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Military planning (two-war strategy, QDR) (last updated November 22, 2001) Since the end of the Cold War, the United States military has tried to adapt to a changing world environment, budget cuts, new technologies, and difficulties recruiting and retaining military personnel. Overall strategy has been reviewed and revised by the Department of Defense through four major planning efforts, the most recent being the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review released in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. The 2001 QDR, undertaken by the Bush administration and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, marked a shift from planning around specific threats to one based on handling how any such threats might bear against the United States.  Military strength (last updated November 22, 2001)  Military spending (last updated November 22, 2001)  Missile Defense (last updated November 23, 2001) For two decades, a vocal segment of policy makers and military leaders have sought to develop a broad, multi-faceted program involving land, sea and space-based means to protect the United State from limited ballistic missile attacks. Expectations for such a shield have risen and fallen in scope over the years. Missile-defense proponents started with highly ambitious goals under Reagan, went to more limited expectations in the 1990s, and gained ground in the later days of the Clinton administration and now under George W. Bush. Currently, the goal of missile defense is to deter hostile countries such as North Korea from launching a limited attack against the United States. Development efforts have met with difficulty on two fronts. Technologically, efforts have not yet with reliable success. Politically, the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 bans development of missile defense systems, and countries such as Russia and China view the United States' efforts destabilizing the nuclear balance of power. The Bush administration has devoted much resources on both obstacles; in recent months, Bush has dramatically increased missile-defense spending and met often with Russian President Vladimir Putin to amend the ABM Treaty to allow missile-defense research. The Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, as modified by a later protocol, limited the United States and the Soviet Union to one missile-defense site each and prevented each country from moving that site even if the first one later closed. The Soviet Union established its site in Moscow and still operates it today. The United States established its site at Grand Folks, North Dakota, in 1976 but closed it after a few months; it is not active now. In 1983, Reagan revived and expanded missile-defense as a military strategy by making achieving an antiballistic missile system capable of resisting a large-scale attack one of his biggest military strategies. The research program to examine this program became the Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly known as Star Wars. Originally, Reagan had hoped to protect the United States fully from the "mutually assured destruction" scenario wherein the Soviet Union was deterred from the total annihilation of the United States by the prospect of similar retaliation; even the strongest proponents of missile defense have conceded that such an effective shield is beyond current capabilities. With the end of the Cold War, Bush announced a shift in focus in 1991 from protecting against a massive attack towards global protection against limited strikes. The Gulf War provided the first operational engagement between ballistic missiles and theater missile defense (TMD) systems able to protect US forces from short-range attacks, and the defense systems had some success. The Clinton administration continued the trend towards TMD but cut funding of missile-defense research. However, in 1998, developments revived the efforts in favor of NMD and pushed the Clinton administration to consider laying the foundations for an NMD system of its own. That year, a committee led by Donald H. Rumsfeld, who had been Secretary of Defense under the Ford administration and holds the post again under George W. Bush, reported that the threat of ballistic missiles from rogue countries such as North Korea, Iran or Iraq was growing. A month later, North Korea fired a missile over Japan; the test failed but the debris did land not far from Alaska. Additional funding for NMD quickly followed, and in early 1999, Clinton's Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, the sole Republican on Clinton's Cabinet, foreshadowed Bush by saying that the US would withdraw from the ABM if the Russians were not willing to amend it so that the US could develop NMD, but the Clinton administration quickly disavowed Cohen's statement. The armed forces continued to work on efforts to develop NMD while the State Department tried unsuccessfully to convince the Russians to amend the ABM treaty. Finally, on September 1, 2000, Clinton expressed his general support for NMD, but decided to delay the beginning of long-term NMD plans until the next president could come in, citing both the technological difficulties still plaguing the program and the long-term nature of the program. That next president would be George W. Bush, and on May 1, 2001, Bush called for an expansive missile defense program and said that the ABM treaty was effectively dead. His plans include a network of land-based