Wolfowitz Doctrine
The "Wolfowitz Doctrine" is an unofficial name given to the initial version of the Defense Planning Guidance for the 1994–1999 fiscal years. As the first post-Cold War DPG, it asserted that the United States had become the world’s sole remaining superpower following the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, and declared that its principal objective was to preserve that status. In its original draft form, the document emphasized preventing the emergence of any future rival capable of challenging U.S. global or regional predominance, particularly in strategically important regions. It argued that U.S. military forces should remain sufficiently strong to deter potential competitors, even in the absence of a comparable adversary, while retaining the ability to act unilaterally, or with limited allied support, if collective security arrangements proved inadequate to protect vital U.S. interests.
The memorandum, drafted under the direction of Secretary of Defense for Policy|Under Secretary] Paul Wolfowitz, generated considerable controversy and was subsequently revised in response to public criticism.
However, the most important new principles were further pursued, even during Bill Clinton's presidency, and explicitly reaffirmed under George W. Bush.
The February 18, 1992 draft of the Defense Planning Guidance was originally classified and became public through unauthorized leaks in 1992; it was formally declassified and released years later, although parts of the text and the detailed operational scenarios contained in the annex material have not been made public.
Purpose and status
The DPG was intended to establish long-term U.S. defense objectives extending into the next century:"The choices we make in this new situation will set the nation's direction into the next century."Within the Pentagon, it served as definitive guidance for the formulation of the defense program for fiscal years 1994–1999:
“This section constitutes definitive guidance from the Secretary of Defense for formulation of the FY 94–99 Program Objectives Memoranda, to be used in conjunction with the Fiscal Guidance published by the Secretary on 14 February 1992.”Following the collapse of the main adversary, Congress required a new explanation to justify continued large-scale defense spending. The development of a new strategy was "inextricably linked" to the defense budgets.
Journalist Barton Gellman described the memorandum as a near-final draft of the DPG and characterized it as “long overdue.” In his assessment, the DPG represented “the cornerstone of the defense secretary’s policy and strategy”.
According to James Mann it was one of the most significant documents of the past half century, setting forth a new "breathtaking" vision and a new post-cold war rationale for military power: "As a guide to where American foreign policy was headed it had no peer."
Development
The 46-page internal draft memorandum was prepared under the authority of Paul D. Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, with contributions from his staff, including Principal Deputy I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Zalmay Khalilzad.Wolfowitz was ultimately responsible for the Defense Planning Guidance, as it was issued through his office and reflected his overall outlook. The task of preparing the document fell to Libby, who delegated the actual writing of the new strategy to Zalmay Khalilzad, a member of Libby's staff and long-time aide to Wolfowitz. In the initial drafting phase, Khalilzad solicited the views of a wide cross-section of Pentagon insiders and outside experts, including Andrew Marshall, Richard Perle, and Wolfowitz's University of Chicago mentor, nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter. Khalilzad completed the draft in March 1992 and requested Libby's permission to circulate it within the Pentagon. Libby agreed, according to James Mann without reading it, and within three days, Khalilzad's draft had been leaked to The New York Times by "an official who believed this post-Cold War strategy debate should be carried out in the public domain."
Background
According to Barton Gellmann much of the document "parallels the extensive public statements of Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney and Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."Gellmann suggests Cheney and Powell believed that 1992's defense debate was a "pivotal moment" in the development of a post-Cold War security framework. For that reason, he concludes, both have given "unusually detailed briefings" to Congress to explain the "rationale for the U.S. involvement around the world as 'a constant fixture' in an era of fundamental change", "the rationale for the force, which they designed after collapse of the Warsaw Pact in late 1989."
