Waging Peace: Operations ECLIPSE I and II- Some Implications for Future Operations

摘要

In May 1943 Allied planners in London began working on a complex plan that arguably would have as significant impact on the postwar world as its more famous companion Operation OVERLORD. The plan became Operation ECLIPSE the order that would govern the occupation of Germany by the western Allies. Sixty years later the Combined Forces Land Component would title its plan for postwar operations in Iraq ECLIPSE II. As this mission unfolds today ECLIPSE offers a lens through which to examine its successor. This study argues that postwar operations are complex civil-military endeavors that require clear lines of authority and astute politically attuned leadership. It concludes that waging peace requires an overwhelming force on the ground especially in its early phases information dominance and application of economic and political means from other government agencies. This latter point emerges as perhaps the most significant lesson. The decision to go to war involves a calculus that the application of force will set the conditions that will allow the state to achieve its policy aims. The first step going to war must be linked to the last step ordering the resulting peace to ensure the achievement of policy objectives. This necessarily requires statesmen to wield all instruments of national power in a coordinated campaign on a battlefield where force is not the primary determinant of success. Yet the national security structure as currently configured is inherently inefficient for waging peace. Wholesale changes must be made in the culture of government to inculcate an interagency spirit that transcends departmental parochialism. Interagency training a common doctrine for planning and management and removal of barriers to information and communication are essential to build mechanisms for interagency cooperation and truly joint planning and operations.