reiterating “tell me how it ends"

the case for explicit articulation

My husband, a veteran who served proudly for three decades, and I participated in a forum on the Asia Pacific Saturday with thirty current Midshipmen and an equal number of Cadets from the Military Academy. Three panels of practitioners (and me) discussed issues relating to the Korean peninsula, China, the interplay of nations within the Indo-Pacific, and other topics these kids (and some of them looked so young) will confront for the duration of their military careers, whether the minimum obligation of five years or forty-five. It was a satisfying day for which I sincerely thank the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, our hosts.

As we drove home, my husband quietly observed we introduced an utterly essential concept to these officers-in-training: the value of articulating explicitly what we expect as a result of our actions. General David Petraeus famously used a shorthand twenty years ago to explain our policy choices in the Middle East: tell me how this ends. The expression of our desired endstate, not merely a “win or lose” binary, is vital to our goals around the world. Focusing on the desired endstate opens the door to obviating our tendency to fall in love with a single instrument of statecraft while blinding us to its limitations. By considering how results, we have the option to seek the widest array of tools and means to accomplish a clear cut set of conditions.

Yet, we seem to do this so rarely. In particular, following the Cold War (perhaps because of how we explain the end of that struggle to ourselves?), Americans rely overwhelmingly on a single tool as we approach the world—the military. It most definitely is the world’s finest, best educated cadre of men and women who took an oath to defend the Constitution. But we over-rely on it, probably because we know how many resources (nearing $1 trillion annually depending on how we categorize some programs) we allocate to the armed forces.

Do not misunderstand as I am proud of those who serve honorably in uniform. I am honored I had the privilege to work with them for thirty years. I know that service members and their families sacrifice a great deal to serve in an All Volunteer Force. But, I am also proud of those who serve our nation in other national security capacities. National security service is not a zero sum game but an integrated team if we are going to succeed.

I see a couple of difficulties with relying so heavily on one instrument. First, in our democracy, civilians bear ultimate responsibility for choosing policies yet we turn so often to only a small portion of the country. Military officers thus play an outsized role in conceptualizing what our policy endstate should be. There is nothing wrong with that but they, like any of us, use their training as the lens by which to view the world. The old phrase “if all you use is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.

In Iraq after toppling Saddam in April 2003, the military became the body to whom we asked so much in rebuilding civil society that we intended to be non-military. There were a lot of reasons things went wrong but putting civil enterprises in the armed forces’s tasks was certainly one. The military was not the right bunch of folks to help Iraq establish a post-Baathist society.

The general and flag officers of our All Volunteer Force feel a profound obligation to execute tasks assigned to them and to achieve any outcome asked of them, even if that task or endstate is unachievable. These are “can do” folks. Coming off kick ass success in a 96 hour campaign against Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1991, the country and certainly the Force assumed the military could defeat all future adversaries and accomplish any obligation yet that confidence was hubristic. The more recent missions have neither been Iraq 1991 or ending the Cold War against a decrepit Soviet Red Army redux.

More importantly, we refuse to recognize that our ability to create overall outcomes is more limited than we assume. International affairs are dynamic rather than static under a single player. Ronald Reagan’s threats influenced Mikhail Gorbachev’s thinking after the latter assumed power in 1986 but the collapse of the Soviet Union was largely under the weight of their rigid, economically untenable system—precisely as George Kennan predicted in his 1946 Long Telegram.

I heard a retired ambassador argue only last week that our greatest strength is to influence policies of others in ways that advance our national interests rather than assuming we have a mandate to fix others. Both Iraq and Afghanistan were monumental failures across the board because we tried using instruments, especially our armed forces, to remake the two societies without recognizing what that would look like as an endstate—laying democracy over first a deeply divided Sunni-governed country with a vast Shi’ite population and second a geographically challenged region replete with various competing Islamic clans. Was our objective ever achievable in either place within a time period that U.S. taxpayers were going to sustain? Seriously?

Nor was Vietnam ever going to be a participatory democracy with harmony among the various subgroups any more than any other country might replicate our democracy with its peculiarities and strengths. Others may embrace democracy but no other country is composed as we are, has experienced our history, or has the same strategic culture. In far too many of these places, the armed forces are at the root of menacing popular security so having our military as the visible implementers or supporters of key solutions is risky at best.

National security can’t be merely the realm of the civilian and military leaders; it must have public support or it is guaranteed to fail—anywhere. Wishful thinking or planes full of cash won’t eradicate that reality.

But assuring the “experts” and the public are discussing the same explicit endstate strikes me as an unavoidable first step. If we all know what we seek to see with some specificity in the end, then more analysis by a range of sources may—no guarantee but it’s worth trying—create more fruitful discussion of alternate or additive instruments to achieve the goal. As it is right now, we are far too often expecting the military, even with the vast resources we provide, to accomplish things that are clearly not their strength or focus—and too often create conditions that make the endstate harder to reach because of unexpected consequences.

We had these same conversations thirty years ago, by the way, when I heard many military officers rue being tasked as peacekeepers rather than warfighters. Yes, the armed forces of this country are talented, well-trained, well-resourced (relative to anyone else on the planet) but they are also asked to do many things that are not their specialties.

Civilians are wrong to ask the military to do everything. Senior officers are put in an uncomfortable position to do what the civilian chain of command requires even if it is an unachievable military objective. Therein lies a great deal of our problem with how we imagine outcomes. We seem to operate as a society with the belief that the military can, against all odds, do everything because we know they bloody well will try. But, we sadly haven’t looked at the ending, figuring it will magically appear and we will all embrace it. We also just assume the country or group we seek to “fix” will know we do it because we are noble, good, and have their interests in mind. Sadly, we haven’t figured out that other countries have interests which often diverge from ours regardless of how much we tell them we respect them as sovereign states. Plus, so many of our desired endings simply are not unachievable in a time or manner we are willing to bear, if at all.

In short, more accurate, honest explication of “telling me how it ends” is vital for our success as a nation—for domestic and international reasons. We may not like hearing we cannot accomplish everything satisfactorily but that provides us options to look to alternative visions that get us where we want to end within the constraints we face.it also can likely save many lives and perhaps even some bucks.

Is my humble suggestion guaranteed to create success? Nope. I wish I could say it was though I most definitely can say that what we have been practicing for thirty-five years this month since the Berlin Wall came down is not working to support our interests unless we define those interests as a world without a repeat use of a nuclear device against an adversary (that is what we have done which is no insignificant matter, by the way). We have also facilitated an unimaginable increase in the standard of living for billions of people but we don’t see that as how the story ends as we see other threats on the horizon.

Some of you will assume this is solely the business of security professionals but I cannot disagree more strongly. These are matters for each and every one of us so please do not hesitate to send some thoughts to us all! I don’t have all the answers so you may convince me I am completely off base. Do weigh in, please.

Thank you for your time reading Actions. Today’s topic calls to mind the long-term consequences of our actions over the last three quarters of century. I appreciate your time and I especially laid the subscribers who offer me financial resources to read so many different sources. Have you considered becoming a subscriber this year?

It was a stunning morning, replete with what appeared a watercolor landscape.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Linda Robinson, Tell Me How this Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq. Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs, 2008.