Like their public statements, the classified memo emphasizes the virtues of collective action and the central U.S. interest in promoting increased respect for international law and "the spread of democratic forms of government and open economic systems." Also like their public statements, the document describes a reorientation of U.S. defenses away from the threat of global war with the former Soviet Union and toward potential regional conflicts.James Mann discerns an evolution in the composition of the memorandum from 1989 to 1992. As Cold War doctrines became obsolete, the Pentagon gradually shifted its rationale for maintaining military power. Mann identifies Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz as the "central figures in this drama." Cheney was the most critical of the changes under Gorbachev and the most relentless supporter of a high defense profile. Powell, on the other hand, believed in change, making him more open to cuts in defense spending. In the wake of the Berlin Wall’s fall, it became increasingly clear that Congress would pursue substantial reductions in defense spending, accompanied by a public debate over the expected peace dividend. Against this backdrop, Cheney in January 1990 asked Wolfowitz to revise the defense strategy; Wolfowitz worked closely with Powell during the process, which led to a modest proposal of defense cuts, while Bush and Cheney were refocusing the justification to different kinds of dangers like terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. By February 1991, attention shifted again to renewed risks emerging from within the disintegrating Soviet Union. After the dissolution at the end of 1991 debates about the peace dividend sparked again, and work on the DPG draft intensified.
Public Reaction
Although not intended for release, the draft was leaked to The New York Times on March 7, 1992, wih excerpts published on March 8, and sparked a public controversy over U.S. foreign and defense policy. The document was widely criticized as imperialistic, as it outlined a policy of unilateralism and pre-emptive military action to suppress potential threats from other nations and prevent hostile powers from rising to superpower status.Article in the New York Times
Content
NYT front-page article U.S. Strategy Plan calls for insuring no rivals develop, published March 8, has the subtitle: A one-superpower world, and sums up the main body in the lead, underlining that the strategy aims at "thwarting" any challenges to primacy. In the main body, Tyler commented:With its focus on this concept of benevolent domination by one power, the Pentagon document articulates the clearest rejection to date of collective internationalism, the strategy that emerged from World War II when the five victorious powers sought to form a United Nations that could mediate disputes and police outbreaks of violence.Tyler predicted likely debates among allies about Washington's willingness to "tolerate greater aspirations for regional leadership from a united Europe or from a more assertive Japan."
In the extensive continuation of the article Tyler finds an implicit expectation to build "a world security arrangement that pre-empts Germany and Japan from pursuing a course of substantial rearmament, especially nuclear armament, in the future." In stating this, Tyler refers to the opening parapraph in which the draft qualifies "the integration of Germany and Japan into a U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic 'zone of peace.' " as a "less vissble" victory after the cold war.
He sees this confirmed in the frequent reference to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction not only in North Korea, Iraq, some of the successor republics to the Soviet Union, but also in Europe.
Nuclear proliferation, if unchecked by superpower action, could tempt Germany, Japan and other industrial powers to acquire nuclear weapons to deter attack from regional foes. This could start them down the road to global competition with the United States and, in a crisis over national interests, military rivalry.Tyler finds the document "conspicuously devoid of references to collective action through the United Nations, which provided the mandate for the allied assault on Iraqi forces in Kuwait and which may soon be asked to provide a new mandate to force President Saddam Hussein to comply with his cease-fire obligations."
In contrast to the publicly stated strategy which, according to Tyler, "did not rule out an eventual leveling of American power as world security stabilizes and as other nations place greater emphasis on collective international action through the United Nations", the original draft "sketches a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders 'must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.'"
Evaluation
qualified Tyler's article as "overstated". He mentioned it was published durong the electoral campaign and stated that it had set the tone for all following discussions of the document.Analysis in the Washington Post
highlighted the passages regarding the role of NATO and Eastern Europe:In particular, the document raises the prospects of "a unilateral U.S. defense guarantee" to Eastern Europe, "preferably in cooperation with other NATO states," and contemplates use of American military power to preempt or punish use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, "even in conflicts that otherwise do not directly engage U.S. interests."Gellman also cited academia, which, in his view, was centred, by contrast, on the treatment of Russia. Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign policy analyst at Johns Hopkins University, argued that the logic of preventing the reemergence of a hostile superpower suggested far greater involvement in the economy and democratization of the Russians and the Ukrainians. Yet in the current political debate, Mandelbaum is cited by Gellman, "giving them money seems to be a taboo word."
