AFA Policy Forum

The Honorable Caspar W. Weinberger
Chairman, Forbes and Former Secretary of Defense
AFA Policy Forum: "Aerospace Power and the Use of Force"
September 14, 1999

"The Use of Force -- The Six Criteria Revisited"

On November 28, 1984, then Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger delivered a speech at the National Press Club titled “The Uses of Military Power.” It contained six criteria to be applied when weighing the use of U.S. combat forces abroad. These criteria subsequently became known as the “Weinberger Doctrine.”

• First, the United States should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies.
• Second, if we decide it is necessary to put combat troops into a given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning.
• Third, if we do decide to commit forces to combat overseas, we should have clearly defined political and military objectives.
• Fourth, the relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed — their size, composition and disposition — must be continually reassessed and readjusted if necessary.
• Fifth, before the U.S. commits combat forces abroad, there must be some reasonable assurance we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress.
• Finally, the commitment of U.S. forces to combat should be a last resort.

It is a delight to be here and have the opportunity to talk with you about some of these very important issues such as the “Use of Force.” I will say first that the six steps that some people have been kind enough to call the Weinberger Doctrine — others have been unkind enough to call many other things — were basically designed with one thing right in mind at the beginning. It is why I consider myself so extraordinarily fortunate to have had both enlisted and officer experience before I took office in the Pentagon. It is now comparatively rare due to the general passage of time and the years that have gone by. I think General Vessey and I were the last two people who had been on active duty [in World War II] and were still active at the time I was in the Pentagon. Because of that experience, I’ve always thought and always felt that there was a great deal more to the decision to commit troops to action than whether it serves some temporary diplomatic cause or whether it was something that seemed to be necessary because of the political situation at the time or one thing or another.

That struck me far too much as using the troops in a way that you use pawns in a chess game. I was criticized many times for being too cautious and too reluctant to get troops into action and basically it was not that, really, at all. It was just that I was deeply conscious of the fact that if troops were going to be committed to action, it had to be for the kind of cause for which they joined the military. It is essential still that we have that in mind and that we not feel that commitment of a few troops here or a few troops there is something that may serve diplomacy without any regard to what happens to the troops themselves because they are, after all, our very greatest asset.

With that in mind and with the Vietnam War particularly in mind — in which I did not serve as I was in the California Legislature most of that time — it seemed to me that the fundamental problem was that we had asked troops to commit their lives, which they are perfectly willing to do, in which they have joined the military to do if they have to, we asked them to commit it to a cause that we did not think was important enough for us to win. There was a lot of derision that followed this word “win.” It implied you are not supposed to win. You are supposed to possibly prevail if you had a very strong sentiment being expressed, but you are really not supposed to win. This was a rather crude Western bravado or some such thing.

In any event, it did seem to me when phrasing these criteria that we should set out the simple fact that it had to be a cause that was important enough to win. It had to be a cause that was of vital interest to our national security and something that was essential for us to do. And if that decision was made and granted, that would be a decision made by the political leaders of the country, then it had to be a decision that was based upon the strategic necessities of the situation, something that was vital to the country to do, not just for the present but for the future. And that also then, if you are going to do it, the second criteria and I want to phrase it just the way I did before, would come into play. That is, if we do decide that it is necessary to put combat troops in a given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly with a clear intention of winning. If we are unwilling to commit the forces or the resources necessary to achieve our objectives, we should not commit them at all. If a particular situation requires limited forces, then size the forces accordingly. Then I noted that when Hitler broke treaties and remilitarized the Rheinland, very small combat forces could probably have prevented World War II from blowing up into the largest, most costly, most ghastly war in history. Indeed Churchill himself called it the unnecessary war because, had sufficient strength been taken at the beginning, with a clear intention that this breach of the treaty was not to be permitted and that the forces necessary to stop that would have been committed immediately, we could have easily done the job with a very, very small percentage of the huge, huge numbers of troops that had to be used later on.

Then, of course, if you are going to put troops into a given situation with a clear intention of winning, you have to know what it is that is the definition of winning. We have to have a clearly defined political and military objective, and we have to know precisely how we can do that and that we have the forces to do it, and we should send the forces needed just to do that. I quoted Clausewitz: “No one starts a war, or rather no one in his senses ought to start a war without first being clear in his mind as to what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.” Along with that goes the corollary, which is that we have to have the forces that are necessary to back up whatever it is we commit in order to win and that we must be willing to reassess the situation continuously. We must be willing to realize that situations of this kind are fluid, essentially untidy, and that we are going to need change from time to time as conditions change, but we need to have the forces available.

