There isn't one. Nothing written or articulated as one. It is sometimes called the "Doability Doctrine." It's most famous articulation however was as a "don'tability" doctrine, "don't do the Powell Doctrine" and which only hinted in the vaguest way to what to do.
"What's the point of having this superb military that you've always been talking about if we can't use it?''
Colin Powell said that the name "Pottery Barn rule" came from Thomas L. Friedman in his book The Earth is Flat. Thus nominally Friedman's, the meaning, "If you break it, you own it," is Powell admits, his.
"What's the point of having this superb military that you've always been talking about if we can't use it?''
-United Nations Ambassador to the United Nations Madeline Albright to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, 1993.
Flaunt it if you've got it! By his own description Powell "just about had an aneurysm." Albright's question is so vacuous; in military terminology her question can be defeated with simply, "deterrence;" or with "So that if and when we have to fight for our national security we will win." Albright's question, a hint at her mindset, was that the American military had to do. We had the military power to do so much, so much good, that not to act militarily was, as Albright herself scoldingly said to an aide, "Munich." Munich, my ass. Slobodan Milosevic did not seek world domination as Adolph Hitler did.
As U.N. ambassador Albright saw a lot in the world where America could do good. U.S. military involvement didn't have to be "Shock & Awe" or nothing, we could intervene a little and still do a lot of good. Her doctrine's greatest triumph came in the Balkans. Clinton was pushed, was pushed, was pushed, and finally acted militarily and--no quagmire! Success! As Robert D. Kaplan wrote in the summer of 2008:
[Powell's] doctrine seemingly justified ignoring the Balkans in the 1990s, but we inserted troops anyway, and debilitating wars did not result—indeed, the stabilization of the former Yugoslavia and the expansion of NATO to the Black Sea indicate that the Balkan interventions were in the nation’s interest. An unwillingness to engage in any but the smallest deployments, or in big ones that carried the certainty of a clean conventional victory, can itself be a form of retreat and defeat. (emphasis added)
Flaunt it if you've got it! By his own description Powell "just about had an aneurysm." Albright's question is so vacuous; in military terminology her question can be defeated with simply, "deterrence;" or with "So that if and when we have to fight for our national security we will win." Albright's question, a hint at her mindset, was that the American military had to do. We had the military power to do so much, so much good, that not to act militarily was, as Albright herself scoldingly said to an aide, "Munich." Munich, my ass. Slobodan Milosevic did not seek world domination as Adolph Hitler did.
As U.N. ambassador Albright saw a lot in the world where America could do good. U.S. military involvement didn't have to be "Shock & Awe" or nothing, we could intervene a little and still do a lot of good. Her doctrine's greatest triumph came in the Balkans. Clinton was pushed, was pushed, was pushed, and finally acted militarily and--no quagmire! Success! As Robert D. Kaplan wrote in the summer of 2008:
[Powell's] doctrine seemingly justified ignoring the Balkans in the 1990s, but we inserted troops anyway, and debilitating wars did not result—indeed, the stabilization of the former Yugoslavia and the expansion of NATO to the Black Sea indicate that the Balkan interventions were in the nation’s interest. An unwillingness to engage in any but the smallest deployments, or in big ones that carried the certainty of a clean conventional victory, can itself be a form of retreat and defeat. (emphasis added)
Hmmm. Expansion of NATO to the Black Sea in the nation's interest: which nation? Note the use of the word "interest" by Kaplan (author of "In Defense of Empire, The case for a tempered American imperialism." http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/in-defense-of-empire/358645/. "Interest" was the Albright Doctrine's transmogrification of Weinberger's "vital national interests" and of Powell's "vital national security interest." Albright took Occam's Razor to those two and lopped off "vital" from both and "security" from Powell's.
If you have the power to do it you should do it. That's the mindset that, among other things, got us to expand NATO ever closer to the Russian border and to bug the phones of Dilma Rousseff and Angela Merkel. As Merkel said, "Just because you have the power to do something doesn't mean that you should." In the unarticulated Albright Doctrine there is heavily sprinkled throughout the spice of...American "exceptionalism." We can do (and if we can we must) because we Americans are exceptional, we only do good! Hooo-doggie. You Rooskis never mind about NATO, "it's not aimed at you." Neither was pulling out of the ABM treaty, neither was the missile defense system.
