The Militarization of Foreign Policy
In this three-part series, Steven Stashwick delves into military influence on U.S. foreign policy, its causes, and its risks. Stashwick spent 10 years on active duty as a U.S. naval officer with multiple deployments to the Western Pacific.
Since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a myriad of books, articles, and speeches have examined the creeping militarization of American foreign policy. In 2008, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates publicly lamented the reliance on military tools over civilian diplomacy, advocated a major increase in the State Department budget, and emphasized the importance of the military being — and being seen to be — subordinate to civilian agencies and departments. After staying on at the start of the Obama administration, Secretary Gates testified and appeared together with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to advocate for a stronger State Department, better integration of their departments’ efforts and to emphasize the State Department’s primacy in U.S. foreign policy.
Despite these efforts, the militarization of U.S. foreign policy appears to be expanding. Why is this the case?
It would be wrong to assume individual or bureaucratic ambition is responsible. Any activity, initiative, or plan the military undertakes derives from an assigned task or responsibility, and their conduct is institutionally constrained by official guidance and doctrine; the military’s foreign engagement and policy advocacy is no different. The military defines diplomacy and engagement as part of its organizational mission and requires it by operational doctrine. In essence, the military orders itself to pursue its own foreign engagement in ways that can bleed over into broader U.S. foreign policy.
The U.S. military’s stated purpose is “to protect our Nation and win our wars.” It may be a surprise, then, that the National Military Strategy’s vision for achieving that warfighting function includes “support[ing] diplomatic, informational, and economic activities that promote our enduring national interests.” Some of the formal military objectives that result have clear foreign policy overlap like deterring aggression and supporting global partners and allies. As the military defines it, even “winning wars” has a substantial diplomatic component that is separate from, and sometimes larger than, (though notionally complementary with) the State Department’s efforts.
The key to understanding the military’s foreign policy activity is its operational Phasing Model. The model conceives a six-phase spectrum of military operations:
phase 0 — shape, includes peacetime operations and engagement to both prevent the conditions for crisis and enable the success of potential combat operations;
phase 1 — deter, includes specific, targeted deterrence activity to prevent the outbreak of hostilities;
phase 2 — seize initiative, is the transition to combat if deterrence fails;
phase 3 — dominate, is the conduct of major combat operations;
phase 4 — stabilize, is instituting post-combat political and civil services and stability; and
phase 5 — enable civil authority, transitions military administration back to civilian or local authorities.
Fully, four of these phases drive the military’s foreign policy activity: the two phases that precede conflict, ‘Shape’ and ‘Deter,’ and the two phases that follow conflict, ‘Stabilize’ and ‘Enable Civil Authority.’
