et institutions existantes .

C.H.

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Why So Angry, America?

The United States is strongest when it is most engaged with the world.

By Richard L. Armitage and Joseph S. Nye Jr.

Washington Post - Sunday, December 9, 2007;

The world is dissatisfied with American leadership. Shocked and frightened after 9/11, we put forward an angry face to the globe, not one that reflected the more traditional American values of hope and optimism, tolerance and opportunity.
This fearful approach has hurt the United States' ability to bring allies to its cause, but it is not too late to change. The nation should embrace a smarter strategy that blends our hard and soft power -- our ability to attract and persuade, as well as our ability to use economic and military might. Whether it is ending the crisis in Pakistan, winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, deterring Iran and North Korea's nuclear ambitions, managing China's rise or improving the lives of those left behind by globalization, the United States needs a broader, more balanced approach.
Lest anyone think this approach is weak or naive, remember that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates used a major speech on Nov. 26 "to make the case for strengthening our capacity to use 'soft' power and for better integrating it with 'hard' power." We -- one Republican, one Democrat -- have devoted our lives to promoting American preeminence as a force for good in the world. But the United States cannot stay on top without strong and willing allies and partners. Over the past six years, too many people have confused sharing the burden with relinquishing power. In fact, when we let others help, we are extending U.S. influence, not diminishing it.
Since 9/11, the war on terrorism has shaped this isolating outlook, becoming the central focus of U.S. engagement with the world. The threat from terrorists with global reach is likely to be with us for decades. But unless they have weapons of mass destruction, groups such as al-Qaeda pose no existential threat to the United States -- unlike our old foes Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
In fact, al-Qaeda and its ilk hope to defeat us by using our own strength against us. They hope we will blunder, overreact and turn world opinion against us. This is a deliberately set trap, and one whose grave strategic consequences extend far beyond the costs that this nation would suffer from any small-scale terrorist attack, no matter how individually tragic and collectively painful. We cannot return to a nearsighted pre-9/11 mindset that underestimated the al-Qaeda threat, but neither can we remain stuck in a narrow post-9/11 mindset that alienates much of the world.
More broadly, when our words do not match our actions, we demean our character and moral standing. We cannot lecture others about democracy while we back dictators. We cannot denounce torture and waterboarding in other countries and condone it at home. We cannot allow Cuba's Guantanamo Bay or Iraq's Abu Ghraib to become the symbols of American power.
The United States has long been the big kid on the block, and it will probably remain so for years to come. But its staying power has a great deal to do with whether it is perceived as a bully or a friend. States and non-state actors can better address today's challenges when they can draw in allies; those who alienate potential friends stand at greater risk.
The past six years have demonstrated that hard power alone cannot secure the nation's long-term goals. The U.S. military remains the best in the world, even after having been worn down from years of war. We will have to invest in people and materiel to maintain current levels of readiness; as a percentage of gross domestic product, U.S. defense spending is actually well below Cold War levels. But an extra dollar spent on hard power will not necessarily bring an extra dollar's worth of security.
After all, security threats are no longer simply military threats. China is building two coal-fired power plants each week. U.S. hard power will do little to curb this trend, but U.S.-developed technology can make Chinese coal cleaner, which helps the environment and opens new markets for American industry.
In a changing world, the United States should become a smarter power by once again investing in the global good -- by providing things that people and governments want but cannot attain without U.S. leadership. By complementing U.S. military and economic strength with greater investments in soft power, Washington can build the framework to tackle tough global challenges. We call this "smart power."
Smart power is not about getting the world to like us. It is about developing a strategy that balances our hard (coercive) power with our soft (attractive) power. During the Cold War, the United States deterred Soviet aggression through investments in hard power. But as Gates noted late last month, U.S. leaders also realized that "the nature of the conflict required us to develop key capabilities and institutions -- many of them non-military." So the United States used its soft power to rebuild Europe and Japan and to establish the norms and institutions that became the core of the international order for the past half-century. The Cold War ended under a barrage of hammers on the Berlin Wall rather than a barrage of artillery across the Fulda Gap precisely because of this integrated approach.
Specifically, the United States should renew its focus on five critical areas:
-- We should reinvigorate the alliances, partnerships and institutions that allow us to address numerous hazards at once without having to build a consensus from scratch to respond to every new challenge.
-- We should create a Cabinet-level voice for global development to help Washington develop a more unified and integrated aid program that aligns U.S. interests with the aspirations of people worldwide, starting with global health.
-- We should reinvest in public diplomacy within the government and establish a new nonprofit institution outside of it to build people-to-people ties, including doubling the annual appropriation to the Fulbright program.
-- We should sustain our engagement with the global economy by negotiating a "free trade core" of countries in the World Trade Organization willing to move directly to free trade on a global basis, and expand the benefits of free trade to include those left behind at home and abroad.
-- We should take the lead in addressing climate change and energy insecurity by investing more in technology and innovation.
Leadership requires more than vision. It requires execution and accountability, two features in short supply in government today.
Throughout the Cold War, the United States projected an image of vast technical competence: We sent humans to the moon and helped eradicate smallpox. Later, the nation's military victories in Iraq in 1991 and Kosovo in 1999 demonstrated its towering technical proficiency. But today, the United States projects a very different image. The country's tragically inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina, difficulty in restoring basic services in Iraq and inability to address looming domestic issues such as health care, immigration and the cost of entitlements have made it appear that the country can no longer solve tough problems. Some people abroad have always questioned U.S. policy. Today, many are questioning our basic competence.
Smart power could start to change that, but it will not solve all of the nation's problems. Its lasting value is that it may help persuade others to join the U.S. cause. Do not underestimate the importance of having Iran finally hear in stereophonic sound that it must desist from pursuing a nuclear weapons program; given the latest National Intelligence Estimate, it might have actually worked. And do not underestimate the goodwill that a sustained effort to eradicate disease could bring.
Consider the current crisis in Pakistan. The United States might be in a better position today had it not walked away from Pakistan in the 1990s and had it broadened its engagement beyond military cooperation with and support of Gen. Pervez Musharraf over the past six years, as the 9/11 commission suggested. Instead, U.S. favorability ratings are below 20 percent in Pakistan. The U.S.-led war on terrorism is widely seen by Pakistanis as a war on Islam, and American support now tarnishes Pakistani leaders who share U.S. objectives.
And yet, for a brief period in late 2005 and early 2006, U.S. favorability ratings approached 50 percent in Pakistan. Why? Because of the U.S. military's effective and principled response to the October 2005 earthquake there, the largest and longest relief effort in U.S. military history. It showed Pakistanis U.S. commitment and friendship and provided an important source of smart power. It demonstrated, however briefly, that America's standing in the world can indeed be restored.
Now, a year before the presidential elections, candidates from both parties can present a more optimistic vision that balances Americans' desire for protection at home with wiser policies abroad. It would simply be the smart thing to do.
smartpower@csis.org

La vision du Secrétaire d'Etat à la Défense, Robert M. Gates

Ce ne sont pas les sujets à aborder qui me manquent pour ce blog. Aujourd’hui je rattrape presque l’actualité puisque je vais consacrer ce billet au discours prononcé le 26 novembre par le Secrétaire d’Etat américain à la Défense (SECDEF), Robert M. Gates.

