No comment required. Just read the last two paragraphs
of this address to the US Marine Corp
Association...And please share it with others...this
struggle is not left vs. right, it is about common
sense and human decency...
"They should never be put on a battlefield without a strategic plan, not only for the fighting—our generals will take care of that—but for the aftermath and winning that war. Where are we, the American people, if we accept this, if we accept this level of sacrifice without that level of planning? Almost everyone in this room, of my contemporaries—our feelings and our sensitivities were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam; where we heard the garbage and the lies, and we saw the sacrifice. We swore never again would we do that. We swore never again would we allow it to happen. And I ask you, is it happening again? And you're going to have to answer that question, just like the American people are. And remember, everyone of those young men and women that come back is not a personal tragedy, it's a national tragedy."
http://www.mca-usniforum2003.org/forum03zinni.htm
Address by General Anthony Zinni, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
I'm going to just speak for a few minutes and then go
into the questions and answers, because that's always
the most interesting part.
I was really taken by the title of the forum this
year, especially the part that says "Win the Next
War." And it struck me—why are we asking that
question? Well, when I ask myself that question, I say
it's because we tend to defeat the enemy in battle, we
tend not to win the wars lately. And so the question
we ought to ask ourselves—if we're going to start
thinking about what our military needs to do and what
its role is—is why is that happening? It used to be
that if you defeated the enemy's forces in the field,
what was left was just mopping up or restructuring,
and the war was won on the battlefield. That hasn't
happened. It hasn't happened in the time I served, for
39 years. It probably hasn't happened since the end of
the Second World War. There's a difference between
winning battles, or defeating the enemy in battle, and
winning the war. And I think the first question we
have to ask ourselves is why is that happening and
what is the military's role, then, in taking it beyond
just defeating the enemy in battle?
What strikes me is that we are constantly redesigning
the military to do something it already does pretty
well. I mean, I think you heard from the last panel
that breaking the organized resistance in Iraq, even
though it may not have been the greatest army in the
world, was done extremely well. We've very proud of
our troops and very proud of the way that was executed
and led. But it wasn't enough.
"Whatever blood is poured onto the battlefield could
be wasted if we don't follow it up with understanding
what victory is."
At the end of the third inning we declared victory and
said the game's over. It ain't over. It isn't going to
be over in future wars. If we're talking about the
future, we need to talk about not how you win the
peace as a separate part of the war, but you've got to
look at this thing from start to finish. It's not a
phased conflict; there isn't a fighting part and then
another part. It is nine innings. And at the end of
the game, somebody's going to declare victory. And
whatever blood is poured onto the battlefield could be
wasted if we don't follow it up with understanding
what victory is.
There's only one time in our history that we really,
truly understood that. Harry Truman and George
Marshall understood it. Woodrow Wilson tried to get us
to understand it, but we refused and we were doomed to
fight again in a second great war. We didn't
understand it after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And we have failed in Vietnam, in places like Somalia;
and we're in danger of failing again, to get it and to
understand it.
Right after I retired in 2000, before 9/11, this was
the big topic in this town: change for the military,
transformation. No one could explain what that was,
but everybody wanted to know what our military should
morph into. I did a dangerous thing when I was asked
to come here and speak today. I actually went back—I
never write speeches, I never even take notes, I just
get up and talk. I don't advise you to do that,
because it's pretty painful; you never know what
you're going to say and people actually hold you
accountable for it. But in some of these speeches
there's some poor guy or girl that has to write your
crap down because you didn't transcribe it and then
play it back. Usually it sounds a hell of a lot better
when they do it than if I were to attempt to do it. So
I went back and found a few of these things. And I was
asked right after retirement, by NDU [National Defense
University], what I thought the future missions would
be for our military, and the capabilities they should
possess. And I gave them seven things, back in 2000,
that I thought were important. The first was the
ability to defeat a global power with sophisticated
military capabilities. That always will be the
priority for our military. If there is another
emergent threat on a global scale, if there is
somebody out there that's a so-called peer competitor
that we have to deal with, that's always going to be
the number-one way we design, organize, procure what
we need to fight.
The second I said was to deal with regional hegemonies
with asymmetric capabilities, such as weapons of mass
destruction, missiles—with basically a design to deny
us access to vital areas of the world and regional
allies in places where we care. The third was to deal
with transnational threats that included terrorist
groups, international crime and drug organizations,
warlords, environmental security issues, health and
disease problems, and illegal migrations.
The fourth was to deal with the problems of failed or
incapable states that require peacekeeping,
humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, or
national reconstruction. Remember, this was 2000. We
needed to deal with overseas crises that popped up,
and respond to them quickly, where our U.S. citizens
and property were in danger. And we needed to be
capable of dealing with domestic emergencies that
exceeded the capacity of other federal and local
government agencies. And finally, we had to protect
against threats to our key repositories of information
and our systems for moving information.
