J Patrick Dobel. Presidential Studies Quarterly. Volume 40, Issue 1, March 2010.
A very exacting type of prudence is demanded of ethical and effective political leaders. It requires critical self-awareness, diligence in obtaining information and modifying one’s conduct in light of it, and attentiveness to the fit and proportionality of means and ends. Although there are counterparts in personal life to these attributes, the prudence of political leaders has a further dimension because of their responsibility for the welfare of the polity, whether a city or an entire nation. The importance of political prudence in the U.S. presidency is illustrated by a comparative analysis of the decision-making processes regarding Iraq in the administrations of George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. The sharp contrasts between them suggest that prudence and other political virtues may be substantially independent of ideology, class, and social background.
This essay discusses the importance of the virtue of prudence to presidential ethics. It examines the nature of prudence through an analysis of the decision making of Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush to go to war with the Republic of Iraq. The wars began only 12 years apart; the presidents shared a father-son connection; they also shared many advisors, party affiliation, and moderate conservatism. Both viewed themselves as charting new courses, one in a post-Cold War environment, and one in a world changed by 9/11. Both presidents had initiated “regime changes” earlier: George H. W. Bush overthrew Manuel Noriega in Panama, and George W. Bush overthrew the Taliban regime in Afghanistan; both faced a military reluctant to embark on war. The similarities of personnel and situations provide a unique opportunity for comparative analysis. This essay studies the two decisions to go to war through the lens of the virtue of political prudence. The analysis will illustrate the central role that prudence should have in the ethics of presidential leadership by demonstrating how political prudence, or its lack, contributes to policy success or failure.
Prudence is a moral virtue traditionally associated with leading. It identifies the self-discipline and cognitive focal points that individuals should address to shape moral commitments into sustainable reality. Unlike principle- and rule-based ethics, which depend on discovering the correct norms to guide action, virtue ethics argues that judgment and action should be guided and informed by qualities of character, understood as stable cognitive and emotional dispositions, or patterns of response to the world. As both a cognitive and a moral virtue, prudence resembles a normative practice with a set of parameters of required attention and reflection but without deductively clear outcomes. Virtues are not preordained; individuals can acquire virtues such as prudence through self-reflection, training, and experience. As cognitive and emotional attributes of persons, they generate trained perceptions that help individuals identify morally relevant aspects of a situation and frame their judgments around them. Virtue ethics grows from internal structures of trained cognitions, emotional responses, and perceptions that enable individuals to align moral intent with moral action. The virtue of political prudence identifies attributes and domains of reflection that leaders should apply in order to make decisions that accord with the moral complexity, resources, and long-term consequences of actions (Aquinas 1967; Aristotle 1969; Cooper 1987; Dobel 1998, 1999; Norton 1991; Sherman 1989). Virtue ethics emphasizes the moral responsibility of individuals and their obligation to give reality and content to moral norms.
Much modern usage has narrowed the meaning of prudence to either the disposition to be very cautious or merely a tactical means to achieve self-interested ends (Garver 1987). This essay draws on the older and deeper understanding of moral virtue, which argues that individuals need prudence to have the moral discipline to discern all the moral aspects of a situation and to create a fit between moral aspirations and the realistic possibilities of a situation. It is too easy to believe that one knows the correct moral requirements without full reflection on all moral dimensions, and it is even more problematic to try to act on the norms without moral attention to what is needed to build a sustainable solution with minimum unanticipated consequences.
Political prudence is recognized in all moral and political traditions–given the ubiquitous problem of linking moral ideals with ever–changing reality. Prudence is foundational for political ethics because there are no deductively clear outcomes to pursue based on one’s moral commitments. Political engagement requires that considerable thought be given to moral complexity, accommodations, and solutions that can endure in the face of conflict. In addition, life throws surprises and “unknown unknowns” that leaders must adapt to. Political prudence’s moral stature rises because of the moral responsibilities of the office of the president to achieve ends that are compatible with its moral, legal, and constitutional mandate (Dobel 1999; Sherman 1989).
Understood as a virtue with cognitive, characterological, and emotional requirements, political prudence possesses independent moral weight in decision making. This understanding of prudence presents a range of considerations that an individual should attend to in order to judge in a morally responsible manner. Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas developed the most complete understandings of prudence. Aristotle’s concept of phronesis is often translated as “practical wisdom” to suggest how it extends wisdom to daily life. Aquinas referred to “prudence,” which means “to see ahead,” and broke it into eight separate dimensions of understanding and character. These aspects map out what responsible persons should attend to in order to make decisions that take account of all the relevant moral norms and the challenges of implementing them in political life. An imprudent person is morally negligent as a result of qualities lacked or things left undone. Imprudent leaders fails in such areas as seeking all the moral dimensions of a situation, including all the options to pursue and their possible consequences; building the political foundations to achieve sustained outcomes; and possessing the strength of character to adapt in light of changing circumstances. Prudent leaders succeed in these areas.
This essay will distill the requirements of prudence in terms of three sets of traits: self-knowledge and self-mastery, curiosity and openness to relevant knowledge, and deliberative focus on the practical shape of ends and the consequences of pursuing them. The essay will examine and evaluate the decision making of the two presidential administrations in light of these requirements. These requirements distill the accounts of Aristotle and Aquinas and provide a compression of my earlier work (Dobel 1998, 1999). Morally prudent political judgment should address the following:
- Self-knowledge and self-mastery. The emotional and cognitive self-control of prudent persons allows them to restrain their passions and impulses. They can then reflect on their own values and direct their attention and energies to overcome obstacles to achieve goals.
- Curiosity and openness to knowledge that impacts decisions. The requirements of prudent judging direct people to be open and learn. Prudence manifests itself as a capacity to listen and learn from others and perceive changes in situations. Prudent judging means individuals adapt in light of new knowledge or changed conditions.
