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Orchestrating the Instruments of National Power
Are U.S. military forces aligned with the needs of the twenty-first century? Is the overarching
national security system aligned with those needs? The answer to the first question must wait on
an answer to the second, and neither question can be answered without reference to the national
security strategy, which has been anything but consistent since the end of the Cold War.
Depending on the chosen strategy, military force structure is about right or it could be wildly out
of alignment.
Current operations in Afghanistan and Iraq offer convincing evidence that the U.S. government
is hard pressed to meet its objectives in a timely and predictable manner. Because of the
prominent role played by the military in these operations, it is tempting to conclude that the
military instrument is out of alignment with the needs of the twenty-first century and to
recommend realignment within the uniformed services. But the symptoms of misalignment of
military force structure are a direct product of post-Cold War national security strategies that are
demonstrably unsustainable. A restructuring of the force is ill advised without a thoughtful
examination of U.S. grand strategy.
National security strategy, or grand strategy, is not a strategy to win a war in Iraq or Afghanistan,
nor is it about winning a war on terrorism. Grand strategy is about assuring America’s place in
the world. It guides the use of power—all instruments of power—in pursuit of larger national
interests. The instruments of national power include military, informational, diplomatic, law
enforcement, intelligence, financial, and economic instruments. The military is but one
instrument of power.
Strategies link ends (objectives), ways (methods of operation), and means (resources). Post-Cold
War presidents greatly expanded the ends of strategy while Congress reduced the means. The
combatant commanders are stuck in the middle trying to find ways to accomplish expanded ends
with reduced means. In the sense that strategies are equations linking and balancing ends, ways,
and means, the United States has not had a strategy since the end of the Cold War.
There are at least four policy expressions of grand strategy. One is declaratory policy, what we
say we will do. It is designed to influence friends and enemies alike without the expenditure of
other resources. The president’s national security strategy document, required by GoldwaterNichols legislation, is the primary source of declaratory policy, but public announcements by
government officials are also included. Employment policy, on the other hand, is about what we
actually do, rather than what we say we will do, to assure our place in the world. In between are
force development policy and force deployment policy.1 The former is about the forces we
maintain and the forces we are building. The latter is about where the force is deployed in times
of peace and in anticipation of employment. If our employment and declaratory policies are too
far out of alignment, then declaratory policy loses credibility and ceases to inexpensively
influence others. If our force development policy provides insufficient force structure, then the
declaratory policy it undergirds is incredible, and the employment policy it implements leads to
exhaustion.
The original question posed—is military force structure aligned with the needs of the twenty-first
century—can be answered only conditioned on the choice of grand strategy. The remainder of
this paper attempts to provide an answer to that question. To facilitate the presentation, a few
Orchestrating the Instruments of National Power
terms must be defined first. The national security system, created in 1947, is then described,
including the critical characteristics of military force structure. The post-Cold War strategies are
then presented in a way that exposes the requirements imposed on the national security system.
Finally, the conditional answer to the central question is given.
Major Wars and Small Wars
The difference between major wars and small wars is not measured by the number of forces
committed, the number of casualties, or the war’s duration. The Marine Corps’ Small Wars
Manual of 1940 provides characteristic differences that serve as definitions.2

Major wars are conducted between “first rate” powers. Small wars are the interactions
between a major power and a lesser power, typically failed or failing states.

“In a major war, diplomatic relations are summarily severed at the beginning of the
struggle. [In small wars] diplomacy does not relax its grip on the situation.”

“In a major war, the mission assigned to the armed forces is usually unequivocal—the
defeat and destruction of the hostile forces.” “The motive in small wars is not material
destruction. It is usually a project dealing with the social, economic, and political
development of the people.” [In small wars] “the mission will be to establish and
maintain law and order by supporting or replacing civil government.”

In major wars, the organized forces of peer states seek decisive battle. In small wars, the
forces of a major power often clash with irregular forces, and the conflict typically
degenerates into guerrilla warfare. “Irregular troops may disregard, in part or entirely,
International Law and the Rules of Land Warfare in their conduct of hostilities.”