I saw these as the missions for our military in the
21st century. And, in fact, that was the title of the
paper and the title of the speech. And I think they
still hold. This wasn't any remarkable prescience on
my part; you could have asked [retired Marine Corps
General] Charlie Wilhelm, [former Pacific
Commander-in-Chief Admiral] Denny Blair. You could
have asked [former NATO Supreme Allied Commander
General] Wes Clark, any of the CINCs
[commanders-in-chief] at the time. You would have come
up with the same list. You could have asked anybody
that's looking at the world or global threats that we
faced out there, and you would have gotten the same
answer. You could have asked anybody in our
intelligence community what they foresaw as the
requirement, you would have gotten the same answer. So
there was nothing remarkable about this.
"Usually we look at the other elements of national
power—the political, the economic, information,
whatever—that are going to be brought to bear. . . .
That has not happened."
What is remarkable about it is the military's role.
The military traditionally is supposed to go out there
and kill people and break things. And then from that,
we determine how we're going to right the disorder or
fix the conflict. Usually we look at the other
elements of national power—the political, the
economic, information, whatever—that are going to be
brought to bear, much like George Marshall saw it at
the end of the Second World War. That has not
happened.
The military does a damn good job of killing people
and breaking things. And we can sit here and design a
better rifle squad, build a better fighter, a better
ship, a better tank. And we're so far ahead of any
potential enemy right now in those kinds of
technological areas, in the areas of expertise of
quality of leadership, and all the things that make
military units great on the battlefield, that you
wonder why we keep busting brain cells wondering how
to continually do it better, or to transform into
something else. I'm for transformation, if you define
it as finding better remarkable ways to tap into
technology, into our own brain power, into our
training and education, creative ways of redesigning
our organization to make our military even more
efficient, more powerful on the battlefield. But that
is not the problem and it hasn't been.
What is the role of the military beyond that point?
Right now the military in Iraq has been stuck with
this baby. In Somalia it was stuck with that baby. In
Vietnam it was stuck with that baby. And it's going to
continue to be that way. And what we have to ask
ourselves now is, is there something that the military
needs to change into that involves its movement into
this area of the political, the economic, the
information management? If the others, those wearing
suits, can't come in and solve the problem—can't bring
the resources, the expertise, and the organization—and
we're going to continue to get stuck with it, you have
one or two choices. Either they get the capability and
it's demanded of them, and we learn how to partner to
get it done, or the military finally decides to change
into something else beyond the breaking and the
killing.
What could this mean? It could mean civil affairs
changes from just being a tactical organization doing
basic humanitarian care and interaction with the
civilian population, to actually being capable of
reconstructing nations. That we will have people in
uniform that are educated in the disciplines of
economics, political structure, and we're actually
going to go in and do that. We're actually going to be
the governors. The CINCs that are the proconsuls will
truly be proconsuls and given that authority to do it;
that you will set regional policy. This is scary
stuff. I know in the five-sided building if this
echoes over there—they hate me anyway, but they
probably would be shaking in their boots to think
this. But either get the people on the scene that can
do it, get them there when they need to be there, give
them the resources and the training, create the
interoperability that's necessary—or validate the
military mission to do it. In my mind, that's the most
important question we have now.
This list of missions I gave you will not end here.
I'm doing work for the State Department in the
Philippines and in Indonesia. I'm working with
breakaway separatist groups—the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front, the Free Aceh Movement in the
jungles—trying to bring them to the peace table. We're
going to find more and more throughout a section of
the world that runs from North Africa to the
Philippines, from Central Asia to Central Africa; that
we have got an entire region of the world that is
chaotic and in turmoil, and we have just seen the
beginnings of it. For decades more, we're going to be
dealing with this problem. You're going to be fighting
terrorists, you're going to be fighting against failed
or incapable states that are sanctuaries for problems.
You're going to try to rebuild nations. You're going
to deal with crises and threats that threaten our
people and our property. And it's all going to be
mixed into one big bag.
It's going to be hard to define. It's not going to be
clear cut. The enemy isn't going to be in formations.
You know, we fought one idiot here, just now—Ohio
State beat Slippery Rock 62 to 0. No shit! You know!
But we weren't ready for that team that came onto the
field at the end of that three-week victory, with
great guys like [Marine Corps General] Jim Mattis and
others that did remarkable things that we know our
soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coasties can
do out there. We could be in danger of losing the
sacrifices that gained us that three-inning lead in
this game, right now on that battlefield.
Right now, in a place like Iraq, you're dealing with
the Jihads that are coming in to raise hell, crime on
the streets that's rampant, ex-Ba'athists that are
still running around, and the potential now for this
country to fragment: Shi'ia on Shi'ia, Shi'ia on
Sunni, Kurd on Turkomen. It's a powder keg. I just got
back from Jordan. I talked to a number of Iraqis in
there. And what I hear scares me even more than what I
read in the newspaper. Resources are needed, a
strategy is needed, a plan. This is a different kind
of conflict. War fighting is just one element of it.
