Gen. Clark’s observations and recommendations, including American military doctrine to a changing international environment, education reform and arms control.

1991 - 2004

(links and comments from http://www.allaboutclark.com/Direction.com)

TESTIMONY MARCH 17, 1994 WESLEY K. CLARK NOMINEE LIEUTENANT GENERAL SENATE ARMED SERVICES DEFENSE NOMINATIONS

MG WESLEY K. CLARK
RESPONSES TO ADVANCE QUESTIONS From SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
    For CONFIRMATION HEARING For DIRECTOR J-5, THE JOINT STAFF, AND SENIOR MEMBER OF THE MILITARY STAFF COMMITTEE OF THE UNITED NATIONS.
DEFENSE REFORMS
    More than seven years have passed since the enactment of the Goldwater Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 and the Special Operations reforms.
    QUESTION: Do you support full implementation of these defense reforms?
ANSWER: Yes, without a doubt, the Defense Reorganization Act of
    1986 has enhanced the readiness and warfighting capabilities of our Armed Forces.
    QUESTION: What do you consider to be the most positive accomplishments of the legislation?
    ANSWER: Two important areas have received greater clarity and definition.
First, the operational chain of command has been established in clear terms between each warfighting Commander in Chief (CINC) and the National Command Authorities—the President and the Secretary of Defense.  The Act unambiguously places responsibility upon each CINC for the preparedness of assigned forces to execute assigned missions.  Secondly, and of no less importance, responsibility and authority of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were more clearly defined and strengthened.
    QUESTION: What is your view of the extent to which these defense reforms have been implemented thus far?
    ANSWER: I believe our implementation to be on the mark, as these reforms have brought about significant improvement in the effectiveness of our joint warfighting forces.  The Chairman is clearly established as the principal military advisor to the President, the National Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense.  The chain of command from the National Command Authorities to the combatant CINCs has been strengthened, and communications up and down that chain of command pass through the Chairman, just as the Act envisioned. improvements in joint professional military education and in Service assignment processes have enabled top-notch officers to serve in joint billets.
Finally, the effectiveness of our Armed Forces has been increased and, accordingly, the intent of the legislation fulfilled, because the Act created an environment where joint planning and execution are the foundation of all that we do.
    QUESTION: Do you have any plans for further action to ensure fuller implementation of these defense reforms in your area?
    ANSWER: Personnel and attitude are the keys to furthering the underlying theme of Joint Pub 1; namely, that “joint warfare is team warfare.” I believe this phrase summarizes the intent of the framers of the DOD Reorganization Act of 1986 and is particularly applicable to an era of “right-sizing” our military forces.  If confirmed, one of my tasks will be to foster an environment where the pursuit of excellence remains the norm.  I will do this by continually challenging the outstanding officers in the J-5 directorate to produce, for the Chairman, the very best military advice they can.  I very much look forward to the opportunity to work with the best officers of all four Services and to provide the Chairman the kind of responsive support mandated by the Goldwater-Nichols Act.
    QUESTION: Based upon your previous assignments as the Chief, Plans Integration Division, and Chief, Army Studies Group, on the Army Staff, from July 1983 to July 1984, in which you undoubtedly worked on issues involving the J-5 Directorate of the Joint Staff prior to the enactment of the Goldwater-Nichols legislation, what changes in the processing of such issues do you believe have resulted from that legislation?
    ANSWER: Goldwater-Nichols charges the Chairman, not the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a corporate body, to prepare strategic and contingency plans that conforms to resource and policy guidance from the President and Secretary of Defense.  It has made the Joint Staff responsive to the Chairman, rather than to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a corporate body.  The result is more efficient and effective staff work and, consequently, better support of the Chairman and the National Command Authorities.  As the principal military advisor to the National Command Authorities (NCA), the Chairman, assisted by the Joint Staff, must be prepared to oversee the activities of the CINCS.  The Chairman’s role is to assist the NCA in providing for the strategic direction of the Armed Forces and consider unique insights on the military considerations that will guide the employment of US forces.
MAJOR CHALLENGES
    QUESTION: In your view, what are the major challenges confronting the next J-5 of the Joint Staff?
    ANSWER: The most significant challenges for the next J-5 will be substantive rather than procedural.  Providing advice to the Chairman and working within the interagency process, he will have to contend with near-term “hot spots” such as Bosnia, the North Korean nuclear program, and Haiti.  Simultaneously, several critical programs whose implementation is underway now need continued tending, including Partnership for Peace.  Finally, longer term strategies and policies must be worked, including the Nuclear Posture Review, the soon-to-be- approved DOD Counterproliferation Policy, and the support and response to any recommendations made next year by the congressionally-mandated Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces.
    QUESTION: Assuming you are confirmed, what plans do you have for addressing these challenges?
    ANSWER: Working closely with counterparts in the interagency process is the proven method of staying on top of “hot spots” and other near-term problems.
That is also die best venue for identifying emerging problems and developing long-range initiatives to shape outcomes favorable to the United States.  The reputation of the Joint Staff as a competent and committed provider of military advice will continue to ensure that advice is considered during interagency deliberations.  Close coordination with the CINCs and their staffs is also essential, particularly in work on ongoing programs.  DOD efforts to impede or roll back proliferation of WMD and the ongoing review of our nuclear posture both require cooperation and close coordination by J-5 staff officers with their counterparts in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).  If confirmed, I will personally see that there is open and reciprocal access between my office and those of my Under Secretary and Assistant Secretary level counterparts to ensure effective implementation of the SecDef s decisions on these core issues of our National Military Strategy.  Finally, the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces does not relieve the Chairman of his Title 10 obligation to submit, not less often than every three years, his own recommendations on the subject.  As the Commission gets underway, J-5 will be leaning forward to provide whatever support may be requested of the Chairman and the Joint Staff.
MOST SERIOUS PROBLEM
    QUESTION: What do you consider to be the most serious problems in the performance of the J-5 staff function on the Joint Staff?
    ANSWER: I am unaware of any problems serious enough to impede the J-5’s ability to perform its assigned functions.  At this time I would suspect that the management of normal personnel turnover associated with summer moves will require attention, but this is by no means a serious problem.  They are simply the facts of life.
    QUESTION: What management actions and timetables would you establish to address these problems?
    ANSWER: Until I’m confirmed, it would be out of line for me to suggest possible management actions or establish timetables.  Suffice it to say that, if confirmed, I will take stock of J-5 the same way I would any organization I’m placed in charge of, and I will take appropriate action to remedy any problems I find.
QUALIFICATIONS
    QUESTION: Would you describe the assignment and education experiences that would qualify you as particularly trained in, and oriented toward, joint matters?
    ANSWER: As a White House Fellow assigned as Special Assistant to the Director, Office of Management and Budget, I was involved in a number of budget, legislative, and management issues with OMB senior staff, the White House staff, National Security Council staff, and Cabinet departments.  As Assistant Executive Officer to the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, I provided personal advice and assistance to the Supreme Allied Commander on several strategic policy and politico-military issues.
These issues had a direct bearing on the deterrent posture of Allied Command Europe and the US European Command.
    Serving as Commander, Operations Group, and later as the Commander of the National Training Center, I worked first-hand battlefield planning and coordination with counterparts in the Air Force and to a more limited degree, the Navy and Marines.  As Commander, Battle Command Training Program, I worked these same joint issues at the Division and Corps level.
    In terms of professional military education, I am a graduate of the National War College, where the focus even before Goldwater- Nichols was on jointness.
    QUESTION: Would you describe the assignment and education experiences that would qualify you for the politico-military, operational, staff, and international requirements of the position?
ANSWER: Attending Oxford, teaching various subjects in the  Department of Social Sciences at West Point, and studying at the National War College provided me a broad exposure to politico- military, operational, and international issues.  As I related in answering the preceding question, my previous Army and joint assignments have also provided me with politico-military and international experience.  In my duty as Deputy Chief of Staff for Combat Development and Doctrine at Headquarters TRADOC, I had broad international and joint experience to include hosting several Staff Talks with other annies.
NON-TRADITIONAL MISSIONS
QUESTION: Do you anticipate a continuation of non-traditional missions?
    ANSWER: Yes, I expect that we will see a continuing series of nontraditional challenges for our Armed Forces in the future, from peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and humanitarian assistance to our counterdrug efforts.  I personally believe these are things the military can do well.  We must remain mindful, however, that our primary mission is to maintain a balanced fighting force prepared to fight and win the Nation’s wars.  A highly trained, balanced force is our best guarantee that we will be prepared to meet whatever challenges arise.  This is especially important to keep in mind as our Armed Forces become smaller.
    QUESTION: Was this development a factor in your approach to your duties from April 1988 to August 1992 as Director, Battle Command Training Program, Army Command and General Staff College; Commanding General, National Training Center; and Deputy Chief of Staff for Concepts, Doctrine, and Developments, Army Training and Doctrine?
    ANSWER: My experience and training have been primarily in warfighting.  At the National Training Center (NTC), we trained heavy divisions for mid- to high-intensity combat; non-traditional missions were therefore not part of my training focus.  The Battle Command Training program evaluated Division and Corps Headquarters and how good they were at warfighting—again combat training rather than non-traditional mission training.  However, as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Combat Development and Doctrine at Headquarters TRADOC, I was involved in the work that led to revision of FM 100-5, Operations. 
That manual,
as you know, includes an entire chapter on “Operations Other Than War”
-what you
call non-traditional missions.  So I would say that, yes, the trend toward non-traditional missions was definitely a factor in my approach to some of my recent duties.
    QUESTION: What effect does this have on the long-range planning process?
    ANSWER: These non-traditional missions may have little impact on long-range planning for the force size.  The Bottom-Up Review recognizes that forces engaged in these operations will be drawn from existing forces structured for warfighting.
    In terms of resource planning, training and budgeting are affected most by a continued/expanded US commitment to peace operations.  For example, the focus of our training reflects the military’s primary missions of warfighting and deterrence.  Forces engaged in non-traditional missions such as peace operations, humanitarian support, drug interdiction, and disaster relief may experience degradation of their primary warfighting skills.  This fact becomes increasingly important when you consider that the BUR strategy may require forces engaged in those operations to play a key role in supporting two nearly simultaneous Major Regional Contingencies.
    Also, in the past, funding for these types of operations has been drawn from O&M funds, to the detriment of overall force readiness.
    Thus, the inherent unpredictability of peace operations makes it extremely difficult to systematically plan retraining the force and to accurately budget for that training.
    Meanwhile, there is an “up side” to such operations in that some valuable experience is gained in the areas of logistics, supply, host nation support, and combined operations with the forces of other nations.  The lessons learned in the execution of non-traditional missions can be applied to our long-range planning and strategy efforts.
MULTI-AGENCY OPERATIONS
QUESTION: Do you anticipate a continuation of multi-agency operations?
    ANSWER: Yes.  When the efforts of all concerned agencies within the executive branch are coordinated, our policy objectives are generally attained more efficiently and effectively.
    QUESTION: Was this development a factor in your approach to your duties from April 1988 to August 1992, as listed in the second question in the Non-Traditional Missions section?
    ANSWER: Yes.  As I served in various Service positions during the period in question, it was clear to me that the Army would increasingly contribute its forces as a Service component to a joint force, and often in concert with many other governmental and nongovernmental agencies.  Accordingly, we wrote into our doctrine an appreciation for the types of issues the commander in the field must take into account when planning and executing operations in close coordination with other agencies, government or private.
    QUESTION: What effect does this have on the long-range planning process?
    ANSWER: Long-range planning is imprecise by its very nature.  However, we cannot ignore the need to explore every possible way to reduce friction caused by lack of familiarity and introduce the efficiencies that come from cooperative and complementary efforts.
CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT
    QUESTION: Do you agree, if confirmed for this high position, to appear before this Committee and other appropriate committees of the Congress?
    ANSWER: Yes.
    QUESTION: Do you agree, when asked, to give your personal views, even if those views differ from the Administration in power?
    ANSWER: Yes.
    QUESTION: Do you agree, if confirmed, to appear before this Committee, or designated members of this Committee, and provide information, subject to appropriate and necessary security protection, with respect to your responsibilities as the Director for Strategic Plans and Policy (J-5)
of the
Joint Staff.

