CHALLENGES AND DILEMMAS

The recent conflicts in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq have also posed unique dilemmas for military forces in what is commonly referred to as the postconflict or stabilization phase. Current military doctrine, training, equipment, and procedures do not adequately address the missions required by the war now being waged against radical Islamic terrorists and their state sponsors.

In 1991—even though the local populace welcomed our liberating forces, even though the Kuwaitis had large cash reserves that could be used to rehabilitate themselves, and even though Kuwait’s Arab neighbors, like Saudi Arabia, made great efforts to provide for the immediate needs of refugees and thousands of Iraqi prisoners of war—it was a struggle to stabilize postwar Kuwait. Our Air Force had to get the International Airport running as soon as possible to support the airlift bringing in emergency supplies, while our Navy did the same for the port and adjacent waters mined by the Iraqi Navy. Civilian contractors rushed to Kuwait to extinguish the fires burning fiercely in the oil fields. But the role of rehabilitation fell mainly on the U.S. Army, a force that was trained and configured to fight tank battles and capture territory. Our Army had to ensure adequate food, water, utilities, transportation, police protection, and security forces were available so the citizens of the razed and looted country did not suffer inordinately. Though Lieutenant General John Yeosock, Commander 3rd Army, took control, and his forces worked tirelessly to ensure the pain and suffering of Kuwaitis was minimized, it nevertheless took many months to bring normalcy to the nation that had suffered so horribly from seven months of Iraqi occupation.

The same tasks arose after Serbian military forces were driven out of Kosovo, after the Taliban and Al-Qaeda military were defeated in Afghanistan, and after Saddam Hussein’s rule over Iraq was broken. But in those countries we faced a very different situation. There the populace had mixed views about our postconflict presence, capabilities available to restore basic services were limited, and in many locations the security situation was tenuous. Though the international community supported the postconflict efforts, in each case the chief responsibility fell once again on the U.S. military—primarily on its Army.