Some people on this battlefield are different; they
don't come in those formations and with that kind of
equipment. And they come in many different forms. All
their agendas are different.
"We are great at dealing with the tactical
problems. . . . We are lousy at solving the
strategic problems."
How do we cope with that? On one hand, you have to
shoot and kill somebody; on the other hand, you have
to feed somebody. On the other hand, you have to build
an economy, restructure the infrastructure, build the
political system. And there's some poor lieutenant
colonel, colonel, brigadier general down there, stuck
in some province with all that saddled onto him, with
NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and political
wannabes running around, with factions and a culture
he doesn't understand.
These are now culture wars that we're involved in. We
don't understand that culture. I've spent the last 15
years of my life in this part of the world. And I'll
tell you, every time I hear somebody talk about this,
or one of the dilettantes back here speak about this
region of the world—they don't have a clue. They don't
understand what makes them tick. They don't understand
where they are in their own history. They don't
understand what our role is in moving this away from a
disaster for the entire world, and for us and our
interests.
We are great at dealing with the symptoms. We are
great at dealing with the tactical problems—the
killing and the breaking. We are lousy at solving the
strategic problems; having a strategic plan,
understanding about regional and global security and
what it takes to weld that and to shape it and to move
it forward. Where are the Marshalls today? Where are
the Eisenhowers and the Trumans, that saw the vision
and saw the world in a different way; and that
understood what had to be done and what America's role
is?
For the military, the implications are great. Right
now we're wringing our hands about how many troops we
have, how many divisions we have, what kind of
rotation we're going to have to go through, whether we
can get coalition allies or support to share the
burden with us and the dangers. That has to be built
from scratch. No longer does the military just sally
forth and do the killing and the breaking. It has to
be engaged, day in and day out, building these
alliances and coalitions, training others, seen out
there as a force of stability.
Right now the question that has to be answered is:
does our military expand its role beyond the military
aspect, or will we continue to stick it with this
mission without the resources, the training, the
cooperation from others or the lack of authority
needed to get the job done? If you're going to make
the military the governors out there, if you're going
to make them the proconsuls, if they're going to be
the humanitarians and the reconstructors, then
legitimize it in some way. Because we can't go on
breaking our military and doing things like we're
doing now.
"We need to train our officers and leaders for a
different kind of mission out there."
This administration came in with an idea of
transforming the military into something—God knows
what—lighter, smaller, quicker, whatever. The bill
payer was going to be ground units, heavy units. And
now we have a shortage of exactly what we needed out
there. Nobody listened to the CINCs. As a matter of
fact, they got rid of our name; we couldn't even be
called CINCs anymore. You know, we're no longer
commanders-in-chief; we're combatant commanders,
whatever the hell that means. But you're at the edge
of the empire and you see it firsthand. And you know
what the requirement is. And we keep screaming back
here into the system that we need more. We need to
train our officers and leaders for a different kind of
mission out there.
I don't need someone who's only good at the killing
and breaking, I need somebody that has the breadth of
education experience and intellect to take on all the
rest of these missions that he or she is going to be
saddled with when the shooting stops or when it
subsides to some level. They're the ones that are
going to count on the ground out there, more than
anything else. And I think that's the issue in any
discussion as to what happens to our military from
here on out.
Let me just finish by saying that we should be—as I
know you've heard plenty of times here—extremely proud
of what our people did out there, what our men and
women in uniform did. It kills me when I hear of the
continuing casualties and the sacrifice that's being
made. It also kills me when I hear someone say that,
well, each one of those is a personal tragedy, but in
the overall scheme of things, they're insignificant
statistically. Never should we let any political
leaders utter those words. This is the greatest
treasure the United States has, our enlisted men and
women. And when we put them into harm's way, it had
better count for something. It can't be because some
policy wonk back here has a brain fart of an idea of a
strategy that isn't thought out.
They should never be put on a battlefield without a
strategic plan, not only for the fighting—our generals
will take care of that—but for the aftermath and
winning that war. Where are we, the American people,
if we accept this, if we accept this level of
sacrifice without that level of planning? Almost
everyone in this room, of my contemporaries—our
feelings and our sensitivities were forged on the
battlefields of Vietnam; where we heard the garbage
and the lies, and we saw the sacrifice. We swore never
again would we do that. We swore never again would we
allow it to happen. And I ask you, is it happening
again? And you're going to have to answer that
question, just like the American people are. And
remember, everyone of those young men and women that
come back is not a personal tragedy, it's a national
tragedy.
General Zinni has held numerous command and staff
assignments with the U.S. Marine Corps that include
platoon, company, battalion, regimental, Marine
expeditionary unit, and Marine expeditionary force
command. His staff assignments included service in
operations, training, special operations,
counter-terrorism and manpower billets. He has
deployed to or served diplomatic missions in the
Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean, the western Pacific,
Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.