- Deliberative focus on the practical shape of ends and relentless efforts to foresee all the consequences of pursuing them. The structure of prudent reasoning directs individuals to calibrate proportionate means to achieve ends. Aligning means and ends is a basic requirement of prudent thinking to ensure a moral balance and a reasonable chance to achieve goals without unknown consequences overwhelming the good sought.
In the rest of this essay, I will compare how the two Bush presidents satisfied, or failed to satisfy, these three requirements in their decisions about going to war. In doing so, I will try to illustrate how central prudence is to making good political judgments, and how judgments that ignore vital aspects of political prudence can generate significant problems in setting and achieving goals. I hope this will demonstrate the importance of cultivating political prudence for presidents.
Self-Mastery and Self-Control
Virtue ethics holds that self-knowledge and self-discipline are foundational to ethics. Without them, even if people possess strong moral principles, they can fail in balancing them, applying them, or giving them reality. Self-knowledge enables presidents to know their values and commitments; this knowledge extends to understanding their strengths and limits of character. Self-discipline enables leaders to put aside self-interest or passions in order to use reason to reflect on goals and work to achieve them. Wisdom traditions make this very clear. The ancient Greek inscription above the Temple of Apollo at Delphi simply stated, “Know thyself.” The Book of Proverbs emphasizes prudence and self-discipline in many ways, such as “Moderation is better than muscle, self-control better than political power” (16:32; 16:14). In a very different place and time, Sun-Tzu insists in The Art of War, “know your enemy, know yourself (2002, 3:19). Ancient and Renaissance iconography portrays the virtue of prudence holding a mirror, to stress that prudence requires self-knowledge and clear awareness of the world. A morally prudent person possesses an obligation to grow in understanding of himself or herself and the world.
George Herbert Walker Bush
George H. W. Bush had a clear sense of himself. He was acutely aware of his limits as a communicator and distrusted the “vision thing.” He mistrusted grand rhetoric and plans that did not have clear alignment of purpose and means to achieve them. He saw himself as a counterweight to what he viewed as the romanticism and ideological rigidity of the Ronald Reagan era (Barilleaux and Rozell 2004). Bush valued loyalty and candor and weighed it in his appointments. He worked hard to amass good information, even hoarding information and working channels to double-check it. He pushed staff to think through problems (Haass 2009, 60-80; Woodward 1991, 57ff.).
President George H. W Bush was a passionate president with strong commitments. He could easily get upset and feel genuine anger about issues. He knew himself to be impatient, with a tendency to make decisions impulsively and to “pop off” about issues in public (Bush and Scowcroft 1998; Woodward 1991, 57, 130-36, 337ff). He worked best as a personal leader, and his vast correspondence and relationship building reflected his belief that the best politics and policy came from one-on-one communication. He cultivated strong networks of relationships that he used for information and support (Bush 1999).
He possessed an acute awareness of his need to impose self-control and reflection on himself when making decisions. He relied on a strong national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, to organize a diverse and strong group of senior advisors to keep him honest (Bush and Scowcroft 1998). After an American-supported coup against President Noriega in Panama failed, Bush worked with his senior team and closely controlled his own inclinations. “I suppose I could have gone to general quarters, but that is not prudent and that’s not the way I plan to conduct the military or foreign affairs of the country.” He explained the approach that would inform his Iraq decisions:
I would not rule out any options. Any option. But you have to look at the facts at the time. And you have to keep in mind the lives of American citizens, lives of your own troops, and what you’re trying to do … I wouldn’t mind using force if it could be done in a prudent manner. I have to stake the lives of American kids, and I am not going to easily thrust them into battle unless I feel comfortable with it and unless these general officers in whom I have total confidence feel comfortable. (Woodward 1991, 128-30)
Immediately after Saddam Hussein’s Iraq forces conquered Kuwait, he reacted with care: “I did not want my first public comments to threaten the use of American political might” (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 315). The more he read the reports on atrocities and human rights abuses in Kuwait, the angrier he got, and his rhetoric grew more aggressive (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 358-59, 374-75). When he was under stress, Bush would mull and simmer on decisions. He relied on Brent Scowcroft to be a strong independent voice to offset his own impatience. He expected Scowcroft to manage deliberations and information flow and get all the options discussed. Scowcroft or Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Robert Gates even accompanied Bush when he campaigned during the midterm elections because the president had become “emotionally involved” and his rhetoric “seemed a bit counterproductive” (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 389). Bush’s diaries reveal his increasing concern over the fate of Kuwait and refugees as “an injustice and its reversal as a moral crusade” (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 374-75). He tried to rein himself in because,
I knew there was a danger I might overreact to what I heard and read. I’d tell myself to calm down, not to let the human rights abuses … cause me to do something hasty or to make a foolish decision. Yet at some point it came through to me that … It was good versus evil; right versus wrong … This was how I sorted it out in my mind, which made the choices before me clearer. (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 374-75)
No leader is perfect. Bush impulsively changed the entire direction of the war with one off-the-cuff announcement that he yelled to the press corps as he exited a helicopter, “This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.” Members of his cabinet learned that the Iraq war had changed from defensive to offensive while watching television (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 333; Haass 2009, 69-70).
George W. Bush
President George W. Bush possessed a reputation for not being particularly self-aware. He also possessed, nonetheless, a strong sense of himself and his role as a leader. In the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack, he worked hard to ensure that good deliberations and imaginative ideas were discussed. This approach was clear in the open deliberations about how to respond to the Taliban in Afghanistan (Graham 2009, 286-93, 300-313; Woodward 2002).
