Nathan’s Coercive Diplomacy Must Be Grounded in the Remarkable Trinity

James A. Nathan in his book, Soldiers, Statecraft, and History, lays out a case for the use of force or “coercive diplomacy” in administering foreign policy. It would be hard to argue with the thesis of his work, “successful management of foreign policy requires the conscious integration of force and diplomacy.” (Nathan, vii-viii) His historical examples from the peace of Westphalia to Vietnam are compelling. He applies the Clausewitzian definition of war as an extension of politics by other means, and does so in a convincing manner. However, he misses the mark in his concluding chapter when he brings all of his arguments up to the recent past, specifically America’s foreign interventions, or lack thereof, in the 1980s and 1990s.

Nathan postulates that the shadow of Vietnam and the apparent disasters of Lebanon and Somalia have left America risk averse. He rails against the Powell—Weinberger doctrine calling it a “straightjacket” (Nathan, 170) that prevents, or at least strongly discourages, American diplomacy from using military force as a foreign policy tool. Nathan takes his argument too far in lambasting the political and military leaders of the 1990s for their cautious use of force going so far as to insinuate that President Clinton was spineless for not intervening in Bosnia sooner. Perhaps Nathan forgot what Clausewitz called the “remarkable trinity.” (Clausewitz, 89)

Nathan states that a fallacy of the Powell—Weinberger environment was the requirement for clear concise political and military objectives and end states, and that this environment paralyzed the leadership from intervening when national interests were at stake and the moral cause was just but they were unable to articulate clear objectives and timetables to the American people. Caspar Weinberger stated that the nation should “have clearly defined political and military objectives” and Colin Powell expounded that the “political objective must be important, clearly defined, and understood.” (Enriquez, 33) Nathan suggests that objectives and end states are not within the government’s purview when he surmises that the “burden of policy is less to find clear military objectives than it is to find pertinent policy objectives.” (Nathan, 162), but Clausewitz was clear when he stated “the political aims are the business of the government alone.” (Clausewitz, 89) Powell was right—particularly in his role as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—to formulate a philosophy that would enable him and other national level military leaders to bridge the gap between political and military strategy, for he goes on to say “clear, unambiguous, and achievable objectives must be given to forces” and “must be firmly linked with the political objectives.” (Enriquez, 33) Perhaps Powell and Weinberger better grasped that Clausewitz’s trinity required the government, or reason, to identify the political aims for the army, or chance, for Clausewitz stated “the political object—the original motive for the war—will thus determine both the military objective to be reached and the amount of effort it requires.” (Clausewitz, 81)

Nathan cites Clausewitz’s theory of limited war to support his argument for using military force to achieve political objectives without escalating into all out war. He postulates that the political and military leadership in the 1990s were far too concerned with losing the support of the American populace to risk employing military forces for anything short of a clear cut mission of short duration like Operation Just Cause in Panama or Operation Desert Shield/Storm in Kuwait and Iraq. In making this argument Nathan seems to only focus on the second and third aspects of the Clausewitzian trinity, that is the army, or chance, and the government, or reason, respectively, but wishes away or neglects the first aspect of the trinity, the people, or passion.

Both Powell and Weinberger accounted for this first aspect of the trinity, the people. For instance, when Weinberger said that “there must be support from the American public and Congress,” and Powell when he said that the “objective must be supported by the American people.” (Enriquez, 33) Clausewitz talked about the blind natural force that is “violence, hatred and enmity” (Clausewitz, 89) and went on to say that this aspect concerns mainly the people. Nathan starts out his summation of American foreign policy in the 1990s by posing that leaders failed to “balance effort to interest” and instead gave too much credence to whether the American people would “abide a fight for principles.” (Nathan, 157) In essence Nathan sees coercive diplomacy as strictly two fold with effort or coercion represented by the military and interest or diplomacy represented by the government, and observed that, with the exception of something like a 9-11 or Pearl Harbor type tragedy, the American people—the passion—is lacking in the US.

Nathan cites several examples—Bosnia, Somalia, and Iraq—during the 1990s where he believes leaders lacked the will to use military force to obtain political objectives, or lacked the will to see a military mission through to its logical conclusion once committed. Nathan takes Clausewitz out of context when he states, “In sum, will (as Clausewitz knew) is the greatest ‘force multiplier’ of them all.” (Nathan, 168) Nathan was referring to the will of the political and military leaders to use force. However, one could argue that as regards the trinity, Clausewitz was more concerned with the will of the people to support a conflict than the will of the government to enter one when he stated the “passions that are to be kindled in war must already be inherent in the people.” (Clausewitz, 89) The political reality of the 1980s and 1990s was that the American people had little tolerance for foreign military intervention of any lasting duration, and the political and military leaders of that era were attuned to the will of the people.

Nathan has done a phenomenal job in laying out the history of coercive diplomacy and framing it in the context of Clausewitz’s theories of war. He makes a compelling case for the use of military deterrence and intervention in carrying out international diplomacy. However, Nathan undercuts his own argument by neglecting one aspect of the remarkable trinity—the people, or passion. In a free and democratic society, this perhaps is even more relevant now than in Clausewitz’s era; the necessity that is the support of the American people—their passion—will always anchor the government’s reason and the military’s chance.

Bibliography

Clausewitz, Carl, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976).

Enriquez, Arnel B., “The U.S. National Security Strategy of 2002, A New Use-of-Force Doctrine?” Air and Space Power Journal, (Fall 2004).

Nathan, James A., Soldiers, Statecraft, and History, (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002).