by Mark Silva
Don't start, don't strike:
There are more than a few policies under review at the Pentagon these days. The Pentagon is reviewing the Bush administration's doctrine of preemptive military strikes with an eye to modifying or possibly ending it, Bloomberg News reports.
The international environment is "more complex" than when President George W. Bush announced the policy in 2002, Kathleen Hicks, the Defense Department's deputy undersecretary for strategy, says in an interview. "We'd really like to update our use-of-force doctrine to start to take account for that."
The doctrine is being reassessed as part of the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review of strategy, force structure and weapons programs, a review which Hicks oversses. "We are looking very explicitly at use of force and use of forces," she says. "We are looking at how to articulate the use of the U.S. military instrument -- how we use military force to achieve national objectives."
Congress requires the administration to report its national security strategy annually, and it requires the Pentagon to reassess its policies and war-fighting doctrine every four years. The Obama administration will state its security doctrine for the first time as part of the Pentagon's review, which will be given to Congress in February.
Obama's predecessor framed his doctrine of preemptive strike in a speech at West Point in June 2002. The U.S. asserted a right to attack a threat that was gathering, not just imminent, a doctrine used to support military action against Iraq to enforce a United Nations resolutions requiring Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to allow inspections for suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
The doctrine says the U.S. "will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively....In an age where enemies of civilization openly and actively seek the world's most destructive technologies, the United States cannot remain idle while dangers gather.''
James Mann, an author in residence at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, tells Bloomberg that the doctrine "was presented as not just the 'right'" to strike "before you are about to be attacked, but as an entirely new strategy for dealing with the world."
"I don't think the Obama people believe preemption should be defined in this incredibly broad sense -- and I think they feel -- with some reason -- the broad definition really lost American support in the rest of the world," said Mann, author of Rise of the Vulcans, a 2004 history of Bush's war cabinet.
Comments
The very same Neocon war mongers who demanded that we blow off Afghanistan and invade Iraq are currently the same nutjobs (McCain etc) who are demanding that Pres Obama bomb Iran and turn Afghanistan into Vietnam II.
We need to quit listening to these fools who only have the best interests $$$$ of the Military Industrial Complex in mind and could care less how much blood and treasure we spill.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-eyuFBrWHs
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Posted by: Jilly | October 15, 2009 2:06 PM
Let's just hope that it's defined at all, unlike Hope or Change or Unemployment. Defining the present in the future, or ass backwards, doesn't work for everything, like the military; that's George Bush's territory. Victory before defeat.
Posted by: MistyMay | October 15, 2009 4:13 PM
No need to worry anymore...obama is president and the world is in love with us now.
The Russian's can come here anytime and inspect our secret nuke sights...
obama has loosened controls on missile technologies so he can share them with the Chinese (like B.J. Clinton did)...
And of course no missile defense shields for Poland because Iran will love us in due time.
The liberal utopian dream is finally here... the wife of a failed president and a community organizer have it all handled.
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | October 15, 2009 4:54 PM
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The liberal utopian dream is finally here... the wife of a failed president and a community organizer have it all handled.Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | October 15, 2009 4:54 PM
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Yeah, now where did I put those damn WMD's again?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKX6luiMINQ
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Posted by: Shrub Jr | October 15, 2009 6:01 PM
I thought George Bush and The Dick Cheney already defeated Al-Qaeda?
"If only the President of the United States (Bush) had gone into Afghanistan and concentrated on rebuilding the country properly, instead of seeking to impose his vision of a modern, democratic state which is so unrealistic, and continued to exercise non-military pressures on Iraq by international means, the prospects of a significant legacy of George W Bush might have been infinitely brighter."
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http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/view/65494
Posted by: Steven | October 15, 2009 6:13 PM
Let's just hope that it's defined at all, unlike Hope or Change or Unemployment. Defining the present in the future, or ass backwards, doesn't work for everything, like the military; that's George Bush's territory. Victory before defeat.
Posted by: MistyMay | October 15, 2009 4:13 PM
Nice wingnut fantasy. The proper chronology, starting with 9/10/01, is:
9/11/01: Horrible failure due to neglect and incompetence; thousands dead due to laziest, dumbest POTUS ever doing nothing to prevent terrorism.
10//01: Start of an ill-planned, ill-conceived war that has no end in sight 8 years later.
3/03: Start of an ill-planned, ill-conceived war of choice that has no end in sight 6.5 years later.
Bush is a failure and a loser, at least judging by the evidence. Your whack job fantasies mean nothing to anyone with a brain.
Posted by: a blinkin | October 15, 2009 6:30 PM
This is non-news. The Pentagon doesn’t dictate war policy. Congress does and so does the President as CiC. Congress wouldn’t dare declare war or authorize the use of force (as if there is any difference) without a request from Obama. It is also a fair bet that Obama would never agree to launch an attack based on a preemptive strike policy ala Bush. In which case, who cares what the Pentagon thinks?
Posted by: John W. | October 15, 2009 7:02 PM
Heard of ask don't tell?