We never must lose site of that objective, which is that we have the forces that can win, that we are willing to commit them, and that the cause is important enough for that, and that we have our defined goal ahead of time. I added — and this caused a great deal of problems, particularly with the people who were against the whole idea — that before we commit forces, we must have some reasonable support, some reasonable assurance that we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress. I pointed out that you can’t really fight a war with a determined opponent and with Congress at the same time.

A lot of people said, “Well, this means you’ve got to take a poll before you go to war.” It essentially and absolutely does not mean that. But there are certainly ways of judging whether or not there is going to be some reasonable assurance of support. The American people will support an enormous number of actions. Particularly where the troops are concerned, that has to be understood and can’t be abused. Again, you do have to realize that we can’t just overnight decide we want to do something that may appeal to one or two people in the White House or elsewhere and rush into it without any kind of preparation of the public, without any kind of education as to why it is necessary, why it has to be done. When that is given, nine times out of ten the American people will be the strongest supporters of any kind of action. And I did add at the end that the decision to use troops abroad must be as a very last resort after everything else has failed.

These were the things that I felt were necessary to have in mind as we had these constant discussions of committing a couple of companies here, a battalion or so there, and a few planes here and a few ships there, all with the idea that just the appearance of American forces would probably get everything we wanted or needed. That is the basic background of this whole idea, and Vietnam was certainly part of it. Another part of it was Beirut, where we had, over my personal strong objections, committed for the second time a force without any objectives, without any capabilities of doing anything, or making any kind of difference, whose only capability was to do what they were assigned to do, which was to sit on the Beirut airport without any ability to protect their flanks or the ground in front of them and without any equipment or weapons to do that and without any kind of proper liaison with the other members of the international force that was there. The first time they had gone in, they went in with a clear objective — everybody’s forgotten all this, of course — it was to lift the PLO army out and prevent a terribly costly door-to-door campaign through the streets of Beirut. We did that and then left as I counseled that we should do, and we completed that successfully.

We went in the second time with no objective other than to have some kind of force there that we assumed and hoped would be the support within the country that would enable us to bring peace to the region, which of course it did not. It invited the very thing that happened — a terrorist attack on the barracks at the Beirut airport — and indicated that when you just put troops in without any kind of real objective, without any kind of goal, without any consideration of proper sizing of the task force, you are inviting danger and disaster, which indeed happened.

It may be of more use than just going back into history to see whether these criteria have any use or value today and how the use of the forces in Kosovo comported with the idea of the six criteria. On the first one, I would say that, in my own opinion, the situation in the area was sufficiently serious enough, sufficiently important enough to our national interest that we should not allow the kind of activities that were going on on the Southern edge of Europe. With all of our NATO allies very close to being involved, and with what was happening, we had a complete violation of all of the basic rules, violations of promises that had been given earlier. It was a case of overrunning a small area that wanted its own independence, and it was committing all kinds of ghastly human rights atrocities. Had that been allowed to continue without anybody attempting to check it, we could indeed have had a situation which would have been very inimical to our own national interests and our own strategic future. So I did think that basically the first criterion was fulfilled.

I have to tell you, I don’t think any of the others were fulfilled. And I have to say that frankly and candidly. It is a source of great disappointment to me the way we did it, because what we did was do pretty much what we had done in Vietnam. We did not go into win. We did not go in to take the leadership of the country, Serbia, that had caused all of this, away. We did not go in to change that leadership. We did not go in to secure the independence of the small province that desired its independence and was being deprived of it, and we did not go in with any other objective except three or four that kept being stated from time to time, one of which was to get Milosevic back to the negotiating table, which I thought was basically useless because he had lied so many times before and would be perfectly happy to do so again at any continuation of the negotiations. Again, it was stated then that we had “degraded” his military capability. Of course, every time you knock out a truck you do that to some extent, but that is not a sufficient objective, it seemed to me, to warrant the use of the our forces. Then finally, the one that appealed to me least was the one given by a White House press secretary to the effect that we must be certain that we don’t allow this to interfere with, in any way, our important domestic political agenda. That, perhaps, was the true reason, but it was the worst of all, it seemed to me, for asking troops to commit their lives.

