Objectives or Bust!

6 October 2002

The National Security Strategy published last month has received at least one criticism, from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which calls the document the Bushnev Doctrine. That's just poking fun, I'm sure, but the point is well made by a recent Washington Times article entitled "Strategy by Slogan or Substance" by Harlan Ullman. Ullman writes, "the strategy focuses on symptoms not cures." Combine that with the current challenge in the Pentagon -- the search for the objective-- and you have an interesting problem.

The short list of objectives (in no particular order yet) we know from the newspapers includes:

1. Fight and end global terrorism
2. Change the regime from Saddam to something non-Saddam
3. Disarm Iraq
4. Freely inspect Iraq, including palaces and underground bunkers
5. Keep Iraq a single unified country
6. End of the Ba-ath Party as a functioning political entity in Iraq (and Syria?)
7. Increase Iraqi oil production
8. Liberate the Iraqi people
9. Liberate the Kurdish people and Turkmen in Iraq
10. Liberate the Shia in Iraq
11. Ensure the neighbors are safe from being targeted by Iraqi WMD
12. Ensure our neighbors of safe from being targeted by Iraqi WMD
13. Find the WMD and destroy it
14. Build Iraq into a free, prosperous nation that sings "America the Beautiful" in three part harmony.

Well, that's just from scanning the headlines in the Early Bird and chatting with friends. We are supposed to have a National Military Strategy where we put some meat on the bones of the military role in the National Security Strategy, and I hope that is coming soon. But if the list above represents some (not even all) of the objectives, we have three problems. First, the list is too long. Second, only a couple of these can be best done by the U.S. Armed Forces. And third, none of these can be done well by the U.S. Armed Forces unless the actions taken are part of a larger political strategy, a larger resource pool and an extremely comprehensive plan that accommodates the "what ifs" we know are out there.

How do these objections to the objectives play out?

Too many "objectives"? Well, this is a new kind of war. Where have you been?

Some items not necessarily the forte of the U.S. Armed Forces? Well, that's what "transformation" is all about, dummy.

Is there a larger strategy than just an attack plan? Well, don't you lose any sleep over that one, Mister. You are in good hands, some of the best minds of Wall Street, big city litigation and academia are all over it.

OK, well, I guess we'll do it then.

The contradictions in meeting all of the objectives are apparent; in fact some are so mutually exclusive that it modifies the second problem statement to "None of these can be best done by the U.S. Armed Forces."

Fighting a war with one hand tied is reminiscent of Vietnam, but perhaps the strategists making the strategy don't know much about Vietnam, having been occupied elsewhere at the time.

Fighting an inane war of countervailing yet simultaneous objectives/constraints is something Yossarian would know about. At least in Catch-22,Yossarian could make some strange and profitable sense of his situation. It's not clear that our military men and women will be able to do the same.