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"U.S. Military Unprepared for New Role"
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Anthony Zinni talks to IRP Fellows about the changing role of the U.S. Military |
WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2001 - The U.S. military has failed to adapt to new post-Cold War challenges such as humanitarian disasters, international terrorists and weapons proliferation, General Anthony C. Zinni (USMC ret.), the former commander-in-chief of the U.S. Central Command, told IRP Fellows today.
"We were in a jungle, and the threat in that jungle was a great big tiger," General Zinni said in a seminar on the future of the U.S. military. "So for 50 years, we did everything to try to avoid a confrontation with that tiger and to contain that tiger. Suddenly that tiger was gone, the jungle was full of poisonous snakes, and we never made the adjustment."
Where the military once focused its attention on "nation states," it must now deal with an increasing number of "non-state entities" or NGO's, Zinni said. These include international crime cartels, multinational corporations, and terrorist groups like Osama bin Laden's organization.
"Osama bin Laden and movements like that are non-state entities with substantial financial resource and material capability able to effect globally the things they desire to change," Zinni said.
Zinni also cited "humanitarian disasters" such as the AIDS and Ebola epidemics, water scarcity, and the rising availability of weapons of mass destruction to nations hostile to the United States as major challenges the military must grapple with in the coming years.
"The military is faced with a dilemma," Zinni said. "Do you say that [it] is just there to fight the nation's wars, for the protection of our people and property? Or do use the military in these sorts of low-end chronic problems that we have?"
Addressing this question is necessary to prepare the U.S. military for dealing with the new global environment, Zinni said. "We need a decision from the government and the American people of what kind of military [they] want."
Copyright © 2005 International Reporting Project. All Rights Reserved.