Five Rules for Going to War

The Weinberger-Powell Doctrine served the United States well as a set of principles to guide the careful use of the military. Christopher A. Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, argues that President Obama's incursion into Libya means that this doctrine is officially dead.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/weinbergerpowell-doctrine-r-i-p/

Christopher A. Preble is author of The Power Problem: How American Military Dominance Makes Us Less Safe, Less Prosperous, and Less Free. Order your copy at http://store.cato.org.

Video produced by Caleb O. Brown and Austin Bragg.

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[Liqu1d16]

1. you must be a natural born citizen of the united states.

2. you need at least 1 Iraqi, afghan or arab target..

3. sell weapons to the respective country.

4. make the right propaganda. meaning, you need to make sure every news station tells the exact same story. make them look evil.

5. remember, the president is always right.

[Thorbie]

Bush's foreign policy + Carter's leadership

[flubno]

To get around all the things you need in place to start a war, is to not declare war but call it something else. That is what Presidents both Dem and Republican have done, starting with Vietnam, desert storm, Iraq, iran , Afganistan, panama, grenada, Serbia. They call it an operation, UN resolution, ocupation, ect ect.... Just don't call it war and you don't have to deal with Congress. They are the ones who can declare war, not the president.

[albearangel]

@luftwaffle to your 2nd comment [cont]: It's true that there is an element of civpro in COIN doctrine, but this (again) is not the mission. It's a strategy to achieve the primary goals. Conversely the goal of MAPRO is explicitly the protection of civilians from mass atrocities. I should be clear here that the use of force is one option of many and should be used only as a very last resort where it can actually be successful. The U.S. would certainly not be "policing" the world as you suggest.

[albearangel]

@luftwaffle to your 1st comment [cont]: As I stated clearly in my original post the military mission to protect civilians from mass atrocities is in our national interest and that this is separate from the objective of ousting a dictator. I also never argued that ousting dictators should be something that the U.S. is involved in, let alone pursuing through military means. To your 2nd comment: The U.S. isn't in Afghanistan to protect civilians. That's not the mission and shouldn't be conflated...

[albearangel]

@luftwaffle to your 1st comment [cont]: The National Defense University has been doing get work in this area. The Genocide Prevention Task Force co-chaired by former Secretary of Defense William Cohen (a republican) came out with a report that clearly underscored that preventing and responding to mass atrocities was in the national interest. The Pentagon is working on a program called Mass Atrocity Prevention and Response Operations (MAPRO) b/c developing civpro doctrine is a national interest.

[albearangel]

@luftwaffle to your 1st comment: I should have cited more than Congress and WH, but will all due respect to Congress there are Senators who know what they're talking about from both sides of the aisle that get that civilian protect (civpro) is in U.S. national interests. Additional to them is a whole host of bipartisan supporters, including military experts, military officers, former diplomats, think tank wonks, non-governmental organizations, etc...

[luftwaffle]

@albearangel "Protection of civilians" isn't something that has an end to it, which is precisely why we're stuck in Afghanistan after 10 years. A more reasonable goal would be "utterly destroy regime's military until they surrender," but that would elevate the tone of our intervention to a point that most people would disagree with. "Protect civilians" sounds better but it's a mask to what's really going on (using expensive ordinance to blow things up)

[luftwaffle]

@albearangel Just because the Congress and the White House say it's in our national interest does not make it so. You've taken an extremely wide interpretation of "national interest." Ousting a foreign dictator has nothing to do with the United States. If it did, we'd be in a constant state of war. Oh wait, we already are, and it's killing us. American taxpayers should not be responsible for policing the world, they should be spending their money how they wish to spend it.

[albearangel]

5. Exhausted all available options: The U.S. government had no other choice but to move forward on the no-fly zone given the pending massacre in Benghazi. In fact, they delayed SO long that they almost missed the window to save lives. The U.S. and international community had taken action to implement other options, but Qaddafi continued to massacre civilians. Military action was the last resort.

[albearangel]

4. Clear military mission: Protection of civilians through a no-fly zone and "no-drive" zone is the military mission. The U.S. Administration has been clear that other goals (i.e.: Qaddafi removed from power) would NOT be achieved militarily. They've been clear on this point.

[albearangel]

3. Costs and Consequences Considered: These were weighed with what analysts overwhelmingly saw to be a pending massacre in Benghazi. It was evident as well that the U.S. would limit costs through burden sharing and shortly thereafter transitioning our responsibilities to other nations.