{"id":1738,"date":"2010-11-22T15:53:18","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T20:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harvardnsj.com\/?p=1738"},"modified":"2013-04-03T22:43:15","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T02:43:15","slug":"admiral-mullen-stresses-need-for-iterative-civil-military-relationship-at-harvard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/2010\/11\/admiral-mullen-stresses-need-for-iterative-civil-military-relationship-at-harvard\/","title":{"rendered":"Admiral Mullen Stresses Need for “Iterative” Civil-Military Relationship at Harvard"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Palko —<\/strong><\/p>\n

On November 17, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a public address at Harvard\u2019s Kennedy School of Government. The address, sponsored by the Institute of Politics, was entitled, \u201cThe Interplay of Policy and Strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mullen began his speech by listing three conclusions, discerned over his years of service, about the proper use of modern military force:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The military is the \u201cbest, first tool of the state,\u201d but it \u201cshould not be the only tool.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. Military force should be employed in a \u201cprecise and principled way.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. The process of meshing military operations with national policy is \u201citerative.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The third of these conclusions served as the focus of the remainder of Mullen\u2019s remarks.\u00a0 He elaborated on the ideal planning process for military operations: political and military leaders maintaining constant communication, so that they can jointly adjust action based upon the situation on the ground. To illustrate the success of such an approach, Mullen offered several historical examples, the most compelling of which concerned the Korean War. After the success of the Inchon landings in September 1950, Truman broadened his goals to focus on achieving a unified peninsula. Yet, once China became involved, the political situation changed. As a result, U.S. leaders reevaluated their plans and decided to once again focus on creating a stable border at the 38th<\/sup> parallel. According to Mullen, this flexibility in light of political changes demonstrates the proper link between policy and strategy. Summarizing this interconnection, Mullen cited the classic Clausewitz maxim: military operations are \u201cthe continuation of politics by other means.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Mullen sought to contrast this marriage of policy and strategy with the \u201chand off\u201d approach to the military, in which national policy makers develop strategies and then \u201chand off\u201d operations to the military to accomplish the mission. Mullen said that such a process must be avoided, because it is too static. Military operations \u2013 deemed \u201cdiscovery of the most lethal sort\u201d by Mullen \u2013 provide a constant stream of new information. Therefore, leaders must adapt to address the implications of new intelligence rather than blindly adhering to goals based upon initial estimates.<\/p>\n

    Admiral Mullen concluded by stating that the Obama administration has admirably subscribed to this adaptive approach in regards to Afghanistan. As an example, Mullen cited the fact that the administration\u2019s strategy has shifted to focus more on training Afghani forces, so that they can ultimately take over security operations. He also noted that the strategy has shifted more toward economic development as U.S. leaders have come to realize that security is necessary but not sufficient for stability. Rather, stability also requires good governance, which is inextricably linked with economic development. Although Mullen indicated a desire to avoid \u201coverstating\u201d current successes, he nonetheless expressed confidence that the United States is \u201cslowly but surely\u201d bringing about progress in the region and will ultimately accomplish its mission.<\/p>\n

    Image courtesy of the Department of Defense<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By David Palko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online","category-student-articles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZtUX-s2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}