Hope no change . . .
Posted by: Bobbie Mobbie | October 15, 2009 7:04 PM
Posted by: a blinkin | October 15, 2009 6:30 PM
a blinkin, care to spell out what supposed fantasy I'm supposedly referring to? Or were you painstakingly trying to support what I said? Slow.
Posted by: MistyMay | October 15, 2009 8:15 PM
Knowing that a single atomic bomb in a major city in this country would cripple the entire national economy as well as kill hundreds of thousands of people, we certainly would not want one of our many enemies to fear that we just might hit them first to avoid such a catastrophe. Would we? Iran, North Korea, Syria et al must just salivate at the current lunacy in Washington.
Posted by: Hamilton | October 15, 2009 10:15 PM
a blinkin, care to spell out what supposed fantasy I'm supposedly referring to? Or were you painstakingly trying to support what I said? Slow.
Posted by: MistyMay | October 15, 2009 8:15 PM
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No Teresa, he's laughing at you and the people who pay you - as we all are.
Posted by: K | October 15, 2009 10:23 PM
MistyMay: The fantasy is the concept of "victory before defeat," when very clearly there was defeat -- 9/11 -- followed by two wars which certainly cannot be called victories. Other than your proposition being the mirror opposite of fact, it's not a fantasy, I suppose.
Posted by: a blinkin | October 15, 2009 11:59 PM
No Teresa, he's laughing at you and the people who pay you - as we all are.
Posted by: K | October 15, 2009 10:23 PM
I thought he was a she that worked for the Obama grassroots movement. It doesn't matter much anyway. Tell me how do you manage with all those voices laughing in your head? Since "they" seem to conflict with you're cognitive abilities I'll translate. Hope ultimately defined by the future. Change ultimately defined by the future. Unemployment rate ultimately defined by the future, 10 v. 8. Pre-emptive strike ultimately defined by the possibility of future threat. Bush declared victory before defeat could even happen; before the war was over or the worst of the worst damage to life, limb, and treasure could occur. Ass backwards is risky business because ultimately it's defeined and depended on the future, but not as risky as .... when it comes to the military or it's use. It wasn't a compliment. Try again, thanks for playing. Oh, and good night a blinkin.
Posted by: MistyMay | October 16, 2009 12:52 AM
MistyMay:
You communicate in bumperstickers..."victory before defeat." This means nothing once you consider the facts. Presumably what you're saying is that by attacking Iraq and Afgh.preemptively GWB has prevented other terrorist attacks. That of course is "after, therefore because of" logic (fallacy). You need to show causation, which you cannot do.
Al Queda, OBL, terrorism, boxcutters and highjacking existed well before GWB. Yet before GWB there was no 9/11 or anything close to it.
Has there been another 9/11 since? No. But again there was not one before then either. Isn't it just as plausible to note that post- 9/11 the Govt and the whole country were far more aware of the threat and that, therefore, whatever we failed to do on 9/11 we've actually been doing since? Better scrutiny, connecting the dots, etc.
We know Bush's preemptive wars have caused extraordinary damage to us and others, to put it blandly. We're well aware of the negatives. Yet we have nothing but but bad ogic to suggest that they were beneficial.
I call "victory before defeat" stuff "fantasy" because I genuinely suspect that Bush supporters, like you, are stuck with a horrible dose of cognitive dissonance: you supported these wars,etc. and yet your rational side tells you that they were, in fact, disasters -- thousands are dead because of these disasters you supported. So you come up with these fantasies to help reconcile and make you feel less bad about supporting a truly awful set of actions.
I am not a shrink; I only play one on a blog. But I think you folks need to start the healing process by acknowledging reality, and not pretending that probably the worst strategic blunders in our history were good things.
