Talk:Powell Doctrine

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[edit] Unclear

As much as I admire General Powell, the 'Powell Doctrine' is not really original. The Chinese military strategist Sun Zi had already stated this 'doctrine' over 2000 years ago in his 'Art of War'. 5 Jan 07

You might well be right, but it's still extremely signficant from a historical point of view that he would adopt this approach and not others. It's interesting to note that the Iraq War failed on almost every count of the Powell Doctrine (except public approval, but that was due in large part to deceptive rhetoric about WMDs), and it's depressing that Powell himself didn't apply his own standards before supporting the conflict as Secretary of State.

This article leaves several things unclear for me.

First, regarding

Powell believes that forces should only be deployed when national interest, commitment, and support have been established.

Can anyone elaborate here? What would Powell say about:

  • how the "national interest" is to be determined?
  • the meaning of "commitment" and "support"? Are they to be taken as they are implicitly defined in Weinberger's principles of "Will we commit sufficient resources to win?" and "Is there reasonable expectation that the public and Congress will support the operation?" I assume "resources" means chiefly money and troops, but maybe there are other factors for Powell?

Second, I assume Powell himself did not prepackage a particular core of beliefs and label it as the "Powell doctrine". If not, though, does anyone know how the term arose? Who created it? Is "doctrine" meant reverently? Disparagingly?

Finally, is the Powell doctrine, in a nutshell, the belief attributed to Powell quoted above? Or is it a more nebulous thing, that can't really be put into a nutshell at all? Or perhaps it has components not mentioned in this article?

-- Mon Oct 7, 2002

[edit] Misquote?

I have a problem with this line:

This part is perhaps best illustrated by his quote (as Secretary of State during the second Iraq War) about the Iraqi Army: "First we're going to cut it off, then we're going to kill it."

I remember during the 1991 Persian Gulf War Powell said this when he was Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. CNN showed it all the time. Correcting.

--Hoshie

[edit] Weinberger Doctrine

This article would be improved if mention was made of the antecedent Weinberger Doctrine [1], of which the Powell Doctrine is a refinement or restatement. Hopefully someone with more time than I will make the edits, maybe even write a Weinberger Doctrine article. --Kevin Myers 06:14, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

I believe that a discussion of both Weinberger and Powell's doctrinal positions should be clarified under the context of Clausewitz. Though this is already just a short stub of an article, the lack of proper contextual background leaves much to be desired since only those with an understanding of these would get much benefit out of this article. 16:18 18 JUN 2005 (PST)

[edit] Defenition was incorrect

The line "Powell believes that forces should only be deployed when national interest, commitment, and support have been established" has nothing to do with the Powell Doctrine. The Powell Doctrine has nothing to do with when or why a nation should go to war, only how. I fixed the defenition accordingly.

[edit] Should there be a mention of Gulf War II failing the Powell Doctrine test?

I don't trust my own judgment here, since I'm so personally involved in the antiwar movement. But I would put it to any objective editor who sees this to think about discussing the historical context of the Powell Doctrine.

That context ought to include the irony of the second war Powell himself was involved with after his criteria for going to war was popularized. That is, the run up to Gulf War II involved almost a point by point refutation of those criteria (lack of public support, lack of exit strategy, and lack of sufficient or overwhelming force for completing the mission). (unsigned)


Split the difference- "Some opponents of Operation Iraqi Freedom maintain that the execution of this war violates the Powell doctrine..." or words to that effect. Roundeyesamurai 06:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


Maybe Bush should have read this before rushing into war. By the way, we do NOT delare war against countries or states that have not attacked us. The "good guys" look pretty bad World wide.

[edit] Rumsfeld's Transformation

To be more inclusive it would be interesting to have the article include how Rumsfeld's Transformation repudiates The Powell Doctrine (compare Gulf War I vs. Gulf War II) in terms of clearly defined goals, it being a "just war", and the use (or failure to use) overwhelming force.


[edit] Does the Powell Doctrine breach the Principle of Proportionality?

It is said that "This (the Powell Doctrine) may oppose the principle of proportionality, but there are grounds to suppose that principles of Just War may not be violated". Surely, there should be an exact description of what those grounds are? Otherwise, the Powell Doctrine seems to be special pleading for a practice that runs exactly counter to the the principle of proportionality and accordingly contravenes the criteria for the Just War and of both Jus in bello and Jus ad bellum.

Fenton Robb 21:25, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The idea is to make the fight as unfair as one can, in order to bring hostilities to a conclusion as quickly as possible. The idea is not to kill as many of the enemy as you can, which would, indeed, be an immoral goal. Martin | talk • contribs 05:21, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Does the Powell Doctrine really advocate breaching the laws governing Military Occupation?

By advising "After victory, the military should leave the field of engagement, rather than staying around as peacekeepers" the Doctrine advises breaching the laws governing military occupation which require the occupying power to preserve law and order and not to leave until a properly constituted authority is established. Surely the Powell Doctrine was qualified - if so - how?

Fenton Robb 22:02, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Interesting point. I suppose it could be argued however that the occupying force need not be the invading force, and that the invaders could hand over power to a third party while local government is re-established. For example NATO invaded Kosovo, but it was the UN which took over as the long term occupying force while the region's constitutional mess was sorted out. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.146.47.250 (talk) 16:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Response to Fenton Robb

I'm going to address both of the above questions in a single statement, simply because they fit together very well (and it keeps me from having to type everything twice).