He was not particularly interested in creating personal relationships. He possessed little curiosity about the world and had done little to cultivate relationships with other leaders (Tenet 2007; Woodward 2006). He was very loyal and hated to dismiss individuals who served his administration, even if they became a liability. He encouraged discussions at the start of crises but grew impatient with nuance or doubt after decisions were made. He could stop attending to people. He saw himself as a very particular type of leader. “I will seize the opportunity to achieve big goals.” He resisted warnings to go slow when he had made up his mind on a direction (Woodward 2002, 337-39). He saw himself as a moral idealist with absolute certitude about right and wrong. He viewed issues in terms of good and evil when he discussed Saddam Hussein or Iran or North Korea (Woodward 2002, 34OfF.). The imperative to eliminate evil generated an intense drive to act and discouraged worry and second thoughts.
Bush characterized himself as “fiery” and “passionate.” This aided him when he deliberately “provoked” his advisors to open up discussion during the Afghanistan deliberations. His decided preference was to gather information and make one crucial decision. “I can only just go by my instincts,” he explained. “I’m not a text book player. I’m a gut player” (Woodward 2002, 145, 342, 373). He listened, amassed what information seemed to matter, and decided. It made him action oriented and decisive. He surrounded himself with strong experienced leaders on his national security team, such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He emphasized that the way to avoid impulsiveness is to “make sure you listen to an experienced group of national security advisors” (Woodward 2002, 74). During the Afghanistan discussions, however, significant policy and personal differences emerged in the inner circle.
These differences made it harder to make use of the National Security Council and the process designed to vet major issues with all the major actors present. To keep alive open discussions would require effort on the president’s part. In the end, George W. Bush was more comfortable making decisions and acting rather than enduring long discussions after the initial decisions had been made. He did not ask his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, to be an active advocate. She preferred to set up meetings and moderate them; she was not asked by the president to push the process to generate strong options or ensure discussion of all points of view. This led to immense frustration with the process by major actors (Graham 2009, 264ff., 345-56: Haass 2009, 203-32). The most influential actors, notably Cheney and Rumsfeld, used private meetings with the president to short-circuit the national security consultation process and advance their own policy visions. After the success of the Afghanistan operations, the tenor of his approach to discussion changed even more. The process narrowed to provide tactical support for Bush’s preference to act rather than to balance this predilection with candid discussion of all points. After the invasion of Iraq began, he became even more accustomed to see himself as “tough and resolute, standing strong against the world” (Woodward 2006, 345).
Bob Woodward describes Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s summation of Bush’s style: “The President did not worry decisions to death because he had invested the time up front to examine and determine what he wanted and why” (2004, 417). Bush expanded on this: “There is no doubt in my mind we should have done this. Not only for our own sake, but for the Iraqi citizens.” This lack of doubt meshed with his attempt to do God’s will. In deciding to go to war, he said, “I was praying for strength to do the Lord’s will … I’m surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray that I be as good a messenger of His will as possible” (Woodward 2004, 379-80, 423). His policy process evolved to sustain decisive judgment and hold the course once decided.
Openness and Learning
The cognitive structure of political prudence guides individuals to be open and curious. Traditional explanations of prudence encourage persons to explore all the dimensions of a situation and to exercise honest and candid appraisals of what happens. Prudent individuals should always be open to surprise, the unexpected, and even failure. Prudent reflection pushes people to learn what works and fails. As a cognitive and moral virtue, prudence prescribes ways of going about learning an issue and acting on it. The great danger to politically prudent decision making is when a leader or administration locks into one frame of understanding. This groupthink filters all the information through one set of standards. This blinds a leader to the moral and political complexity of a situation and can lead to the formulation of morally incomplete and flawed goals and strategies. A person fails to exercise moral prudence when he or she does not act on the ability to continuously learn and adapt the shape of goals in light of experience. As Sun Tzu noted, “supreme military skill lies in deriving victory from the changing circumstances of the enemy” (2002, 7:38).
The virtue of prudence has always been associated with deliberation. To be morally prudent, leaders should surround themselves with knowledgeable individuals who are candid and thorough in their advice. This kind of discussion takes effort and organization. This extends the moral responsibility of a president to ensure that the decision-making team and processes give the president good information and provide strong deliberations that consider all positions and consequences and adapt to changing conditions (Gray 1999; Murray and Grimsley 1994). Leaders who do not take advantage of candid and competent advisors and processes commit moral negligence.
George Herbert Walker Bush
George H. W. Bush chose his senior team to ensure open, direct, and informed discussion (Barilleaux and Rozell 2004; Woodward 1991). He picked experienced individuals whom he trusted and believed could work together. The group that was set up to discuss national security issues evolved into a war cabinet with the relevant principals. Group dynamics and processes often determine whether prudent judgment will be supported or undermined. A group can easily narrow into one frame of reference or discourage active and honest discussion (Katzenbach and Smith 2006). President George H. W. Bush preferred freewheeling and open discussions that sometimes bothered his own senior advisors (Woodward 1991, 130-36, 344-45). His first meetings on Iraq were shapeless and inconclusive (Haass 2009, 61-65). He relied on Brent Scowcroft to organize discussions, lay out cases, and direct meetings, to ensure that the Bush’s presence did not discourage discussion (U.S. News & World Report 1992, 65). In national security areas, George H. W. Bush insisted on the full participation from the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, and demanded an active professional military voice in the group. It permitted Powell to remind civilians of the true costs of military action, but also permitted senior civilian leaders to prod the military to develop more creative approaches to an Iraq war rather than a frontal attack on Kuwait. This led General Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander in chief for the Central Command, to commission a strategic group nicknamed the “Jedi Knights.” They created a strategy based on maneuver and deception (Bush and Scowcroft, 381ff.; U.S. News & World Report 1992, 150-73). General Powell best summarized the relationship before Congress: “I am not reluctant or afraid to give either the Secretary of Defense, the President or any other member of the National Security Council my best, most honest, most candid advice whether they like it or not” (Woodward 1991, 343, 304ff., 330ff.).
