Throughout his tenure as chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey has stressed that the
military instrument of power may not always be the best tool to solve problems
and issues.
Dempsey spoke recently to DoD News in a
wide-ranging interview. The chairman retires at the end of this month after 41
years on active duty, including four years as the nation’s highest-ranking
military officer.
He said he believes in the
whole-of-government approach with economic, diplomatic, law enforcement, energy
and the military instruments of power working together to confront problems and
issues, and he's pushed for that approach many times during his tenure.
But many people still want the government
to reach for the military first when confronted with an issue, the chairman
said, adding that he's both flattered by and wary of the confidence people have
in the military. “We embrace the idea that the American people and our elected
officials have such confidence in us that we do tend to be the most prominent
instrument of power,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to change that.”
Increasing
Understanding
Some surveys of the American public show the
U.S. military with an approval rating as high as 72 percent, and the military
is generally viewed as effective and capable. Also, Dempsey said, people are
beginning to understand what the whole-of-government approach means, including
how the military fits in as an underlying, stabilizing force.
“I do think there’s a recognition that most
conflicts have these underlying issues … and that the military instrument,
while it can bring a degree of stability to provide an opportunity for those
underlying issues to be resolved, in and of itself and solely, it cannot
resolve those,” he said. “The phrase whole-of-government is not just desirable
--it’s actually imperative.”
Understanding of the concept has grown
since 2001, he said. The experience in Iraq is just one example. The chairman
has deployed to Iraq a number of times since 1990, when he served in Operation
Desert Storm. He returned in 2003 to command the 1st Armored Division in
Baghdad. As a three-star, he commanded the Multinational Security Transition
Command-Iraq from 2005-2007. Iraq needed help from several different agencies,
he said, and he saw the departments of State, Treasury and Energy as well as
the U.S. Agency for International Development, the FBI and others join with DoD
and the intelligence community to address the full spectrum of problems that
nation faced.
While the military instrument was necessary
to create conditions for other aspects of the whole-of-government approach to
work, Dempsey said, diplomacy is necessary to negotiate among sectarian factions,
economic advice is needed to grow economies and law enforcement professionals
are needed to ensure the rule of law and application of justice. Finally,
governance advice is needed to combat corruption and ensure citizens believe
the government is working in their best interests, the chairman said.
“I think we’ve come a long way, actually,
when I think about where we were in 2001 [compared to] where we are today,” he
said. “But we’ve got some distance to travel in that regard, in particular as
these challenges multiply. I already admitted it’s putting the Department of
Defense under a certain amount of pressure. It’s stretching us out.”
Budget
Cuts, Human Cost
The military has a “can-do” ethic, the
chairman said, and he is worried that this undercuts DoD leaders’ requests for
budget increases. “It’s why we’re having some trouble articulating the effect
of the budget,” he said.
Budget cuts are eroding military
capabilities a little at a time. “Erosion is tough to identify. It’s not
temporal, you know -- you never know when … that erosion will cause a collapse
or a near collapse,” the chairman said. “So the erosion of our advantages is
troubling. But again, it’s somewhat because we’re victims of our success, and
we’re having trouble articulating the way we’re accruing risk long-term.”
Dempsey said he never forgets that service
members based around the world carry out decisions made in Washington. “I’ve
thought a lot about the use of the military instrument of power, and in
particular whether it’s … more appropriate to be cautious or aggressive with it,”
he said. “I actually think … a bit of caution in the use of the military
instrument is appropriate because the stakes are just so high.”
War is one of the most complex of human
endeavors, he said, citing the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who said that
nations go to war out of fear, honor or self-interest. “It’s usually something
of each of those,” Dempsey said. “And when conflict starts out of either fear
or honor, and in the case of certain current conflicts, of religion, the
ability to manage those conflicts becomes much more difficult, much more
challenging.”
Caution is not a pejorative when
considering war, the chairman said. “On the other hand … the use of the
military instrument is different, whether you’re dealing with a nation-state or
a peer-competitor or a non- or sub-state group,” he said. “Each of those
challenges requires you to think deliberately about whether it’s appropriate to
have a, as I’ve describe it, a bias for action or a bias for inaction. My point
is this: if you have a universal bias for inaction that can become
problematic.”
Compressed
Decision Cycles
There must be a balance, the chairman said,
given the threat and the other pressures on the system. “I think you have to be
very judicious in balancing your tendency to go into action and your tendency
to wait and see if other opportunities present themselves,” he said.
There isn’t a lot of time for
contemplation. One trend the chairman has noticed is the phenomenal increase in
the speed of information and the compression of the decision cycle. Social
media plays a role in this. “Tahrir Square became a flash mob through social
media that quickly changed the nature of the environment in Egypt -- profoundly
changed it,” Dempsey said. “And of course, the fruit vendor in Tunisia who
self-immolates, he becomes the catalyst for the Arab Spring.”
Social media also means officials are
making policy and strategy in public. “It’s the recognition that the decisions
we make are immediately visible and evident to large numbers of people, and not
just at home but across the globe,” he said.
This can go two ways, he said: nations will
either become more aggressive or more cautious. “I will leave it to historians
to decide whether we become more aggressive or more cautious in the face of
this proliferation of awareness and information,” he said. “But it is a part of
the environment that can’t be ignored.”
It has to be understood at the highest
levels. “When I talk to my peers in the military and when I talk to our elected
officials, I talk about options and I talk about whether we’re in a period that
requires either a bias for action or a bias for inaction,” he said. “But what
we can’t allow is this proliferation of information to do is generate an almost
insatiable appetite for more information and more options, which can actually
paralyze the system.”
People want an exquisite solution, the
chairman explained, and they often believe that with just a bit more
information and a bit more time that a perfect solution exists. “What I’m
suggesting is, as I pass the torch of the chairmanship to [Marine Corps] Gen. [Joseph]
Dunford, I think that reality of making strategy in public and the risk of
paralysis is much more real than it was when I became the chairman, and I can
only imagine how that environment could change over the next four years.”