what does the military do to protect our country
Cheers for inviting me to exist here today with the members of the National Press Club, a grouping most of import to our national security. I say that because a major point I intend to make in my remarks today is that the single near disquisitional element of a successful republic is a strong consensus of support and agreement for our basic purposes. Policies formed without a clear understanding of what we hope to achieve volition never work. And y'all help to build that agreement among our citizens.
Of all the many policies our citizens deserve -- and demand -- to understand, none is and then of import as those related to our topic today -- the uses of armed forces power. Deterrence will work merely if the Soviets understand our firm commitment to keeping the peace,... and only from a well-informed public can we wait to accept that national will and commitment.
And so today, I want to talk over with y'all perhaps the almost important question concerning keeping the peace. Under what circumstances, and by what means, does a great democracy such every bit ours reach the painful decision that the apply of military force is necessary to protect our interests or to conduct out our national policy?
National power has many components, some tangible, like economic wealth, technical pre-eminence. Other components are intangible -- such as moral force, or strong national will. Military forces, when they are strong and ready and modern, are a credible -- and tangible -- addition to a nation'southward power. When both the intangible national will and those forces are forged into one instrument, national ability becomes effective.
In today's world, the line between peace and war is less clearly drawn than at any time in our history. When George Washington, in his good day address, warned us, as a new democracy, to avoid foreign entanglements, Europe and then lay two-three months by sea over the horizon. The United States was protected by the width of the oceans. Now in this nuclear age, we measure out fourth dimension in minutes rather than months.
Aware of the consequences of any misstep, notwithstanding convinced of the precious worth of the freedom we enjoy, nosotros seek to avoid disharmonize, while maintaining potent defenses. Our policy has always been to work hard for peace, but to be prepared if war comes. Yet, and then blurred have the lines go between open conflict and half-subconscious hostile acts that we cannot confidently predict where, or when, or how, or from what direction aggression may arrive. We must be prepared, at whatsoever moment, to meet threats ranging in intensity from isolated terrorist acts, to guerrilla action, to full-calibration military confrontation.
Alexander Hamilton, writing in the Federalist Papers, said that it is impossible to foresee or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, or the contributor extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them. If it was true then, how much more true it is today, when we must remain ready to consider the means to see such serious indirect challenges to the peace as proxy wars and individual terrorist action. And how much more than important is it now, considering the consequences of failing to deter disharmonize at the lowest level possible. While the use of military force to defend territory has never been questioned when a democracy has been attacked and its very survival threatened, most democracies have rejected the unilateral aggressive use of forcefulness to invade, conquer or subjugate other nations. The extent to which the use of force is acceptable remains unresolved for the host of other situations which autumn between these extremes of defensive and aggressive use of force.
We find ourselves, then, face to face up with a modern paradox: the most probable challenge to the peace -- the gray area conflicts -- are precisely the most hard challenges to which a democracy must reply. Nonetheless, while the source and nature of today'due south challenges are uncertain, our response must be clear and understandable. Unless we are certain that force is essential, nosotros run the adventure of inadequate national volition to apply the resources needed.
Because we face a spectrum of threats -- from covert aggression, terrorism, and subversion, to overt intimidation, to use of animate being force -- choosing the appropriate level of our response is hard. Flexible response does not hateful only whatsoever response is appropriate. Simply once a decision to employ some degree of strength has been made, and the purpose clarified, our government must have the articulate mandate to conduct out, and continue to bear out, that determination until the purpose has been achieved. That, too, has been difficult to reach.
The consequence of which co-operative of government has authority to define that mandate and make decisions on using strength is now being strongly contended. Beginning in the 1970s Congress demanded, and assumed, a far more active part in the making of foreign policy and in the decisionmaking process for the employment of military forces away than had been idea appropriate and practical before. Every bit a outcome, the centrality of determination-making authority in the Executive branch has been compromised past the Legislative branch to an extent that actively interferes with that procedure. At the same time, at that place has non been a corresponding acceptance of responsibility by Congress for the outcome of decisions concerning the employment of armed services forces.
Withal the outcome of decisions on whether -- and when -- and to what degree -- to use combat forces away has never been more important than it is today. While we practise not seek to deter or settle all the world'due south conflicts, we must recognize that, as a major power, our responsibilities and interests are now of such scope that there are few troubled areas we can beget to ignore. And then nosotros must exist prepared to bargain with a range of possibilities, a spectrum of crises, from local insurgency to global conflict. We prefer, of course, to limit whatsoever conflict in its early stages, to contain and control it -- but to practice that our war machine forces must be deployed in a timely manner, and be fully supported and prepared before they are engaged, considering many of those difficult decisions must be made extremely chop-chop.