The open, robust, and sometimes disorganized nature of discussion influenced the plans for war, and the goals of the policy evolved through discussion. Those plans and goals grew to include, for instance, eliminating a large portion of Saddam Hussein’s military but trying to preserve Iraq intact as a geopolitical entity. These decisions evolved in light of information from allies and the decision group asking what the end game would be. These discussions and new information drove the evolution of the concrete shape of goals . President Bush summarized his approach: “I kept saying to myself, stay on track, do what you have to do, ask the right questions, make the proper changes, if you need to make them, and then be firm” (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 443-47). Even with the open discussions, however, the senior team failed to assess several key situations. They misunderstood Saddam Hussein’s initial intent and the likelihood of invasion. The violent Shia and Kurdish revolts at the end of the war caught them unprepared to address the Shiites’ reading of Bush’s signals, their aspirations, and Iraq’s brutal repression (Haass 2009).
George W. Bush
Initially, George W. Bush made intelligence a central discipline for himself. He began each day with briefings in which he asked probing questions. After 9/11, the level of fear and uncertainty made intelligence, and good information generally, even more important (Tenet 2007, 34). After 9/11, the administration made a decision to seek a “regime change” in Afghanistan based on George W. Bush’s declaration of a preemptive doctrine that the United States would strike not just terrorists, but also regimes that harbor them. He managed fluid and open discussions. In this process, he actively resisted attempts to shift the focus from Afghanistan to Iraq. He ensured interagency presence, relying on Secretary of State Powell for diplomacy and heeding advice from the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Hugh Shelton, to devise an improvised strategy of allying with the Northern Alliance tribes in Afghanistan to successfully topple the Taliban government. He utilized existing CIA connections and injected a small force of army Special Forces who could accompany assaults and call down air strikes (Clarke 2004; Woodward 2002).
The decision to invade Iraq, however, proceeded in a very different manner. Senior officials in the Department of Defense, such as Paul Wolfowitz, allied with Vice President Cheney to push for an invasion of Iraq even before 9/11. After 9/11, this group strove to find a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq, arguing that Iraq would be “easier” to conquer (Clarke 2004; Ricks 2007; Tenet 2007, 341-59; Woodward 2002, 60-62, 83-75; 2004). After two years, however, CIA analysts still could not establish a definite connection (Tenet 2007, 341-59). By the time President George W Bush authorized a process to plan an Iraq attack (Clarke 2004; Tenet 2007; Woodward 2002, 2004), no serious full-scale vetting had occurred that involved all agencies or the standard consultative process to evaluate costs and benefits (Haass, 200-234; Woodward 2004). By July 23, 2002, the British prime minister’s chief diplomatic advisor, David Manning, was advised, “Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military actions, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.” The memo noted, “intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy” (Manning 2002).
This alignment of advisors and lack of formal interagency discussions signaled a fundamentally different decision process and generated what CIA director Tenet called “runaway freight train” momentum for the Iraq war. The alternative of waging war had become the presumed course of action and dominated deliberations. No formal discussion of alternatives and especially of downsides occurred (Clarke 2004; Haass 2009; Ricks 2007; Tenet 2007, 385; Woodward 2006, 454-56). “In none of the meetings can anyone remember a discussion of the central questions. Was it wise to go to war? Was it the right thing to do? What never happened as far as I can tell was a serious consideration of the implications of a U. S. invasion” (Tenet 2007, 308). Any military discussion “was almost entirely about the major combat operations part” (Graham 2009, 383-84). Debate revolved around how long to give sanctions before resorting to war and drifted from “if the war occurs” to “when the war occurs” (Tenet, 300-359; see also Ricks 2007; Woodward 2004).
In the decision making, three “frames of reference” – underlying, unexamined assumptions or commitments – dominated discussion and made open deliberations or adaptation to changes very difficult. The first frame emerged from George W. Bush’s and Rumsfeld’s commitment to create a “transformation of war.” President Bush had made this a hallmark of his campaign, and Rumsfeld saw it as the focus of his mission. Building on the theories of civilian military strategists, they believed that the military could fight wars with lighter, stealthier, and more technologically sophisticated forces (Graham 2009, 207-14, 323-28; Mann 2004; Woodward 2004). Early in the administration, Rumsfeld spent months demanding that the military rethink contingency plans and develop a new approach based on fewer forces and quicker attacks. After 9/1 1, Bush and Rumsfeld saw the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as means to prove their new warfare theories (Graham 2009, 455-58, 671-72; Haass, 254-55; Ricks 2007).
The importance of this commitment emerged when President Bush authorized Rumsfeld to direct a seven-month planning process for the war, before a decision to go to war had been finalized. Rumsfeld effectively kept the Joint Chiefs of Staff out of the discussion and worked exclusively with the theater commander, General Tommy Franks. Rumsfeld sent back plan after plan, pushing Franks to “transform” the war plans and invade in less time with a lighter force. Over months of arduous demands to redo the plans, Rumsfeld pushed for a plan that minimized the number of units committed, depended on speed, and micromanaged the deployment of forces and time lines (Gordon and Trainor 2006; Graham 2009, 323-87; Woodward 2004). In an interview for the book Plan of Attack, George W. Bush saw this as a major legacy: “America has changed how you fight and win a war, and therefore makes it easier to keep peace in the long run. And that’s the historical significance of this book as far as I’m concerned” (Woodward 2004, 425).