Posted by: a blinkin | October 16, 2009 10:07 AM
To be entirely honest with you I'd love to respond to everything you said, but because I DONT feel as you have me feel, I DONT support what you have me support, I rarely care for people or arguments entirely bent on setting history in stone. I'll leave that up to historians. (Please understand that this may read harsher over an internet medium than I have intended. I'm not going to pretend to be the devils advocate today. Sooo over it. I'll try to give it one good half go.) I will say you did presume, you read an argument into what really is a comment on the "fallacy" of the doctrine (so we agree). I just find this "fallacy" riskier in some contexts than others. The bottom line that we'd be fighting over would be the "risky" part (this coincides with your, "yet we have nothing but bad logic to suggest that they were beneficial" part.) It would only put me in a position to agree, but point out that logic is nice in a rarely logical world. It keeps us grounded in a non-man made world. We do things with one intention, and it results in multitude of chain reactions. You may never know what impact you really had, but the possibility that your "bad" action had an unintended equal and opposite "good reaction" is still there. (In politics this is magnified, even monopolized on, politicized) Now, let me be presumptuous, and say people like you are so busy making sure that no one forgets what a complete an utter disaster Bush was every time someone has anything positive to say about that side of history (looking up the bright/ rather less dimmer side) that you fail to realize that "revisionism" (popular with Democrats, a smear used by Republicans who depend on it to support "preemptive-strike" doctrines) isn't all that dangerous when factually supported (it can enlighten the past) and DOESNT erase what is already there. You have to be honest a blinkin, we're dealing with wars based on ideas. (This opens up a whole other world of worms.) Hitler exterminated based on the idea of a "cleaner" world. That's what he intended. He soiled it in blood instead. BUT, if it wasn't for him we don't know what the world would be like. Would we be as sensitive to human plight, and international inter-dependence (I know caution.) ? Maybe my "fantasy" derives itself from the reality that there is a person, place, event for everything. There is reason why people have the ability to kill and heal. AND, it all breathes and responds in an organic fashion. I think what's at the heart of this is "if it wasn't for Bush Obama wouldn't have anything to implement/further esp in the cradle of civilization." Just another way of referencing the "lowering the bar, raising the bar" concept." Maybe "anything" is too harsh of a word, but I'm sure you can imagine what it would look like should Bush never had happened and Obama was elected while approaching the world or that side of the world. He'd be just as appreciated no doubt. He's got that Reagan Clinton American spirit and charisma, BUT also American policies. Instead of seeing American as the once bright city on a hill that lost it's way and back to some extent, our new found interest in the world (a symbol of a worldly America, a different America,a changed America) , or esp Iraq Afghanistan Iran, it would have been looked upon as unwelcome American imperialism; vs genuine want and need to change things. I hope I shed some light on my "fantasy" enough for you to understand. I don't want to argue the past. It wasn't my original intention, but hey, you know.
Posted by: MistyMay | October 16, 2009 1:39 PM
a blinkin try reading history and not making it up. That is all the time I'll waste on you.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | October 16, 2009 2:28 PM
"Isn't it just as plausible to note that post- 9/11 the Govt and the whole country were far more aware of the threat and that, therefore, whatever we failed to do on 9/11 we've actually been doing since? Better scrutiny, connecting the dots, etc."
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Obviously we weren't "far more" aware if we failed on 9/11, and consequently have done things "better" since. We obviously changed something to make it better.
Posted by: hmmm | October 16, 2009 7:07 PM
Misty May:
Bottom line is it's your hunch, your risk assessment, that says preemptive strikes proved beneficial. No evidence in support. Sorry, that's not good enough.
Hmm:
Do we really need to slow it down that much for you. Richard Clarke stated directly and forcefully that the GWB admin failed to pick up on the anti-terror efforts taken by Clinton admin. He is no partisan; he was a career vwho also served GHWB.
So: 1) there is evidence we were "better" before GWB; and 2) we know that 9/11 happened on Bush's watch; 3) we have no evidence -- just pure fantasy -- that preemptive wars in Iraq and Afgh. did anything positive. It's far from "obvious" that the Bush doctrine has done anything other than destroy. Facts, not wingnut fantasy, must prevail.
Crooks:
I watched with interest while the history unfolded. You can remain in denial all you want.
Quiz: 1) What were Bush's anti-terrorism iniatives pre-911?
2) What did the drunken idiot do the entire month of August, 2001
Extra credit: What was Bush's big initiative in the summer 2001? Hint: sounds like "them sell t-shirts."
Facts matter, chump.
Posted by: a blinkin | October 17, 2009 11:10 AM
It's hard to label something a defeat when we're argueing there was nothing in place to contest it.
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Fact: September 11, 2001 was an attack.
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Posted by: hmmm | October 17, 2009 3:13 PM
1) there is evidence we were "better" before GWB;
2) we know that 9/11 happened on Bush's watch;
3) we have no evidence
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FACT:Comparing PREVENTION and RESPONSE MEASURES pre-911, including pre-Bush, and PREVENTION and RESPONSE MEASURES post-911 we were not "far more aware" when clearly we do things "better" now. We do far more now, and did not just adopt what Bush failed to do.
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Fact :Comparing the amount of terrorist plots foiled as a result of prevention and response measures pre-911, including pre-Bush, and amount of terrorist plots foiled as a result of prevention and response measures post-911 would be a better measure of our effectiveness or our awareness. Classified.
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Fact: Evidence of being "better" before GWB, 9-11 happened on GWB's watch, we have no evidence that preemptive wars in Iraq and Afgh blah blah. weakly connecting the dots. Centered around circumstantial character assassination rather than search for empirical evidence.
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Fact: All you need is one. One totalitarian regime hanging from the ceiling, one high ranking terrorist official killed on the battle field as evidence supporting the Bush doctrine.
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Fact: Iraq is a democracy, our military has been acclimated to modern guerrilla warfare, age old dynamics of the region have changed
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Fact: We don't know if the lack of positives is a result of the preemptive strike, and/or poor carryout. Afghanistan is a democracy...on pins and needles. Afghanistan poppy trade curbed... to comeback. Afghanistan's Taliban past... to resurgence. Afghanistan terrorists on the run... to recruitment.
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Fact: The wars were and are a destructive burden.
Posted by: hmmm | October 17, 2009 8:58 PM