Some on the national scene think they can always avoid making tough decisions. Some turn down entirely the question of whether any strength tin ever exist used abroad. They want to avert grappling with a complex issue because, despite clever rhetoric disguising their purpose, these people are in fact advocating a render to post-World War I isolationism. While they may maintain in principle that armed forces force has a function in foreign policy, they are never willing to proper noun the circumstance or the place where it would apply.
On the other side, some theorists fence that military force can exist brought to comport in any crisis. Some of these proponents of force are eager to abet its use even in express amounts simply because they believe that if there are American forces of whatever size present they will somehow solve the problem.
Neither of these two extremes offers u.s. any lasting or satisfactory solutions. The first -- undue reserve -- would lead us ultimately to withdraw from international events that require free nations to defend their interests from the aggressive employ of force. We would be abdicating our responsibilities every bit the leader of the free world -- responsibilities more or less thrust upon u.s. in the backwash of World War Ii -- a state of war incidentally that isolationism did aught to deter. These are responsibilities we must fulfill unless we desire the Soviet Union to continue expanding its influence unchecked throughout the world. In an international system based on mutual interdependence amid nations, and alliances between friends, stark isolationism quickly would pb to a far more than dangerous situation for the United States: we would be without allies and faced by many hostile or indifferent nations.
The second culling -- employing our forces almost indiscriminately and as a regular and customary office of our diplomatic efforts -- would surely plunge us headlong into the sort of domestic turmoil we experienced during the Vietnam war, without accomplishing the goal for which we committed our forces. Such policies might very well tear at the material of our society, endangering the single about critical element of a successful democracy: a strong consensus of support and understanding for our basic purposes.
Policies formed without a clear understanding of what we hope to achieve would also earn the states the scorn of our troops, who would have an understandable opposition to existence used -- in every sense of the discussion -- casually and without intent to back up them fully. Ultimately this course would reduce their morale and their effectiveness for engagements we must win. And if the military were to distrust its civilian leadership, recruitment would fall off and I fear an terminate to the all-volunteer arrangement would be upon us, requiring a return to a draft, sowing the seeds of anarchism and discontent that and so wracked the country in the '60s.
We have now restored high morale and pride in the uniform throughout the services. The all-volunteer arrangement is working spectacularly well. Are nosotros willing to forfeit what nosotros have fought so hard to regain?
In maintaining our progress in strengthening America's military deterrent, we face difficult challenges. For we have entered an era where the dividing lines betwixt peace and state of war are less clearly drawn, the identity of the foe is much less articulate. In World Wars I and II, we not but knew who our enemies were, only we shared a clear sense of why the principles consort by our enemies were unworthy.
Since these two wars threatened our very survival every bit a free nation and the survival of our allies, they were total wars, involving every attribute of our society. All our ways of product, all our resource were devoted to winning. Our policies had the unqualified support of the smashing majority of our people. Indeed, World Wars I and Two concluded with the unconditional surrender of our enemies.... The merely acceptable catastrophe when the culling was the loss of our freedom.
But in the aftermath of the 2nd World War, we encountered a more subtle form of warfare -- warfare in which, more often than not, the confront of the enemy was masked. Territorial expansionism could be carried out indirectly past proxy powers, using surrogate forces aided and advised from afar. Some conflicts occurred under the name of "national liberation," but far more than frequently ideology or faith provided the spark to the tinder.
Our adversaries can also take advantage of our open society, and our freedom of speech and opinion to employ alarming rhetoric and misinformation to separate and disrupt our unity of purpose. While they would never dare to allow such freedoms to their own people, they are quick to exploit ours by conducting simultaneous military and propaganda campaigns to achieve their ends.
They realize that if they tin can divide our national volition at home, it will not exist necessary to defeat our forces abroad. So by presenting problems in bellicose terms, they aim to intimidate western leaders and citizens, encouraging united states of america to adopt conciliatory positions to their advantage. Meanwhile they remain sheltered from the forcefulness of public opinion in their countries, because public opinion there is but prohibited and does non exist.