    ANSWER: Yes.
    QUESTION: Do you agree to ensure that testimony, briefings and other communications of information are provided to this Committee and its staff and other appropriate Committees?
    ANSWER, Yes.

General Wesley K. Clark, United States Army - Retired; Dana Priest, The Washington Post; Alan Lang, Chairman, The Open Forum
Remarks to the Open Forum
Washington, DC
May 30, 2001

Alan Lang: General Clark, Ms. Priest, distinguished colleagues and friends, good afternoon. I'm Alan Lang, chairman of the Secretary's Open Forum. I'm very pleased to welcome you to this on-the-record conversation on civil-military affairs and U.S. diplomacy, featuring General Wesley K. Clark, United States Army-Retired, and Ms. Dana Priest, military affairs correspondent for the Washington Post and guest scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Today's program is part of the Open Forum's Distinguished Lecture Series, which examines critical issues related to U.S. national interests and honors leaders in government, academia, private industry, the media and the nongovernmental organization (NGO) community for outstanding contributions to national and international affairs.

Before proceeding, I would like to acknowledge the following cosponsors of the series: the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State; the American Foreign Service Association; the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University; the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University; University of Maryland-University College; the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area; and the United States Chamber of Commerce Center for Corporate Citizenship. Please give all of our sponsors a warm round of applause.

As you may recall, Ms. Priest and Ambassador Robert Oakley launched this series on civil-military affairs in U.S. diplomacy with two superb keynote presentations on March 23. On May 1, former Secretary of Defense Dr. William Perry delivered a superb and thought-provoking presentation on this theme. Today we're honored to present the third installment, featuring a keynote presentation by General Clark, whose memoir, "Waging Modern War," was recently published by Public Affairs. After the program, General Clark has graciously agreed to sign copies of the book.

Let me just add one more note about this series. This conversation on civil-military affairs in U.S. diplomacy takes place at a critical juncture in national and world affairs. As more and more stakeholders attempt to influence international affairs, as we reexamine the roles of diplomats and the ways in which decisions are made, agreements negotiated and policies carried out. How might the Pentagon, the regional commanders in chief, the State Department, improve coordination on a growing array of regional and functional issues?

Here to explore such questions are two highly regarded experts. Let me briefly introduce the first speaker and our series moderator. Dana Priest is a highly respected journalist. Some of you may know that she was recently awarded the coveted Gerald R. Ford Prize for distinguished reporting on national defense, for her three-part series on the growing foreign policy clout of the regional commanders in chief. I would like to congratulate her on this award and her many laudable contributions to journalism, to our nation. I'm especially grateful to her for the superb job she is doing as series moderator. Please join me in welcoming her with a warm round of applause.

Dana Priest: Thank you, I'm glad to be here again. When I first got past General Clark's half-dozen aides and reached him on the telephone in 1999, I was rather upset, which you probably didn't know at the time, hopefully. It was the beginning of the air campaign and at least then General Clark and the Pentagon were united in one thing: a media blackout. No news on even the basics, like how many missiles had been launched, let alone their impact, physical or political. Under siege from a group of editors from the national media, the Pentagon announced a new policy: get used to it.

Soon it became clear that one reason the military was withholding information about the war was because it was changing so rapidly, in purpose, in intensity, in political risk to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies. It was, as General Clark has titled his book, a modern war: the first fought by a genuine coalition for largely humanitarian reasons that the public felt ambivalent about, and without the overwhelming and decisive force that military leaders prefer. It also thrust General Clark into the center of a daily tug-of-war that erased most conventional lines of authority and responsibility.

The NATO allies expected him to interact at a political level in a way that Washington seemed not to understand and then to resist. European heads of state and civilian defense ministers sought him out while his own Pentagon tried to rein him in. The Europeans, it seemed, understood and accepted the broadened role of American military power in the world in a way that Americans still do not.