“In major warfare, hatred of the enemy is developed among troops to arouse courage. In
small wars, tolerance, sympathy, and kindness should be the keynote of our relationship
with the mass of the population.”
Common characteristics of small wars include failed and failing states that internally cannot
meet the needs of their citizens and cannot meet their external obligations to the international
system of states. Friendly countries may invite assistance with counterinsurgency operations.
Functioning “rogue states” may choose not to meet their obligations. In those cases, regime
change may be accomplished by forcible entry and force-on-force combat or it may be
accomplished by proinsurgency operations. Common to all are operations to build and strengthen
the capacities of government institutions.
Small wars is an expression common to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, often
associated with the colonial period. Other imprecise expressions abound, including low-intensity
conflict, military operations other than war, peace operations, and complex contingencies. The
British often spoke of assistance to civil authorities.3 Lacking precise, agreed upon terms, we
will refer to this class of intervention by the old name of small war. We will refer to operations to
improve government institutions as national building, whether nation building takes place in a
permissive environment or as an integral part of a small war.
An orientation on major wars accommodates, and even encourages, a military instrument
isolated from the other instruments of power. In major war, the diplomats are called home,
treaties and commercial ties are abrogated, and the military is sent into battle force on force.
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Orchestrating the Instruments of National Power
During the Second World War and the Cold War, to assure vital interests, the need was for an
industrial-age force to win in a clash of titans. That is a force ill suited to small wars.
An orientation on small wars demands the orchestration of all instruments of national power,
perhaps as an extension of the diplomatic arm. A force for small wars is man-centric, not
equipment centric. The need to orchestrate multiple instruments of power requires us to expand
our scope beyond the military establishment to examine the overarching national security
establishment. Military operations must be integrated with, not isolated from, the operations of
other agencies of government.
The National Security System
Prior to the Second World War, the nation had two distinct mechanisms for using force. Below
the threshold of declared war, the president, through the secretary of state, and in turn through
the secretary of the navy, used force as part of coercive diplomacy. An ambassador backed by a
gunboat in the harbor was well positioned to negotiate treaties. Marines could be landed if
necessary. The secretary of war stood by with voluminous plans to mobilize the country should
Congress decide to declare war and raise an army. And only the president, as commander in
chief of the armed forces, sat above the separate and equal secretaries of war and navy.
But in major war, the operations of the military and naval services need to be integrated, and that
proved problematic in World War II, as it had in previous wars. Unification following the war,
and reforms made throughout the Cold War, produced a single mechanism—the Department of
Defense—and a more isolated military instrument well suited to war between great powers.
The design of today’s national security system—codified in the National Security Act of 1947—
is based on the lessons of World War II.4 The Act attempted a degree of unification of the
intelligence community by establishing the Central Intelligence Agency. The Act gave statutory
authority to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to unify the advice from the individual service chiefs. The
separate departments of army, air force, and navy, were unified under the new secretary of
defense, who was the president’s principal assistant for military (and naval) matters. The
National Security Council was authorized as an advisory body to the president with the charter to
integrate the domestic, foreign, and military policies of the United States related to national
security, but it was given no executive authority.
The system was refined throughout the Cold War, another great power conflict. Defense
Secretary Robert McNamara identified three distinct levels of conflict to guide force
development policy. High-intensity conflict was characterized by large-scale exchange of
strategic nuclear weapons, and mid-intensity conflict was dominated by the clash of conventional
forces in multiple theaters—major war. Low-intensity conflict was characterized by the
engagement of U.S. forces with the irregular forces of the third world—small wars.
There were several reforms during the Cold War. Many of the reforms clarified and sharpened
the chain of command from the president to the commander in the field, and many reforms
improved the ability of the separate uniformed forces to operate jointly. The ability of the
separate agencies of government to operate jointly atrophied.
The Cold War can be described along two separate axes. Assuring U.S. national security during
the Cold War was dominated by the logic of an ideological competition between East and West.
