Out of control: the crisis in civil-military relations

National Interest, The, Spring, 1994 by Richard H. Kohn

General Powell used his power and authority again during the Gulf War. If Bob Woodward's 1991 book The Commanders can be believed, and no one has disputed its facts, Powell together with General Schwarzkopf consistently maneuvered to delay the war, to mount overwhelming force, to demand the clearest guidance and direction, and to limit the political objectives. Much research remains to be done on this point, but the literature indicates that the Chairman was a reluctant interventionist who made extraordinary efforts to control his civilian superiors' inclinations to make strategy and to move rapidly into combat.

Certainly General Powell worked hard to prevent the Air Force from selling the administration on an independent air campaign. So effectively did he block briefings up the line that the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz, had to hear the Instant Thunder air campaign plan through a casual, off-line invitation to visit Air Force Secretary Donald Rice's office. The President was so insulated that when, over Christmas at Camp David, he heard for the first time what Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak said the Air Force could do, the President turned in disbelief to National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and asked whether McPeak was "for real."

Certainly Powell exercised the same control over Schwarzkopf, who, according to the latter's memoirs, was prohibited by Powell from coming to Washington to brief his own offensive campaign plan. Schwarzkopf communicated with Washington only through Powell (which Schwarzkopf says had advantages but was "unnerving at times, because it kept me in the dark"), and apparently never discussed his activity, plans, or actions with Cheney or Bush unless the latter were visiting the theater. All of this was within the letter of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, but hardly within its spirit ("An Act to reorganize the Department of Defense and strengthen civilian authority...").(8)

Goldwater-Nichols strengthened the Chairman by making him principal military adviser to the President and Secretary of Defense, but explicitly designated the chain of command from the President through the Secretary of Defense to the combatant commander, leaving the Chairman out purposely and denying him command authority "over the Joint Chiefs of Staff or any of the armed forces." He is supposed to function as a link in communication between President, Secretary of Defense and field commander only if the President specifically so directs. The truth is that Powell tailored all of his actions in the Gulf War to fit the system of command and control he was then instituting in the Pentagon for the post-Cold War world: according to a senior officer involved, "to give the N|ational~ C|ommand~ A|uthorities~ no options...to control the discussion by presenting just one approach, which was the option of his choice."

Astoundingly, Powell later boasted about reversing the relationship between national goals and military means, turning the age-old Clausewitzian formula about war being an extension of policy on its head: "our |the Joint Chiefs'~ military advice was shaping political judgments from the very beginning....|W~e were able to constantly bring the political decisions back to what we could do militarily. And if there's one story that is going to be written out of Desert Storm and Just Cause and everything else we've done, it's how political objectives must be carefully matched to military objectives and military means and what is achievable."(9)