In his first meeting with NATO's secretary general, he writes in his book, Javier Solana gave him what he called a heavy charge: to make the NATO mission in Bosnia succeed. Solana told him, "You must actively help the civilians succeed. You're just going to have to do more." That was exactly what the military back home was trying to avoid, is still trying to avoid. They call it "mission creep," but is it still mission creep if the mission over and over again is not a purely military one to begin with? Then isn't it mission failure, if the military and the political leaders who put them on the front line in these roles refuse to do what it takes to succeed?

In the previous two parts of this series on the influence of the U.S. military, we talked about the proactive offensive role of the regional commanders in chief in forging and implementing foreign policy, but military influence can just as effectively dampen the intent of U.S. policies abroad. I'm thinking of the treaty to ban land mines, not signed largely because of opposition from the military; or intervention in Rwanda, nixed because it was opposed by the Pentagon at a time that it would have mattered most. Or the apprehension of war criminals in Bosnia, constrained by concerns about military force protection. Or preparing not to repeat Kosovo in Macedonia, as the Department of Defense (DoD) signals to the rebels that its first priority is to reduce the presence of troops in the Balkans. I don't think so.

I have watched General Clark, on the other hand, push commanders to interpret their mandates broadly, to not shy away from isolated confrontations on the ground, and to use, as I've heard him say many times, force not forces in helping to develop civil societies. And also to spend hours explaining his thinking to the public, often through the media, in the hopes of getting their buy-in. Here to talk about what it is like at the eye of the political-military storm, is General Clark. Here to introduce him is Alan Lang.

Alan Lang: Thank you very much, Dana. General Wesley K. Clark was supreme allied commander of Europe, 1997 to 2000. In 1999, General Clark commanded Operation Allied Force, the alliance's successful military action in response to the Kosovo crisis. This was NATO's first major combat action and largest air operation in Europe since the Second World War. General Clark's previous assignments included commander in chief of the United States Southern Command, where he commanded all U.S. forces and was responsible for the direction of most U.S. military activities and interests in Latin America and the Caribbean.

He was Director, strategic plans and policies, J-5, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from 1995-96, where he was responsible for worldwide political and military affairs and military strategic planning. In that capacity he led the military negotiations culminating in the Bosnian peace accords at Dayton.

General Clark is a 1966 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, where he graduated first in his class. He holds a master's degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes scholar. He is a graduate of the National War College, Command and General Staff College, Armor Officer Advanced and Basic Courses, and Airborne and Ranger schools. General Clark was a White House fellow from 1975 to 1976. On August 9, 2000, General Clark was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. General Clark is currently associated with Stephens Group, Inc., working high-technology venture capital.

We're delighted and honored to have General Clark here with us today. Please join me in welcoming him with a round of applause.

General Wesley Clark: Thank you very much, Alan and Dana, for those introductions and those introductory comments. I haven't been up in a setting like this where there's so much obvious power since the last time I testified in front of the Senate, and then I was sitting down there. It's a nice view from up here. Thank you all for coming and I hope you will read this book, because I wrote it for you all. Many people told me not to write this book, there was no money in it, but I wanted to convey some ideas that didn't quite get clearly conveyed during the operation and that, no longer in uniform, I can't convey very well personally. Alan and Dana asked me to talk about the military and the policy process. What I'd like to do is talk through some personal illustrations and anecdotes for about 15 minutes and then turn it over for questions.

First of all, the military and the policy process. What Dana's point is, I think, is that the military has an important role in the policy process, right? It's a big player, at least in Washington. It's a bigger player in the United States Government than probably it is in foreign governments, but let's leave that for a moment.

First thing to know about the military in the policy process: we're not trained for it. We're not. People in this building are diplomats. You go to the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, you go to the Foreign Service Institute, you write cables, you read books. You dream about the chance of someday being able to interact and lead Henry Kissinger or his modern-day counterparts, or even be a Henry Kissinger himself and be there at the critical moment of war and peace and changing the shape of international relations and maybe even human history through careful use of language, clear vision, and adroit interpersonal skills.

We're not trained in any of that in the military. We go through the officer basic courses, our basic training, our basic combat training. We're taught that the purpose of the armed forces is to fight and win America's wars. We're taught how to use the military hardware we're given, how to build military teams, how to put team above self, how to follow through in case of a crisis, and fulfill our mission even at great personal risk and hardship. As we go through the ranks, we go to various schools, we read, we keep our eyes open, we read the newspapers, but we don't understand the policy process the way you do. We don't know the people who participate in it. At some point in our lives, we're jerked into the policy process and suddenly it's there, it's real.

I was lucky; I was assistant executive officer to General Alexander Haig when he was Supreme Allied Commander. I was his speechwriter. Jeanie Bitner, sitting over here in that lieutenant colonel uniform, was one of my speechwriters at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers, Europe (SHAPE.) I got to travel with General Haig, I got to read some of the cable traffic, the black book and even what we called in those days the red book. I got to see visiting leaders when they came from a distance. So I saw high-level diplomacy, at least for an Army officer. It was about the best preparation I could have expected.

I was brought to Washington in the spring of 1994. I showed up in the office on the 5th of April. I think it was the 6th of April when the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed. I hadn't served in Africa before, never been to Rwanda. Knew they spoke a different language there, and it was high, and there were gorillas in Rwanda. But it wasn't something I had studied and prepared for. General Jack Sheehan, who many of you know was the J-3, he said, "Wes, welcome to this job." He said, "Every weekend there's a crisis. I've been in the job for 9 months and I've worked every weekend so far. The crisis usually doesn't happen until Friday."

By Friday we were bombing in Bosnia and Gorazde and on Friday nights I was getting ready to leave the office, somebody said, there're French and Belgian troops on the ground in Kigali. We didn't know anything about it. European Command (EUCOM) didn't know anything about it. I tried to put something together and figure out what was going on and we pulled an all-nighter. There I was, talking to State Department people and the Undersecretary of State and the Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs. These were people whom I hadn't met them personally; I had heard about their titles, I had read about them in books -- they were diplomats of yore. I was a three-star general on my first tour in the Joint Staff, and people had said to me, you know, since McCaffrey left the J-5 there's been really no leadership in there for 4 or 5 months. People are wondering whether the J-5 can cut it, can you do anything, can you lead in a crisis.

So we worked all night. The next day I came into a meeting with Secretary Perry, we talked about what we were going to do with Korea -- whether we were going to go to war in Korea or whether we were going to put the pressure on our Korean allies to do more in preparation for his trip to Korea. On Sunday, I was seated in the back row of the White House situation room as we argued about what were the proper rules of engagement for using NATO aircraft against Serb aircraft and Serb ground targets in Bosnia. Spring of '94.

At the same time, we had a Haitian refugee crisis, a compartmented plan down in the J-3 shop that I wasn't given access to because I didn't have a "need to know." But Jack Sheehan had that plan going down there. I was doing the nuclear posture review. Shali called me in after about four days of this and, five days of this, he said, "Wes, I have hired you to be the strategist. I told you that the J-5 must drive the staff. Congress is asking for our strategy. What is our strategy?" We weren't trained for it.

Second thing: the policy process doesn't work the way the military works. The military works from the bottom up. If you're a general, you go out and talk to the troops. You say, what's it look like out there and what do you think is over the next hill. Generals aren't supposed to know that. How bad is the artillery falling on you, this is World War I stuff. The general then goes back to his headquarters well out of artillery range. But occasionally he comes up and talks to the troops to find out what's really going on. World War I stuff -- from the bottom up. When military commanders give orders -- maybe it's not true in the Navy and the Air Force as much -- but in the Army we always know that ultimately the commander on the ground is going to be left with the order. He may have to come back and modify it. You can't go that way, you told me to go on this trail, this trail shows on a map, boss, but there is no trail there. Give me a bigger sector, give me more artillery, give me engineers to clear the trail. It works from the bottom up.