Political Reactions
One of the most immediate and forceful reactions came from Senator Joe Biden, who argued that a "Pax Americana" with the US as "globocop" meant "a direct slap at two of our closest allies – Germany and Japan." He urged that life be breathed into the UN Charter, "which envisages a permanent commitment of forces for use by the Security Council." Biden quoted the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who had stated that the Pentagon’s approach meant "the end of the UN."Growing acceptance
John Lewis Gaddis argued that the world “to some extent” accepts U.S. hegemony, primarily when the alternatives are specified: a return to balance-of-power politics, reliance on the United Nations to “run the world,” or international anarchy. In his view, U.S. hegemony is therefore often regarded less as a “positive good” than as the “lesser of evils.” He added that the idea of a single dominant hegemony has historical precedents, citing Rome and the British Empire.Revised version
The public outcry was such that the document was hastily rewritten under the close supervision of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell before a was officially released on April 16, 1992. James Mann commented that Libby wanted to shift the emphasis subtly, smoothing over the “keep-the-allies-down” theme and emphasize the "broader idea of America’s enduring military superiority".The main point shouldn’t be to block rival powers, but rather for the United States to become so militarily strong, so overwhelming that no country would dream of ever becoming a rival. The costs would be too high; America’s military technology would be so advanced, its defense budget so high that no one else could afford the huge sums necessary to embark on a long-term military buildup that, even if successful, would still not catch up to the United States for thirty years or more. Thus, the United States would be the world’s lone superpower not just today or ten years from now but permanently.In Mann's view the toned-down version still contained, in euphemistic wording, the same basic ideas of the US strategy as the first draft. Referring to Patrick Tyler, Mann states, that two months after the leak, a Pentagon correspondend had reported that the Pentagon had “abandoned” the idea that its strategy should be to block the emergence of a rival to American military supremacy.
National Security Strategy
The internal paper is not to be mistaken for the officially released National Security Strategy (NSS) 1992. Yet, according to Mann, Cheney had "liked the revised draft so much that he ordered parts of it to be declassified and made public." Mann refers to a remark by Khalilzad who had recalled that Cheney "took ownership of it". In January 1993, when the Bush administration left office, the revised draft was published as America's Defense Strategy for the 1990s.Primary sources
Most declassified documents connected to the 1992–1993 Defense Planning Guidance are collected it two archives:- : the official declassification series Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel 2008-003.
- : a FOIA-based digital edition, "Prevent the Reemergence of a New Rival" The Making of the Cheney Regional Defense Strategy, 1991-1992 ".
Documents
- August 27, 1991 :
- February 18, 1992 '''': that was leaked to The New York Times.
- February 18, 1992 : The same and commentary by the NSA
- March 8, 1992 : In another source the excerpts published by The Times on March 8, 1992 are overlaid on the blackened portions of the Pentagon release.
- March 31, 1992 : There is a from March 31, 1992
- April 12, 1992 :
- April 16, 1992 : The with revisions made after the leak and public criticism.
- April 23, 1992 : There is a stamped 23 April on the 16 April 1992 Draft FY 94-95 Defense Planning Guidance with a List of actions requested during PW DPG review and an executive summary.
- May 2, and 4, 1992 :
- May 5, 1992 : .
- January 1993 : , Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, January 1993.
Outline
According to , the ' of August 27, 1991, the structure was designed as follows:I. Trends and Prospects in the International Environment
– Whither the Soviet Union?
– Increasing Regional Challenges
– Technology: Comparative Advantages and Diffusion
II. Defense Policy and Strategy
A. Enduring National Objectives
B. Defense Policy
– Broad Policy
– Soviet Union
– Western Europe and NATO
– Eastern Europe
– East Asia and the Pacific
– Middle East and Southwest Asia
– Latin America and the Caribbean
– Africa
C. The New Defense Strategy
– Strategic Deterrence and Defense
– Forward Presence
– Crisis Response
– Reconstitution
D. Military Strategy
– Peacetime
– Crisis Response
– Major Hostilities
II. The Base Force
– Base Case Force Structure
– Quality Personnel and Readiness
– Sustainability Guidance
– Mobility
– Modernization Priorities
– Active / Reserve Mix
– Force Reconstitution Capability
Appendices'''
- Illustrative Scenarios
- Chairman’s National Military Strategy
Contents
In his NYT article, Patrick Tyler compared the leaked document with the revised version. The leaked draft and the revised April version differed substantially in tone and emphasis. While the February draft stressed unilateral action and prevention of rivals, the April text emphasized multilateral cooperation. The following excerpts illustrate the contrasts.Superpower status
The first draft of the "doctrine" announces the United States's status as the world's only remaining superpower following the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War and proclaims its main objective to be retaining that status.This was substantially rewritten in the April 16 release.
