Weinberger–Powell Doctrine

Since 1984, the Weinberger—Powell Doctrine has exerted a significant influence over American foreign policy decision makers when the deployment of U.S. military forces is under consideration. The Weinberger—Powell Doctrine, originally conceived by Reagan administration Sec. of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger and subsequently reshaped by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Colin L. Powell (who as Weinberger's senior military assistant in 1984 had helped to refine the secretary's ideas), argues that the United States ought to proceed with caution: military forces should be deployed only under narrowly circumscribed conditions and with the expectation that massively superior U.S. forces will be employed in order to overmatch an adversary, allowing the intervention to be concluded quickly and with few American casualties.

On November 28, 1984, Weinberger gave a speech before the National Press Club in Washington entitled The Uses of Military Power in which he outlined six conditions that ought to be met before deploying U.S. troops overseas:

• 1)
  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.”
• 2)
  If it was deemed necessary to send troops into combat, “we should do so wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning.”
• 3)
  “We should have clearly defined political and military objectives” susceptible to the application of military force.
• 4)
  “The relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed—their size, composition and disposition—must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary.”
• 5)
  “[T]here must be some reasonable assurance we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress.”
• 6)
  “Finally, the commitment of U.S. forces to combat should be a last resort.”

While Weinberger's immediate inspiration was the disastrous 1982 to 1984 U.S. intervention in Lebanon (which he had opposed from the beginning), the Weinberger Doctrine—so labeled by the Washington Post in an editorial shortly after Weinberger's speech—was very much an outgrowth of the so-called Vietnam syndrome. In the wake of U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam, many Americans felt a deep reluctance to commit troops abroad as well as uncertainty with regard to foreign policy matters in general. The Doctrine was an effort to lay out conditions that could make military force “usable” again in defense of crucial national interests while avoiding missions of lesser significance; in those circumstances when American troops would be committed to battle, the Doctrine was intended to prevent the gradual escalation, unclear goals, and public discord that had contributed to American failure in Vietnam.

The Weinberger Doctrine was arguably most influential in shaping the 1991 Persian Gulf War. That intervention, motivated by a clear national interest in safeguarding Middle East oil supplies, was supported by the Congress and was prosecuted quickly and with overwhelming force. Many observers viewed the successful results as a dramatic vindication of the Weinberger Doctrine.

[Page 928]During the early 1990s, the “Weinberger Doctrine” evolved into the “Powell Doctrine,” as Gen. Colin L. Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the administration of Pres. George H. W. Bush, became a forceful advocate for a recast version of Weinberger's principles. The success of the Gulf War, rather than causing Powell to revise his cautious prewar position with regard to the commitment of U.S. forces, led him to recast Weinberger's conditions with an emphasis on his second and third points: the need to employ overwhelming force and the identification of clear, achievable objectives.

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