Put Teeth Into Preparedness to Wage War : Potential adversaries are encouraged by U.S. ambivalence and reluctance to get bloodied.

National policy on the use of force as an instrument of foreign policy is in a mess. Throughout 1993--and now, again, over Bosnia--editorialists demanded and officials threatened the unleashing of American firepower against misbehaving foreigners. The results ranged from tragic in Somalia to humiliating in Haiti. The new secretary of defense, William Perry, needs to bring order to this debate, but his much-vaunted high-tech background may be a handicap.

Conventional wisdom, as expressed by former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, has been: “If you’re not prepared to use force, you’re nowhere.” A new generation of experts, such as military historian John Keegan, argues that force represents not the apotheosis of policy but its bankruptcy.

Traditionally, Americans have set a high price on military prowess. The United States outspends both its NATO allies and its potential adversaries, such as Iran and Iraq, by significant orders of magnitude. In 1998, real defense spending will be no lower than under President Eisenhower. This level of expenditure leaves the United States as the undisputed heavyweight champion, able to take on and defeat two contenders at the same time.

Why, then, was the United States so singularly unsuccessful in 1993 in imposing its will overseas? It was not for want of trying. In addition to Somalia and Haiti, the Clinton Administration rattled its sabers against the Iraqis, Serbs and North Koreans. But these lesser powers acted noticeably unimpressed.

The changed political climate in the United States and the new nature of international problems have drastically reduced the credibility of force. America’s opponents know this and refuse to be cowed by manifestly hollow threats. Unfortunately, that reality is lost on American officials beguiled by the massive firepower theoretically available to them.

At home, the Administration’s continuing failure to articulate a convincing foreign-policy purpose means that popular support for military expeditions is extraordinarily fragile. Tolerance for casualties is virtually zero. The former French commander in Bosnia, Gen. Philippe Morillon, has commented, “Desert Storm left one awful legacy: It imposed the idea that you must be able to fight the wars of the future without suffering losses.”

This new political imperative places a premium on high-tech weapons that avoid endangering American lives. Alas, with the signal exception of the Gulf War, the notion that technological superiority assures victory is fast proving to be illusory.

America’s adversaries realize full well that they are uncompetitive on a “First World” battlefield. Their response, like that of the Massachusetts Minuteman confronting the British Redcoat, is to lower the threshold of war to prevent the full range of American advanced weaponry and electronic wizardry from operating.

The result is that Americans enter today’s messy Third World battles not as odds-on favorites but on level terms. An American commander described the main lesson of Somalia as “you cannot hunt individuals with a helicopter in the city.” To be effective, soldiers need to step out of their flying machines and join the action on the ground. As Israeli experience with the intifada demonstrates, casualties will be high and there will be no quick fix. It is very doubtful whether American public opinion is ready to back this sort of war.

Further, today’s problems--proliferation, terrorism, ethnic conflict, human rights, narcotics--do not by their nature lend themselves to correction by military force. Unlike the clear-cut Soviet challenges, today’s problems are “non-state” or “behavioral” in character. They do not present the sort of easily identifiable military target that conventional force deployment requires. The North Korean episode well illustrates this fact. By making threats that lacked credibility, the Administration undercut its position.

This is where new thinking is needed. Force may no longer be a first option, but its time will inevitably come. To avoid repeating last year’s reverses, the U.S. military must be able to fight the right war with the right support. It must be capable of taking control of Third World streets in situations where technical superiority in the form of overflights by ever costlier stealth aircraft matters little. High tech should not be a Pentagon Holy Grail.

Additionally, the military must enjoy robust public-opinion support even when casualties start to mount. Perry should insist that the White House devise a coherent statement of America’s purpose that it is prepared to defend through thick and thin. Until this is in place, Administration officials should refrain from loose threats of force. When all can see that this is empty talk, it just makes the country look ridiculous.