So you had a lack of objective or that lack of desire to finish the job, to go ahead to get Milosevic out, to proceed with the redress of the atrocities to the extent they could be redressed, and to clear up a situation that would not recur immediately. We didn’t have any of those objectives. Indeed, the first few weeks of bombing were basically ineffective in the sense that it was only directed at targets that had been approved by 19 members of a committee. That is not the way I was taught that a war should be fought and not the way I think any war could be fought. Predictably, a lot of those targets were attacks on infrastructure. There was a famous, in my point of view, infamous conference in which one of the commanders denied very heatedly that we had any intention whatever of hitting any of the barracks of the Serbian troops. All we wanted was their ammunition dumps. There were many other examples of the kind of cloudy and imprecise nature of what it was that we were doing and what it was we were asking our troops to do.

Finally, it became apparent that, despite what everyone had hoped and thought, Mr. Milosevic was not going to give up when a few bombs appeared because he is one of those leaders who doesn’t have to worry about public opinion. He didn’t have to, or didn’t, worry about the human losses that were being suffered as a result of his own policies. It wasn’t until very much later in the campaign when we decided to go after particular kinds of targets that were much more militarily significant and would indeed interfere seriously with his warmaking capabilities, not just his infrastructure but the actual troops who were going to be conducting the war, who had been conducting all of the atrocities and human rights violations in Kosovo, that it began to have an effect. And I am very happy to say that Mr. Milosevic decided that he would then stop.

But this was not the kind of victory that we should have had — because he cut a deal, as they say. A deal was brokered — a term that I find particularly offensive — and the deal was: (A) he stayed in power; (B) he could take all of his troops out with all of their equipment; and (C) Kosovo was not to be independent. The people who had fought for Kosovo’s independence were to be disarmed and Milosevic would be there and would stay in power, and we would trust him for the future. Sadly, it was rather similar to some of the things that happened after the complete and total defeat of Saddam Hussein.

Again, I think the rest of these criteria were not adhered to. Had they been, we would have had a more satisfactory result, and a result much more likely to stick. Also, we’ve seen a couple of other facts that were brought in at the very end, with the insistence that Russia, who had supported Serbia constantly and steadily throughout the entire conflict, was to be given a virtually equal role in the so-called peacemaking force, a role which they enlarged by themselves and where our NATO allies were not required to force them to give up the airport, which they seized while the matter was still being discussed by the 19-member committee.

You had a number of failures which, in effect, tarnished the results to a very considerable extent and reduced the value of the enormous contribution made by the Air Force and all of the people connected with it in doing what they were told to do and what they did do. More than that were the restraints which I think were improperly placed upon them and which hindered a far greater and more complete result — and a more permanent result. Since Milosevic was allowed to have the kind of result that he got, the kind of deal that he wanted, he remains in power. Even though he may be put out of power later by some of the people who were sufficiently unhappy with him at home, it was not anything that was forced by his participation in the war or by his actions. That seems to give it a further sense and possibility of impermanence that would make more or less a mockery of the enormous sacrifices and skills displayed by the Air Force and the NATO elements, of which the United States was by far the strongest and the largest.

There is still a use for these criteria today. It is still important to think through the whole matter and to make sure that, not only is it entirely important and vital to our security before we ask troops to make this major sacrifice, but that we know what we are going to do and know that we are going to follow it up with actions and policies which are designed to produce the kind of result which is required — before asking people to make a commitment to this kind of an activity. It isn’t the fear of taking risks. It isn’t a fear of U.S. involvement, and it isn’t a part of the Vietnam Syndrome or any of those things. It is simply a matter of fairness and part of the commitment every time we recruit an officer or enlisted man or woman for our Armed Forces. It is a commitment that they will be trained, they will be equipped, they will be supported and they will only be used when it is necessary to use them — and they will be used in a way that enables them to secure the kind of victory that they are capable of bringing and which we deserve to get.

Those are the thoughts that I’ve had during this latest use of troops abroad. There are many earlier ones that I think were not justified, and would not have passed the first criteria by any means. There are cases where our national interest was really not involved and yet the troops were used, I’m afraid, more for political effect than for anything else. That, of course, is another of the great violations that I think would justify the continued use, continued observation and continued understanding of what these criteria were indeed designed to do.