Hal Brands commented on the fundamental goal: "The goal, in other words, was to avoid a return to bipolarity or multipolarity, and to lock in a U.S.-led unipolar order."
U.S. primacy
The doctrine establishes the U.S.'s leadership role within the new world order.This was substantially rewritten in the April 16 release.
All unfriendly references to India, Germany, and Japan were deleted in the second draft but are still implicitly included in the final document. Gellman comments:
"... the fact is any American administration has to keep an eye on any global center of power. If Germany started to slip towards hostility and started rebuilding its military power on a substantial globally capable scale, it wouldn't matter what the declared policy would be. The United States would certainly take a very strong interest in that. It's just that they decided to take that out of the document. You don't have to say everything you're thinking.."
Unilateralism
The first draft of the "doctrine" downplays the value of international coalitions.This was rewritten with a change in emphasis in the April 16 release.
Preventive Intervention
The first draft of the "doctrine" stated the U.S.'s right to intervene when and where it believed necessary.This was softened slightly in the April 16 release.
Russian threat
In part II. Defense Policy and Strategy, A. Trends and Prospects in the International Environment, headlined 1. Soviet Threat Reduction, the draft highlighted the possible threat posed by a resurgent Russia.This was removed from the April 16 release in favor of a more diplomatic approach:
In sub-chapter 2, the leaked parts of the original draft, which was partly redacted in the declassified version, addressed the possibility that other “potential nations or coalitions” could emerge as strategic risks in the post-Soviet environment. In the portions that were leaked to the press, this analysis was reframed more explicitly to emphasize preventing the emergence of any future competitor capable of challenging U.S. predominance.
In the leaked and later blackened introduction to chapter C, the risks are more precisely attributed to regions, Europe, East Asia, Middle East, Southwest Asia, and the countries of the former Sovjet Union, furthermore Latin America, Oceania, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where the US has "important interests at stake".
The following sub-chapters focus on different areas, first of all the former Soviet Union. The first large paragraph was leaked and later blackened.
The best means of assuring that no hostile power is able to consolidate control over the resources within the former Soviet Union is to support its successor states in their efforts to become peaceful democracies with market-based economies. A democratic partnership with Russia and the other republics would be the best possible outcome for the United States. At the same time, we must also hedge against the possibility that democracy will fail, with the potential that an authoritarian regime bent on regenerating aggressive military power could emerge in Russia, or that similiar regimes in other successor republics could lead to spreading conflict within the former U.S.S.R. or Eastern Europe.
Western Europe
Sub-chapter 2 addresses the situation in Western Europe. Where the otherwise heavily redacted section was leaked, the draft frames emerging European security arrangements as potential strategic challenges in a post-Cold War environment shaped by U.S. efforts to prevent the emergence of independent centers of military power.While the United States supports the goal of European integration; we must seek to prevent the emergence of European-only security arrangements which would undermine NATO, particularly the Alliance's integrated command structure."This part of the quote was considered as "meriting further consideration" and commented on in March: "A reference to maintaining NATO's integrated command structure is necessary even in a brief discussion of our policy objectives in Europe".
The revised version leaves out the reference to possible threats to NATO and includes the mentioned reference to the command structure:
As NATO continues to provide the indispensable foundation for a stable security environment in Europe, it is of fundamental importance to preserve NATO's integrated military command structure.
Middle East and Southwest Asia
The doctrine clarified the overall objectives in the Middle East and Southwest Asia.The April 16 release was more circumspect, and it reaffirmed U.S. commitments to Israel as well as its Arab allies.
