28 August 2014 -
Inattention or inability; the outcome is the same
During the year I attended Air Force War College at
Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, we discussed
how successful national foreign policy strategy must be based on a clear
national vision of what America should be in the world, what our compelling
interests are, and how determined we are to protect those interests. Since World War Two, successful presidents
have prioritized our compelling national interests based on the circumstances
of the era; but because they followed the same general decision-making
structure, most of the successes have been bipartisan.
At War College, we discussed at length how a workable
international strategy, to include the military portion, must tie objectives specifically
to the presidents’ vision and doctrine. The
military then builds a number of operational plans—campaign plans—to help achieve
those objectives if called upon. Overall
military manning, training, and equipment levels are then funded to
successfully execute those plans.
The national command authority, guided by an engaged
president and supported by our intelligence community’s assessments of world events,
constantly reviews, adjusts and refines the nation’s vision, doctrine and national
strategy. In turn, our military’s
operational plans and structure are adjusted to meet our nation’s response to
world events. The key to success in
international affairs is constant engagement in the professional process, and
faithful adherence to its proven methods of decision-making. As they say in the business: the plan is nothing; planning is
everything.
In the last twenty years, thousands of senior military
officers and civilians have been trained in our military and diplomatic
strategic-level schools. Thousands of
Americans now in the military and State Department can build a legitimate diplomatic/military/economic
strategy to reinvigorate alliances, to defeat Islamic jihadists, to stop
Russian and Chinese adventurism in Eastern Europe and the Far East, to stop
Iran’s nuclear program, and to coerce despots everywhere to rein in their
challenges to U.S. interests. This high
level of expert strategic and operational planning has been the hallmark of
U.S. international success since World War Two.
Not to give planners something to base their efforts upon is foolhardy
and dangerous, and has been a singular point of failure of a number of administrations.
Today the failure rests with the President. In six years, he has not produced a clear
vision or any kind of international doctrine that could enable strategic
planners to build worthwhile plans.
No
doctrine. No strategy. No military or diplomatic focus. No bipartisan support. No way to determine success.
The
proof is obvious. The president
half-heartedly led and then abandoned wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Regional peace has completely evaporated and
U.S. interests have been quashed in both regions. Mr. Obama’s earlier, pointless bombing campaign in Libya
was well executed, but the unintended consequence of getting rid of Gadhafi was
Islamic power mongers taking over. The
debacle in Benghazi resulted from these jihadists’ rise to power.
The
President’s lifeless leadership in NATO has allowed Turkey to drift toward
radicalism and to abandon its role as a moderating influence in the Levant. He shamelessly abandoned Eastern Europe to
its own devices, inviting Russia’s President Putin to seize the Crimea and
dominate Eastern Ukraine. In the Far
East, the President’s lack of support for our Asian allies allows China to treat
the South China Sea as its sovereign lake.
Finally,
the President’s inability to recognize that the massive migration of illegal
immigrants across our southern border is a strategic threat to the sovereignty
of the United States shows that he simply does not understand what is vital to
U.S. long-term interests.
The
President has plenty of expert strategic and operational analysts and planners
throughout our military and diplomatic departments to help him succeed on the
international level. They really want to
help the President to succeed; it is part of their professional ethos. Most of his political opponents also want him
to succeed as our Commander-in-Chief and as the international representative of
our sovereignty. But, without a clear
vision of what national interests need to be protected and why, strategic plans
will go unwritten, allies will seek their own counsel and way forward, and
determined enemies will rush into the international power vacuum.
Worst
of all, when, without vision, doctrine, or a well-constructed strategic plan, the
President decides to hurriedly put “boots on the ground,” our soldiers will die.
No comments:
Post a Comment