Ce texte, donné à la Kansas State University, fait partie de la série des « Landon Lectures » invitant des conférenciers renommés, dont de nombreux chefs d’Etat.

Ce discours de géopolitique sera probablement considéré comme une référence pour le développement de la stratégie de défense américaine dans les années à venir. Il conditionnera vraissemblablement l’évolution de du Département de la Défense et de l’appareil militaire américain, mais aussi les autres outils de puissance internationale des USA, au premier rang desquels le Département d’Etat. L'analyse que fait le SECDEF le conduit aussi à faire des choix entre les positions exprimées dans débat en cours à propos du futur des forces armées américaines et devrait orienter la prochaine « Quadriennal Defense Review » (QDR).

Ce que je veux en retenir :

Les très nombreuses analyses historiques de Robert Gates qui occupent une bonne partie du discours sont très intéressantes et pertinentes. Mais il faut surtout s'attacher à sa vision des défis actuels et futurs des Etats-Unis en tant que puissance mondiale, la manière dont elle doit les aborder en utilisant la totalité des instruments de Pouvoir dont dispose la Nation, par ce qu’elle va sans nul doute conditionner la politique américaine.

Selon le SECDEF, la fin de la guerre froide et les attaques du 11 septembre on marqué l’aube d’une nouvelle ère dans les relations internationales, une ère dont les défis sont peut-être sans précédent en complexité et en portée.

En plus des maux traditionnels qui existaient à la fin du XIX^ème et au début du XX^ème siècle, tels, les conflits portés par la haine religieuse ou ethnique , les mouvements révolutionnaires et même le terrorisme, qui avaient été occultés depuis la I ^ère Guerre Mondiale jusqu’à la fin de la Guerre Froide, s’ajoutent de nouvelles forces d’instabilité et de conflit. Ce sont entre autres :

- Une nouvelle forme, plus maligne de terrorisme mondial prenant ses racines dans un jihadisme extrémiste et violent ;

- De nouvelles manifestations de conflits ethniques, tribal et sectaire de part le Monde ;

- La prolifération des armes de destruction massive ;

- Les Etats affaiblis ou en faillite ;

- Les états enrichis par la manne pétrolière et mécontents de l’ordre mondial actuel ;

- Et les forces centrifuges qui menacent dans d’autres pays l’unité nationale, la stabilité et la paix interne, mais aussi ayant une influence sur la sécurité régionale et mondiale.

Il ajoute à cela les régimes autoritaires qui voient leur peuple demander plus de liberté politique et de meilleures conditions de vie, ainsi que les grandes puissances émergentes, ou résurgentes, dont le futur cheminement est encore incertain.

Circonscrire ces maux et ces menaces ne peut pas se faire par le seul usage de la force militaire, le « Hard Power ». Il faut renforcer les autres éléments importants de la puissance nationale, institutionnels et financiers, le « Soft Power », et créer la capacité d’intégrer et d’appliquer tous ces instruments de Pouvoir de la Nation aux défis rencontrés à l’extérieur.

Au vu des défis rencontrés depuis la fin de la Guerre Froide, Robert Gates pense qu’il faut changer les priorités de l’appareil de Défense US pour être capable de mieux traiter les « Guerres asymétriques » qui vont prévaloir encore pour un certain temps. En effet, il lui parait difficilement concevable qu’un pays défie militairement les USA de manière frontale dans les quelques années à venir. Au contraire l’histoire montre que des forces irrégulières, insurgés, guérilla ou terroristes, ont réussi à frustrer des armées régulières importantes et semer le chaos.

Ces conflits asymétriques sont fondamentalement politiques par nature et requièrent l’usage de l’ensemble des pouvoirs de la Nation. Le succès ne dépend pas de la capacité à imposer sa propre volonté, mais de celle de modeler le comportement des amis et des ennemis, et plus important encore des populations qui sont entre les deux.

Ces nouvelles menaces imposent que le gouvernement dans son ensemble agisse différemment : avec unité, agilité et créativité. Elles requièrent aussi des ressources bien plus considérables pour les instruments de pouvoir non-militaires des USA.

A ce titre, il souhaite voir augmenter de manière conséquente les ressources budgétaires et humaines du Département d’Etat.

De même les capacités de reconstruction que les armées ont développé en Afghanistan et en Irak doivent être maintenues et institutionnalisées. Le travail en « inter-agences » ou avec des organisations extérieures au gouvernement doit être développé et mieux intégré.

Le SECDEF veut aussi développer la communication stratégique vers le reste du Monde pour promouvoir l’image des USA et de ses valeurs fondamentales.

Tout cela nécessite des fonds et il ne faut pas les concentrer sur les seuls moyens militaires matériels et humains. Avec une diplomatie plus forte l’appareil militaire est moins sollicité.

Il cite enfin l’historien Donald Kagan, estimant que ce qui est le meilleur pour les affaires « c’est la possession par ces Etats qui veulent préserver la Paix du pouvoir prépondérant et de la volonté d’accepter les charges et les responsabilités que requises pour pour parvenir à cette fin », faisant ensuite sienne cette déclaration de W . Churchill: « Le prix de la grandeur, c’est la responsabilité, ... Le peuple américain ne peux pas échapper à ses responsabilités mondiales ».

C.H.

Voici l’extrait significatif de ce discours :

LANDON LECTURE

Robert M. Gates, U.S. Secretary of Defense

Kansas State University – November 26^th, 2007

Looking around the world today, optimism and idealism would not seem to have much of a place at the table. There is no shortage of anxiety about where our nation is headed and what its role will be in the 21^st century.

I can remember clearly other times in my life when such dark sentiments were prevalent. In 1957, when I was at Wichita High School East, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, and Americans feared being left behind in the space race and, even more worrisome, the missile race.

In1968, the first full year I lived in Washington, was the same year as the Tet offensive in Vietnam, where American troop levels and casualties were at their height. Across the nation, protests and violence over Vietnam engulfed America’s cities and campuses. On my second day of work as a CIA analyst, the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia. And then came the 1970s – when it seemed that everything that could go wrong for America did.

Yet, through it all, there was another storyline, one not then apparent. During those same years, the elements were in place and forces were at work that would eventually lead to victory in the Cold War – a victory achieved not by any one party or any single president, but by a series of decisions, choices, and institutions that bridged decades, generations, and administrations. From:

· The first brave stand taken by Harry Truman with the doctrine of containment; to

· The Helsinki Accords under Gerald Ford; to

· The elevation of human rights under Jimmy Carter; to

· The muscular words and deeds of Ronald Reagan; and to

· The masterful endgame diplomacy of George H. W. Bush.