Those are the points that I thought that I would put before you. The part of any meeting that I enjoy most are your questions because then I can find out what you are really interested in as opposed to just talking to you about things that might be only of interest to me. I never call it a “question and answer” period, as I am never sure that I have the answers, but I will be delighted to try, and I would be delighted indeed to have your questions, particularly from anyone who strongly disagrees or even mildly disagrees with what has been said. That again I think is the price that I should pay for having inflicted my strongly personal views upon you. Thank you very much indeed.

General Shaud: Henry Kissinger recently said the country has two irreconcilable penchants, a penchant for military involvement all around the globe and yet a mindset to avoid casualties at all costs. How do we reconcile these trends?

Mr. Weinberger: I have great admiration for Henry. I am afraid I would have to disagree somewhat with the first. I don’t think the American people have this great penchant or passion for deploying troops all over the world. I think our current leaders do. We were involved last time I counted in something like 39 different areas of the world at a time when our resources are being drastically and unwisely reduced. I think we were committed in too many places, and I think many of those commitments would not meet the first of these criteria that I've set forth.

As far as the risks, I would hope that we would always be careful of the lives of the troops that are committed to us. I noticed one thing when I was in office, and that is that people in other departments were far more willing and likely and anxious to commit troops than the people in the Defense Department and I, in particular, who had the responsibility for the care and safety and training of those troops. I think that should be a factor. It always should be a factor. The idea that these are people who can be simply poured into any situation without any respect or any consideration being given to the risks, and whether the risks are worth it, would be a very wrong philosophy. Risks should not stop us from taking the kind of action we have to take. They’ve never stopped us in the past, and I don’t think they should now. But we should give careful consideration to them, and I think it should be one of the points we make when we are deciding the strategic necessity of going into a particular situation.

General Shaud: How can the military make more effective use of the media? It seems as if American societal support is often in the hands of the media.

Mr. Weinberger: It is a very good, important and very difficult question. When I was in the Pentagon, we formed, right after Grenada particularly, a group of people who wrote columns and commentaries and editorials and had the responsibility for publishing and editing many publications, to try to consult with them to find out perhaps anything more that we should have been doing or could do.

I was always struck by the difference in approach of the press and the media in World War II and at the present time. I don’t know where that change came from. It may be another of the legacies of Vietnam, where, in many cases, the information given to the press was not accurate at the beginning. In Vietnam, we adopted a policy, which at the time I thought was very wrong, but where we apparently could not measure progress in terms of lines of advance or towns or villages captured so we had to measure them by a body count of the other side. You would expect the reaction that we received from most of the American people. It is important for the media to understand what it is that we are doing and why we are doing it.

We received a lot of criticism because the media did not go in with us in Grenada. We had very limited resources. We simply could not physically take them in the first day. They came in, I think, the third day and were understandably irritated because we only stayed about 15 or 20 days and had completed our objectives and got out. It is important that we pay attention to that.

We have to recognize there is going to be sensationalist elements within the media who will try to portray a situation in ways in which it is not accurate. For the most part, the media want seasoned and able reporters who will give an accurate report. We should give them all the help that we can to enable that to be done. There are going to be many situations in which we can’t have them in on every meeting, and can’t have them accompanying every action. We can’t do all the things they would like to have done. But I think it is very vital that we spend a considerable amount of time trying to get an accurate portrayal of what we are trying to do and why we are trying to do it.

General Shaud: The military has shrunk considerably over the past decade, but it has increased its commitments and its operations tempo around the globe. What are your thoughts about the adequacy of today’s force structure?

Mr. Weinberger: We have been wrong on both counts. We have cut far too deeply into the military and into its bone and sinew. I think we have done it largely because it was perceived to be politically something that could be cut without too much domestic political turmoil. I think we have to recognize that, in a democracy, people basically don’t like to spend money on the military. I have to say I am afraid I’m the leading expert on that particular subject. But it does seem to me that we have to spend some time educating people as to why it is necessary. I devoted a considerable amount of time at the Pentagon to trying to present the case for increased and expanded forces to get ourselves back to a condition where we could deter conflict and win if we had to. I think that has not been done in the last six or seven years.

