The answer to that question is certainly no. While I may disagree with Powell’s foreign policy recommendations while he was Secretary of State and subsequently, he has served the United States honorably in a variety of capacities. The State Department should tread carefully, however, as its allies in Europe and the organizations it funds in the United Nations embrace the trope that disproportionate force is somehow wrong. The Turkish government, for example, has dismissed the legitimacy of the Palmer Commission but seized upon its findings that Israeli forces used disproportionate force. It has also embraced similar testimony by self-described human rights experts and UN bureaucrats to the UN Human Rights Council to complain about disproportionate violence.
Now let’s consider the Powell Doctrine through the same lens. Part of the Powell Doctrine declares, “When a nation is engaging in war, every resource and tool should be used to achieve decisive force against the enemy, minimizing U.S. casualties and ending the conflict quickly by forcing the weaker force to capitulate.”
Certainly, the Powell Doctrine formed the basis of the decisive and overwhelming victory against Saddam Hussein in 1991. The idea that when engaging militarily, once should calibrate military power to the weakest combatant is one of the most curious—and stupid—conclusions of armchair international law advocates and human rights experts. It’s time to put the proportionality arguments where they belong—in the dustbin of bad ideas.