installations (not simply in North Dakota) and sea-based systems that could be moved to appropriate hot spots. His approach is thus more in the lines of his father, a national missile-defense system that would work against limited attacks. Along with this expanded defense, Bush has called for large cuts in the United States' nuclear capabilities. Funding has jumped dramatically since Bush took office, particularly in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Just days before the attacks, the Senate Armed Forces Committee, headed by Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), announced it would increase NMD funding in FY 2002 to about $7.0 billion, a 20 percent increase but still less than the $8.3 billion Bush had requested. The committee supported the "development and deployment of improved theater missile defense systems as soon as possible after rigorous testing has proven these systems to be operationally effective," but said the additional $1.3 billion requested was "poorly justified and would better be used to meet more pressing needs." In the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Levin and the other Democrats on the committee backed away from this position and restored full funding as Bush had requested. Accordingly, missile defense spending in FY 2002 will be more than twice what it was just two years earlier.  International Criminal Court, war crimes (last updated April 11, 2002) (back to top) Despite the opposition of the United States, the treaty creating the International Criminal Court will take effect July 1, 2002, having received sufficient international support. The ICC will have jurisdiction over war crimes committed by individuals in participating countries, and thus provide a permanent enforcement system for enforcing international norms and holding individual violators responsible. In the wake of the First World War, nations began to prohibit certain methods and ways of conducting warfare through treaties and conventions. In 1948, the United Nations adopted a convention defining genocide as a crime under international law that must be prevented and punished. However, these laws, conventions and protocols lacked a regular system for their enforcement and for holding individual violators responsible. War crimes have been prosecuted internationally only through specifically convened mechanisms, such as the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II, and the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, which were created by the United Nations Security Council on an ad hoc basis and are still in place today (for more on the prosecution of former Serbia leader Slobodan Milosevic, go here). On July 17, 1998, 160 nations passed the Rome Statute on the Internal Criminal Court, thus beginning the process towards establishing a permanent international court where individuals "without any distinction based on official capacity" could be prosecuted for the following four broad crimes:
Posse Comitatus (last updated May 20, 2002) (back to top) The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 stands for the overarching principle that military and civilian spheres of American life should be separated. Specifically, the PCA, now codified into law as 18 USC 1385, provides that federal military forces such as the army cannot be used to enforce civil laws except in circumstances authorized by the Constitution or Congress. At the same time, the military can still conduct some operations within the United States. It can repel invasions or domestic violence when authorized by the President, it can respond to domestic emergencies, and it can assist other agencies in limited ways, such as providing air patrols and helping detect weapons of mass destruction. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, some have asked whether the Posse Comitatus Act should be revised to allow greater use of the military in law-enforcement, including authorizing the military to arrest people. Still, the Bush administration has not called for any changes even as it intends to establish a new military homeland defense organization based in Colorado. This new U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) is part of the Unified Command Plan which was announced in April 2002 and, if approved, will go into effect October 1, 2002. "We're not looking for any long-term or short-term changes with respect to posse comitatus," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld testified in a May 7, 2002 Senate hearing on the Unified Command Plan. The term "posse comitatus" is an old legal term referring to the power of the county. In olden times, a sheriff could summon the entire population of a county, also known as the posse comitatus, to assist him in certain cases necessary in keeping the peace. In the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, governors and marshals would often call upon the Army to act as a posse comitatus and to impose order. This created political problems in having local officials using the military and thus ducking accountability, and it created military problems in having troop commanders placed at the disposal of civil authorities and thus outside the military chain of command. In 1878, Congress enacted the Posse Comitatus Act, firmly placing the Army within the military chain of command and ending the use of the army as a means of civilian law-enforcement. Governors and marshals could no longer command the army themselves without facing criminal penalties (currently