Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1660777846-scaled

Reflecting on the 'Powell Doctrine' and why we should revive it

The former secretary of state ignored his instincts and helped set off one of the worst foreign policy blunders in history.

Analysis | Middle East

Nineteen years ago, the United States invaded Iraq, optimistically wading into its greatest foreign policy blunder since the Vietnam War.

Faulty intelligence, deliberately curated by an administration politically dead set on invasion, convinced the American people, recently shaken by September 11, that entering Iraq was the only option available to prevent a mad tyrant from unleashing terrorism and weapons of mass destruction on the world. Americans were told that the war would not last long, and that it would establish a stable democracy, contributing to a more secure Middle East.

I was a fifth grader in 2003, and the debates leading into the war were the first foreign policy issues I fully comprehended in real-time. As the son of an airline pilot, I was indelibly affected by September 11. I remember my fear and sadness from feeling that war was necessary to stop Saddam Hussein from using WMDs or from empowering people who could endanger my father. I felt pride as my dad, also a Navy veteran, took part in the Pentagon’s Civil Reserve Air Fleet program to fly troops to the Middle East for Iraq deployments. I was transfixed for days by the non-stop coverage of the invasion.

Many Americans can think back to those days as we tried to make sense of a post-9/11 world and what America’s role in that world should be.

We now know that Hussein never had substantial links to al-Qaeda nor possessed WMDs. Protracted nation-building followed America’s quick conventional victory, revealing the limits of our ability to spread liberal democratic values by force rather than by example.

The cost of the invasion has been devastating — 4,500 American service members killed, 32,000 wounded, tens of thousands of veterans lost to suicide, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and wounded, and $2 trillion spent by American taxpayers.

And rather than stabilizing the Middle East, the war unleashed sectarian violence in Iraq and ushered in an era of strategic turmoil still felt today.

The biggest beneficiary of toppling Iraq’s government was Iran, whose influence across the region has swelled since. The chaos also created conditions for the emergence of ISIS, a threat American troops are still deployed to counter a generation later.

These terrible outcomes occurred because policymakers lacked a prudent, disciplined policy framework that recognized America’s fundamental security, the limits of its power, and the risks of overextension.

It’s cruelly ironic that the man best positioned to have opposed this war did the most to convince ordinary Americans it was necessary.

Colin Powell learned the bitter price of strategic hubris while serving in Vietnam. Later, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War, General Powell helped avoid a bloody quagmire for U.S. forces by keeping the war limited.

Based on those experiences, the “Powell Doctrine” offered a vision of an American foreign policy that might have been.

The Powell Doctrine argues that the United States should only resort to military force when its vital national interests are threatened, clear and achievable objectives are present, overwhelming force necessary for the objectives is available, diplomatic options have been exhausted, and an exit strategy is in place.

In retrospect, it’s clear that the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 didn’t meet any of these requirements.  

Nevertheless, conflicted by a sense of duty, Powell used his hard-won credibility to buttress the Bush administration’s own faulty intelligence about WMDs. Powell’s speech to the United Nations Security Council convinced many ordinary Americans that war was necessary and proved an infamous turning point in America’s reputation abroad as the statements made turned out to be false.

Powell later regretted not having the moral courage to resign in protest of the march to a war he opposed. Had he stuck to his own foreign policy convictions, he wouldn’t have needed to feel that regret.

If the Iraq War tragedy is to teach us anything it is that a realistic and restrained foreign policy, like that of the Powell Doctrine, is the best path forward.

Those who bore witness to the grave mistake of the invasion have a responsibility to educate future generations about what serves our national interests and the unintended consequences of wars that do not serve them. Younger Americans need to understand how a society can whip itself into a pro-war fever pitch and what can be done to combat the default to military action. Most of all, we must prepare future generations to show the courage Colin Powell lacked to speak out against foreign policy errors, even when doing so is unpopular.

Reviving the Powell doctrine means bringing an end to endless wars that fly in its face, reasserting congressional war powers to more deliberately debate whether to enter conflicts, repealing outdated authorizations for the use of military force, and rededicating ourselves to a more humble, achievable foreign policy that best protects American interests.

The Iraq War should remind us that American power is most potent when it’s used judiciously, as laid out in the Powell Doctrine. Our leaders must never again put American troops into harm’s way without a clear connection to our national interest and achievable mission to carry out.

To honor those who served and sacrificed in Iraq as we reflect on the last 19 years, our nation must pursue a more thoughtful, responsible foreign policy.


Editorial credit: Alexsander Lepetukha / Shutterstock.com
Analysis | Middle East
American Special Operations
Top image credit: (shutterstock/FabrikaSimf)

American cult: Why our special ops need a reset

Military Industrial Complex

This article is the latest installment in our Quincy Institute/Responsible Statecraft project series highlighting the writing and reporting of U.S. military veterans. Click here for more information.

America’s post-9/11 conflicts have left indelible imprints on our society and our military. In some cases, these changes were so gradual that few noticed the change, except as snapshots in time.

keep readingShow less
Recep Tayyip Erdogan Benjamin Netanyahu
Top photo credit: President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Shutterstock/ Mustafa Kirazli) and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Salty View/Shutterstock)
Is Turkey's big break with Israel for real?

Why Israel is now turning its sights on Turkey

Middle East

As the distribution of power shifts in the region, with Iran losing relative power and Israel and Turkey emerging on top, an intensified rivalry between Tel Aviv and Ankara is not a question of if, but how. It is not a question of whether they choose the rivalry, but how they choose to react to it: through confrontation or peaceful management.

As I describe in Treacherous Alliance, a similar situation emerged after the end of the Cold War: The collapse of the Soviet Union dramatically changed the global distribution of power, and the defeat of Saddam's Iraq in the Persian Gulf War reshuffled the regional geopolitical deck. A nascent bipolar regional structure took shape with Iran and Israel emerging as the two main powers with no effective buffer between them (since Iraq had been defeated). The Israelis acted on this first, inverting the strategy that had guided them for the previous decades: The Doctrine of the Periphery. According to this doctrine, Israel would build alliances with the non-Arab states in its periphery (Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia) to balance the Arab powers in its vicinity (Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, respectively).

keep readingShow less
Havana, Cuba
Top Image Credit: Havana, Cuba, 2019. (CLWphoto/Shutterstock)

Trump lifted sanctions on Syria. Now do Cuba.

North America

President Trump’s new National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) on Cuba, announced on June 30, reaffirms the policy of sanctions and hostility he articulated at the start of his first term in office. In fact, the new NSPM is almost identical to the old one.

The policy’s stated purpose is to “improve human rights, encourage the rule of law, foster free markets and free enterprise, and promote democracy” by restricting financial flows to the Cuban government. It reaffirms Trump’s support for the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, which explicitly requires regime change — that Cuba become a multiparty democracy with a free market economy (among other conditions) before the U.S. embargo will be lifted.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.