All contributed to bring an Evil Empire crashing down not with a bang but with a whimper. And virtually without a shot being fired.

In this great effort, institutions, as much as people and policies, played a key role. Many of those key organizations were created 60 years ago this year with the National Security Act of 1947 – a single act of legislation which established the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, the United States Air Force, and what is now known as the Department of Defense. I mention all this because that legislation and those instruments of national power were designed at the dawn of a new era in international relations for the United States – an era dominated by the Cold War.

The end of the Cold War, and the attacks of September 11, marked the dawn of another new era in international relations – an era whose challenges may be unprecedented in complexity and scope.

In important respects, the great struggles of the 20^th century – World War I and World War II and the Cold War – covered over conflicts that had boiled and seethed and provoked wars and instability for centuries before 1914: ethnic strife, religious wars, independence movements, and, especially in the last quarter of the 19^th century, terrorism. The First World War was, itself, sparked by a terrorist assassination motivated by an ethnic group seeking independence.

These old hatreds and conflicts were buried alive during and after the Great War. But, like monsters in science fiction, they have returned from the grave to threaten peace and stability around the world. Think of the slaughter in the Balkans as Yugoslavia broke up in the 1990s. Even now, we worry about the implications of Kosovo’s independence in the next few weeks for Europe, Serbia, and Russia. That cast of characters sounds disturbingly familiar even at a century’s remove.

The long years of religious warfare in Europe between Protestant and Catholic Christians find eerie contemporary echoes in the growing Sunni versus Shia contest for Islamic hearts and minds in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and Southwest Asia.

We also have forgotten that between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, two American presidents and one presidential candidate were assassinated or attacked by terrorists – as were various tsars, empresses, princes, and, on a fateful day in June 1914, an archduke. Other acts of terrorism were commonplace in Europe and Russia in the latter part of the 19^th century.

So, history was not dead at the end of the Cold War. Instead, it was reawakening with a vengeance. And, the revived monsters of the past have returned far stronger and more dangerous than before because of modern technology – both for communication and for destruction – and to a world that is far more closely connected and interdependent than the world of 1914.

Unfortunately, the dangers and challenges of old have been joined by new forces of instability and conflict, among them:

· A new and more malignant form of global terrorism rooted in extremist and violent jihadism;

· New manifestations of ethnic, tribal, and sectarian conflict all over the world;

· The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;

· Failed and failing states;

· States enriched with oil profits and discontented with the current international order; and

· Centrifugal forces in other countries that threaten national unity, stability, and internal peace – but also with implications for regional and global security.

Worldwide, there are authoritarian regimes facing increasingly restive populations seeking political freedom as well as a better standard of living. And finally, we see both emergent and resurgent great powers whose future path is still unclear.

One of my favorite lines is that experience is the ability to recognize a mistake when you make it again. Four times in the last century the United States has come to the end of a war, concluded that the nature of man and the world had changed for the better, and turned inward, unilaterally disarming and dismantling institutions important to our national security – in the process, giving ourselves a so-called “peace” dividend. Four times we chose to forget history.

Isaac Barrow once wrote, “How like a paradise the world would be, flourishing in joy and rest, if men would cheerfully conspire in affection and helpfully contribute to each other’s content: and how like a savage wilderness now it is, when, like wild beasts, they vex and persecute, worry and devour each other.” He wrote that in the late 1600s. Or, listen to the words of Sir William Stephenson, author of A Man Called Intrepid and a key figure in the Allied victory in World War II. He wrote, “Perhaps a day will dawn when tyrants can no longer threaten the liberty of any people, when the function of all nations, however varied their ideologies, will be to enhance life, not to control it. If such a condition is possible it is in a future too far distant to foresee.”

After September 11^th, the United States re-armed and again strengthened our intelligence capabilities. It will be critically important to sustain those capabilities in the future – it will be important not to make the same mistake a fifth time.

But, my message today is not about the defense budget or military power. My message is that if we are to meet the myriad challenges around the world in the coming decades, this country must strengthen other important elements of national power both institutionally and financially, and create the capability to integrate and apply all of the elements of national power to problems and challenges abroad. In short, based on my experience serving seven presidents, as a former Director of CIA and now as Secretary of Defense, I am here to make the case for strengthening our capacity to use “soft” power and for better integrating it with “hard” power.

One of the most important lessons of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that military success is not sufficient to win: economic development, institution-building and the rule of law, promoting internal reconciliation, good governance, providing basic services to the people, training and equipping indigenous military and police forces, strategic communications, and more – these, along with security, are essential ingredients for long-term success. Accomplishing all of these tasks will be necessary to meet the diverse challenges I have described.

So, we must urgently devote time, energy, and thought to how we better organize ourselves to meet the international challenges of the present and the future – the world you students will inherit and lead.

I spoke a few moments ago about the landmark National Security Act of 1947 and the institutions created to fight the Cold War. In light of the challenges I have just discussed, I would like to pose a question: if there were to be a “National Security Act of 2007,” looking beyond the crush of day-to-day headlines, what problems must it address, what capabilities ought it create or improve, where should it lead our government as we look to the future? What new institutions do we need for this post Cold War world?

As an old Cold Warrior with a doctorate in history, I hope you’ll indulge me as I take a step back in time. Because context is important, as many of the goals, successes, and failures from the Cold War are instructive in considering how we might better focus energies and resources – especially the ways in which our nation can influence the rest of the world to help protect our security and advance our interests and values.

What we consider today the key elements and instruments of national power trace their beginnings to the mid-1940s, to a time when the government was digesting lessons learned during World War II. Looking back, people often forget that the war effort – though victorious – was hampered and hamstrung by divisions and dysfunction. Franklin Roosevelt quipped that trying to get the Navy, which was its own cabinet department at the time, to change was akin to hitting a featherbed: “You punch it with your right and you punch it with your left until you are finally exhausted,” he said, “and then you find the damn bed just as it was before.” And Harry Truman noted that if the Navy and Army had fought as hard against the Germans as they had fought against each other, the war would have been over much sooner.

This record drove the thinking behind the 1947 National Security Act, which attempted to fix the systemic failures that had plagued the government and military during World War II – while reviving capabilities and setting the stage for a struggle against the Soviet Union that seemed more inevitable each passing day.

The 1947 Act acknowledged that we had been over-zealous in our desire to shut down capabilities that had been so valuable during the war – most of America’s intelligence and information assets disappeared as soon as the guns fell silent. The Office of Strategic Services – the war intelligence agency – was axed, as was the Office of War Information. In 1947, OSS returned as CIA, but it would be years before we restored our communications capabilities by creating the United States Information Agency.

There is in many quarters the tendency to see that period as the pinnacle of wise governance and savvy statecraft. As I wrote a number of years ago, “Looking back, it all seem[ed] so easy, so painless, so inevitable.” It was anything but.