a maximum two-year sentence and/or a fine), but instead must submit their requests to the executive branch. Under the PCA, the ultimate decision to use federal troops rests ultimately with the President in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief. Under 10 USC 331-333, which were enacted in the 1950s, the President can use military forces within the United States to stop insurrections and domestic violence, to ensure that laws are being enforced, and to prevent civil rights from being denied; this is how presidents authorized using troops to quell riots and to supervise school desegregations. In the 1980s and 1990s, Congress also authorized greater military involvement in drug-interdiction efforts and in stopping the use of nuclear material or weapons. By its terms, the Posse Comitatus Act only refers to the Army and Air Force. Nonetheless, the Department of Defense has extended by regulation the PCA's prohibitions to the Navy and Marine Corps. Still, the PCA has not always prevented violations of the chain of command. In 1899, the State of Idaho used the army's forces to intervene in a miner's strikes and to impose martial law. From 1917 to 1920, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker gave military commanders the authority to answer governors' requests for federal troops without requiring the approval of the War Department or the President. There has never been a criminal prosecution under the PCA, and no one was prosecuted for these apparent violations. Sources: Jeffrey M. Cooper, Federal Military Intervention in Domestic Disorders, in The United States Military under the Constitution of the United States, 1789-1989, edited by Richard J. Kohn (New York University Press, 1991). Major H. W. C. Furman, Restrictions upon use of the army imposed by the Posse Comitatus Act, Military Law Review, Volume 7, page 85 (January 1960). Matthew Carlton Hammond, The Posse Comitatus Act: A Principle in Need of Renewal, Washington University Law Quartery, Volume 75, Number 2 (75 Wash. U. L.Q. 953) (Summer 1997). Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld's May 7, 2002 testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee is on-line here. The Unified Command Plan is on-line here. Federal code provisions are available via Findlaw.com. Composition by race and sex (last updated November 23, 2001) The following graphs show the composition of the military, with race statistics as of September 2000 and gender statistics as of April 2001. The graphs show that women compose about 15 percent of the military, and are represented at the officer level as they are at the enlisted level. Minorities, on the other hand, have not attained representation at the officer level as would be expected given their representation at the enlisted level.   Women in the Military (last updated February 25, 2003) (back to top) In recent years, many countries have expanded opportunities for women in their respective militaries, and several have lifted all restrictions on women serving in units that may see combat. The United States lifted many restrictions in the early 1990s but it still prohibits women from serving in units that may engage in direct combat on the ground. Israel is apparently the only country with a prominent military that regularly drafts women, but even women in the Israeli Defense Forces were generally put in non-combat units and prohibited from engaging in actual combat until the late 1990s. Israeli women were for decades assigned to a separate Women's Corps, but the Corps was re-organized in 1997 and then finally disbanded in 2001 so that women could be incorporated into the general force.
Media Access in War (last updated January 19, 2003) (back to top) How the United States government manages the press in times of war has evolved over the 20th and 21st centuries. Since 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who served as a Republican congressman in the 1960s and then as defense secretary for the first time in the 1970s under Gerald Ford, has taken on a greater and more visible role by conducting many press briefings himself, rather than leaving such briefings to military commanders as in past operations. Rumsfeld's involvement "is a relatively easy way to get at what you want to say in pretty quick order. It's actually a remarkably efficient use of his time. So, he understands it's important, he wants to do it. In terms of going forward, I don't know. We'll use him as much as we think is appropriate and as much as he thinks he's adding value to the equation," Victoria Clarke, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, noted during a November 8, 2001 seminar on coverage of the war on terrorism. More controversial is the media's access to United States armed forces on the battlefield during a time of war. During the conflict with the Taliban in Afghanistan, the United States initially restricted media access to the armed forces in Afghanistan and even locked reporters in a warehouse to prevent coverage of one incident, but then established formal procedures in December 2001 to provide access more regularly. In the event of a military operation in Iraq, Defense Department officials have said reporters will have access to troops in the field. "I think that as a principle, given our Constitution and the way our free system works, that it's always helpful, generally almost always helpful to have the press there to see things and be able to report and comment and provide information about what's taking