Our freedom presents both a claiming and an opportunity. It is true that until autonomous nations take the back up of the people, they are inevitably at a disadvantage in a conflict. Just when they practice have that support they cannot be defeated. For democracies have the ability to send a compelling message to friend and foe akin by the vote of their citizens. And the American people have sent such a point by re-electing a stiff Chief Executive. They know that President Reagan is willing to take the responsibility for his deportment and is able to lead usa through these circuitous times by insisting that we regain both our war machine and our economic strength.
In today'south globe where minutes count, such decisive leadership is more of import than ever before. Regardless of whether conflicts are limited, or threats are ill-defined, we must be capable of quickly determining that the threats and conflicts either do or do non touch on the vital interests of the United States and our allies. ... And then responding appropriately.
Those threats may non entail an immediate, direct assail on our territory, and our response may not necessarily crave the immediate or direct defense of our homeland. But when our vital national interests and those of our allies are at stake, we cannot ignore our prophylactic, or forsake our allies.
At the same time, contempo history has proven that we cannot presume unilaterally the role of the globe'due south defender. Nosotros accept learned that there are limits to how much of our spirit and blood and treasure we can afford to forfeit in meeting our responsibility to keep peace and freedom. So while nosotros may and should offer substantial amounts of economic and military assist to our allies in their time of need, and help them maintain forces to deter attacks against them -- unremarkably nosotros cannot substitute our troops or our will for theirs.
Nosotros should simply engage our troops if we must do so every bit a affair of our own vital national interest. Nosotros cannot assume for other sovereign nations the responsibility to defend their territory -- without their potent invitation -- when our liberty is not threatened.
On the other mitt, there have been contempo cases where the United States has seen the need to join forces with other nations to try to preserve the peace by helping with negotiations, and by separating warring parties, and thus enabling those warring nations to withdraw from hostilities safely. In the Middle East, which has been torn by conflict for millennia, we have sent our troops in recent years both to the Sinai and to Lebanon, for just such a peacekeeping mission. Simply we did not configure or equip those forces for combat -- they were armed merely for their self-defense. Their mission required them to be -- and to be recognized every bit -- peacekeepers. Nosotros knew that if conditions deteriorated so they were in danger, or if because of the deportment of the warring nations, their peace keeping mission could not be realized, and then information technology would be necessary either to add sufficiently to the number and arms of our troops -- in curt to equip them for combat,... or to withdraw them. And and then in Lebanon, when we faced just such a choice, because the warring nations did not enter into withdrawal or peace agreements, the President properly withdrew forces equipped merely for peacekeeping.
In those cases where our national interests require us to commit combat force we must never let there be doubt of our resolution. When it is necessary for our troops to exist committed to combat, we must commit them, in sufficient numbers and we must support them, as effectively and resolutely as our forcefulness permits. When we commit our troops to combat we must practise so with the sole object of winning.
Once it is clear our troops are required, because our vital interests are at stake, then we must have the firm national resolve to commit every ounce of strength necessary to win the fight to achieve our objectives. In Grenada we did simply that.
Only every bit clearly, there are other situations where United States combat forces should non be used. I believe the postwar menstruation has taught u.s.a. several lessons, and from them I have developed vi major tests to be applied when we are weighing the use of U.S. gainsay forces abroad. Let me now share them with you:
(1) First, the United States should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular appointment or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies. That emphatically does not hateful that we should declare beforehand, equally we did with Korea in 1950, that a detail area is outside our strategic perimeter.
(2) 2nd, if we decide it is necessary to put combat troops into a given situation, we should do and then wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning. If nosotros are unwilling to commit the forces or resource necessary to achieve our objectives, we should not commit them at all. Of course if the particular situation requires but limited forcefulness to win our objectives, then we should non hesitate to commit forces sized accordingly. When Hitler broke treaties and remilitarized the Rhineland, small combat forces then could mayhap accept prevented the holocaust of World War II.
(3) Third, if we do determine to commit forces to gainsay overseas, nosotros should take clearly defined political and military objectives. And we should know precisely how our forces can accomplish those conspicuously defined objectives. And we should have and transport the forces needed to do just that. Every bit Clausewitz wrote, "no one starts a war -- or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so -- without commencement existence articulate in his mind what he intends to attain by that war, and how he intends to conduct it."
War may be different today than in Clausewitz'due south time, simply the need for well-defined objectives and a consequent strategy is notwithstanding essential. If we make up one's mind that a combat mission has go necessary for our vital national interests, so we must send forces capable to do the task -- and not assign a combat mission to a forcefulness configured for peacekeeping.