Consider that the creation of the National Military Establishment in 1947 – the Department of Defense – was meant to promote unity among the military services. It didn’t. A mere two years later the Congress had to pass another law because the Joint Chiefs of Staff were anything but joint. And there was no chairman to referee the constant disputes.

At the beginning, the Secretary of Defense had little real power – despite an exalted title. The law forbad him from having a military staff and limited him to three civilian assistants. These days, it takes that many to sort my mail.

Throughout the long, twilight struggle of the Cold War, the various parts of the government did not communicate or coordinate very well with each other. There were military, intelligence, and diplomatic failures in Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Grenada, and many other places. Getting the military services to work together was a recurring battle that had to be addressed time and again, and was only really resolved by legislation in 1986.

But despite the problems, we realized, as we had during World War II, that the nature of the conflict required us to develop key capabilities and institutions – many of them non-military. The Marshall Plan and later the United States Agency for International Development acknowledged the role of economics in the world; the CIA the role of intelligence; and the United States Information Agency the fact that the conflict would play out as much in hearts and minds as it would on any battlefield.

The key, over time, was to devote the necessary resources – people and money – and get enough things right while maintaining the ability to recover from mistakes along the way. Ultimately, our endurance paid off and the Soviet Union crumbled, and the decades-long Cold War ended.

However, during the 1990s, with the complicity of both the Congress and the White House, key instruments of America’s national power once again were allowed to wither or were abandoned. Most people are familiar with cutbacks in the military and intelligence – including sweeping reductions in manpower, nearly 40 percent in the active army, 30 percent in CIA’s clandestine services.

What is not as well-known, and arguably even more shortsighted, was the gutting of America’s ability to engage, assist, and communicate with other parts of the world – the “soft power,” which had been so important throughout the Cold War. The State Department froze the hiring of new Foreign Service officers for a period of time. The United States Agency for International Development saw deep staff cuts – its permanent staff dropping from a high of 15,000 during Vietnam to about 3,000 in the 1990s. And the U.S. Information Agency was abolished as an independent entity, split into pieces, and many of its capabilities folded into a small corner of the State Department.

Even as we throttled back, the world became more unstable, turbulent, and unpredictable than during the Cold War years. And then came the attacks of September 11, 2001, one of those rare life-changing dates, a shock so great that it appears to have shifted the tectonic plates of history. That day abruptly ended the false peace of the 1990s as well as our “holiday from history.”

As is often the case after such momentous events, it has taken some years for the contour lines of the international arena to become clear. What we do know is that the threats and challenges we will face abroad in the first decades of the 21^st century will extend well beyond the traditional domain of any single government agency.

The real challenges we have seen emerge since the end of the Cold War – from Somalia to the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere – make clear we in defense need to change our priorities to be better able to deal with the prevalence of what is called “asymmetric warfare.” As I told an Army gathering last month, it is hard to conceive of any country challenging the United States directly in conventional military terms – at least for some years to come. Indeed, history shows us that smaller, irregular forces – insurgents, guerrillas, terrorists – have for centuries found ways to harass and frustrate larger, regular armies and sow chaos.

We can expect that asymmetric warfare will be the mainstay of the contemporary battlefield for some time. These conflicts will be fundamentally political in nature, and require the application of all elements of national power. Success will be less a matter of imposing one’s will and more a function of shaping behavior – of friends, adversaries, and most importantly, the people in between.

Arguably the most important military component in the War on Terror is not the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we enable and empower our partners to defend and govern themselves. The standing up and mentoring of indigenous army and police – once the province of Special Forces – is now a key mission for the military as a whole.

But these new threats also require our government to operate as a whole differently – to act with unity, agility, and creativity. And they will require considerably more resources devoted to America’s non-military instruments of power.

So, what are the capabilities, institutions, and priorities our nation must collectively address – through both the executive and legislative branches, as well as the people they serve?

I would like to start with an observation. Governments of all stripes seem to have great difficulty summoning the will – and the resources – to deal even with threats that are obvious and likely inevitable, much less threats that are more complex or over the horizon. There is, however, no inherent flaw in human nature or democratic government that keeps us from preparing for potential challenges and dangers by taking far-sighted actions with long-term benefits. As individuals, we do it all the time. The Congress did it in 1947. As a nation, today, as in 1947, the key is wise and focused bipartisan leadership – and political will.

I mentioned a moment ago that one of the most important lessons from our experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere has been the decisive role reconstruction, development, and governance plays in any meaningful, long-term success.

The Department of Defense has taken on many of these burdens that might have been assumed by civilian agencies in the past, although new resources have permitted the State Department to begin taking on a larger role in recent months. Still, forced by circumstances, our brave men and women in uniform have stepped up to the task, with field artillerymen and tankers building schools and mentoring city councils – usually in a language they don’t speak. They have done an admirable job. And as I’ve said before, the Armed Forces will need to institutionalize and retain these non-traditional capabilities – something the ROTC cadets in this audience can anticipate.

But it is no replacement for the real thing – civilian involvement and expertise.

A few examples are useful here, as microcosms of what our overall government effort should look like – one historical and a few contemporary ones.

However uncomfortable it may be to raise Vietnam all these years later, the history of that conflict is instructive. After first pursuing a strategy based on conventional military firepower, the United States shifted course and began a comprehensive, integrated program of pacification, civic action, and economic development. The CORDS program, as it was known, involved more than a thousand civilian employees from USAID and other organizations, and brought the multiple agencies into a joint effort. It had the effect of, in the words of General Creighton Abrams, putting “all of us on one side and the enemy on the other.” By the time U.S. troops were pulled out, the CORDS program had helped pacify most of the hamlets in South Vietnam.

The importance of deploying civilian expertise has been relearned – the hard way – through the effort to staff Provincial Reconstruction Teams, first in Afghanistan and more recently in Iraq. The PRTs were designed to bring in civilians experienced in agriculture, governance, and other aspects of development – to work with and alongside the military to improve the lives of the local population, a key tenet of any counterinsurgency effort. Where they are on the ground – even in small numbers – we have seen tangible and often dramatic changes. An Army brigade commander in Baghdad recently said that an embedded PRT was “pivotal” in getting Iraqis in his sector to better manage their affairs.

We also have increased our effectiveness by joining with organizations and people outside the government – untapped resources with tremendous potential.

For example, in Afghanistan the military has recently brought in professional anthropologists as advisors. The New York Times reported on the work of one of them, who said, “I’m frequently accused of militarizing anthropology. But we’re really anthropologizing the military.”

And it is having a very real impact. The same story told of a village that had just been cleared of the Taliban. The anthropologist pointed out to the military officers that there were more widows than usual, and that the sons would feel compelled to take care of them – possibly by joining the insurgency, where many of the fighters are paid. So American officers began a job training program for the widows.