What I discovered about the policy process is it works from the top down. Every State Department person knows this. You don't expect to know exactly what's going on in the White House situation room meeting, do you? But in J-5, I had 200-some officers working for me. There'd be somebody who was working the policy process on, let's say, Haiti and he would give his best input. I would write a paper; I'd take it up to Shalikashvili. Shalikashvili would take it to the White House, and there'd be a White House situation room meeting. He'd come back after the meeting; he'd be back at 5:30. There'd be a tank session, I'd be looking at my watch, is he going to tell me what happened, is he going to tell me what happened. He'd have to go to a social event right after that.

The next morning I'd come in, I'd wait for feedback, I'd get a call, come down and see the chairman. Sir, in the meeting yesterday, he said, can't talk about it, everything went well, thanks for the paper. Now, maybe there are departments in this town that do talk about these meetings. But a lot of people say you're not supposed to, and in the military we take those charges very seriously. So for the military, it's also awkward, because we're bottom-up people and policy works top down.

Institutional interests. If you don't represent your institution in the policy process, what are you representing? So what I discovered when Shali asked me for the strategy is that we had to create a strategy. Shali said -- go see Mike Ryan, he was here when Colin was here, there was something about engagement, peacetime engagement, it's something like that. So I went down and Mike Ryan and I worked this thing over. We had an Air Force colonel named Bob Stratton. We submitted it again and again and again to Shali. We began to joke that we'd carry this tasking through our retirements.

It took us over a year to get a national military strategy published. When we did, we realized why it was a very difficult thing. We called it flexible and selective engagement. But we said we had to have enough military capabilities. The right yardstick was the bottom-up review. Two nearly simultaneous major regional conflicts. Then Shali said, make sure you put in that document that you have to be prepared to fight anywhere, because it's not just those two places. That's just the illustrated planning scenarios.

Over a period of time, two major regional conflicts (MRCs,) as people turned over on the Joint Staff and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, took on a life of its own. What was a force development strategy, a way of explaining why you needed a certain amount of forces to the American people and Congress, became a force employment strategy. I was a four-star participating in the quadrennial defense review in the spring of 1997 from Panama [brief interruption]. They changed the name from two MRCs to two major theater wars (MTWs.) I remember asking at the time, isn't it the same two places? What does it mean? They tried to explain it but nobody really understood it. I finally understood it after the war. A force development strategy had become a force employment strategy.

In the 1997 quadrennial defense review, the Department of Defense committed itself to shape, respond, and prepare. Meaning, you guys, CINCs out there, go ahead and float around and do things, but we're going to be prepared to respond in two major theaters of war. You're not going to get any more resources for shaping, because we have to get $60 billion into the defense budget. It all sounded logical, it all sounded reasonable. It was a great military theory. Except, as I discovered, one thing: that when you are out there shaping, unless you want to go to war because you failed to shape, that the shaping requirement is somewhat unpredictable. It may actually take more than what people had hypothetically considered giving you.

That's the case I lived through. I discovered that my interests as a CINC, in trying first, to make the Bosnian mission work. Second, to prevent the outbreak of fighting in Kosovo. Third, to fight and win in Kosovo. Fourth, to succeed in keeping the peace in Kosovo and building stability and democracy afterward. All conflicted with the deep-seated institutional interests of my own profession and my seniors in the chain of command, because their interest was in trying to balance everything off. They were concerned about the future of the armed forces, legitimately so; they should have been. But my interest was in terms of making my mission a success.

So institutional interests are very strong, and they impact in Washington very strongly. So when you're a commander in chief in the field, sometimes people in Washington are not that keen to have the views of the commander in chief in the field circulated beyond the Pentagon. I know that's a secret to all of you. But it's the way the process works: institutional interests.

Alliance leadership. The whole key in an alliance is every nation has different interests. That's why alliances are difficult and tough. But in the case of NATO, what NATO allies recognize is that Washington, like several other governments, speaks with mixed voices. That there's not a single unified voice coming out of Washington. Their defense attaches go to the Pentagon and they pick up the word. "You wouldn't believe the Pentagon, Jesus, they don't want to do this!" Goes back in a cable. They go to the State Department and they pick up the word. "State Department says we got to be there!" The ambassadors circulate and they talk to people. They understand; it's a tug of war to make policy because that's what it's about. So you're really working not just one alliance, but multiple alliances simultaneously.

Finally, at war. Yes, in Bosnia, in 1997, when I got there, as Dana said, we had to use military forces effectively. We had to use forces in an effort to break the hardline Serbs. I found a way to do it with a lot of help from Bob Gelbard. But I was only there for a short time before I was called in by the Pentagon. Let me tell you something, they said. You don't take instructions from Gelbard. I said, I understand that. They said, you remember where your chain of command is. I said, I understand that. I said, in fact, if you're that nervous about it, I'll report to you everything Gelbard says to me. In fact, you can even have a military officer be with me when I meet with Gelbard. So Brigadier General George Casey, I invited him along and he was there with me. He would listen as we got into our famous shouting matches and screaming back and forth, and what we said and what we didn't say.

Many of you know Bob Gelbard. I think the world of him; he's a great guy. We had a good relationship. But I want to say for the record, I never took orders from Bob Gelbard. I did give a couple and he took orders from me. One of these is outlined in the book, it's in a case we called the Banja Luka bus raid, in which we were just getting ready to have the parliamentary elections in September in Bosnia. Gelbard called up, he said he's very worried because the hardline Serbs under Mr. [inaudible] were going to use the rally for the parliamentary elections as cover for a coup to overthrow Mrs. [inaudible], the moderate Serb leader, in her hometown of Banja Luka. What could we do? I called General [inaudible], who was the Stabilization Force (SFOR) commander, and said what about this. He said, I'm worried about it too, but we can't do a thing. It's a democracy; rallies and things like this are legal, can't do a thing, my hands are tied. He said, we will check the buses and make sure they're not carrying weapons, that's all we can do. Said okay, I thought about this.

Sunday afternoon before the rally was to take place on Monday morning, I'm still thinking about it. Gelbard called me again. He's really mulling this over, really working it. As I got home and thinking about it again, the idea occurred to me, I said, why don't we just declare the rally is illegal. So I called Bob and said, why don't you use your influence with (inaudible) and tell her to declare the rally illegal. Then SFOR can stop the rally from going on. So Gelbard did. That was the key really to stopping this. So we worked together collaboratively, and there's a lot more to the incident I'm not going to go through here, but I think it's one of the best stories of civil-military relations in the whole Balkan campaign. We worked together.

What happened in Kosovo was something else. I think Madeleine Albright saw it coming. I certainly did. I tried to warn the Pentagon in March of '98, I sent a message to Secretary Cohen and General Shelton. It wasn't well received. Any smart bureaucratic politician would probably have said don't put it in writing, wait til you see them, get them at a good moment, give them a couple of drinks, chat them up, and say, by the way, you ever hear of a place called Kosovo? But I didn't do that, because I didn't think we had time and I didn't have an opportunity to work it at that level. I had to put it in writing, and I thought there was a high sense of urgency about it. The warning wasn't heeded. There was a struggle within the United States Government that it finally came down to. We wavered back and forth, and finally in September of 1998, I went to the Secretary of Defense and said, "Mr. Secretary, you've got to put a stop to this." You need to give them an ultimatum. Otherwise, NATO's kaput. Our credibility will be dashed. He took it seriously. He did lead in putting out a warning. We had a threat and we stopped Milosevic's campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in the fall of 1998.

I continued to warn that war was likely there if diplomacy didn't succeed. But the Pentagon had other concerns. There was Saddam Hussein and there was the need to strike in the Persian Gulf. It was difficult to focus on this problem. Besides, it was primarily a diplomatic problem. I came into the building, I tried to give diplomatic advice, but I'm just a general. I did what I could but I couldn't get inside the diplomacy. I have a great deal of respect for Jim O'Brian and Chris Hill, who were leading that diplomatic effort, and for Richard Holbrooke. Still, it looked to me like the interim agreement was going to come up wanting. When it did, we were going to be at war. That's precisely what happened.