Part of the blame for this is that the civilian leadership does not really understand the importance of it or the necessity of it. Finally, and most important of all, I don’t see the presence of the word “advocacy.” You have to have people who understand the importance of keeping the kind of military strength we need and being willing to advocate it constantly, even though it is not considered a popular subject, and is not one that holds much hope for personal or political advancement or whatever. I don’t think we can be passive about it. I don’t think we can simply present the Administration’s budget, or whatever is being presented, in a passionless, quiet way without the importance of it being stressed and without the necessity of it being stressed. It is always going to be a battle in a democracy to get adequate funds, and it has to be fought and fought by people who passionately believe in it and are willing to say so and are willing to advocate it at all stages. That is what I think has to be done. When you couple the increased calls that have been put on the military with the cuts that have been made, you have the worst of both situations because, by doing that, you can interfere seriously with morale.

One of the things I was proudest of during my tenure was the change in morale. We saw the success of the volunteer system and the eagerness of people from all walks of life and all economic strata and all colors and races to volunteer and volunteer in sufficient numbers so that we actually had waiting lists at most of the recruiting depots. That is the kind of spirit that I think we need. But when you break recruitment promises, when you don’t keep recruitment promises with respect to benefits and all the rest, you risk the cynicism and the unwillingness of people to serve.

Nobody joins the military to make money. Despite all of the propaganda we hear from the other side, people join the military for the best of patriotic reasons. But they have to be treated fairly. When the perception is that they are not being treated fairly, such things as cost of living and pensions and other recruitment promises are not kept up, then I think you start seeing morale sliding. We now have, unfortunately, I think, a very difficult situation in recruiting the numbers and the quality of the people that we need.

Question from the Floor: Why do so few people support military spending?

Mr. Weinberger: Basically, it is not popular in democracies. In many of the NATO countries, we all have the same experience. The elected representatives, indeed the people themselves, don’t like to spend their money on things that they don’t perceive are as vital as some of their other interests. I was told two or three times in Senate and House committee hearings that, since I came up last year and said that we needed this and that — and that we had to be strong enough to defend ourselves — but since we didn’t get attacked, why do we need it now? It is almost the same kind of argument that you would give to a fire insurance company. “We didn’t have a fire last year so why do we need insurance?” If properly advocated, properly presented, and properly understood, enough of the Congress will support it. That was our experience the first few years.

General Shaud: Many now suggest that airpower is the military force of choice, and that use of force means Air Force. Your views, please.

Mr. Weinberger: We certainly need the Air Force. I am not one of those who felt we should not have an Air Force or that it should be weakened in any way. I do think that, ultimately, it is important to take and hold ground, and that is one of the reasons why I thought it was a great mistake to tell Mr. Milosevic we were not going to send in any ground troops. It enabled him to make different kinds of dispositions of his own forces that even Air Force precision bombing couldn’t reach as well. He would not have dared make them if he had thought he would have to hold them in line to block off a ground invasion. I think we need coordinated forces that we have.

I think the Air Force performed absolutely brilliantly in the Balkans, and it was an extraordinarily fortunate thing that we had it — and we had the people who were willing to do that and were capable of doing that. I think we would have had a more permanent solution and perhaps a faster solution had they been used not only as they were, but also in support of ground forces. Then we would not have Mr. Milosevic to deal with, and I think we would not have to worry about what kind of peace keeping force was going to be there and how closely the Russian portion of that was going to work with Milosevic. We could have avoided those things that are still hanging over there and to some extent clouding the very splendid victory that we have.

Question from the Floor: What are your views on gradual pressure in war, and on excluding certain targets as policy?

Mr. Weinberger: If you are going to fight a war, you have to fight a war. I don’t think that you can do that with the idea that this week we will try bombing a few roads, then next week, if that doesn’t work, we’ll try a bridge or two. If you are going to go in a war, you have to intend to win it, and you have to have the forces to win it, and you have to do it from Day One. I would not want to be the one who sent up pilots and told them they must avoid barracks, that they can only hit ammunition dumps or things of that kind. I think that gradualism doesn’t work.

General Shaud: As you’ve noticed, you have attracted quite a crowd up here. Included are the Teams of Excellence from the U.S. Air Force. Do you have a message for them?