The Powell doctrine is intended to minimize loss of life on both sides of conflict while allowing for the fastest and most secure military victory. These goals are not contradictory at all- to wit:

1) Overwhelming force- This does not refer to "outnumbering" enemy personnel- during Operation Desert Storm, for instance, the Iraqi forces outnumbered the Coalition forces which participated in combat (though the Coaliation had a greater number of total personnel). It refers to overwhelming the enemy's military capabilities. This means, in short, utilizing more than a sufficient amount of force to eliminate the enemy's weapons systems, communications, and supply distribution as quickly as possible. An army which has nothing to fight with, no communication between commanders and troops, and no supplies, cannot wage war for very long (as seen in Desert Storm). Personnel occupying such equipment (which will never be more than a small fraction of a nation's total military personnel count) are incidental- they are fired upon only in self-defense, as personnel alone are not important in a short-term war of this type (Ref. Desert Storm).

The second part of "overwhelming force" is in its dynamic nature. The greatest casualties for both sides (and the greatest exposure to defeat) comes when combat is static (like the trench fighting in World War One). Quickly moving to, engaging, defeating, and moving forward from the battle accomplishes the task with fewer casualties for both sides (ref. Desert Storm).

The intent of proportionality is to prevent military "bullying", for lack of a better term- the use of military force by a very large, powerful army against much smaller, much weaker armies. In other words, to prevent conquest.

2) Occupation- Powell's doctrine doesn't advocate fighting with a country and then immediately leaving it in chaos (bear in mind the "Pottery Barn" doctrine). It advocates leaving as soon as is practicible, in order to avoid the circumstance which leads to the second greatest loss of life- guerilla war (ref. Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; current war in Iraq).

This is achievable because of the aforementioned elimination of military hardware as a primary goal- a nation doesn't need tanks, warships, missile launchers, and the like, to maintain internal order. It does need personnel for this task- personnel frequently left displaced after their tanks, warships, missile launchers, etc., have been destroyed. These same displaced personnel would, in a protracted occupation, be the instigators and primary participants in a guerilla campaign. So, the decision is to either leave quickly and allow them to police their own nation (ref. Operation Desert Storm), or stay and fight them as an insurgency (ref. current war in Iraq).

I hope this clears things up. Roundeyesamurai 06:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Still, overwhelming force is not a proportional means to a just war. Is there any conceivable situation in which overwhelming force doesn't violate proportionality? Overwhelming force is inherently not proportitional.
Marpeck 17:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Marpeck, I have to ask: Do you actually have military experience? It seems to me that you're trying to sound as though you have knowledge of a subject which you evidently do not.

"Proportionality" means exactly what I described: It prevents a nation with a very large army from "bullying" nations with very small armies. The fact that one side maneuvers multiple units together to engage a single unit, or that vehicles are used against infantry, or anything of that nature, doesn't violate the law of proportionality. It's simply sound tactical doctrine.

Your definition of "proportionality" would require that both sides in a battle be on precisely equal footing- not only is it impracticable, but it would result in an absolute slaughter on both sides (see the aforementioned examples of this phenomenon).

Aside: For the sake of clarity, I moved your comment to below mine, so that each user's comments may be read uninterrupted.

Roundeyesamurai 20:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Marpeck, you misunderstand what proportionality means. It doesn't mean your forces should be small, it means the casualties and damage you cause should be as low as possible. It means that your USE of force should be the lowest needed, but that says nothing about the SIZE of the force deployed. A huge army is huge but if it attacks no one then it causes less destruction than a bloodthirsty small army.
If you use a small force to attack the enemy, you will need to inflict a lot of damage in order to secure a surrender from the enemy, and there will be a lot of deaths. If you use a massive, hugely overwhelming amount of technology and/or troops then the enemy is far more likely to surrender with barely a shot being fired. In many cases during the first Gulf War that's exactly what happened, Iraqi units would surrender without even fighting because they knew the US forces were overwhelmingly more powerful.
In cases like these, deploying overwhelmingly powerful forces can actually be more proportional than a small number of troops, because an overwhelmingly more powerful army makes faster, less bloody surrenders far more likely, and so keeps casualties and damage to the lowest possible level.
The point I'm trying to make is there's a difference between having lots of soldiers and those soldiers actually causing a lot of destruction. Usually, having lots of soldiers actually means you're less likely to have to use them, because few countries want to start a war that they know they might lose.

[edit] Decisive Force

I recall Powell commenting on his doctrine in interviews saying that he has been misquoted. It is not necessarily overwhelming force that should be used in assuring victory. Rather one should use decisive force; that is the right mix of numbers of combatants, types of units, and equipment necessary to achieve victory. As others have stated above, the US would want to avoid the appearance of bullying or using inappropriate or disproportionate force to achieve its military and political goals. Also as alluded to above, overwhelming force connotes outnumbering one's enemies on the battlefield. However, with superior technology and better trained personnel, a smaller military force can achieve a decisive victory over a larger one. The US military is fond of talking about force multipliers--the notion that technology, training and tactics can allow one US soldier to do the job of several enemy soldiers. Anyway, I would challenge someone to do the research (sorry I'm too lazy!) to find out about "decisive force" and include more thorough citations in this article. Mego2005 15:32, 3 January 2007 (UTC)