Quagmire

Nation building is an appropriate task for the military, which has conducted such operations for hundreds of years. The National Security Strategy, the Quadrennial Defense Review, and recently revised Army doctrine, states that the military, especially the Army, must assume a role in America's nation building efforts. The military's unique capabilities in personnel, equipment, and transportation make it an organization that has been, and will continue to be called upon, to assist with nation building. The military's exclusive capability to rapidly convert to an offensive combat force is essential to establishing and maintaining a secure environment required for nation building. Nation-building operations in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia encountered including indistinct policy and strategy, a lack of planning, doctrine, and training, inadequate force structure, poor interagency coordination, and resistance to nation building as an appropriate mission. Recommendations for enhancing the military's effectiveness in future nation building include establishment of a single agency for overall responsibility of nation building, nation building tasks should be included on unit METLs, realignment of force structure to include reconstruction divisions with modularity, continue to refine doctrine, training, and force structure to drive fundamental change in the mission of the military, leaders should be held accountable for preparedness and performance of nation building, and get rid of the "Powell Doctrine" in light of current realities. The military will "do Vietnams" in today's strategic environment.