Norman Schwarzkopf on Modern War

            From "It Doesn't Take a Hero" (1992), the autobiography of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who died Dec. 27:

I am often asked to comment on the nature of future conflicts and the size of our armed forces.

I feel that retired general officers should never miss an opportunity to remain silent concerning matters for which they are no longer responsible. Having said that, I believe a few general (no pun intended) comments are in order. I am quite confident that in the foreseeable future armed conflict will not take the form of huge land armies facing each other across extended battle lines, as they did in World War I and World War II or, for that matter, as they would have if NATO had faced the Warsaw Pact on the field of battle. Conflict in the future will be similar to that which we have seen in the recent past. Both of the military operations in which we were involved in the Middle East were the result of regional conflicts that grew to proportions that began to impact the rest of the world. The "tanker war" was a result of the Iran-Iraq war, and, of course, the Gulf War came about as a result of a dispute between Iraq and other oil-producing nations.

As I have earlier stated, when I took command of Central Command, there were thirteen such conflicts occurring in my area of responsibility alone. Since that time many have abated, but others far more troublesome have emerged to take their place. One need only look at the tragic events taking place in what we used to call Yugoslavia or the ethnic, religious and nationalistic clashes in the former Soviet Union to realize that such dangerous regional conflicts will be with us for years to come. Any one of them could lead us to war.

What does this tell us about the future size of our armed forces? First, it does tell us that reductions are possible. But it does not tell us that reductions by arbitrary amounts set solely on the basis of political or fiscal considerations are the answer. It frightens me when I hear someone propose a hundred-billion-dollar cut in our armed forces without any rationale other than that the money can be used elsewhere. The purpose of our armed forces is to protect our national interests and defend our country. Before we allow deep cuts in our forces we should be sure that we have made a thorough analysis of what our national interests will be for the next twenty years and where and how we might be required to commit our forces. Only then can we honestly assess what size our armed forces should be. Then cuts can be made. . . .

Finally, we must ensure that our forces remain flexible enough to handle unforeseen contingencies. The future is not always easy to predict and our record regarding where we will fight future wars is not the best. If someone had asked me on the day I graduated from West Point, in June 1956, where I would fight for my country during my years of service, I'm not sure what I would have said. But I'm damn sure I would not have said, "Vietnam, Grenada, and Iraq."

The day I left Riyadh to return to the United States, General Khalid made a statement in a speech that every American should think about. He said, "If the world is only going to have one superpower, thank God it is the United States of America." When I think about the nations in the past fifty years that could have emerged as the world's only superpower—Tojo's Japan, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, Mao's China—and the darkness that would have descended on this world if they had, I appreciate the wisdom of Khalid's words. Because we have emerged as the only remaining superpower, we have awesome responsibility both to ourselves as a nation and to the rest of the world. I don't know what that responsibility will mean to the future of our great country, but I shall always remain confident of the American people's ability to rise to any challenge.