Minding the Factors of Public Support: How Lessons from Panama Could Prevent Future Iraqs - Comparison of Just Cause to Iraqi Freedom Based on Policy, Strategy, Strategic Cooperation, and Legitimacy

This report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. This study poses the question, "Under what conditions can the United States government gain and maintain public support for the use of force?" and contends that public support for the use of force is a byproduct of the interactions among four factors: the articulation of clearly defined political objectives; an appropriate strategy to enable the accomplishment of those political objectives; proper strategic cooperation; and the perceived legitimacy of the conflict. To demonstrate how national-level decision-makers can gain and maintain public support for the use of force, by appropriately addressing these factors, this study compares Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty in Panama with Operation Iraqi Freedom. In both instances, the United States sought regime change and many of the key decision-makers were the same. Yet, the United States fared much better in Panama than Iraq. A closer examination of our four factors—policy, strategy, strategic cooperation, and legitimacy—helps explain why.

To illustrate how our four factors interact, we will examine Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty (Chapter II) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Chapter III). In doing so, we will examine the role of each factor. Then, in Chapter IV, we will compare similarities between the lead-up to Panama and the lead-up to Iraq, the similarities among the policy options available, and the overlap among strategic decision-makers involved in both cases. We will consider why, despite the similarities between the strategic aims, the United States fared so much better in Panama than in Iraq. Ultimately, this will return us to our three assertions: Assertion 1: We differ from Nixon in that we do not believe that the simple act of deploying a force starts a clock; we suspect that the four factors explored in this study interact to create a threshold of U.S. domestic public support. Assertion 2: When the U.S. population moves from being supportive or complacent to actively withdrawing support from U.S. participation in conflict it has crossed the threshold. Assertion 3: Once this threshold is passed, the operation, military leaders, political leaders, and so on, are "on the clock." A theoretical timer has started and U.S. senior leadership now has three options: 1) win quickly, 2) get out quickly, or 3) get back under the threshold and regain public support.