The voice of the senior professional military as well as interagency planning was effectively silenced. The president and his senior advisors chose to ignore warnings that the planned force deployment could not protect its flank, have strong logistics, or control the country after the defeat of enemy forces (Gordon and Trainor 2006, 17, 38-54; Graham, 384ff.). Once General Shelton had been replaced by General Richard Myers as chair of the Joint Chiefs, Myers bitterly complained Rumsfeld “just won’t listen,” while others saw Myers as adopting a “mind meld” to become Rumsfeld’s aide. Either way, the independent voice of the highest level of the military services was ignored (Gordon and Trainor 2006; Haass 2009, 183-85; Ricks 2007; Woodward 2006, 68-74). For example, U.S. Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki warned that the military would need at least 300,000 troops on the ground to occupy the country and win the peace, but he was brusquely ignored and cut out of discussions (Graham 2009, 384ff, 411-12; Tenet 2007, 418-20). In a telling moment, General Tommy Franks, the commander of Central Command, replied to the president’s question about whether he agreed with Rumsfeld: “Sir, I believe exactly what my secretary thinks, what he ever thought, what he will ever think, or whatever he thought he might think” (Woodward 2002, 251).
The deliberations narrowed to tactical considerations driven by Bush and Rumsfeld’s vision of war and never addressed warnings by the State Department or CIA about what could happen after the war or the costs to the war on terrorism or other initiatives (Haass 2009, 212-14; Tenet 2007, 318-23; Woodward 2004). As the war advanced, George W. Bush saw “changing course as a sign of weakness” (Haass 2009, 236-37). He grew increasingly disenchanted with dissenting voices and saw himself as a “war president.” “A president has got to be the calcium in the backbone. If I weaken, the whole team weakens. If I am doubtful, I can assure you there will be a lot of doubt … I don’t need people around me who are not steady … and if there’s a kind of hand-wringing attitude going on when times are tough, I don’t like it” (Meet the Press 2004; Woodward, 2006, 325-27). The policy process evolved to reinforce and direct his original decision.
The second dominant frame arose from the administration’s refusal to integrate occupation, nation-building, and postwar resources into the war planning. The position against nation building was ideological and grew from the administration’s belief that President Bill Clinton’s Kosovo peacekeeping had failed (Gordon and Trainor 2006; Haass 2009, 226-28; Ricks 2007; Tenet 2007). The president announced in his campaign, “We don’t do police work.” Consequently, the senior principals waited two years after the Iraq invasion to acknowledge the deterioration of conditions on the ground as well as the lack of force structure to deal with the insurgency. Planning ignored the experience of Department of State, the United Nations, and the military with respect to peacekeeping (Gordon and Trainor 2006; Ricks 2007; Tenet 2007; Woodward 2004, 2006).
The last dominant frame that shaped decisions and discouraged learning grew from focus on a pure military assessment of victory and a refusal to consider what occurred in the aftermath of “winning” the war (Gordon and Trainor 2006, 500-504). The administration insisted that the military only needed to do “mopping up” operations (Gordon and Trainor 2006, 464-501, 477-81; Tenet 2007, 437-39; Woodward 2002, 310; 2006, 249-69). Bush and others expected to be viewed as “liberators” and did not plan for a long “occupation” by the military. Rumsfeld assumed that winning the war would lead to a quick turnover to the Iraqis and the administration made little effort create interagency cooperation for postwar planning or a long-term occupation (Graham 2009, 336-38, 348-55; Woodward 2004). This model of victory and early withdrawal made it very difficult to see or address the rapid grown of the post-invasion insurgency. When the British identified well-targeted guerilla attacks, and the CIA drew attention to coordinated attacks and organized sectarian violence, the administration refused to allow the word “insurgency” in discussions and permitted no serious discussion of adaptation to ground conditions for almost two years (Gordon and Trainor 2006, 488-89; Woodward 2006, 249-69; Tenet 2007, 437-39, 493-94). When the new commander of Central Command, General John Abizaid, tried to define the new situation as a “war,” he was brushed aside and ignored in top-level deliberations (Ricks 2007). With the order to stand down, the American troops stood by while post-invasion looting essentially destroyed three-quarters of the government ministries (Graham 2009, 395-96).
The virtue of prudence prescribes an openness to learning that grows from a willingness to question what one is doing and to adapt or improve. Condoleezza Rice argued that doubt “forces careful reconsideration and adjustment.” Powell claimed, “if you don’t get up in the morning wondering if you are doing a good job,” you have failed. Brent Scowcroft added, “I don’t know how you can operate unless you continually reexamine your assumptions” (Woodward 2006, 325-26, 420). The biggest cognitive danger to prudent deliberation is to lock in frames of reference and prohibit discussion beyond the frame’s logic or acknowledge and learn from mistakes.
Ends and Means
Traditionally, the hardest cognitive demand of prudent action is to define viable goals and ensure that the means used are proportionate to the moral importance of those goals. Morally prudent reflection encourages leaders to consider the full moral complexity of a goal, explore the full range of possible consequences, and ensure the availability of sufficient resources to fit the goal to the means used. Being politically prudent requires individuals to understand that goals have multiple moral dimensions and long-term consequences, and that the means used have an impact on the achievement of both long and short-term goals. Prudent judgments also should connect the goals pursued to the wide range of other goals and responsibilities that a leader has and make clear the trade-offs and impacts in other areas. A politically prudent leader carries on a dialogue of purpose and possibility.
To meet the moral responsibilities of office, leaders need to be able to acquire and deploy power to influence actions and sustain outcomes. Power is a fundamental means of political action and falls under the requirements of prudent deliberation. A failure to build the power and resource base necessary to achieve ends represents moral negligence. Thus, the moral responsibility of prudent leaders extends to working carefully to build a power base to achieve sustainable goals.
