Summary: a quick look at the basis of America’s post-WWII grand strategy, and why it no longer works. Ninth in a series of notes , we discuss solutions.
Regeneration
America is a State, not a person. The arrow of time points only one way for an individual, but nations are reborn every generation. It’s outside the scope of this series to discuss how America can reclaim itself and become what we wish to be. But clearly our current condition offers little hope for ambitious foreign policy goals, let alone the expeditions or crusades that have seized the imagination of many in our intelligentsia. The nation is too weak (bills coming due from years of feckless policies) and the institutional apparatus that conducts foreign policy — both diplomatic and military — is almost dysfunctional.
We have a sound theoretical basis for reform, as described in these posts, based on the work in the field loosely called fourth generation warfare. Unfortunately we do not know how to apply it.
Getting America’s Government Fit to Implement a Grand Strategy
The early history of Communism provides a relevant parallel. Marx’s theories might have remained historical curiosities if Lenin had not developed a method for forcible regime change — under the suitable conditions. Perhaps we need a Lenin to “operationalize” Boyd’s theories. This might mean, in effect lawfully waging 4GW war on our own bureaucracies, as a means to force their evolution. Perhaps this requires a peaceful institutional “revolution.”
We must reform the massive “arms” of our foreign policy machinery, the Departments of Defense (DoD) and State (DoS), so they can successfully operate in a 4GW world. Otherwise we’ll be in effect running sail-powered navies in the Age of Steam. The DNI site has many articles detailing the crippling managerial, financial, and operational flaws of the US DoD. This is relatively well understood.
DoS is in worse shape, perhaps the weakest of our national security agencies — and almost ignored by 4GW experts (who focus on DoD and the intelligence agencies). Crippled since the 1950’s “who lost China” blame game and the following McCarthy-era witch-hunts, reform of the State Department might be the most difficult task on the 4GW “To Do” List.
It’s no secret. Journalists have long described how the weakness of State vs. Defense has influenced the course of the War. Note this incisive analysis:
Dealing with the military, the President learned, was an awesome thing. The failure of their estimates along the way, point by point, meant nothing. It did not follow, as one might expect, that their credibility was diminished and that there was now less pressure from them, but the reverse. … Once activated they would soon dominate the play. Their power with the Hill and with journalists, their stronger hold on patriotic-machismo arguments (in decision making they proposed the manhood positions, their opponents the softer, sissy, positions), their particular certitude, make them far more power players then those raising doubts. …
These years show, in the American system, how when a question of the use of force arose in government, the advocates of force were always better organized, seemed more numerous and seemed to have both logic and fear on their side, and that in fending them off in his own government, a President needed all the help he possibly could get, not the least a powerful Secretary of State. …
{What we have instead is} a forceful, determined, hard-working, intelligent man who was in charge of the political aspects of American policy, and he would have made a very great Secretary of Defense, it was his natural constituency.
This nicely describes Secretary of State Colin Powell’s role in the Iraq War. Sadly for America, it was written about Secretary Rusk’s role in the Vietnam War, an excerpt from The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam. Our inability to fix long-known problems is a major symptom of our institutions’ weaknesses.
Seeing today’s State Department, it’s difficult to recall that it was long considered the senior department of the Executive Branch (ref the Secretary of State’s status as #4 in the succession to the Presidency). Appropriately so, as State should be the center wheel of our geo-political machinery.
- State is everywhere on the front lines, the nerve ends of our Government’s international sensory systems.
- Negotiations with State and non-State actors are the routine between (hopefully infrequent) armed conflicts, and that is largely State’s role.
State is the natural counter-weight to DoD. In a parochial society such as ours the State Department staff should be those best able to understand the outside world in any fullness, in a multidimensional fashion. It has experts with a depth of foreign experience unmatched by other Government agencies – unlike the academics in the CIA or the military professionals in DoD.
Deep knowledge of foreign cultures and their leaders is necessary for success in a multi-polar world. We’ll need people like Robert Clive and Sir Richard Burton, and State is where they’re most likely to find a home in our bureaucracy. But not, of course, in today’s State Department. Nor anywhere in the US Government apparatus, which often rejects people with great initiative and expertise as surely as your body rejects foreign bacilli.
Conclusion
American history offers no precedent for institutional changes of this magnitude. The recent re-organization of the Homeland Security agencies – a much smaller project – does not provide grounds for optimism. There might be no precedents for reform of such large, entrenched organizations.
Perhaps this should be the next focus for discussion by experts on 4GW warfare: how to turn 4GW theories into plans for the reform of the US Government. This appears a precondition for implementation of any Grand Strategy for the United States of America.
Afterword
If you are new to this site, please glance at the archives below. You may find answers to your questions in these.
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For more information from the FM site
To read other articles about these things, see the FM reference page on the right side menu bar. Of esp relevance to this topic:
- Posts about America’s national defence appartatus
- Posts about Military and strategic theory (note the section about “grand strategy)
Posts on the FM site about the State Department:
- Truly cracked advice to the State Department, receiving wide applause, 13 February 2008
- Ready, Aim, “foreign policy” away, 7 March 2008
- The State Department needs help, stat!, 22 December 2008