Democrats don't do doctrines good. They don't write 'em down; maybe Democrats don't write good. It was JFK who was the progenitor of the Albright Doctrine. Spooked by how close he had gotten the world to World War III, JFK tasked Secretary MacNamara with developing a doctrine that steered between the Scylla of nuclear armegeddon and the Charybdis of inaction. The product was Vietnam!
Here's what Albright had to say about doctrines in January, 2001:
I certainly was the one who believed that [Kosovo] was an appropriate place to use force, and General Powell and I have...had a lot of interesting discussions since...and I think that it was a very important decision because there was this theory that the only way that the United States should use force was if it was going to be overwhelming.
JIM LEHRER: That’s called the Powell Doctrine.
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: It’s called that, but I’m not sure it’s fair to call it that. And I really believed and still do– that we have to have more diplomatic words, a nuanced approach to the use
of force. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. We should be able to use limited force in limited
areas...it is a tool that allows us to use force when we need to.
JIM LEHRER: Would it trouble you if somebody said what you just said was the Albright doctrine?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, nobody ever names their own doctrine and I don’t think it’s right.
...
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: But I do think that one of the hardest things to think about is how force and diplomacy work together, that diplomacy is strengthened if you can threaten the use of force that you’re prepared to use. And if you only think about the fact that you have to employ every piece of force that you have and you have to have months to plan it, and the earth is flat, you’re never going to do anything. And I think that we needed that flexibility. The allies agreed with it. And I think it shows that there needs to be the companionship of force and diplomacy. (emphasis added)
If you have the power to do it you should do it. That's the mindset that, among other things, got us to expand NATO ever closer to the Russian border and to bug the phones of Dilma Rousseff and Angela Merkel. As Merkel said, "Just because you have the power to do something doesn't mean that you should." In the unarticulated Albright Doctrine there is heavily sprinkled throughout the spice of...American "exceptionalism." We can do (and if we can we must) because we Americans are exceptional, we only do good! Hooo-doggie. You Rooskis never mind about NATO, "it's not aimed at you." Neither was pulling out of the ABM treaty, neither was the missile defense system.
Democrats don't do doctrines good. They don't write 'em down; maybe Democrats don't write good. It was JFK who was the progenitor of the Albright Doctrine. Spooked by how close he had gotten the world to World War III, JFK tasked Secretary MacNamara with developing a doctrine that steered between the Scylla of nuclear armegeddon and the Charybdis of inaction. The product was Vietnam!
Here's what Albright had to say about doctrines in January, 2001:
I certainly was the one who believed that [Kosovo] was an appropriate place to use force, and General Powell and I have...had a lot of interesting discussions since...and I think that it was a very important decision because there was this theory that the only way that the United States should use force was if it was going to be overwhelming.
JIM LEHRER: That’s called the Powell Doctrine.
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: It’s called that, but I’m not sure it’s fair to call it that. And I really believed and still do– that we have to have more diplomatic words, a nuanced approach to the use
of force. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. We should be able to use limited force in limited
areas...it is a tool that allows us to use force when we need to.
JIM LEHRER: Would it trouble you if somebody said what you just said was the Albright doctrine?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, nobody ever names their own doctrine and I don’t think it’s right.
...