The logic of North and South—that of the developed and the underdeveloped world—persisted
but was dealt with in the context of the East-West competition.
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Orchestrating the Instruments of National Power
Throughout the Cold War, the East-West struggle dominated force development policy. Plans for
major war in Europe, Korea, and the Pacific, and plans for strategic nuclear war, provided the
basis of force development policy. Employment policy involved frequent use of force along the
North-South axis including interventions in Central America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and
Africa, but these had little influence on force development policy. Small wars were treated as
lesser included cases. Surely a force designed to defeat the massed forces of the Warsaw Pact
could prosecute a conflict against third-world forces, it was assumed. More accurately, the
country was willing to accept the risk of losing a small war, but not willing to risk losing the big
one. We prepared the force for major war while we used the force for small wars.
Throughout the era, the word containment described a persistent strategy for a bi-polar, great
power competition. War plans for major wars drove military force design. War plans drove
doctrine—how to fight—and doctrine drove training. Equipment was acquired in a doctrinal
context. We were prepared for the most dangerous scenarios represented in war plans. We were
unprepared for the most likely scenarios involving small wars. Ample evidence accumulated on
the unpreparedness for low-intensity conflict and for special operations.
The end of the Cold War was the end of an era of great power conflict. The logic of East and
West faded overnight. The logic of North and South erupted. But the national security system
designed for an era of great power conflict replaced the Soviet Union with China and continued a
long-term technological competition. Lesser included cases became the main event. Nothing
replaced the familiar major war plans as a basis for force structure design. And nothing replaced
the stability provided by the containment strategy.
At the end of the Cold War—a decades-long great power competition—there is little reason to
believe that the resultant security system is aligned with current needs. A period of great power
competition ended. Great power conflict will come again. We, by definition, are in an interwar
period. But interwar periods are not peaceful. They are characterized not by major wars but by
small wars. The misalignment of forces to mission is increasingly apparent. Transformation of
the military has been painfully slow. Transformation of the national security system has been
even slower.
Very large parts of the Defense Department—including the uniformed services—are responsible
only for the production of military force. A distinct part of the Department—the combatant
commands—is responsible for the use of force. The producers failed to correctly interpret the
end of the Cold War as the beginning of an interwar period of small wars. A “peace dividend”
was declared, budgets and force levels began to fall precipitously, and a transformation began
from the industrial-age great power force to the information-age force for the next great power
war. The using combatant commanders, in stark contrast, were immediately confronted with
small wars in the Balkans and Somalia. The services exist, by law, to produce the forces needed
by the combatant commands. The producers failed to meet the needs of the users.
Strategic Alternatives and the Implications
Among those who influence, argue, and make security policy, the post-Cold War debate
produced a range of options—homeland defense, selective engagement, collective security,
cooperative security, and global primacy—but nothing remotely resembling a consensus
emerged.5 Among the practitioners, three successive presidents—George H.W. Bush, William J.
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Clinton, and George W. Bush—pursued wildly divergent strategies. No stability in grand
strategy is in sight.
The alternative strategies make different demands on military force structure. All strategies agree
on the importance of maintaining a strong second-strike nuclear capability as the prime deterrent
to attack on the United States and for continued progress toward missile defense. Another
component common to several of the strategies is the reconnaissance strike complex, something
approximating a modernized version of the 500,000-man force that prosecuted the 1991 Gulf
War. The complex includes high-technology assets for command, control, communications,
computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR). And it includes the mobility
assets necessary to project force over global distances. Only the United States possesses these
capabilities in any meaningful sense. The third component common to more than one strategy is
the force suited to nation building in either permissive or hostile environments. Implementation
of this third component is an open issue. One author refers to the Leviathan force and the
SysAdmin force as a dichotomous design for force development policy.6
Homeland defense. Adherents to a homeland defense strategy define vital interests most
narrowly. Central to this strategy is the belief that U.S. military intervention abroad increases
rather than reduces the threat. By not waging wars to impose American values, the threat would
be greatly reduced but not eliminated. To defend against the remaining threat of terrorist attack
on U.S. soil, the priority is on securing borders and ports of entry. And intelligence and law
enforcement resources are employed to root out terrorists at home and abroad before they strike.
