Weinberger Doctrine: Cold War Dinosaur or A Useful Guide for Intervention in the Post-Cold War Era

摘要

This paper demonstrates that concepts behind five of the six imperatives of the Weinberger Doctrine are still relevant to the post-Cold War era. Weinberger's six tests, in addition, are not as restrictive as they appear. Weinberger provides caveats and exceptions in his first five imperatives that allow policy-makers more flexibility in applying his imperatives. All the tests require mature, subjective evaluation by the nation's leaders. The sixth 'last resort' imperative, however, implies too much restriction for policy-makers to deal with the complex post-Cold War threat environment. Further, the sixth imperative implies using the instruments of power sequentially rather than simultaneously. This does not optimize the use of all the instruments in concert and can, in fact, cause a policy to fail, as it did in Somalia. As demonstrated by the Clinton Administration's failed policy in Somalia, following the concepts found in the first five imperatives of the Weinberger Doctrine could have averted the failure of the TFR mission and subsequently the UNOSOM II mission. In contrast, following the sixth imperative of 'last resort', implying sequential rather than simultaneous use of all the instruments of power, could have led to failure. The Clinton Administration formulated PDD-25 to avoid many of the policy mistakes it had made in Somalia. Toward that goal, the Administration incorporated the concepts of five of the six imperatives contained in the Weinberger Doctrine, all be it in much less restrictive language and without the requirement that all of the imperatives be met to commit forces to combat. In PDD-25 the Administration rejected Weinberger's sixth imperative requiring combat forces be used as the 'last resort'.