George Herbert Walker Bush
President Bush saw the Iraq invasion of Kuwait as the first act of “outright aggression” in the post-Cold War world. Very specific goals shaped his response. He wanted to set a precedent for a “new era” that would encourage international cooperation to deter aggression. He sought to bring Russia into the international system and create stronger strategic relations with the Middle East. After the invasion of Kuwait, he immediately began working to build a power base from a unified coalition to respond to the invasion. He spent immense effort to establish and maintain a multilateral coalition, but he also permitted consultation with his allies to shape his goals (Freedman and Karsh 1993). At a strategic level, Saddam Hussein had amassed the third-largest army in the world, and with the Kuwait invasion, he controlled 20% of the world oil supply. This gave Hussein enormous power that needed to be checked. George H. W. Bush wanted to stem this power and roll back Saddam’s power base. Finally, Bush worked with his allies to build consensus to deter further aggression and hem in Iraq (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 302-3, 339-40, 370-72, 375-88). These goals defined the early stage of the conflict. His sudden decision to roll back the invasion fundamentally shifted the goal from the containment of Iraq to its expulsion from Kuwait. It turned a 100,000-troop commitment into a military demand for 300,000 troops for an offensive war (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 327ff.).
Through building the alliance, planning the war, and deploying troops, President George H. W. Bush arrived at two other major goals. First, for geopolitical reasons, the administration wanted to keep a united Iraq and avoid starting a civil war. Second, the decision was made to destroy as much as possible of Saddam Hussein’s military forces in the war and eliminate as much as possible of the Ba’ath Party leadership. This would limit Saddam’s offensive power, but keep Iraq intact (Bush and Scowcroft 1 998, 380-89, 400-406; U.S. News & World Report 1992, 371-415). These complex goals led to confusion in Iraq about potential U.S. support for efforts to overthrow Saddam when the war ended.
Bush’s final decisions focused on seeking clear ends that defined victory. Influenced by the Vietnam War, he wanted to avoid the trap of an “indefinite occupation of a hostile state” that would require America “to fight in what would be an unwinnable guerilla war” and generate even “greater instability” in the region (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 383, 431-33, 463-64, 488-89; Woodward 1991, 339ff.)· Kuwait should be liberated, and this gave very specific bounds to the actions within the larger context of setting post- Cold War precedents. These limited goals were solidified by United Nations votes that sanctioned the efforts and gave “cover” to allies. The conditions specified unilateral and unconditional withdrawal and a return of the prior government (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 339-40, 400-418; U.S. News & World Report 1992, 52-76, 90-109, 173-84).
President George H. W. Bush’s commitment to build a strong power base with a wide coalition required a constant struggle to keep allies as diverse as Russia, France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt working together in face of Iraqi efforts to undermine the alliance. In light of alliance needs, Bush adapted to support initial Egyptian efforts to seek an Arab negotiated solution. This “near miracle of self-interest and dogged diplomacy” (U.S. News World Report 1992, 64) held together through tremendous strains, especially when Iraq tried to precipitate Israeli entry into the war. But Bush tenaciously kept the alliance focused (Freedman and Karsh 1993).
When it came to means, George H. W. Bush made three critical decisions. First, he deferred to senior military judgment about the number and strength of troops needed for a victory. This led to a huge deployment of more than 300,000 American troops over six months. Second, he found the initial plans for a direct frontal assault unacceptable and pushed the military hard to come up with a more elegant strategy that would involve flanking, deception, and less loss of life. Finally, he authorized an extensive air war to be conducted prior to the invasion (Woodward 1991).
Because the ends were defined and tied to specific means, Bush pushed hard for a “viable exit strategy” that would avoid the “incalculable human and political costs” of an occupation (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 488-89). The first Iraq war unfolded with lightning speed; the majority of goals were met within seven days. The action proceeded so rapidly that many of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard troops had not made it to the battlefields and avoided the flanking trap set by the American war plans. The military victory was not as great as it could have been, but the major goals had been met, including holding the coalition together, freeing Kuwait, destroying Iraq’s offensive military power, and keeping Iraq intact as a government and a country. As television cameras recorded the rout of Iraqi forces, international pressure rose to end the “slaughter.” But Bush also felt considerable pressure to continue to Bagdad and finish the job, a refrain that would influence many of the members his son’s cabinet to end “unfinished business.” In the end, President Bush decided that the goals of the mission had been met. He halted the war with a cease-fire on March 3, 1991, seven days after the initiation of ground action.
The “messy aftermath” hurt perceptions of the war’s success. The uprisings of Kurds and Shiites, who expected American support, surprised the administration. It was even more troubling that the administration’s own signals seemed to encourage some of the rebellions. The Bush leadership team stumbled for immediate solutions while Iraq used its Republican Guard and helicopters to crush the rebellions. In time, Bush led efforts to create safe “no-fly” zones for the Kurds in northern Iraq and as well as no-fly zones to protect the Shia south (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 450-92). In the end, George H. W. Bush held steady to the fabric of his decisions and accepted imperfect outcomes. His contemporaneous justification proved prophetic: “I firmly believed that we should not march into Baghdad … assigning young soldiers … condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability and destroy the credibility we were working so hard to reestablish” (Bush and Scowcroft 1998, 464).
George W. Bush
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, George W. Bush worked hard to keep focused on clear and proportionate goals. He sought clarity of mission and kept actions focused on al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, pushing back efforts to attack Iraq (Clarke 2004; Tenet 2007; Woodward 2002, 106ff., 144, 192, 203). The clarity of goals and the integration of CIA and defense operations and tactics accounted for a considerable portion of the early success in Afghanistan.
George W. Bush’s own moral certainty and lack of doubt warred with his prudence from the beginning. He framed his response to 9/1 1 as “a monumental struggle between good and evil” (Woodward 2002, 45). He saw the “war against terrorism” as endless, with no clear outcomes or timelines. This moral crusade against terrorism united with his vision to bring democracy to the Middle East. These grand strategic ends clashed with prudent goal setting, because they were used to justify policies without either clarity of ends or alignment of resources and knowledge with the consequences of policy (Meet the Press 2004). At the same time, Bush had not designed a deliberative process to check his own commitment-driven style. His decisions were largely generated from a small group of individuals governed by very rigid frames of the world.