Similarly, our land-grant universities have provided valuable expertise on agricultural and other issues. Texas A&M has had faculty on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2003. And Kansas State is lending its expertise to help revitalize universities in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif, and working to improve the agricultural sector and veterinary care across Afghanistan. These efforts do not go unnoticed by either Afghan citizens or our men and women in uniform.

I have been heartened by the works of individuals and groups like these. But I am concerned that we need even more civilians involved in the effort and that our efforts must be better integrated.

And I remain concerned that we have yet to create any permanent capability or institutions to rapidly create and deploy these kinds of skills in the future. The examples I mentioned have, by and large, been created ad hoc – on the fly in a climate of crisis. As a nation, we need to figure out how to institutionalize programs and relationships such as these. And we need to find more untapped resources – places where it’s not necessarily how much you spend, but how you spend it.

The way to institutionalize these capabilities is probably not to recreate or repopulate institutions of the past such as AID or USIA. On the other hand, just adding more people to existing government departments such as Agriculture, Treasury, Commerce, Justice and so on is not a sufficient answer either – even if they were to be more deployable overseas. New institutions are needed for the 21^st century, new organizations with a 21^st century mind-set.

For example, public relations was invented in the United States, yet we are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about freedom and democracy, about our policies and our goals. It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the internet than America. As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago, “How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world’s greatest communication society?” Speed, agility, and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing U.S. strategic communications.

Similarly, we need to develop a permanent, sizeable cadre of immediately deployable experts with disparate skills, a need which president bush called for in his 2007 state of the union address, and which the State Department is now working on with its initiative to build a civilian response corps. Both the President and Secretary of State have asked for full funding for this initiative. But we also need new thinking about how to integrate our government’s capabilities in these areas, and then how to integrate government capabilities with those in the private sector, in universities, in other non-governmental organizations, with the capabilities of our allies and friends – and with the nascent capabilities of those we are trying to help.

Which brings me to a fundamental point. Despite the improvements of recent years, despite the potential innovative ideas hold for the future, sometimes there is no substitute for resources – for money.

Funding for non-military foreign-affairs programs has increased since 2001, but it remains disproportionately small relative to what we spend on the military and to the importance of such capabilities. Consider that this year’s budget for the Department of Defense – not counting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan – is nearly half a trillion dollars. The total foreign affairs budget request for the State Department is $36 billion – less than what the Pentagon spends on health care alone. Secretary Rice has asked for a budget increase for the State Department and an expansion of the Foreign Service. The need is real.

Despite new hires, there are only about 6,600 professional Foreign Service officers – less than the manning for one aircraft carrier strike group. And personnel challenges loom on the horizon. By one estimate, 30 percent of USAID’s Foreign Service officers are eligible for retirement this year – valuable experience that cannot be contracted out.

Overall, our current military spending amounts to about 4 percent of GDP, below the historic norm and well below previous wartime periods. Nonetheless, we use this benchmark as a rough floor of how much we should spend on defense. We lack a similar benchmark for other departments and institutions.

What is clear to me is that there is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security – diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and development. Secretary Rice addressed this need in a speech at Georgetown University nearly two years ago. We must focus our energies beyond the guns and steel of the military, beyond just our brave soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen. We must also focus our energies on the other elements of national power that will be so crucial in the coming years.

Now, I am well aware that having a sitting Secretary of Defense travel halfway across the country to make a pitch to increase the budget of other agencies might fit into the category of “man bites dog” – or for some back in the Pentagon, “blasphemy.” It is certainly not an easy sell politically. And don’t get me wrong, I’ll be asking for yet more money for Defense next year.

Still, I hear all the time from the senior leadership of our Armed Forces about how important these civilian capabilities are. In fact, when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen was Chief of Naval Operations, he once said he’d hand a part of his budget to the State Department “in a heartbeat,” assuming it was spent in the right place.

After all, civilian participation is both necessary to making military operations successful and to relieving stress on the men and women of our armed services who have endured so much these last few years, and done so with such unflagging bravery and devotion. Indeed, having robust civilian capabilities available could make it less likely that military force will have to be used in the first place, as local problems might be dealt with before they become crises.

A last point. Repeatedly over the last century Americans averted their eyes in the belief that remote events elsewhere in the world need not engage this country. How could an assassination of an Austrian archduke in unknown Bosnia-Herzegovina effect us? Or the annexation of a little patch of ground called Sudetenland? Or a French defeat at a place called Dien Bien Phu? Or the return of an obscure cleric to Tehran? Or the radicalization of an Arab construction tycoon’s son?

What seems to work best in world affairs, historian Donald Kagan wrote in his book On the Origins of War, “Is the possession by those states who wish to preserve the peace of the preponderant power and of the will to accept the burdens and responsibilities required to achieve that purpose.”

In an address at Harvard in 1943, Winston Churchill said, “The price of greatness is responsibility . . . The people of the United States cannot escape world responsibility.” And, in a speech at Princeton in 1947, Secretary of State and retired Army general George Marshall told the students: “The development of a sense of responsibility for world order and security, the development of a sense of overwhelming importance of this country’s acts, and failures to act, in relation to world order and security – these, in my opinion, are great musts for your generation.”

Our country has now for many decades taken upon itself great burdens and great responsibilities – all in an effort to defeat despotism in its many forms or to preserve the peace so that other nations, and other peoples, could pursue their dreams. For many decades, the tender shoots of freedom all around the world have been nourished with American blood. Today, across the globe, there are more people than ever seeking economic and political freedom – seeking hope even as oppressive regimes and mass murderers sow chaos in their midst – seeking always to shake free from the bonds of tyranny.

For all of those brave men and women struggling for a better life, there is – and must be – no stronger ally or advocate than the United States of America. Let us never forget that our nation remains a beacon of light for those in dark places. And that our responsibilities to the world – to freedom, to liberty, to the oppressed everywhere – are not a burden on the people or the soul of this nation. They are, rather, a blessing.

I will close with a message for students in the audience. The message is from Theodore Roosevelt, whose words ring as true today as when he delivered them in 1901. He said, “…as, keen-eyed, we gaze into the coming years, duties, new and old, rise thick and fast to confront us from within and from without…[The United States] should face these duties with a sober appreciation alike of their importance and of their difficulty. But there is also every reason for facing them with high-hearted resolution and eager and confident faith in our capacity to do them aright.” He continued, “A great work lies ready to the hand of this generation; it should count itself happy indeed that to it is given the privilege of doing such a work.”

To the young future leaders of America here today, I say, “Come do the great work that lies ready to the hand of your generation.”

Thank you.

Revoir la stratégie Américaine

L’article qui suit présente une analyse très pertinente et très critique de la politique qui a été conduite par le Président, le Pentagone et les grands commandants militaires américains lors de l’aventure Irakienne. Cette critique est comparable à celle que l’on retrouve dans d’autres articles ou livres. Cependant au delà de la critique ce sont les propositions que fait Douglas Mac Gregor pour faire évoluer la stratégie militaire américaine et l’adapter à notre temps qui méritent l’attention et peuvent être source de réflexion pour le nouveau livre blanc sur la Défense et la Sécurité que rédigent les états-majors français.