While the logic of this strategy resonates with significant portions of the public, it is dismissed
by many in Washington as isolationist.
Selective engagement. A selective engagement strategy incorporates many of the tenets of
homeland defense. It shares the belief that interventions abroad increase the threat to the United
States. It sees the primary threats requiring military force to be war between major powers and
rogue states acquiring nuclear weapons. In response, adherents to this strategy would maintain
the reconnaissance strike complex but hold it in reserve rather than parcel it out around the
globe. Because the major powers show no immediate intention for major war, there would be
some strategic warning. Therefore, adherents might accept a lower level of readiness and shift
combat power to the reserve component. The logic of lesser included cases would continue for
small wars, the available active duty force structure might be used selectively to engage abroad
as dictated by domestic politics. A generally inattentive public will awaken and question the
reason for intervention when casualties are taken.7 As with homeland defense, some dismiss this
strategic alternative by calling it isolationist.
Adherents of homeland defense and selective engagement strategies are more inclined to reduce
the size of the active duty force and shift the preponderance of the remaining conventional
combat power to the reserve component. They are disinclined to transform the military into a
force for small wars and nation building. The word isolationist is a strong pejorative in
Washington, and simply through name calling, these two strategic alternatives have been easily
dismissed in the post-Cold War era. The backlash from the war in Iraq may change that
somewhat.
Collective security. Collective security posits that American security is intimately tied to
international security, and that is best assured through collective arrangements and international
institutions like the United Nations and NATO (the containment strategy was, in fact, a specific
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collective security strategy). Collective security requires maintenance of forces for self defense
and for subordination to international collectives. The reconnaissance strike complex is a
component of both. A small-wars force is also required to conduct multi-national interventions.
The strategy makes high demands on force structure as it pre-commits the United States to
unforeseen conflicts constituting no direct threat. An increasingly inclusive collective security
arrangement has been under construction throughout the twentieth century and, according to
some, was severely damaged in the twenty-first.
Cooperative security. Cooperative security retains much of collective security. It asserts that
major powers are democracies or are democratizing and thus not prone to war.8 Because the
major powers do not constitute a threat, the emphasis is placed on preventing the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction. Cooperative differs from collective security as preventive care
differs from acute care.9 The strategy uses multiple instruments of power to prevent states from
acquiring the means to aggress against neighbors. The diplomatic instrument seeks arms control
agreements and confidence building regimes. The economic instrument manifests in the form of
sanctions and inducements directed by the diplomatic arm. The military instrument is employed
to deter potential proliferators and as a last resort to interdict transfer or to strike acquired
capabilities.
Adherents to collective and cooperative security prefer multinational responses over unilateral.
In the long term, they hope to institutionalize collective response. If the major powers habitually
mount a collective response to aggression, opportunistic states will be disinclined to aggress
against their weak neighbors. Both strategies require the reconnaissance strike complex and a
small-wars capability.
Global primacy. Some seek to preserve the “unipolar moment” that presented itself upon the
demise of the Soviet Union. The primary threat to the United States is the rise of a peer
competitor, and to a lesser extent, the rise of regional hegemons. Adherents believe that security
is best achieved by a muscular foreign presence. Adherents of this strategy replace the
hypothesis that states balance against power with the hypothesis that states balance against
threat. As long as the United States appears to act in the world’s interests, i.e., appears as a
benign hegemon, then other states will not be inclined to enter into costly arms races or into
security alliances in opposition to U.S. interests. Instead, states will bandwagon with the United
States. Assistance from coalitions of the willing are welcome but unnecessary.
Under the primacy strategy, the United States will maintain primacy in military force and the
ability to act unilaterally. The demands on force structure are great; the strategy relies heavily on
the use of military force, and it must be sized and shaped under the assumption of unilateral use.