Then it was all about institutional interests all over again. It was about the commander in the field who wanted to produce a success, the allies who were deeply committed to needing a success, Washington which was concerned about a lot of other issues, and the Pentagon which had its own institutional interests to protect and wanting to sort of measure out what was required most discretely in order to protect larger concerns. It's just the way things work out. I fought as hard as I could; they fought as hard as they could. In the end we both won and Milosevic lost. Then we moved on with the next phase of the operation.

So I think if you look at the military and its participation in the policy process, what you have to understand from the State Department is you all are the experts on it, we're not. There's a process that works in the opposite way than what military officers are accustomed to. There are strong institutional interests that we typically defend when we come into the policy process. They may not be the interests of the commanders in chief. Our allies understand that there's a Washington dynamic that pits one agency against another and they are closely attuned to the positions of the respective agencies. They play them off against one another. Once we go to war, those divergent interests remain alive. What seems in political science 101 to be elementary, that politics should stop at the water's edge, doesn't make it stop at the water's edge. It's alive and well inside the five-sided building, probably inside this one too, all the way through the discussions and all the way across the water. And everybody knows it. So the answer is stronger work, stronger teamwork, greater appreciation, and greater work together. With that, I should stop and I'd be delighted to take some questions.

Alan Lang: General Clark, on behalf of the Open Forum, I'd like to thank you for that superb presentation. Please give him a round of applause. At this time we will begin the question and answer segment of our program. I'd like to invite our series moderator, Dana Priest, to pose the first question.

Question and Answer Segment:

Dana Priest: The first thing you said was that you weren't trained to be a diplomat. So I wanted to ask you, do you think that it is a good idea, the way the CINC position has evolved into a largely diplomatic one, or is that a reckless trend?

General Clark: I think it's essential that the CINC have the capabilities to be able to reinforce our diplomats in the region. But I, as CINC, was always very conscious of the leading role of the U.S. diplomats. I took my signals and my information from the ambassadors in the region and from the policy process and from as much as I could understand about what was happening in Washington in the policy process. I think that when the CINC goes out on his own as a cowboy in anything short of war, when he goes out on his own and tries to make policy, I think it is dangerous. But I think that by the time a person's a four-star general in the armed forces, you ought to recognize what your strengths and weaknesses are, what your limitations are, have a little dose of humility, and take guidance from people who know what they're talking about. I tried to do that.

Question: Thank you very much for coming. I'm the POLAD to Chief of Staff of the Army, State Department Foreign Service officer sitting over at the Pentagon. I wonder if I could get you to comment on the role of the POLAD. You as a CINC have had senior Foreign Service officers on your personal staff. These are people who are sent specifically to support CINCs and service chiefs in the performance of their duties and to provide that interface with the State Department and inter-agency side. This is not a loaded question; I'd like an honest response. Do you think that it's a good program? Do you feel that it was another way in which you were supported in your functions as a CINC? Do you have any suggestions about the future for the program, in terms of how State Department should look at it and try to direct it?

General Wesley Clark: My honest answer is I love POLADS. The reason is that they're a source of great continuity; they're a source of great understanding of what's going on in the region. They are essential for the functioning of the commander in chief. I think they should be a necessary career benchmark for all aspiring Foreign Service officers. I think the world we're moving into is a world where the use of military power and diplomacy are even more closely intertwined than in the past. I think service in a POLAD position is great preparation for any Foreign Service officer who's moving up the ranks toward ambassadorship, because he will see the other building. He'll see the people in uniform in a much different way. He'll have a chance not only to influence, but to grow.

But for the people in uniform, we're totally dependent on our political advisors. I want to put in a plug here for the three guys that worked for me -- Tim Dunn, Mike Durkee, and Pete Chaveas. Dunn worked for me down in Panama. He's a fantastic, smart, capable, savvy, linguistically-qualified POLAD. Durkee worked for me over in [inaudible]; he's still there working for Joe Ralston. He knew where all the bodies were buried, so to speak, in diplomacy. If you were about to go off and say something, he'd say, 3 years ago that phrase came up and it was interpreted as such and such; Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR,) you don't want to use that phrase. He could do things like that for you; that's what a POLAD does. Chaveas was my EUCOM POLAD, an expert in Africa. He helped guide our efforts in Africa. They're really important, and I hope that we'll take advantage of the people who have been POLADs and put them out there on the front lines as America's leading diplomats. I think it's an unparalleled learning opportunity. That's a moderately strong endorsement.

Question: I'm with the Nonproliferation Bureau, formerly part of the Political-Military Affairs bureau. I wonder what you think of the current and apparent strategy to only be able to fight one major engagement. You seem like a forthright fellow who's not unwilling to take the Pentagon and the establishment on, so I expect we'll get a direct answer as to what your feelings are.

General Wesley Clark: I'll be happy to take the Pentagon on, but first they have to tell me what their strategy is. If you know it and it's one war plus, then tell me, because I don't know what it is. I've seen a lot of hints out there.

My whole point on this is that we need to learn the lessons of Kosovo. You know our armed forces more or less have been stuck in the Desert Storm model. It's very understandable; it was America's apology for Vietnam. So for people of my generation who didn't get much recognition after Vietnam, there was a ticker tape parade. I didn't even go to Desert Storm; I was at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin. They invited me to bring two or three hundred troops down to Hollywood for a big recognition ceremony. I tried to get out of it, but no. The mayor of Hollywood wanted us down there so he could show his appreciation. The American people on TV, they won't know whether these troops went to Desert Storm or not, he said, but it's important that you be there. So we went down there. They'd written music for us. These people who in the '70s had been trying to close the Pentagon, people who were saying why are you wasting your lives in uniform, were now thanking us. God, you can't imagine the impact on the armed forces. It was a strong enough impact that it's like the mother lode of gravity. It's really hard to break it.

But we've got to move beyond that. The next war won't be fought, most likely, in an open desert with no civilians, no clouds, no vegetation, no built-up areas and nothing but sort of silver-gray tanks out there waiting to be struck from 15,000 feet with precision-guided weapons. Kosovo is a good foreshadowing of the future. It was a very complex geographical, diplomatic and legal landscape in which we had to contend not only with the clouds, the villages, the civilians on the ground, but also nongovernmental humanitarian organizations, in the middle of the bombing campaign, trying to take care of people.

We had laws. At the same time that we're trying to strike and knock out the oil, our own NATO allies are supplying oil to Serbia. The law of the sea is in effect -- you can't blockade, it's an undeclared war. We went through that at the summit, which I fought to come back to, over the resistance of some of my bosses at the Pentagon because they were afraid; I don't know what they were afraid of. But I made the case to the leaders of NATO that this is a ridiculous situation. You've got your pilots risking their lives to attack oil storage and oil refineries and you've got NATO nations supplying it. Cut it off. We spent the next 6 weeks trying to figure out how to do it. We finally ended up with a voluntary visit and search regime to which NATO never quite fully agreed, and then the war was over. The result was, we were still supplying the enemy as we were trying to destroy it. Complex legal architecture.

I discovered that many people in the United States armed forces didn't understand that you can't attack targets with the intent of discomforting the civilian population. They continue to think -- let's get those targets, we'll put those civilians under pressure and they'll put the pressure on the government -- that's illegal. We're not going to bomb Dresden again. Klaus Naumann told me on the 6th of April, 1941, Germany bombed Belgrade, 17,000 were killed. We must never have such a thing again. We're not going to have such a thing again. But some of my colleagues in uniform don't understand that's against the law.

So we're talking about a future operation that's going to look a lot more like Kosovo than it will Desert Storm. That means our armed forces have got to be transformed. What we saw in Kosovo I think were the limits of air power. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the Air Force. But it can only do so much. Ultimately, you have to not only destroy targets, you have to acquire information, you have to sometimes detain, sometimes search, sometimes cordon. Sometimes you've got to rebuild and reconstruct and protect and guard. Eeven if you had perfect information, all of that can't be done from the air. You've got to put brave men and women in there on the ground. Some of them in uniform, some of them in mufti, from AID and State Department and other places. But you can't do it all from the air.