Son auteur est colonel en retraite de l’US Army, a participé à la guerre du Golfe et écrit trois livres sur l’art de la guerre moderne et la réforme militaire dont « Transformation Under Fire : Revolutionnizing the Way America Fights ».

Résumé des théories

Partant du constat que « l’occupation en Irak aurait pu être évitée si les dirigeants politiques et militaires à Washington avaient conscience pris du changement tectonique dans les relations internationales créé par la décolonisation après la seconde Guerre Mondiale, ce changement rend toute occupation impossible », Mac Gregor réclame « une nouvelle stratégie militaire nationale destinée à renforcer le rôle que remplit les USA comme moteur mondial de la prospérité, rendant le style de vie américain attractif, et non menaçant, pour les autres. »

La stratégie qu’il développe est un retour à une « Real Politik » limitée aux purs intérêts stratégiques et matériels des USA et dénuée de toute ambition idéologique. Mac Gregor défend que les interventions destinées à éliminer des menaces bien réelles pour les intérêts de sécurité des USA et de ses alliés ne doivent pas conduire à transformer des sociétés fondamentalement différentes de la nôtre pour en faire des sociétés occidentalisées au prix de longues et couteuses occupations. L’histoire du XX^ème siècle a démontré que les chances de succès étaient très minces. Au XXI^ème siècle les forces armées US, au lieu d’essayer d’imposer des régimes démocratiques la où les conditions préalables n’existent pas, doivent garantir un accès commercial et étendre l’influence américaine dans des zones géographiques jugées vitales pour la prospérité et la sécurité des USA et de ses alliés. A ses yeux ces zones sont : le Golfe Persique, l’Afrique de l’Ouest, la mer du Japon, le sud de la mer de Chine, le Bassin Caribéen, l’Atlantique Nord et la Méditerranée.

« Les décideurs et les commandants en chefs doivent réorienter leurs réflexions vers une stratégie qui exalte l’économie des forces lors des opérations expéditionnaires et rejeter les plans qui chercheraient à optimiser les capacités de l’Army et du Marine Corps d’occupation à conduire encore plus d’occupations inappropriées. Ceci est une stratégie qui limite délibérément l’engagement des ressources militaires des USA à des buts et des objectifs atteignables, cohérents avec les intérêts stratégiques US et qui évite le type de guerre idéologique sans fin qui a été prêt de détruire la civilisation occidentale au XX^ème siècle. »

Pour mettre en œuvre cette stratégie dans un environnement financier raisonnable et supportable par la nation, il faut changer l’art de la guerre. Il faut abandonner les structures actuelles de commandement lourdes, divisées entres les armes (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines), forcément onéreuses, ainsi que la philosophie des campagnes actuelles fondées par un héritage historique faite de suprématie des feux, d’assaut de vive force et d’occupation de terrain, pour développer des capacités terrestres où l’interarmées est complètement intégré afin de fournir un plus grand réservoir de forces disponibles, déployables sur alerte capables de remplir un large spectre de missions. Plutôt que des invasions et des occupations, Ces missions seront des frappes pour détruire des régimes ennemis ou des armes à long rayon d’action, des prises temporaires de points clés, des reconnaissances armées, l’entrainement et le soutien de forces alliées, la capture ou la destruction de cellules terroristes, et l’évacuation de non-combattants. Les forces terrestres devront être mobiles, ce qui ne veut pas dire légères, avec une puissance de feu significative. Les procédures et tactiques devront être revues. Cette révolution ne peut se faire sans revoir l’état d’esprit et la sélection des futurs chefs militaires.

C.H.

Armed Forces Journal, oct 2007

Washington's war

BY COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR (RET.).

The human and material cost of America's occupation of Iraq is reaching a climax. The ongoing "surge" of ground combat troops into Baghdad and its surroundings is producing higher U.S. casualties, exacerbating intersectarian violence and draining the last reserves of American patience.

Like the French Army in Algeria and the British Army in Ireland, the generals in Baghdad are discovering that soldiers and Marines in Iraq control only what they stand on, and when they no longer stand on it, they don't control it. Meanwhile, the Army grinds itself to pieces while the national military leadership stands by watching, clinging to the promise of more troops for a larger ground force in the future - a promise that is irrelevant to the challenge we now face: getting out of Iraq.

Like so many tragic events in human history, the occupation of Iraq could have been avoided if military and political leaders in Washington had recognized the tectonic shift in international relations created by decolonization after World War II. This shift made any occupation, with the exception of very brief American or European military triumphs over non-Europeans, especially Muslim Arabs, impossible. But the decision to occupy and govern Iraq with American military power was driven by ideology, not strategy. And, when ideology masquerades as strategy, disaster is inevitable.

The U.S. needs a new national military strategy, a strategy designed to enhance America's role as the world's engine of prosperity, making the American way of life attractive, not threatening, to others. However, for a new, more effective national military strategy to emerge that can rationalize the structure and content of the armed forces for operations in the aftermath of Iraq, both policymakers and the flag officers who command our forces must reorient their thinking to a strategy that exalts economy of force in expeditionary operations and rejects plans to optimize the Army and Marine Corps for any more misguided occupations. This is a strategy that deliberately limits the commitment of U.S. military resources to attainable goals and objectives consistent with U.S. strategic interests and avoids the kind of open-ended ideological warfare that nearly destroyed Western civilization in the 20th century.

With another presidential election just around the corner, it's time to begin answering the all-important questions of "What is the strategic purpose for which the U.S. armed forces will fight in the aftermath of Iraq?" and "How should a new president and secretary of defense define strategic objectives for U.S. forces?" How these questions are answered will determine whether our forces and their missions are aligned with the nation's security needs.

Soon after the terrorist attacks against New York City and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush invoked the images of World War II, demanding total victory over a new, demonized enemy: Islamist terrorism. Those who were not with us in the new ideological struggle to democratize the Middle East were suddenly against us. When American forces intervened two years later in Iraq, they did so not in search of indigenous friends and allies in a country tyrannized for a generation, but in search of new enemies to destroy.

With the passage of time, politicians imbued military action to destroy Islamist terrorism with a meaning it never had, equating the unnecessary and destructive American military occupation of Muslim-Arab Iraq with America's special mission to spread freedom throughout the world. Worse, Iraq's forced democratization unleashed reactionary forces Americans did not anticipate. These forces strengthened Iranian regional power and influence, precipitating a dangerous anti-American backlash abroad and creating economic vulnerability at home. We cannot easily reverse the outcome in Iraq, but we can avoid repeating the pattern of behavior that made the Iraqi quagmire inevitable.