Advocates of primacy would certainly support maintenance of a reconnaissance strike complex
in the active component. They might also support a second to deter an opportunistic aggressor
that might be emboldened while the first is engaged. Primacists, too, would support a capability
for small wars.
The practitioners. No president has employed one of the theoretic strategies in pure form. The
real world is more complicated than that. The three post-Cold War presidents have employed
dramatically different grand strategies. But all three made heavy use of the force without
replenishment, leaving a heavy bill to be paid in the future.
The elder Bush employed a relatively isolated military instrument. A classified Pentagon
document, leaked to the press, clearly contained the language of global primacy.10 The invasion
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of Panama could be interpreted as global primacy, but was easily interpreted as merely a
continuation of the long-established claim to hemispheric primacy. The U.S. response to Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait appears as classic collective security. One state violated the sovereignty of
another and the international community responded to return to the status quo ante. Deployment
of forces to Somalia can be considered domestically-driven selective engagement. Given the
evidence, it is reasonable to conclude that the administration was successfully pursuing a
primacy strategy, appearing to be a benign global hegemon using force for the common good.
The Clinton administration’s initial national security strategy was explicitly cooperative
security.11 The international community did not behave as cooperatively as hoped, and the
administration began to rely on primacy’s unilateralism. As the high degree of operational tempo
began to overtax the force, the administration had to be more selective in its engagement. The
inherited mission in Somalia failed and resulted in withdrawal. Operations in the Balkans were
complex and continue to consume resources. Over his eight years, Clinton’s strategy can be
characterized as selective but cooperative primacy.12
The younger Bush campaigned against Clinton’s nation building. Bush’s proposed strategy was
firmly in the camp of selective engagement.13 The attacks of 9/11 created tremendous
international support. The high degree of international support was sustained through the
multinational invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban and deny al Qaeda sanctuary.
The administration then shifted to a strategy that went well beyond global primacy. After the
invasion of Iraq, perceived to be largely unilateral and ill advised, the United States is no longer
seen as a benign hegemon. To many, it is seen as the principal threat to international security.
Because the administration campaigned against nation building, it refers to its operations as
capacity building. Diplomacy is seen as appeasement.
Force levels were in decline under the elder Bush administration while the use of force was on
the upswing, and containment operations following the Gulf War continued for a decade. Clear
evidence of over extension of the military began to accumulate under the Clinton administration.
By 1996, estimates of operational tempo were four times those of the Cold War.14 Operational
tempo continued to climb under the Bush administration. Estimates of personnel tempo in the
reserve component were ten times that of the Cold War.15 The Clinton and Bush administrations
relied heavily on the military instrument for nation building (or capacity building)—missions for
which the military is ill suited. The force is neither sized nor shaped to sustain their exhaustive
strategies. Strategies whose means are not sufficient to achieve their ends are not strategies.
Implications. Continuing with the beyond-primacy strategy of the current administration will
require considerable investment in the force, but the delay between funding and fielding make
sustaining the strategy in the near term well beyond reach. All strategies require paying the bill
created by the three post-Cold War presidents who used force extensively while force levels fell
and modernization accounts were raided to pay for accumulating operations.
All strategies call for maintaining a strong second-strike nuclear capability. And there is general
agreement on the need for missile defense.
If the country pursues any off the heavy-use strategies—collective, cooperative, primacy—the
ability to build government institutions in the third world will be required. That, in turn, requires
the ability to bring all instruments of power to bear. The pieces of the reconnaissance strike
complex are distributed around the globe in small-wars roles. Under the heaviest of the heavyuse strategies, the reconnaissance strike complex must be reconstituted and modernized; a
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separate and true small-wars capability must be built. These simultaneous objectives are not
achievable in the near term.