(4) Fourth, the human relationship between our objectives and the forces nosotros have committed -- their size, composition and disposition -- must be continually reassessed and adapted if necessary. Conditions and objectives invariably change during the grade of a disharmonize. When they do change, then so must our combat requirements. Nosotros must continuously keep as a beacon light before the states the basic questions: "is this disharmonize in our national interest?" "Does our national involvement require us to fight, to use force of artillery?" If the answers are "yeah", and so we must win. If the answers are "no," then nosotros should non be in combat.
(v) Fifth, before the U.South. commits combat forces abroad, at that place must exist some reasonable assurance nosotros volition have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress. This support cannot exist achieved unless we are aboveboard in making clear the threats nosotros face up; the support cannot be sustained without continuing and shut consultation. We cannot fight a boxing with the Congress at habitation while asking our troops to win a war overseas or, as in the case of Vietnam, in effect request our troops not to win, but just to be there.
(six) Finally, the commitment of U.S. forces to gainsay should be a last resort.
I believe that these tests can be helpful in deciding whether or non we should commit our troops to combat in the months and years ahead. The point we must all go along uppermost in our minds is that if we ever decide to commit forces to combat, we must support those forces to the fullest extent of our national will for as long every bit it takes to win. Then we must accept in mind objectives that are conspicuously divers and understood and supported by the widest possible number of our citizens. And those objectives must exist vital to our survival every bit a gratis nation and to the fulfillment of our responsibilities as a world power. We must as well be farsighted enough to sense when firsthand and strong reactions to patently pocket-size events tin forbid panthera leo-like responses that may exist required later on. Nosotros must never forget those isolationists in Europe who shrugged that "Danzig is not worth a state of war," and "why should we fight to keep the Rhineland demilitarized?"
These tests I have but mentioned have been phrased negatively for a purpose -- they are intended to sound a annotation of caution -- circumspection that we must find prior to committing forces to gainsay overseas. When we inquire our military machine forces to gamble their very lives in such situations, a note of caution is non only prudent, information technology is morally required.
In many situations we may utilize these tests and conclude that a combatant role is non advisable. Nevertheless no 1 should interpret what I am saying here today every bit an abdication of America's responsibilities -- either to its ain citizens or to its allies. Nor should these remarks be misread as a point that this country, or this administration, is unwilling to commit forces to gainsay overseas.
We accept demonstrated in the past that, when our vital interests or those of our allies are threatened, we are ready to use force, and utilize it decisively, to protect those interests. Let no one entertain whatever illusions -- if our vital interests are involved, we are prepared to fight. And we are resolved that if we must fight, we must win.
So, while these tests are drawn from lessons we have learned from the past, they also can -- and should -- be practical to the time to come. For example, the problems confronting us in Central America today are difficult. The possibility of more extensive Soviet and Soviet-proxy penetration into this hemisphere in months ahead is something nosotros should recognize. If this happens we will clearly need more than economic and military assistance and training to help those who want democracy.
The President volition not allow our military forces to creep -- or exist drawn gradually -- into a gainsay part in Primal America or whatsoever other identify in the world. And indeed our policy is designed to prevent the need for direct American interest. This means nosotros volition need sustained Congressional support to dorsum and give confidence to our friends in the region.
I believe that the tests I have enunciated here today can, if applied advisedly, avoid the danger of this gradualist incremental approach which almost e'er means the use of bereft force. These tests can help us to avoid being drawn inexorably into an endless morass, where it is not vital to our national interest to fight.
But policies and principles such as these require decisive leadership in both the Executive and Legislative branches of government -- and they also require potent and sustained public support. Well-nigh of all, these policies crave national unity of purpose. I believe the United States now possesses the policies and leadership to proceeds that public back up and unity. And I believe that the time to come volition bear witness we accept the strength of graphic symbol to protect peace with liberty.
In summary, we should all remember these are the policies -- indeed the but policies -- that tin can preserve for ourselves, our friends, and our posterity, peace with liberty.
I believe we can continue to deter the Soviet Union and other potential adversaries from pursuing their designs effectually the world. We can enable our friends in Key America to defeat aggression and gain the breathing room to nurture democratic reforms. We can meet the challenge posed past the unfolding complexity of the 1980's.
We will so be poised to begin the last decade of this century amongst a peace tempered by realism, and secured by firmness and strength. And it will be a peace that will enable all of the states -- ourselves -- at dwelling, and our friends abroad -- to achieve a quality of life, both spiritually and materially, far higher than man has even dared to dream.
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