In the xenophobic, tribal and desperately poor populations of the Middle East and much of Africa, occupying Christian armies from the U.S., United Kingdom and other European states are unlikely to win significant numbers of hearts and minds. Moreover, the kind of secular democracy the Bush administration sought to export to Iraq through military occupation is synonymous in most of the Muslim Arab world with massive corruption, widening gaps between rich and poor, and moral decadence as seen inside Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates. Where democracy does prevail, Islamism tends to govern. And, where Islamism governs, as seen in Iran - a state that is, in practice, the most democratic in the Islamic world - democracy is subjugated to Islamic Shariah law. This outcome is hardly in the interest of U.S. national security.

Avoiding occupation

These points do not argue for after-the-fact preparation or transformation inside the Army and Marine Corps to fight future insurgencies that arise from unwanted U.S. military occupations. Unwanted occupations should be avoided, not repeated. Many point to the British success in Malaya as a reason to persist in delusions of success in counterinsurgency in developing regions. However, there is a vast difference between a British Army in Malaya commanded by Sir Gerald Templar in 1952, whose publicly stated goal was to end British occupation of Malaya, and the open-ended American military occupation of Iraq that precipitated a popular Sunni Muslim-Arab revolt against an unwanted American military occupation. From the moment we occupied central Iraq with no plan to leave, we were at war with a population humiliated by our presence; it is the kind of conflict the American military should not be asked to fight.

If performing counterinsurgency campaigns against enemies created by the overbearing presence of U.S. ground forces is not the strategic purpose for which U.S. forces should fight, then what is the purpose? As they begin to contemplate the use of American military power after Iraq, policymakers should consider the following points:

First, interventions to remove genuine threats to U.S. and allied security interests should not involve U.S. military occupations that have no chance of altering cultures, societies or peoples fundamentally different from us. America cannot financially sustain open-ended military interventions in failing or failed societies with the object of imposing cultural change through military occupation to convert developing societies' social, political and economic structures into modern Western institutions. Not only do these operations involve expensive, long-term military garrisons on foreign territory, but the probability of success for these interventions, as seen throughout most of the 20th century, is very, very low.

Second, the principal strategic purpose for which the U.S. armed forces must be ready to fight in the 21st century is not the forcible installation of Western-style democracy in societies where the conditions conducive to the rule of law and democratic development do not exist. Rather, the use of American military power will involve guaranteeing commercial access and, if the president and Congress deem it necessary, extending American influence to geographical areas vital to U.S. and allied prosperity and security.

Owing to the geographical positions of those areas most important to American economic interests - the Persian Gulf, West Africa, the Sea of Japan, the South China Sea, the Caribbean basin, the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean - any strategy to preserve access to these areas is exceptionally well-suited to the use of air and naval power. Moreover, unchallenged American control of the oceans and the air gives the U.S. the opportunity to wage war on its own terms, at places and under conditions of its own choosing. Whatever we undertake on land should exploit, not ignore, this enormous strategic advantage.

Third, the security interests beyond America's borders that prompt U.S. military intervention rarely justify the mobilization of the nation's entire military power. In fact, the strategic imperative that emerges from this analysis is the avoidance of total war along with the mobilization of America's human and industrial capacities that total war entails. This will not eliminate the need to guarantee access by occasionally disembarking ground forces from the sea and the air at points along the Eurasian, African or South American periphery - potentially hundreds of miles away from the target - and then moving these forces rapidly over land to the strategic objective.

However, the ongoing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction will make the massing of large ground forces extremely dangerous. Consequently, future expeditionary forces must mobilize organic combat power that is disproportionate to their size and numbers and execute mobile, distributed, yet coherent joint operations. This description points toward joint expeditionary forces designed for operations of limited duration and scope, forces that can be organized, trained and equipped at far lower cost than mass armies created for long-term territorial conquest and occupation.

Fourth, military transformation must be viewed in the context of the strategic, operational and tactical problems the joint force is being asked to solve today and the problems it is likely to face in the future. Once these problems are understood, the joint force can begin changing the way it operates and fights, and initiate the process of selecting the most promising technology options to achieve the desired capabilities.

The challenges to transformation might end there, except that the nation's flag officers tend to operate with single-service frames of reference that define the questions about military power and preordain the answers that they find acceptable. Officers who want to become generals or admirals buy into what questions are acceptable to ask, as well as what answers their superiors will tolerate. The consequence of this cultural environment is that spending on defense guarantees nothing, civilian control of the military is negligible and a host of military structures and supporting institutional concepts of warfare with their roots in World War II and the Cold War persist into the present, even though they are no longer congruent with the nation's strategic needs. The Army's Future Combat Systems , the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle , the Air Force's F-22 and the Navy's DD1000 collectively exemplify the problem. On the grounds of cost overruns and strategic irrelevance, all should be canceled.

Understanding the combined power of a massive, permanent defense establishment and defense industry together with a political system that relies on millions in donations for elections makes it difficult, if not impossible, for Congress to exercise effective oversight. This is why the president and secretary of defense must hold flag officers accountable for the readiness of their forces to deploy and fight, for the results - good and bad - that they produce, and how much blood and treasure they spend to achieve their aims. They must demand that flag officers conduct military operations with an appreciation of the direct impact of their actions on the nation's fiscal health and the government's political fortunes and keep in mind that "military" decisions must not be made in isolation from political realities, as Carl von Clausewitz cogently demonstrated long ago.

THE WAY AHEAD

Who should command? Is the commander successful, and how should he fight? These questions should be asked before, during and after military operations. In retrospect, the answers always seem self-evident, because for victory to occur, the winning commander and his force must do most things right, while the losing side must do many, many things wrong.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., stunned the Washington community by having the temerity to question the competence and truthfulness of America's senior military leaders in Washington and Baghdad. For some reason, questioning the decisions and actions of senior officers who decide the life or death of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines made Reid a target for attack from his political opponents. This was unfortunate, because Reid sent a powerful but belated message that professional competence and character under fire should trump fluff and PowerPoint briefings in wartime, the stock and trade of too many flag officers.

The quality of performance must count even when the results are not always the ones originally intended. This is why it is a measure of the frightening disengagement of civilian leadership that the president and the secretary of defense have never acted to relieve a single general officer of command for failure to perform in Iraq or Afghanistan, despite an impressive record of failure in each case.

Indeed, the principal overseer of American military forces in Iraq for much of the occupation, Gen. George Casey, was promoted to Army chief of staff after his strategy failed miserably. One cannot help but make the comparison to Gen. William Westmoreland, who was made Army chief of staff after the strategically disastrous Tet Offensive in 1968. Since the civilians in charge were obviously not happy with developments in Southwest Asia, they must have thought that it was not their role to interfere, a mind-set that seemingly contradicts the whole concept of civilian control of the military. Again, the comparisons of Casey and Westmoreland are instructive.