Fact, you can even do less from the air. What we saw in Kosovo was that the air campaign is really a depreciating asset. I knew this before we started, because I'd done my homework on Vietnam. When you start an air campaign, the diplomats often are the ones who like us to use force because diplomacy is at a dead end. But you know, the truth is, an air campaign is a depreciating asset. It starts with a clap of thunder and there's an enormous coercive leverage and high expectations at the outset. The press are screaming, look at these airplanes going in, they'll be pulverized. There're visions of Pearl Harbor, whatever the latest movie has been. What people don't understand is, after the first few days you've struck the most obvious, lucrative military targets. The enemy has looked at your patterns, he's watched you, he's learned from you. You might, through the shock effect of the first few days of operation, take him out. But if you don't, what will happen is the targets will become more difficult to locate, the mistakes will mount, accidents will occur, you'll lose credibility, you may lose forces, you may end up with a captured pilot problem. Pressures will mount to call a bombing pause. Gee, let's talk about this, maybe we weren't so smart to stop striking in the first place. So what we've seen in Kosovo is not only the effectiveness of precision strike, but also some of the limitations.

So we need to learn these lessons. That's what I'm concerned about. I don't know what the Pentagon strategy is going to be. But whatever it is, two things. Number one, I hope we give enough resources to our armed forces that we can take care of the men and women who are in it, who are the most important assets. We need to change our career patterns in there. We need to get enough modern technology so that we're not outclassed on a battlefield. Number two, we have to recognize that the right place to make foreign policy and make the decisions on where to use military force is not inside the Pentagon. It's in the White House, where all the interests of all the departments are heard and weighed and then in consultation with our allies. I think if we take those lessons out of the campaign, we've got the right lessons. Whatever that strategy is, it's going to be a strategy for building forces, not using force as it comes out of the Pentagon, I hope.

Question: I'm from American University. What is your feeling about the increasing role of the military in the political drug war?

General Clark: I'm not sure that the military's role really is increasing in the drug war. In 1989-90, as we recognized the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a surplus of military assets. There was nothing else that you had to do with them, and so a very enterprising commander in chief in Panama named General Maxwell Thurmond, who many of you may know, commandeered many of those assets, like the Airborne Warning and Control System Radar, and deployed them down into Latin America. Since then, the amount of assets actually dedicated to fighting the drug war in the military has gone down dramatically.

What you are seeing is a military role in trying to assist the Government of Colombia in dealing with its narco-traffickers and the persistent insurgency down there. But what we've always said is this not a military problem. Neither the drug problem nor the insurgency is strictly speaking a military problem. They're longstanding political, economic, and social problems, in Colombia specifically and also in the Andean ridge, that need to be tended with a broad array of programs. We need strong State Department leadership, we need increased resources, and we need a broad-gauged strategy that treats not only the problem in the supply zone but the problem in the demand zone, and that's here in this country.

Question: Follow-up question. Is there a source that you're aware of that would [inaudible] transparency give figures on the exact number of U.S. force [inaudible] vis-à-vis [inaudible] operation?

General Clark: I'd go to the Department of Defense public affairs, call up public affairs and ask them. They'll get you the numbers. It's no secret.

Question: [inaudible] of the Center for International Policy here in Washington, D.C. I'd like to return, General, if I could, to Africa. You touched on it briefly earlier on. I'm wondering what lessons did the military learn in Somalia and then Rwanda. Because there seems to have been, at least in Africa, a lasting legacy out of those two experiences.

General Clark: We did a full study of Somalia inside the Pentagon and we shared it with the White House and the other agencies. The essence of the study was that somehow during the transition from the initial humanitarian operation, that the United States ran, to the UN operation, then to the U.S. reinforcement of that operation with its special operations forces, we lost a grip on the real purposes of the operation. What was it we were trying to do and what was the best way to accomplish the mission. This was compounded by some regrettable errors that are very clear in hindsight but weren't clear in foresight, with the conduct of the military operation to capture Aideed that led to the 18 Americans that were killed. So we tried to learn all of those lessons.

When Rwanda occurred, we were still thinking about those lessons. There was certainly no appetite in Washington for an American ground presence there. The question I've had to ask myself again and again is, couldn't we have done more through the United Nations. I was the J-5. I had just arrived, as I said, when the two presidents were killed. That first weekend, when we were trying to sort out the situation in Kigali, when the Belgian soldiers were disarmed and killed and so forth, we weren't geared up to do anything. We didn't have our maps, we didn't have an understanding of the real situation on the ground, at least inside the Joint Staff. I know people in the State Department were very well aware of it. But in the Joint Staff, we weren't focused on it.

We got focused on it. We thought about General [inaudible], who was there with 1,000 troops plus a 100 Canadian communicators and logisticians in Kigali. The question was, couldn't we have done something to let General [inaudible], a Canadian general, stop this slaughter. I think the answer is, first, we didn't appreciate the magnitude of what was happening at the time. I know I didn't fully appreciate it until the next December, when I read an article in the New Yorker that described in graphic terms what had happened. We didn't have good information sources. Secondly, we weren't institutionally inclined to take action. We'd already had a tragedy in Somalia. We didn't have a lot of confidence in the troops that were with General [inaudible]. We believed that if we gave them a tough mission and the mission didn't work, the next thing is that we'd be in there with our own troops.

So people were reluctant to push for this operation. It was easier to let it slide away and hope that it could be resolved. Then of course, as you know, we went in with a humanitarian mission to assist the Hutus after the (Rwandan Patriotic Front) RPF and Paul [inaudible] had succeeded in getting back into the country. That's when we began to get the word on the ground of what was really going on there. At least, that's the way I remember it inside the Pentagon.

I think there are a lot of lessons learned. The foremost is the lesson I took with me when I went to the Balkans, after I'd lived through that, reflected on it, and I'd gone and looked at the aftermath of what happened in Bosnia. I remember having a conversation with [inaudible], who was in the ruins of Mostar. It was in September 1995. [inaudible] said to me that night, he said, "I have seen a five" – [inaudible] was the Bosnian prime minister, for those of you who may not know. [inaudible] said, "I have seen a five-year-old boy tortured and killed near Brcko?." He said, "What kind of people do this?" [inaudible] was a very fiery orator and a very forceful, emotional personality. "But I thought about it," he said, "I could understand torturing and killing a grown man, but a five-year-old!" I thought about the pornography of violence, I thought about how we allowed it to occur. We stood aside. There were a lot of people in this town who said let them just fight it out amongst themselves. Let's just let it burn out.

I think the lesson is the lesson that President Clinton articulated better than anyone. He said, "If the United States can make a difference, it should." I think that's the guidance for the United States, I think that's our strategy. It should be our strategy in the years ahead. Not a one-war strategy, not a two-war strategy. But the Cold War is over. The United States was successful, along with NATO. We protected the free world from the threat of communism. There's no great threat against the United States. But we need to go and help our friends and our allies, we need to help those that share our values, reinforce our allies. We need to help our friends abroad, strengthen them. We need to confront the evil that's out there in the world, where we can make a difference. No, we can't do it all and we're not the world's policeman. But where we can make a difference, we should make a difference. I think that's the real lesson that should come out of this decade.

Question: I'm a foreign correspondent from Norway. General, I have two questions for you, please. What kind of reactions have you gotten after the book was published from your former colleagues at the Pentagon? Second, why didn't you capture [inaudible] and Radic?

General Clark: On the first question, I haven't gotten any reaction from my former colleagues at the Pentagon. I don't know why. They probably haven't been able to get the book, a lot of people told me it's been sold out.

As far as the war criminals are concerned, you won't find that in the book. All I can tell you is that the NATO mission was to tackle a situation permitting we attempted to detain those. There's a lot behind the scenes. You can read between the lines of the book, you can just imagine what the full story is. But I can't tell that story. Not now, probably not ever. Maybe someone else will. But that's a story that has to remain within the bounds of the classification rules that I agreed to.

Question: I'm with the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. Sir, what was the single biggest challenge as a commander that you faced within NATO to make the coalition function in the Kosovo campaign? What lessons learned do you think NATO should take away from Kosovo to prepare itself for similar situations in the future, in terms of the organization of the campaign?

