US Military Force and Operations Other Than War

<p>Strategic decision makers have long recognized the paramount importance to the state and to the people of decisions for war or peace. Such decisions must be taken with utmost deliberation. Careful evaluation of a specific situation against rigorous criteria should always precede each decision to employ US military force (e.g. combat force in a hostile environment). As a minimum these criteria must establish for the strategic decision maker an assessment of acceptability--political support of our leadership and eventually our populace feasibility--appropriate levels of forces and resources and suitability--well-defined objectives matched by an effective plan. Current US Strategy for Engagement and Enlargement recognizes the importance of such criteria but fails fully to develop rigor in its application. The rejected Weinberger Doctrine may have been too restrictive for strategic decision makers in the rigor of its acceptability test. We mustdevelop comprehensive acceptability feasibility and suit-abilitycriteria that correct these polar deficiencies or risk strategic failure by incorrectly determining the kind of war on which we are embarking. Nowhere is this risk greater than in operations other than war. The military missions disguised by this misleadingly benign rubric must be carefully analyzed for potential risk of combat. When measured against threat to sovereignty and hostility of environment the 28 doctrinal military missions of OOTW clearly demonstrate a broad range: high risk (category I) clearly combat missions; moderate risk (category II) benign intent but significant combat potential; low risk (category III) clearly humanitarian missions. Each of these categories possesses its own unique acceptability feasibility and suitability challenges; however unless the specific use of combat force or military mission is critically examined a political ends to military means dysfunction can occur.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>