If the country pursues one of the more restrictive, light-use strategies—homeland defense,
selective engagement—the ability to build government institutions in the third world is not called
for. At most, a modest part of the military focused on small wars would be sufficient and the
logic of lesser included cases would be continued. The reconnaissance strike complex must be
reconstituted and modernized, and significant parts of it held in the reserve component. In
addition to the nuclear strike capability, long-range precision strike with conventional weapons
would be a principal military mission, including the ability to conduct attacks with land- and seabased aircraft and cruise missiles. And parts of the Army, Marine Corps, and special operations
forces should be focused on in-and-out strike operations rather than on sustained operations, like
major combat, occupation, and nation building.
Balancing and Orchestrating the Instruments
There have been radical swings in post-Cold War strategies, and there is no strategic stability on
the horizon. The various agencies of government house the instruments of power that underwrite
the chosen strategy. The uniformed military represents but one instrument of power. The
military, as currently configured, is strained in the complex environment of the twenty-first
century. It is tempting to conclude that the military should be transformed in response. But such
a conclusion is premature.
The agencies of government, including Defense, cannot be redesigned for each incoming
administration and its chosen strategy. Increasing the size of an organization takes several years;
substantially changing the shape of an organization takes decades. An optimal solution for one
strategy will likely fail catastrophically in supporting another. The instruments of power must be
designed and arranged to support a reasonable range of strategies. Suboptimal solutions are the
only prudent choice.
Implementation of a nation-building capability remains an open issue. There are two questions to
answer simultaneously. One asks how the instruments of power will be distributed across the
agencies of government. The other asks how those instruments will be orchestrated to achieve
national objectives.
Who wields the instruments? Transforming the military from a major-wars force to a smallwars force is one alternative. It requires a radical transformation of the military force away from
its deeply engrained self conception as a warfighting organization. This alternative simplifies the
orchestration problem, as it would be handled in the existing chain of command that governs the
use of military force from the president and secretary of defense to the combatant commander in
the field. But the risk is that the transformed military will be unprepared for the next major war.
A second alternative is to create additional defense agencies to house the instruments of power
necessary for nation building abroad. The Defense Department currently houses seventeen
defense agencies, including, for example, the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security
Agency, Defense Logistics Agency, and the Defense Information Systems Agency. More could
be added to complement the uniformed services. The uniformed military would be reconstituted
and modernized for conventional combat operations and to provide security forces for the
civilian defense agencies. This, too, has the benefit of simplifying the problem of orchestrating
the instruments.
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A third alternative is to leave the instruments distributed across the agencies of government,
bring their respective capacities into balance, and turn attention to the problem of orchestration.
The instruments of power are not neatly divided by agency. The White House and the State
Department share the diplomatic instrument. The Defense Department has a near monopoly on
the military instrument, but the Central Intelligence Agency maintains its own paramilitary force.
The intelligence instrument is spread across almost all agencies of government including the
CIA, State, and multiple defense agencies. The economic instrument is shared principally by
Defense (military assistance) and the Agency for International Development (foreign aid), both
nominally under State’s guidance. The Justice, State, and Defense Departments share the law
enforcement instrument. The information instrument is spread across government and is broken.
Who orchestrates the instruments? Assuming that the instruments of power remain distributed
across the agencies of government, orchestration remains a critical issue. One way to orchestrate
the instruments is by assigning lead agency status, for example, to the Defense or State
Department. Another way is to give executive authority to the National Security Council.
Today, neither State nor Defense has the authorities to direct the efforts and resources of the
other agencies. Congress authorizes and appropriates to them separately. Prior to the Second
World War, State had the capacity to conduct foreign affairs including direct access to the naval
services. More recently, in the 1960s, State had the capacity to lead the U.S. Agency for
International Development and the now defunct U.S. Information Agency. State’s capacities
have atrophied considerably.
The National Security Council is an advisory body to the president. As such, it enjoys certain
privileges to ensure that the president has uncompromised access to advisors. Accordingly, the
national security advisor is a presidential appointee but is not subject to Senate confirmation, and
the Council and its staff are not subject to congressional oversight. Giving the Council executive
powers would likely result in the loss of these privileges. It would certainly require major
legislation and would be met with considerable bureaucratic resistance from Cabinet-level
secretaries who would then report to a super agency interposed between them and the president.