The bad news is that experience in Iraq has not fundamentally changed the thinking, organization or equipment of the Army and the Marine Corps. While the lethality of every weapon in ground combat continues to rise, as seen recently in the fight between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the level of armor protection, firepower and off-road mobility for soldiers and Marines continues to fall based on a warfare mentality that is delusional - a mind-set that exalts the dismounted rifleman inside communication networks based on the false promise of perfect information.

As repeatedly demonstrated in the towns and cities of Iraq, dismounted riflemen sent against insurgents, rebels or terrorists who use improvised explosives, mines and anti-armor weapons are doomed to fight the enemy's war on the enemy's terms. They are effectively denied surprise and security, their tactical intelligence is extremely limited, and they have no significant edge in armored protection, mobility or firepower. In the 21st century, the goal is to destroy the enemy, not hold ground. Attrition battles that pit Americans with rifles against enemies with rifles favor the enemy, not us.

MILITARY MODERNIZATION

In time of peace or war, civilians who command America's defense establishment must not allow the nation's military leaders the freedom to develop military strategy in isolation, to define their own programs and priorities, control their own funding lines, and then rate their own effectiveness. Clemenceau's dictum, "War is too important to be left to the generals," applies with equal force to the conduct of military operations and, in particular, spending for military modernization.

Today, unity of effort in military operations is more vital than ever and the importance of minimizing losses in our ground forces cannot be overstated, but the initiative to change the way conventional forces organize, train and equip will not come from the ranks of the flag officers. Flag officers in Washington love to talk about change in warfare so much that embracing military transformation becomes a tired cliché. Modernization is not rationalized for new strategic settings. In reality, preserving existing command structures and career patterns, papering over internal bureaucratic inefficiencies, deflecting serious questions about spending, and maintaining as much of the organizational and institutional status quo as possible are the pre-eminent goals of the military bureaucracy.

In a fiscally constrained environment, the nation must re-examine the roles and missions of its armed forces, especially its land warfare services - the Army and Marine Corps. Both are required to deliver ground forces by air and sea to crises and conflicts. Together, the active components of these forces number roughly 675,000, an impressive total by any standard. However, these numbers are not very meaningful within the current organizational structures as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Both services remain organized and equipped to execute operations in accordance with their long and distinguished histories. Today, any enemy that attempts to defend a beach will be targeted and destroyed from the air. The more likely scenario involves area-denial operations that capitalize on sea mines and unmanned systems to protect critical approaches from the sea, while dispersed enemy forces (nonstate or state actors) defend from positions inland. Yet, the Marine Corps remains focused on the conduct of single-service "force entry" amphibious operations against defended beaches.

Contrary to its public claims, the Army remains wedded to the massive application of men and firepower inside large division and corps structures with their roots in World War II, structures that include airborne, armored and motorized divisions that have no useful purpose in the modern era. In a strategic setting where technology and threats are causing missions to converge, the fundamental structures and purposes of these two services must be re-examined and, ultimately, reinvented.

Reorganizing the manpower and capabilities in these large forces within an integrated, joint operational framework to provide a larger pool of ready, deployable ground forces on rotational readiness that can perform a range of missions is essential. These missions include striking inland from points along the periphery of Eurasia, Africa, and Central and South America to destroy enemy regimes, WMD and long-range (strategic) weapons, or temporarily seize key facilities or points on the ground; carry out armed reconnaissance operations, and train and support allied forces; and seize or liquidate terrorist cells and carry out non-combatant evacuations.

These reorganized ground forces would be mobile, armored forces with significant organic firepower and integrated infantry, not light infantry-based forces. How fast ground forces deploy is less important than what they do after they arrive and the tactical skill with which they are employed. Ground forces that capitalize on mobile armored firepower can take punches and keep fighting without taking heavy casualties, provided these forces are not road-bound and not committed in ways the enemy can easily predict. Ground forces operating in a manner within the strategic framework presented here would also allow for the economic maintenance of a credible nuclear force, as well as the security of the nation's borders, coasts and air space - a mission set that must involve more of the nation's military capability than it has to date.

CIRCLING THE WAGONS

If we do not abandon the current strategy of intervention, destruction and occupation to spread democracy, America will end up like the circled wagon trains of the Old West - surrounded by hostile Indian tribes, but with no U.S. cavalry riding to the rescue, because they're also behind the wagons. Fortunately, there is another way.

Politicians can accept America's economic and military limitations and reorient the direction of U.S. national security policy to the traditional English-speaking policy of making the American way of life attractive to others. However, harnessing American military power to this approach will still require more change. This change involves a new attitude among civilian leaders in all American branches of government. All branches must hold commanders of U.S. forces around the world accountable for what happens, and replace commanders who do not produce results. In addition, Congress must be far less willing in the future to go along with any aggressive military action an over-eager president decides to conduct.

In warfare, as in wrestling, the attempt to throw the opponent without first weakening his foothold and upsetting his balance results in self-exhaustion. Without a coherent military strategy or attainable political objectives beyond the vague desire to transform non-European societies and cultures into replicas of English-speaking democracy, American ground forces will fall into the trap of brutal raids, patrols and checkpoints, forgetting that no local government can be legitimate and tolerate foreign occupation for long.

Today, any insistence on simplistic formulas that see the world in terms of good and evil will reinforce the blatant disregard for the cultures of people different from us, and the driving forces of state interest and power. This mentality has worn out America's soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, along with most of their fighting equipment. The next president and secretary of defense will have to cope with the fallout and make fiscal caution an executive fixation.

Selecting, educating and cultivating the right officers within a professional framework based on merit, not nepotism, is vital. Winning combinations of policymakers, military leaders and formulas for military success along with the conditions of unchallenged military superiority they create do not emerge suddenly or swiftly. They are never permanent.

Like international systems, military leadership and thinking should be dynamic. Technology is perpetually changing. The demand for new operational concepts and innovative organizations for combat is never-ending. Thus, decisions that determine the senior leadership, organization and equipment of military establishments, and that occur in the 20 or even five years leading up to the wartime collision, are decisive factors in the complex calculus of victory, often more decisive in their impact than what happens when the fighting takes place.

With the right senior officers and selection system in place, and civilian leadership able to distinguish careerism from professionalism and willing to punish the former and reward the latter, the next president can resolutely implement a new military strategy. Most important, doing what every presidential administration has done since 1945 - going to war with the senior leadership and the force they found on taking office - is no longer an option. If the next administration repeats this mistake, as did the Johnson and the Bush administrations, we will continue to muddle through trying to buy everything and win nothing.

Inside defense, there is far too much management and committee work with diluted and dispersed authority and responsibility, and far too little leadership with centralized and delegated authority and responsibility. This is especially true for the civilians, but the criticism applies to many of the flag officers in the higher headquarters, as well. The next president and his secretary of defense should routinely remind themselves of Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan's advice to Theodore Roosevelt when he assumed his duties as assistant secretary of the Navy: "Sir, no service can or should be expected to reform itself."