George W. Bush pursued a very different power base strategy than his father. Immediately after 9/11, more than 80 countries offered to help the United States. President Bush, however, was a committed unilateralist. He viewed allies as constraints on action, not force multipliers (Haass 2009, 182ff.). While Colin Powell argued that this would be a long war and that the United States needed to create a strong coalition that would endure, very little consultation with allies occurred except for purposes of political cover and logistical support (Woodward 2002, 332-34). George W. Bush believed that the United States could “force the rest of the world to adjust.” The positive consequence of “confident action” would provide, he said, “a kind of slipstream into which reluctant nations and leaders can get behind and show themselves that there has been – you know, something positive has happened toward peace” (Woodward 2002, 341-42). Allies were not consulted about policy but were rewarded for following the policy. In a prophetic comment, Bush stated, “At some point, we may be the only ones left. That’s OK with me. We’re America” (Woodward 2002, 81).
The coalition’s brittle foundation disintegrated fairly rapidly, as many countries expected to be “peacekeepers,” not subject to full combat threats. Because no allies had participated in setting the goals, few felt a long-term commitment to them. Within three years of the invasion of Afghanistan/Iraq, all major allies but Britain had left only token forces on the ground. Most of the democratic leaders who supported the coalition had been defeated. The power base possessed neither learning capacity, solidarity, nor abiding common interest (Ricks 2007, 346-47; Woodward 2004, 2006). In 2009, the last non-American soldiers left Iraq.
The second Iraq war involved a conscious choice to eliminate an intact Iraq regime. It required putting together an invasion force, assembling a cover coalition, launching the invasion, and then occupying the country. Four separate ends justified the war at various times: First, eliminate the Iraq regime because of fear over its possession of weapons of mass destruction; second, finish the business from the first Iraq war because Saddam was evil and unstable; third, eliminate Iraq because it supported al-Qaeda and 9/11 and succored international terror; fourth, transform the Middle East by destroying an evil tyrant and creating a democratic regime in Iraq that could catalyze democratic change in the region.
These goals had little concrete content except for eliminating Saddam, so they all served just as well. The stated purposes of the war, however, changed over time. The initial public justifications centered on eliminating weapons of mass destruction and pursuing the war on terror by undermining al-Qaeda. When these justifications could no longer be sustained, the message changed into a grand ideal to “spread liberty” and to promote by force of arms “the growth of democratic movement and institutions” in Middle Eastern politics (Meet the Press 2004; Woodward 2004; 2006, 370-73, 378). Beneath all these lay the administration’s desire to transform the way war was fought and to use the Iraq war to prove these new theories of warfare (Gordon and Trainor 2006; Haass 2009, 254-55; Ricks 2007).
What little planning had been done for post-invasion Iraq was thrown into disarray by the decisions of the Coalition Provisional Authority to disband the Iraq army and then to remove Ba’ath Party members from all levels of government. These choices were deeply opposed by the military commanders, the CIA, and the State Department. The decisions were never vetted at the National Security Council. When implemented, they effectively dismantled what little government, military, and police infrastructure remained in Iraq, leaving a massive military and political power vacuum (Gordon and Trainor 2006; Tenet 2007; Woodward 2006, 190-203). These decisions ruptured the military and State Department plans to have a 200,000-soldier Iraqi army and an intact Iraqi government to maintain the peace (Clarke 2004; Woodward 2006, 205-12). The Bush administration, however, refused to rebuild the army. This eliminated the jobs of 200,000 Iraqi troops needed to maintain security. The economic, military, and political consequences were disastrous. Many ex-soldiers and unemployed government workers joined the insurgency. It would take half a decade to rebuild the units, and the rebuilding often relied on recalling older officers.
The decision to refuse to allow most Iraqi civil servants to return to work was based on a theory, held by a small group of senior leaders, that purging the Ba’ath Party would restore government credibility. Both decisions grew out of a faulty World War II analogy that viewed the Iraq war as a liberation war and equated the Ba’ath Party with the Nazi Party. This ignored the conditions on the ground as well as the advice of military commanders, the CIA, and the State Department. CIA director George Tenet characterized these actions as “destroying what little institutional foundations were left in the country” (Graham 2009, 352ff., 432-34, 499fF.; Gordon and Trainor 2006, 481-86; Tenet 2007, 427; Woodward 2006, 256-59, 300-304). These actions severed the connection between the means of policy and the ends sought. They created the conditions for private armies and sectarian militias to move into the power vacuum. In a stunning paradox, al-Qaeda, which had enjoyed no effective presence in Iraq, emerged as one of the more powerful and disruptive forces three years later (Ricks 2007; Tenet 2007, 489-506).
The second mismatch between means and ends lay in the structure of the military forces in the invasion and the rules of engagement. The small number of forces, the focus on a quick withdrawal, and the refusal to work on nation building permitted the insurgency to develop very quickly. The ground military forces did not have the capability to protect infrastructure or address organized guerilla violence. Too few military forces were present to occupy the cities as planned, and no Iraq forces existed to keep security. The American commander on the ground, General David McKiernan, announced that it was “not my job” to stop the looting or protect infrastructure (Gordon and Trainor 2006, 483-96; Tenet 2007, 418-19; 396ff.; Woodward 2006, 179-82, 183-200). As the U.S. forces stood down, three-quarters of the Iraqi ministries were destroyed, and much of the infrastructure that had been carefully left intact by precision bombing was wrecked. The tensions between means and ends became insoluble at this point.
