December 19, 2001

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: TOM DONNELLY, Deputy Executive Director

SUBJECT: Defense

Meeting with other NATO defense ministers, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday called for a one-third reduction in the number of “peacekeeping” troops stationed in Bosnia, arguing that the mission there “is not an effective use of NATO’s valuable military assets.” The administration’s continued skepticism about constabulary missions reflects continued uncertainty about the use of U.S. military force in a changing world -- and even in the “war on terrorism.”

The Bush Doctrine of peacekeeping was perhaps most clearly articulated on Monday by columnist Charles Krauthammer (see “We Don’t Peacekeep,” The Washington Post, p. A27). It’s no longer that U.S. forces shouldn’t do these so-called “nation-building” missions at all, but that they must not be “squandered” doing “nation-building in places of strategic irrelevance.” By this calculation, reconstructing Japan and Germany after World War II was acceptable strategy but “hand-holding” in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo is not.

But this distinction is untenable. Kaisers and tsars learned what instability in the Balkans could mean to the great powers of Europe. And the “strategic irrelevance” of Haiti and the Caribbean would come as a surprise to the creators and practitioners of the Monroe Doctrine, not to mention the first Bush Administration when it invaded Panama.

To describe the constabulary role of U.S. armed forces as simply “peacekeeping” is to misunderstand the importance of armed forces in winning wars, not just winning battles. Regime change, political and judicial reform, economic development -- creating, sustaining and preserving a real peace -- cannot be accomplished without the continued presence and engagement of American forces, both to provide physical security and evidence of U.S. political interest. If war is a political act, then victory is more than military conquest and the defeat of enemy forces. Yet by drawing a sharp distinction between “peacekeeping” in the Balkans and the “war on terrorism” in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld misses this point.

By drawing the distinction, the secretary of defense also reinforces a growing gap between the United States and our NATO allies. The idea of a “division of labor” in the alliance -- whereby America does the fighting and then retreats while the Europeans do the peacekeeping -- is a dangerous and divisive one over the long term. Already, the near-military irrelevance of Europe, conspicuously on display in Afghanistan, threatens the utility of NATO. We should be pressing our allies to improve their ability to project and sustain military power as we do, and not to accept second-class citizenship.

The administration’s ambivalence about constabulary operations also makes any move against Iraq less attractive to our allies. If we are to at last remove Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath Party from power in Baghdad, we must also be willing to secure Iraq after the fighting is done. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others would be happy to see Saddam removed if we make it clear that a new regime would improve stability in the region. Indeed, what makes American power uniquely relevant -- what makes this still “a unipolar moment” -- is not just our ability to strike down our enemies anywhere on the planet but our ability to ensure regional security and political freedom afterward. Those who advocate military action to change the regime in Iraq and to defeat Middle Eastern terrorists and the states that support them must be clear about the full consequences of such a move.