General Clark: I think the biggest challenge came from the fact that NATO really didn't have a military doctrine that was agreed, and didn't have a process for working during wartime to agree to. What I believe, my strategy from Vietnam, from studying Rolling Thunder, from elsewhere, is that -- okay, if you can't start a campaign with decisive force, and in this case we couldn't politically, then at least use it as decisively as possible once you begin to use it. There's a countervailing doctrine. The doctrine was expressed to me by several French officers, one who said to me, we can't approve these targets in France because we want the Serb president to realize that he has much more to lose in the future if he doesn't comply with NATO's wishes now than he has already lost. So there was a tendency to sort of push out the tough targeting decisions. Whether that was enshrined in French doctrine, French political culture, whether it was just to resist the American leadership of the campaign, I have no idea. But the simple truth was, we didn't have an agreed doctrine.

When it came time to do the planning for the ground force operations, my problem inside NATO was that there was no planning process that would get a grip on this. It would have taken six months, it would have taken 90 days minimum to have planned a ground operation before we ever moved the first troop. So if we add the 90 days to the first of May or the first of June, we would have ended up not agreeing to do a ground operation, having a real plan, until the first snows were falling in the mountains. Then we'd have had to postpone – it's too slow. For the world we're in today, it's too slow and it's too politically intertwined. So those were the two biggest issues.

But I tell you, NATO wasn't the biggest problem. The real problem was that there was a conflict between the Pentagon's institutional interest and what it thought it needed and what NATO needed. So there was, the hardest struggles weren't with the French, not for me. The hardest struggles emotionally for me were with my own chain of command. That was because they were weighing things off. They were still concerned about Operation Northern Watch. I pulled a lot of the aircraft out of Northern Watch. I wanted to use them in the operation that NATO's future depended on. If Saddam Hussein got frisky for a couple of days, I didn't think that was a big deal. But to Washington it looked like a big deal, so they were trying to balance off both of my operations.

I had this very emotional conversation with Tony Blair at one point during the war. It's in the book. But he came in, he talked to me one-on-one. He said, "I want to know if we're going to win." He sat forward on the couch; he didn't drink the cup of tea I'd provided for him. He didn't let me open up my 50-page briefing book. He said, "I just want to know if we're going to win." I said, "Prime Minister, we're going to win." He sat forward a little further and said, "No, I mean, I'm asking you, seriously, really, I want to know if we're going to win." I tried to reassure him, I knew this was about will. This was about confidence in commanders. This was about the future of NATO. I related this story to some military colleagues after the war and one commander in chief said to me, "Who gave you the right to say you were going to win!"

His question was a logical question, because by committing us to victory I had basically committed us to doing whatever was necessary with assets that he considered his own. I understood his concern, but technically I wasn't out of line anyway because the president had already committed us to win. Secondly, I think when a nation commits its armed forces to combat, it owes not only to the men and women who are fighting but it owes to its own people, to its grandchildren, to the legacy of that nation, that it fight to success. That's what I insisted on and that's what we achieved. Thank you very much.

Alan Lang: I'd like to thank General Clark for that presentation. I'd like to thank all of you as well for your thoughtful questions and comments. At this time, it gives me great pleasure to present the Secretary's Open Forum Distinguished Public Service Award to General Clark. In doing so, may I make just a few remarks. In presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to General Clark, President Clinton noted that the stakes in Kosovo were monumental. Almost a million people had been driven from their homes, solely because of their ethnic and religious background. Success would save lives, strengthen NATO, advance the cause of freedom, democracy, and unity in Europe. Failure would leave much of the continent awash in a sea of refugees and end the 20th century on a note of helpless indignation in the face of evil. The president went on to say that Wes Clark understood well the perils of the Balkans, for he had already played a vital role in ending the role in Bosnia and beginning the long process of building a stable, multi-ethnic democracy in that country. He summoned every ounce of his experience and expertise as a strategist, soldier, and a statesman to wage our campaign in Kosovo. He prevailed miraculously without the loss of a single combat casualty. At the apex of a long and distinguished military career that goes back to his outstanding performance as a cadet at West Point over thirty years, the president said, he was assigned a challenge many experts thought was mission impossible. Instead, thanks to General Clark we can now declare mission accomplished. General Clark, please accept this Distinguished Public Service Award on behalf of a grateful nation.

General Clark: Thank you very much.

The New Century Demands That The Army Transform More Than Just Its Forces
General Wesley K. Clark, USA

The Army is on the threshold of big things. Last fall, the Service launched an important transformation effort to make its fighting forces more rapidly deployable and lethal. Yet there are other changes, equally important, for the Army to consider as it looks forward. The national military strategy that underpins the Army's program is beginning to crack at the seams, and the 21st century challenges the Service to consider a new mindset, think anew about how it develops officers, and assume a new willingness to undertake missions different than those the Army might prefer to take.

Having worked in the joint world for the last six years, thus somewhat removed from the responsibilities of training, equipping, and keeping ready the Army, I offer the following observations.

NEW WORLD COMING
First, there is a changing US national military strategy. The fall of the Berlin Wall brought an end to the Soviet Union as well as our decades-old policy of containment. In its place, we eventually adopted a strategy to prepare for two major regional contingencies; a posture based on force projection and force building. This policy never envisioned scenarios where US forces would deploy on prolonged commitments such as we now see in the Balkans; it was never intended to be a force-commitment strategy.

As a force-building policy, this strategy emerged from the 1993 Bottom Up Review assessment of the US military. Soon it became part of the Joint Strategic Capability Plan and was measured regularly in the new joint monthly readiness review process. And, presto, we found ourselves with an immutable requirement. The US Army and other forces were to prepare for two major theater wars. According to this planning, not only are these theaters–Korea and the Middle East–essentially the only places we are likely to fight, these scenarios are the only places we wanted to fight, the only places for which we could prepare to fight. This two-war strategy shaped the "mission-essential" task list crafted by our Army commanders at all levels.

And yet it's clear after our recent experience in Kosovo that this strategy is too tightly wound to deal with the actual requirements that are likely to face the US armed forces in the future.
The US is currently without a global peer competitor. But there are important US interests in many parts of the world beyond regions implied in the current national military strategy that may require American forces–perhaps Taiwan, perhaps other places in the Middle East or the Balkans.

Anyone who reads the newspaper these days might wonder if Colombia will require US military engagement. And the United States military must be prepared, for any of these or other places, to send air, maritime, or land forces to provide everything from advisory to logistics support, from training to direct involvement.

The national security strategy that has guided US military strategy in recent years is slowly changing. It must. We have to adapt this strategy and look at the real world in which we live.
It is not going to be enough to add to the repertoire homeland defense, national missile defense, and anti-terrorism measures, as has recently been discussed. We've got to recognize that US military power will be required outside our borders and probably in unforeseen circumstances. And I think this is inevitable. We can't just prepare for the last wars, or the battles we want to fight.

TURNING POINT
Secondly, I think the Army has reached an important threshold. Soldiers of my generation witnessed the transformation of the Vietnam Army to the post-Vietnam Army. After the war we increased our size from 13 divisions to 16 divisions. During that period we assumed major risks. We invented the Total Army with round-out divisions. During that period we had a defined threat, we were procuring the "Big Five" weapons systems–the Abrams tank, Bradley fighting vehicle, the Black Hawk helicopter, the Multiple Launch Rocket System, and the Patriot missile system–and we transitioned to the all-volunteer force. We made sure we weren't going to have any more Vietnams–no, it wasn't going to be easy to commit us in the future.

During that major force transition, there was a lot of anger in this Army directed at the media that had not been as supportive as we'd wanted. There was also anger at some in political positions who had not supported the men and women in uniform the way we wanted.

There was a sense that we only wanted to fight when the country was truly at risk. We said: "When the Army is committed, America is committed." We said we'd protect our soldiers first and foremost; we passed the risks upward. "You tell us what you what to do and we'll tell you what the bill is," we said.