When the battles ended, Rumsfeld stopped the shipment of two more divisions on their way to Iraq, further undermining military capacity (Gordon and Trainor 2006, l63ff., 304-26, 486-89). For three years, the military received two incompatible messages: First, the Iraq war was central to the war on terror and democracy in the Middle East, and second, they should get out as quickly as possible and do the job with as few soldiers as possible (Gordon and Trainor 2006, 457-513; Woodward 2006, 466 if.). It took four years of dogged internal battles by military commanders and continuing failure in Iraq before the Bush administration began to resolve this contradiction by changing its approach to fighting the insurgency (Ricks 2009).
Prudence in Practice
Comparison of the two Presidents Bush’s decisions to go to war with Iraq reveals the impact that the exercise of political prudence can have on presidential judgment and policy. It begins with the self-understanding and self-mastery of these two presidents. Both knew their passionate convictions and tendency to be impulsive. Both came to understand the decision to go to war as one concerning the appropriate response to moral evil. George H. W. Bush could be impulsive, and he changed the direction of the war with one decision, but he worked to enforce discipline on himself. He designed a process and team to focus his reflection and offset his impulsiveness. George W. Bush proceeded in this vein during the decision making on whether to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan. However, he later escalated the terms of conflict both rhetorically and in his own mind. His view of himself as a leader eliminated all doubts. He became intolerant of dissenting views and limited the range of discussions as the process adapted to support, not evaluate his decisions.
Politically prudent presidents should create learning processes for their administrations and keep their own minds open and flexible. President George H. W. Bush insisted on a decision-making group that some thought excessively informal, but that enabled all sides to be heard. It permitted full weight to be given to professional military knowledge at the strategic level while authorizing hard discussions about the allies and resources required to deter further Iraqi aggression rather than simply to liberate Kuwait. While not perfect, this group discussion permitted evaluation of strategy, discussions of goals, and formulation of an endgame that met most of those goals. George W. Bush’s decision style and process immediately after 9/11 similarly ensured prudent reflection and deliberation. However, in the prelude to the Iraq invasion, the deliberations never reached a level of full and fluid discussion. Professional intelligence and military and diplomatic voices were subordinated to a theory of war. A separate track of decision making created momentum for the war decision and weakened intelligence reporting. After the decision to invade, deliberations narrowed considerably and focused on the one goal of defeating the enemy without reference to occupation and nation building.
The virtue of prudence, like the process of strategy, depends very heavily on developing clarity about the goals of an action (Gray 1999; Knox 1994). The larger and more ambitious the objectives, the more problematic it becomes to exercise political prudence. Broad goals make more difficult the strategic alignment of means to ends, because the number of variables and actors increases beyond the control of the actor (Knox 1994). The two narratives compared here demonstrate that the discussions themselves depend heavily on each president’s distinct level of self-awareness, which becomes infused in an administration’s processes of deliberation, learning, and adaptation. The leader’s ethical responsibility lies in ensuring open means to arrive at defensible ends.
The final successes and failures of prudence revealed themselves in the ends sought and in the alignment of means and ends by each president. For George H. W. Bush, the war proceeded in response to an act of aggression. It involved his commitment to set a precedent in a post- Cold War world, and to act with a strong coalition that would justify the war as well as increase trust in the United States. The ends involved meeting specific geopolitical concerns about the oil and military might that Iraq would gain if it assimilated Kuwait. These geopolitical concerns led to decisions to maximize the destruction of Iraq’s military but not to destroy Iraq’s integrity as a state. These multiple goals often conflicted and were not all met. But they provided President George H. W. Bush the clarity and leverage to focus decision making and, most importantly, to define an endgame and make the vital strategic decision not to go to Baghdad.
In contrast to the clarity of its goals in Afghanistan, George W. Bush’s administration consistently mismatched ends and means in Iraq. The mismatch began as the rhetoric escalated the aims and hardened the administration against change. These developments made it difficult for Bush to connect the narrow goal of defeating the Hussein regime with broader goals of spreading democracy while fighting al-Qaeda and transforming warfare. None necessarily matched the others. The long-term problems of occupying Iraq consistently eroded the alliance, the ability to fight al-Qaeda, and the ability to focus resources in a worldwide effort against terrorism. The Iraq war also undermined the gains in Afghanistan. Ultimately, the military means were driven more by a theory of war than by the professional judgment of what was needed to win a war and to occupy and rebuild a country.
The narratives of these two decision-making processes make clear that no humans are perfect. All leaders will have passions, make mistakes, and have flawed decision styles and processes. Moral prudence is a virtue for imperfect leaders in imperfect worlds. While it cannot guarantee moral success, the lack of prudence can guarantee failure. Traditionally, the greatest enemy of prudence is a tyrant who imposes one frame of thinking on his or her subjects, destroying their ability to address complex realities. But the monopoly of a single frame of reference in a democratic administration can do as much damage to prudent judgment as a tyrant. The results of the two Iraq wars reflect in a profound way the greater use of prudent judgment and processes in the George H. W. Bush administration.
These narratives reinforce several lessons about how presidents can exercise political prudence to support the ethical responsibilities of the office. (1) Be aware of one’s own moral beliefs and limits; (2) be aware of passionate convictions, build on them, but discipline the tendency to act without testing them against other goals and constraints; (3) work hard to maintain open and fluid deliberation among advisors, and fight to prevent one frame or one group from dominating deliberations; (4) work hard to make sure that new information gets in and that it is addressed carefully, even if it challenges preconceptions; (5) demand that ends be concretely connected to means in both the long and short term, while anchoring long-term aspirations to concrete actions that demonstrate direction and progress toward the ends; and (6) be open to moral complexity and unanticipated consequences. In exercising political prudence, a leader does not reveal that he or she lacks moral aspirations, but rather has that he or she has the capacity to give reality to moral commitments.