Annex A, ''Illustrative Scenarios''
The redacted February 18 draft had no annexes specified in earlier document outlines; preserves only excised prefaces from May 2 and May 4 drafts with heavily redacted marginalia. The scenarios are defined in the May 2 version as depicting"plausible future events illustrating the types of circumstances in which the application of US military power might be required. threats to US interests, and corresponding achievable military objectives. While not exhaustive,] theyA May 4 version reduces the emphasis on threats:doillustrate a substantial range of the kinds of capabilities US forces might have to employ in various regions of the world."
"While not exhaustive, the scenario set does illustrate a substantial range of the kinds of capabilities US forces might have to employ in various changing regions of the world."The complete scenario texts and other annexes remain classified. The publicly released versions of Annex A does not name specific theaters of operation. Regional designations appear in the main body of the February 18, 1992 draft and in contemporaneous press reporting based on the leak, but not in the declassified annex material itself.
Barton Gellman, in his Washington Post article, mentions "a set of seven classified scenarios prepared by the Pentagon describing hypothetical roads to war by the end of the century." He refers to the NYT Times and Washington Post articles in February. Gellman writes the scenarios included "an American-led defense of Lithuania and Poland from invasion by Russia, wars against Iraq and North Korea to repel attacks on their southern neighbors and smaller-scale interventions in Panama and the Philippines." Barton states, the scenarios had come under congressional attack by political figures in the democratic and the Republican Parties, "and senior defense officials then suggested that they might be revised or abandoned."
Legacy
Between the 1992 Planning Guidance and the election of George W. Bush, the ideas of the DPG draft reverberated in neoconservative publications and campaigns, while being rejected in the official policy of President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. The most prominent example is the 1997 statement of principles by the Project for the New American Century.PNAC
The PNAC declaration called for a global leadership role for the United States and endorsed pre-emptive measures:We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership. Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:
• We need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.
The statement was signed by Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Zalmay Khalilzad, Donald Rumsfeld, Peter Rodman, and Elliott Abrams, among others.
PNAC’s 2000 report, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century, authored by Thomas Donnelly, Donald Kagan, and Gary Schmitt, explicitly referred back to the original 1992 Planning Guidance as an inspiration. It described it as a
a blueprint for maintaining U.S. preeminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests
Bush Doctrine
The core principles of the DPG were taken up in the so-called Bush Doctrine of 2002. Senator Edward M. Kennedy described the latter as "a call for 21st century American imperialism that no other nation can or should accept."In a 2003 interview with PBS Frontline, historian John Lewis Gaddis argued that the Bush administration’s post-9/11 “grand strategy” was “the most fundamental reshaping of American grand strategy” since containment. He also traced what he saw as its lineage back to the early-1990s Defense Planning Guidance debate, singling out Paul Wolfowitz and describing the underlying idea as a “doctrine of American hegemony” intended to preserve the United States’ unchallenged position after the Cold War.
I think the history of this particular doctrine does go back to one particular individual. This is Paul Wolfowitz … — a doctrine of American hegemony; a doctrine in which the United States would seek to maintain position that it came out of the Cold War with, in which there were no obvious or plausible challengers to the United States.Gaddis sees it as not only as the basis of the Bush administration's and the Clinton administration's thinking, but for the time after " either explicitly or implicitly": "...to hang on to this remarkable position of preeminence that we have in the world." In 2002, though, Gaddis had qualified the 1993 DPG to be "little more than cheerleading sessions" and missed coherence of strategy, especially in Clintons time.
Reception outside the USA
Russia
According to Sameed Basha in The National Interest, by 2007 the Kremlin’s political elite regarded U.S. foreign policy as the implementation of the 1992 plan to impose its will on the world and to weed out rivals wherever they may emerge. In Putin’s view, this was further confirmed by American actions in Ukraine, where the United States was seen as interfering in the country’s political affairs and paving the way for potential NATO and EU membership.Quote
Probably no defense planning document since the end of World War II, with the possible exception of NSC-68, has received as much attention and discussion.