Military diplomacy is not an exclusive instrument, but supplements a nation’s foreign and security policies objectives
According to journalist Dana Priest, author of The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America’s Military, perhaps the most notable turning point for the military in the post-Cold War era was Operation Provide Comfort. Managing humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi Kurds, the U.S. military found itself having to handle challenges from combat to peacekeeping to refugee relief. Beginning with this mission, Priest pointed out, the regional unified commanders-in-chief (CINCs), with the Pentagon’s substantial resources at their disposal, moved to fill gaps in the formulation and execution of U.S. foreign policy.
Priest found in her extensive travels and interviews that the CINCs spent up to 200 days each year flying in their own jumbo jets with a large staff to meet with foreign military and non-military officials and participate in a range of programs within their respective regions. Priest noted that while the State Department contracted its presence—closing 50 embassies and consulates across the globe and letting go of 20 percent of its staff during the 1990s—the military with its resources was in many ways in a much better position to conduct traditional diplomatic activities such as regional cooperation and trust-building projects.
Priest cautioned that while U.S. foreign policy has become too dependent on the military, the military’s vast resources make it a valuable resource in meeting the policy challenges facing U.S. policymakers in the post 9/11 world. Priest also argued for a more balanced approach to the management of U.S. foreign affairs. Pointing to ongoing difficulties that the United States is having in efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, Priest stressed that the U.S. military alone could not rebuild Afghanistan or Iraq. However, she also cautioned that if the State Department and other U.S. agencies are to play a more active role in peacebuilding and other activities they must have support from both the Congress and the administration. “The vacuum [during the 1990s],” Priest noted in closing, “was filled by the military because no one—Clinton, Congress, or others—valued the [State] Department or nonmilitary instruments in the way they should.”
Peacekeeping and the Warrior Ethic
Drawing from his award-winning research on the U.S. military over the years, Charles Moskos stated in his opening remarks that “the military has always had a disdain for peacekeeping.” Peacekeeping was originally regarded as an activity that major world powers did not have the time or energy to concern themselves with, Moskos pointed out, and the American military has long been torn about the appropriateness of participation in peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities.
One of the arguments against the use of American forces in peacekeeping is that it “undercuts the warrior ethic.” But according to recent research by Moskos, while peace operations require a very different skills set for troops in the field, they do not appear to erode esprit de corps or the troops’ combat readiness. To the contrary, his research has found that troops working more closely with local communities in the Balkans had much higher morale than those troops performing more traditional military tasks at Camp Bondtseel in Kosovo.
Moreover, increased U.S. military participation in peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities, Moskos maintained, has had other benefits. In particular, increased contact and the development of working relationships with nongovernmental organizations engaged in humanitarian assistance and other projects in zones of conflict around the globe has led to a substantial growth in trust and respect on both sides.
How much should the military influence the making of foreign policy in a modern democracy? According to Yoram Peri, while the Israeli military is more involved in the policymaking process than in the United States, there is still a solid civil-military balance. Peri, author of a recent Institute report on The Israeli Military and Israeli Foreign Policy, largely attributes this to the diversity of opinion found within the military, with partnerships forming between like-minded civil-military political coalitions. Therefore, on divisive policy questions such as a posture on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, different civil-military political coalitions have formed on various sides of the debate over the past decade.Two of Ronald Reagan’s national security advisers, VAdm. John Poindexter and Gen. Colin Powell, were both active duty officers. Air Force Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft served as national security adviser under both Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush, after holding lesser advisory positions while still in uniform. George H. W. Bush also appointed Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, an active duty general, to his policymaking team. More recently, President Barack Obama selected a former commandant of the Marine Corps as his national security adviser, and appointed Gen. John Allen to work on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. There Allen played a key part in the negotiations from 2013 to 2014 and spearheaded the development of solutions to Israeli security concerns.7 These appointments demonstrate that military faces in “civilian” spaces is nothing new.
The policymaking power of the military was further institutionalized with the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. This formally removed the JCS from the military’s chain of command, effectively reaffirming their formal presidential advisory role.
In India One of the ills that has plagued India’s higher defence management and its overall security preparedness, is the civil-military disconnect
The London-based, widely-read Economist, in its March 2013 issue in its lead article on “India as a Great Power” had pithily opined that, “The Indian Armed Forces have grown exponentially since independence, but no civilian leader has the faintest idea of how to use India’s growing military clout!”
The PLA role in China’s foreign policy is integral and deep. Politically it follows overall civilian primacy in foreign policy-making. Militarily the PLA sticks to assertiveness/war aversion dynamics in tackling external security threats, especially over territorial disputes. Functionally, the PLA abides by a top-down division of labour with diplomats. The PLA role in foreign policy-making can be overtly influential, as national/security/military-related foreign affairs are generally more important. The People’s Liberation Army is aiming to become the dominant force in the Asia-Pacific, strengthening China’s hand toward Taiwan and international disputes in the South China Sea. With a budget that has soared over the past decade, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) already ranks among the world’s leading militaries in areas including artificial intelligence and anti-ship ballistic missiles.
In America and countries where the Presidents acts as the commander in chief, ,but he only acts on the advice of military top brass and intelligence agencies,, in such circumstances when some decision goes wrong and ensuiing results are but a disaster the whole blame comes to the President and the military command roams free. Just see how blunders of the army generals were put on the President:
Lyndon B. Johnson
LBJ escalated what was a civil war into a grand international conflict because he could only see Communists and didn’t understand Vietnam was fighting more for its independence from outside domination.
Richard Nixon
Nixon’s scheme to get the country out of the Vietnam War started with bombing and then invading Cambodia.
Gerald Ford
Ford ordered Marines back to Indochina to rescue hostages on a mission that ended with a 41 percent casualty rate, adding to the Vietnam War dead even though the war had been over for 2 years.
Jimmy Carter
Carter ordered the all-too-complex Operation Eagle Claw to get hostages out of Iran, which ended disasterously.
Ronald Reagan
Sent Marines to Beirut as peacekeepers, even though half the Lebanese factions fighting there were allied with Iran and lost 241 troops in a barracks bombing in 1983.
George H.W. Bush
Bush’s invasion of Panama, while one of the most successful military operations in U.S. history, took a large toll on the civilian population and infrastructure.
These are the worst military decisions of each US President in one sentence
At least on August 14, 2017 Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa acknowledged that despite the shortage of resources, their elders made the country stand on its feet, admitting that during this process “we made some mistakes and learnt from them”.
Leaders and army both are responsible for the good and the bad within their area of responsibility or scope of influence. They are also responsible for helping to shape, mentor, and grow the future leaders and army of this great nation. As part of that responsibility we must be able to recognize the difference between an honest mistake and an unforgivable sin. I In my opinion an honest mistake is a mistake that does not result in serious injury or significant property damage. Subordinates learn valuable life and/or leadership lessons from honest mistakes. Others in the unit can learn from them as well. These mistakes can take many forms.
In contrast, an unforgivable sin cannot be classified as a mistake. These are acts or events in which a leader or a Soldier made a conscious or willful decision to do something they knew was wrong or allowed an act or event to occur that was unsafe, illegal, immoral, unethical, and/or resulted in serious injury or significant property damage. There are also times when an individual makes an honest mistake that is of such magnitude that it becomes unrecoverable.
