Briefly, I recently read through the National Military Strategy of the US for 2004. Put together under the previous Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Medal of Freedom winner General Richard Meyers, it just isn’t an exciting document that isn’t very interesting, except for these excerpts:
- "When directed, commanders will preempt in self-defense those adversaries that pose an unmistakable threat of grave harm and which are not otherwise deterrable." [p9, this one we knew and was part of the National Security Strategy, no big deal]
- When directed, the Armed Forces provide military support to civil authorities, including capabilities to manage the consequences of an attack. [p10, in response to Katrina… wait, it was one year before Katrina…]
- When directed, the Armed Forces will temporarily employ military capabilities to support law enforcement agencies during special events. [p10, laid down before Katrina… who cares about Posse Comitatus]
It should be interesting to see what General Pace’s NMS looks like considering the difference in personalities and time.
NMS available here at DefenseLink.mil and locally cached here.