Conclusion
There will be no resolution to the issue of grand strategy in the next presidential election. Iraq
will be the focus. Regardless of how Iraq is handled, the United States still must decide what role
it will play in the international system of states. There appears to be a backlash and withdrawal
from the beyond-primacy strategy of the current administration. But it is unlikely that the
pendulum will swing all the way to homeland defense.
Expanding the capacities of government requires public support and leadership. Support not just
in dollars and votes, but in personal commitment. An increasing proportion of the public must
enter public service in the organizations requiring long, arduous tours in austere third-world
environments: the military, the civilian defense agencies, and the civilian departments. The
requisite leadership and public support does not appear to be forthcoming.
Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq offer clear evidence to consider. First, the capacities present
in the U.S. military virtually guarantee the defeat of an opposing state’s military. Second,
building the institutions of democratic government in a failed state is a long, difficult process
with little to suggest optimism. Third, attempting to build governments in only two countries
simultaneously strains the resources of the last remaining super power. Engaging the resources of
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the other major powers would expand the numbers somewhat, but there are many countries to
build. This cannot be the basis of a sustainable strategy to achieve American national security,
but that may not stop presidents from trying.
A pattern is repeating itself. When evidence accumulated on the inadequacy of last-minute
integration of the separate uniformed services, Goldwater-Nichols legislation mandated reform
to improve joint military operations in 1986. When evidence accumulated on the inadequacy of
last-minute integration of the special operations forces of the separate services, Cohen-Nunn
legislation mandated reform to improve special operations in 1987. Today, there is mounting
evidence of the inadequacy of last-minute integration of the separate agencies of government,
and legislation on the order of the National Security Act of 1947 is necessary to improve joint
agency, or interagency, operations.
Paul H. Nitze, “Atoms, Strategy and Policy,” Foreign Affairs v (January 1956): 187-198. Paul Nitze proposed the
distinction between declaratory and employment policy. Donald Snow and others have inserted force development
and deployment policy between these two policy levels.
1
2
United States Marine Corps, Small Wars Manual (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1940).
Charles Edward Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles & Practice (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office,
1896).
3
4
Amy B. Zegart, Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Press, 1999).
Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” International Security, vol.
21, no. 3 (Winter 1996-1997): 5-53.
5
Thomas P.M. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Berkley
Books, 2004).
6
James Burk, “Public Support for Peacekeeping in Lebanon and Somalia: Assessing the Casualties Hypothesis,”
Political Science Quarterly, vol. 114, no. 1 (1999): 53-78.
7
Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, “Democratization and the Danger of War,” International Security, vol. 20,
no. 1 (Summer 1995): pp. 5-38.
8
9
Ashton B. Carter, William J. Perry, and John D. Steinbruner, A New Concept of Cooperative Security
(Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1992), 7. See also Ashton B. Carter and William J. Perry. Preventive
Defense: A New Security Strategy for America (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999).
Special to the New York Times, “Excerpts From Pentagon’s Plan: ‘Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival’,”
New York Times, 7 March 2002, sec. 1, part 1, p. 14.
10
11
William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (Washington, D.C.: The White
House, 1995); William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (Washington,
D.C.: The White House, 1996); William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy for a New Century (Washington,
D.C.: The White House, 1997); and William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy for a New Century
(Washington, D.C.: The White House, 1998).
12
Posen and Ross, p. 44.
Condoleezza Rice, “Campaign 2000: Promoting the National Interest,” Foreign Affairs vol. 79, no. 1
(January/February 2000): 45-62.
13
14
One estimate places the increased tempo at 400 percent for the Air Force and 300 percent for the Army, Navy, and
Marine Corps. See Stephen P. Aubin, “Stumbling Toward Transformation: How the Services Stack Up,” Strategic
Review v (Spring 2000): 39-47. These estimates precede the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
15
1000% elevation in RC perstempo under Bush.
10