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: But I do think that one of the hardest things to think about is how force and diplomacy work together, that diplomacy is strengthened if you can threaten the use of force that you’re prepared to use. And if you only think about the fact that you have to employ every piece of force that you have and you have to have months to plan it, and the earth is flat, you’re never going to do anything. And I think that we needed that flexibility. The allies agreed with it. And I think it shows that there needs to be the companionship of force and diplomacy. (emphasis added)
Here is another conception of the Albright Doctrine by professor of philosophy and public policy at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, George R. Lucas, Jr.:
Dr. Lucas expresses broad support for Secretary Albright's endorsement of using military force for humanitarian reasons by claiming that "if the defense of liberty, the enforcement of justice, and the protection of human rights and the hopes of human flourishing do not constitute sufficient justification for the use of military force, then nothing does." He enunciates a clear Kantian moral principle in the "interventionist imperative" which yields a prima facie obligation to intervene when we are in a position to prevent "clearly recognizable injustices." At the same time he expresses the strong reservation that if the Albright Doctrine commits us to acting on this imperative, we may be forgetting the wisdom of the Weinberger Doctrine, which reminds us that whenever we intervene and Weinberger had in mind conventional rather than humanitarian interventions we had better be more sure than we have been in the past that we know what we are doing. Lucas ends by warning that whereas the Weinberger doctrine wisely places severe restrictions on the use of military force, the Albright Doctrine relaxes those constraints and "broadens (often
to the point of severe ambiguity) the range of political objectives in which the use of military force may be justified." (emphasis added) http://www-personal.umich.edu/~elias/intervene.htm
to the point of severe ambiguity) the range of political objectives in which the use of military force may be justified." (emphasis added) http://www-personal.umich.edu/~elias/intervene.htm
"if the defense of liberty...nothing does:" U.S. national security does. Them other things don't.
"Kantian moral principle...'interventionist imperative'...prima facie obligation to intervene:"
The Albright Doctrine appealed to U.S. foreign policy actors. Really appealed to them. The Albright Doctrine really appealed to U.S. foreign policy actors because it gave them something to do. If they didn't have the Albright Doctrine they'd just have to sit around with their fingers up each others' asses because unless Russia invaded Canada the Weinberger and Powell doctrines didn't give them anything else to do. The Albright Doctrine gave these bright things orgasms and they spewed their bodily essence all over learned articles, white papers, Kant busts, each other, and the world. Which Colin Powell was about to find out.
The Albright Doctrine's success in the Balkans was all the proof her successors needed. When Colin Powell became Secretary of State under President George W. Bush he found general acceptance of the Albright Doctrine in the Republican administration and general rejection of the Powell Doctrine. Imagine his surprise. The Gulf War under Bush41, prosecuted under the Powell Doctrine, was a complete success and lasted seven months. The Iraq War under Bush43, prosecuted under the Albright Doctrine with the aim of having flowers of democracy shoosting up from the desert sands lasted eight years, eight months, and 28 days with these results, per Wikipedia:
The Albright Doctrine birthed the Mad Irishwoman, Samantha Power. It birthed Robert Kagan and the Mad Jewishwoman, Victoria Nuland. It birthed the queer notion that America should intervene militarily when other people's security is threatened, but not America's (too "selfish"). And there was, there truly was, a gap in the Weinberger and Powell doctrines that made no allowance for "humanitarian intervention." Albright and Clinton's intervention in the Balkans truly was a success for the people there. We done good by them. With the ascension of the Albright Doctrine however the Balkan exception swallowed the Weinberger/Powell rule. It is the U.S., after all, that was doing the military intervening in the Balkans (excuse me, and our allies), it was American lives that were intervening and being lost, they were intervening and being lost to safeguard no vital American security interest, and that military intervention harmed, and harms to this day, American relations with the Big Kahuna in the zip code, Russia.
In conclusion: In conclusion, the undersigned can sum up his position on the Albright Doctrine with the "diplomatic words," Fuck That. Thank you. The end.
| Result |
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The Albright Doctrine birthed the Mad Irishwoman, Samantha Power. It birthed Robert Kagan and the Mad Jewishwoman, Victoria Nuland. It birthed the queer notion that America should intervene militarily when other people's security is threatened, but not America's (too "selfish"). And there was, there truly was, a gap in the Weinberger and Powell doctrines that made no allowance for "humanitarian intervention." Albright and Clinton's intervention in the Balkans truly was a success for the people there. We done good by them. With the ascension of the Albright Doctrine however the Balkan exception swallowed the Weinberger/Powell rule. It is the U.S., after all, that was doing the military intervening in the Balkans (excuse me, and our allies), it was American lives that were intervening and being lost, they were intervening and being lost to safeguard no vital American security interest, and that military intervention harmed, and harms to this day, American relations with the Big Kahuna in the zip code, Russia.
In conclusion: In conclusion, the undersigned can sum up his position on the Albright Doctrine with the "diplomatic words," Fuck That. Thank you. The end.