This was an Army still living the consequences of the 1970s’ Army Professionalism study from the Army War College in Carlisle, PA. It was an Army dedicated to developing commanders and leaders for its soldiers, no ticket-punching, and selfless service. It was an outstanding Army. It was a great Army. It was an Army that has proved itself in combat.

But we're now in the 21st century. We don't have the choice of 16 divisions; we've got 10. And we're going to have new, smaller structures. We're going to have them whether we think they're best in a major theater war or not. These are structures that are under consideration, and we have to work with them.

We don't have the luxury of a clear threat. There are multiple challenges.

And for the commander in the field, just knowing the mission-essential task list is a very tough problem.

The systems purchased under the Big Five program in the 1980s are wearing out, some are becoming obsolete, and we don't see the procurement funds to replace these in bulk. At the same time we're dealing with a very tough recruiting environment for a volunteer force.

The Army is going to have to be expeditionary. We simply can't afford the "alert-trained-deployed" force that we used during the Gulf War and for Bosnia. The US Army has to be versatile, ready, flexible, and willing. We said in the 1980s that we would be ready for a "come-as-you-are" war. That philosophy guided our posture in Germany; it underpinned NATO's efforts throughout the Cold War.

In the 21st century, I believe the US Army has to be ready for a "come-as-you-are" commitment. Perhaps it will not be a war. Perhaps it will not be in Europe. But we have to be ready. We have to have the right systems to make us versatile and flexible. And we have to be willing to go.

NEW BATTLE LINES
Third, I believe we are facing a much tougher institutional environment than we have in the past. We have to be very candid in recognizing what "jointness" means. Jointness means that the Army career model set up to take the Vietnam Army into the post-Vietnam era has to be looked at very carefully. In particular, the Army can't spend all of its best talent developing only troop-leading skills that focus downward. If the Army doesn't change this practice, its officers won't compete upward and the Army as an institution won't compete upward.

We've got to produce great troop leaders, great logisticians, great intelligence officers, and great operators. But they've got to be not only Army-capable, they've got to be joint officers. They've got to be able to work with other services and understand them. These Army officers have got to get inside of those services. And they've got to be able to promote their own service.

The Army ethic must embody not only selfless service, but also recognize the capabilities of other services. And those in green uniforms must sell their service. Every other service does.

This will be difficult to do because the interservice rivalries have actually toughened, in my view, because we've formalized the quadrennial defense review process and its implicit roles and mission analysis in a regular, high-stakes assessment. These are not just gentlemanly reviews conducted every couple of years.

It's a dogfight out there. And it is fought at many, many levels.

While the interservice rivalries rage, we're in an environment where increased cooperation with alliance and coalition partners is becoming the norm, not the exception. The idea that everything has to be done the way it’s done inside the US Army chain of command is a notional luxury that we may not be able to afford, and we certainly should not expect, in the future. Our Army officers need to understand how to work with army officers from other nations; they need to understand the proclivities of their counterparts. We have US Army officers with no second language and no experience working with others. And yet we have the best Foreign Area Officer model in the world. It is the envy of every service. But the superb officers don't end up in command positions to use those skills at the ultimate levels of responsibility in deployments.

What are the implications of this tough institutional environment? First, the Army has got to have deployable force structures. That's the price of entry into 21st century operations. The Army has to be more deployable, more lethal, better protected. We can do this.

I think the program that Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki has put forward fully deserves the 100-percent, wholehearted support of the total Army. We've got to get on with the task. We've got a lot of work to do out there. These structural changes are the entry ticket. If we don't do that, we cannot be relevant in the future, as we need to be.

And yet I believe there is something more than organizational structures that must change: I say we've got to look at our mindset as well. The great Army that we built in the post-Vietnam era cannot be frozen in place.

There is no timeless recipe for a military force. If we want to be there in the future, then we've got to want to be used in the future. If we don't go for the missions, then we won't get the resources. And we won't always get to choose the missions we want. We'll have to take the missions that are there and succeed at them.

It makes me a little bit sad to hear some of our young officers complaining that they are doing peacekeeping instead of warfighting. Have these officers ever been in a warfight? Have they ever seen men die? Have they ever felt the fear from artillery pounding in on them? What is this great glory that they see in warfighting that they don't see in keeping the peace in a place like Bosnia or Kosovo? Isn't it far better to be there preventing the outbreak of conflict and contributing to the resolution of an urgent international problem without bloodshed than it is to be called in at the last minute in desperation and chaos and thrown into a fight?

I think it is. But I worry that somehow our youngsters have gotten the Army ethic mixed up with the real missions and requirements of the Army in the 21st century.

We've got to have both a warfighting spirit and a peacekeeping capability if we're going to be successful. When you're a soldier, you serve where your country needs you–you don't pick and choose–and you succeed–whatever the mission, wherever you are needed.

Committee on Education and the Workforce
Hearings

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to testify today on the critically important subject of impact aid and the education of the young people in the military family. Let me commend you for holding this hearing, and for your willingness to address this issue.

Put simply, the quality of youth education remains a key factor in the retention and recruitment of personnel in the Armed Forces. Beyond mere expedience, our nation must assure that the children of its Armed Forces personnel are provided a top quality education. The United States' military force is highly educated and its members hold the same expectations for their children's education. More of our men and women are basing their decisions to enter or leave the military on perceptions of the quality of education their children will receive. It is significant that as the ranks of our Armed Services have fallen, funding for impact aid has fallen short of the level needed by our children's schools. If we want strong, educated, committed men and women in our Armed Services, then we must provide for their families well being.

Currently, there are approximately a half million military dependants who attend school in districts surrounding military bases. Less than 15% of military children are in DoD schools; the rest attend public and private schools off-post. In my home state of Arkansas, in the vicinity of Little Rock Air Force Base, there are approximately 2500 students who attend school off post. The three school districts are eligible to receive assistance under the federal impact aid program. However, the impact aid program is funded nationally at only around the 60% level. What does this mean for Little Rock? This means that the three school districts in Little Rock bear a great burden in meeting the educational requirements of each child, both military and civilian. Currently, the three districts receive $575,000 in federal impact aid. If the program were fully funded, the school districts would receive somewhere around $3.8 million. This significant shortfall translates into a decrease in the number and quality of academic and extracurricular programs the schools can provide to its military and civilian children. It also means a decrease in armed forces retention and recruitment, which is cause for great concern. We do not want to see our military children losing out on the quality education they deserve and their parents expect.

Impact aid was designed to reimburse public school districts the full cost of educating the military child attending public or private school off post. In 1950, the Congress recognized that the loss of traditional revenue sources like property and personal income taxes negatively impacted the local school districts. Traditionally these types of taxes have accounted for a significant portion of the local school district's annual budget. However, military students can negatively impact the district's financial resources because their parents do not pay such things as income taxes, license fees, and property taxes. While the nominal cost of educating one student varies from district to district across the United States, one thing remains clear, the federal government must do more to fund the education of our military children. The federal government must live up to its promise to care for its military family by fully funding the impact aid program. If we want to retain and recruit the best men and women, we must provide for their families and this means making an extra effort.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, while much has been done in recent years to strengthen accountability and decentralize responsibility and authority in the DoD school system, off-post schools remain beyond the control of the military and DoD leadership. However well-meaning the off post school leadership and staff may be, these schools face particular challenges as I observed in my assignments at Ft. Irwin, Ft. Carson, CO and Ft. Hood, TX. Such schools tend to suffer from restricted funding and higher than average per pupil cost due to the turnover of students associated with military reassignments. In normal communities, the public schools draw on a diverse tax base and enjoy a relatively stable student population. This stability reduces school stress, disciplinary problems, and the general frictions that are inevitable at the beginning of each school year. Civilian schools with substantial population of military families often suffer from reduced tax base as well as extraordinarily high turn over of students even during the school year.

Federal impact aid was created to address these problems. It is a matter of money but it is not a hand out. These additional resources are very much needed. The federal government impacts school districts and our government should do its part. I know that the Committee has worked hard on behalf of our military family to provide the best possible education for our children. This is an important issue to me and I commend the Committee for it.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.