place," Rumsfeld said in a October 30, 2002 meeting with news organization bureau chiefs. "There are obviously times when that's not appropriate, the danger is too great or the confidentiality of what's taking place is such that it's not appropriate." In preparation for having access to troops in Iraq, some reporters began Defense Department training programs including a fitness component in November 2002. In Afghanistan, journalists first accompanied U.S. troops into the field on November 27, 2001, but some were then locked in a warehouse on December 6 so that they could not cover troops injured by a stray bomb. Clarke then apologized to the press in writing and promised changes such as Coalition Press Information Centers in Afghanistan to provide more information faster to the press. "We have a significant responsibility to provide your correspondents the opportunity to cover the war. It is a responsibility that we take seriously," she wrote at the time. "Our policy remains the same as it always has been: Keeping in mind our desire to protect operational security and the safety of men and women in uniform, we intend to provide maximum media coverage with minimal delay and hassle. That has not always been the case over the last few days, particularly with regard to the coverage of dead and wounded returning to the Forward Operating Base known as Rhino." United States policy towards giving the media access to the military has changed over the 20th century. The policy was concealment and censorship in World War II in the Korean Conflict, a battle over image but no formal censorship in the Vietnam War, changes implemented in the wake of the United States invasion of Grenada, and then strict controls during the Persian Gulf war. During Vietnam, high-level military sources initially did not provide much information, so the media turned more to soldiers in the field and produced coverage more unfavorable to how the war was being conducted. The Johnson and Nixon administrations then turned to more regular and more formal briefings to try and show the war in a different light. Officially, however, the Vietnam War is considered the first U.S. war in the 20th century not to involve formal censorship. After the military's invasion of Grenada in 1983, the military was much criticized for denying media access until after the fighting was all over. In response, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff formed a commission headed by Major General Winant Sidle to recommend changes for future coverage. The Sidle commission proposed that a national media pool be created to cover operations where full media access was not feasible. This pool has had limited success. During the Persian Gulf War, the media covered the United States military's point of view almost entirely through formal briefings and through carefully managed pools that were difficult to get into and were contingent upon submitting reporting to security review before publication. As a result, press coverage was highly controlled by the military unless a journalist wanted to cover the war from Baghdad, which is what several CNN reporters did with some controversy. Beyond politics, it is unclear whether the media has a First Amendment right of access to the military during a war. The media does not have an unlimited right to governmental information and does not have a greater right than the general public. However, Federal District Judge Paul Freedman issued an opinion on January 8, 2002, in which he wrote that there may be a limited and highly qualified right "to gather and report news involving United States military operations on foreign soil," and that such a right would depend on particular circumstances and would be "subject to reasonable regulations to protect the safety and security of both the journalists and those involved in those operations, as well as the secrecy and confidentiality of information whose dissemination could endanger United States soldiers or our allies or compromise military operations." This case arose when Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, sought an injunction that would force the military to allow Hustler correspondents to accompany American troops in Afghanistan. Judge Freedman denied the request on January 8, 2002, accepting that "the military situation in and Afghanistan has been a rapidly changing, fluid environment and so the support for press coverage has also passed through several phases," and that the Department of Defense is providing "some level of open access to American troops on the ground in Afghanistan," Freedman wrote. Accordingly, he rejected Flynt's request as unwarranted at the time. Sources: A transcript of the Oct. 30, 2002 Department of Defense meeting with national media pool bureau chiefs is on-line herehere. The Dec. 13, 2002 meeting is on-line here, along with a copy of Victoria Clarke's December 6, 2001 apology and memo, and a transcript of the DOD's November 18, 2001 seminar on war coverage is on-line here. Howard Kurtz, Journalists worry about limits on information, access, Washington Post, September 24, 2001. Flynt v. Rumsfeld, the opinion in which Freedman denied Flynt's request but suggested some media right of access, can be retrieved from the District Court for the District of Columbia, on-line here. A. Trevor Thrall, War in the Media Age Hampton Press, 2000). Loren B. Thompson, Defense Beat: the dilemmas of defense coverage (Lexington Books, 1991). |
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