The term "Wolfowitz Doctrine" is an informal label used for an unofficial version of the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) for the 1994–1999 fiscal years (FY 94-99), dated February 18, 1992.Defense Planning/Guidance, FY 1994-1999, Revised draft for Scooter Libby, February 29, 1992
As the first DPG after the Cold War,""FY 94-98 Defense Planning Guidance Sections for Comment," from Dale A. Vesser to Secretaries of the Military Departments,... February 18, 1992. | National Security Archive". nsarchive.gwu.edu. Retrieved 2025-10-15.James Mann: The True Rationale? It's a Decade Old. The Washington Post – "Outlook" Mar 7, 2004 and after the Gulf War, the draft described the United States as the world’s sole superpower and made preventing the emergence (or re-emergence) of a global or regional competitor the central strategic objective.
This included preventing any hostile power's dominance of strategically important regions whose resources could generate global power. It argued that U.S. military forces should remain sufficiently strong to deter potential competitors, even in the absence of a comparable adversary, while retaining the ability to act unilaterally, or with limited allied support, if collective security arrangements proved inadequate to protect vital U.S. interests. This implied preemptive measures.
The memorandum, drafted by a team led by Under Secretary of Defense Policy Paul Wolfowitz and supported by Dick Cheney, was leaked to the public before seen by President George W. Bush, and met with considerable public criticism. The following versions up to Cheney's 1993 Defense Strategy for the 1990s were more subtle in tone, but retained its principles. The official National Security Strategies (NSS) 1991 and 1993 follow similar lines as the draft DPG.
The same strategic objectives were also practically pursued during the presidency of Bill Clinton and explicitly reaffirmed under George W. Bush ("Bush Doctrine"). Parallels were also drawn between the emphasis on primacy in the 1992 draft and elements of the 2025 National Security Strategy.
The draft DPG of February 18, 1992, was originally classified; years later, it was officially declassified and published, although parts of the text remain blacked out and the detailed deployment scenarios in the appendix are still missing in their entirety (2026).
DPG, Wolfowitz Doctrine, and NSS The label "Wolfowitz Doctrine" is generally applied to the first draft of the DPG, not to later redactions.
The latest version of the internal DPG planning paper is not to be mistaken for the officially released National Security Strategies (NSS) August 1991, or January 1993.
The NSS of 1991/1993 show similar lines as the 1992 DPG papers. Don M. Snyder sums up both NSS as emphasizing "a steady, deliberate transition from a grand strategy of containment to one of 'collective engagement' on a regional basis." Militarily, they contained the same defense strategy of "four pillars" as developed earlier by the Cheney-Powell team.THE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY: DOCUMENTING STRATEGIC VISION Second Edition Don M. Snider March 15, 1995 As a new element in the NSS 1991, Snyder mentions the inclusion of economic interests into the security concept. As differences to the 1991 NSS, Snyder finds in the 1993 report a "heavy emphasis on a broad goal of 'democratic peace' and the absolute necessity of American leadership in attaining it, even to a limited degree, in a world of increasing interdependencies."Don M. Snider: THE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY: DOCUMENTING STRATEGIC VISION. 2nd Edition March 15, 1995, p.9f.https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/109566/National_Security_Startegy_Documenting.pdf
The April 1992 DPG explicitly anchored its definition of U.S. national security interests in the 1991 NSS: "The national security interests of the United States are enduring, as outlined in the President's 1991 National Security Strategy Report."DPG, 4/16/1992, p.1
https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2008-003-doc1.pdf,
According to Mann, Cheney had "liked the revised draft so much that he ordered parts of it to be declassified and made public." Mann refers to a remark by Khalilzad who had recalled that Cheney "took ownership of it". In January 1993, when the Bush administration left office, the revised draft was published as America's Defense Strategy for the 1990s.
Purpose and status The DPG was intended to establish long-term U.S. defense objectives extending into the next century:"The choices we make in this new situation will set the nation's direction into the next century." (p. 1)DPG, 29. Februar 1992, p. 1Within the Pentagon, it served as definitive guidance for the formulation of the defense program for fiscal years 1994–1999:“This section (III. Programming for the Base Force) constitutes definitive guidance from the Secretary of Defense for formulation of the FY 94–99 Program Objectives Memoranda, to be used in conjunction with the Fiscal Guidance published by the Secretary on 14 February 1992.” (p. 20)DPG, February 29, 1992, p.20Following the collapse of the main adversary, Congress required a new explanation to justify continued large-scale defense spending. The development of a new strategy was "inextricably linked" to the defense budgets.Compare: Mann, James (2004-09-07). Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet. Penguin. p. 200.
Journalist Barton Gellman described the memorandum as a near-final draft of the DPG and characterized it as “long overdue.” In his assessment, the DPG represented “the cornerstone of the defense secretary’s policy and strategy”.
According to James Mann (Center for Strategic and International Studies) it was one of the most significant documents of the preceding half century, setting forth a new "breathtaking" vision and a new post-cold war rationale for military power: "As a guide to where American foreign policy was headed it had no peer."Mann, James (2004-09-07). Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet. Penguin. p. 199f.
Drafting process The 46-page internal draft memorandum was prepared under the authority of Paul D. Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, with contributions from his staff, including Principal Deputy I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Zalmay Khalilzad. In the beginning, also Abram N. Shulsky was involved. Dick Cheney was overseeing the process.
Wolfowitz was ultimately responsible for the Defense Planning Guidance, as it was issued through his office and reflected his overall outlook. He had to approve the contents. The task of preparing the document fell to Libby, who delegated the actual writing of the new strategy to Zalmay Khalilzad, a member of Libby's staff and long-time aide to Wolfowitz. In the initial drafting phase, Khalilzad solicited the views of a wide cross-section of Pentagon insiders and outside experts, including Andrew Marshall, Richard Perle, and Wolfowitz's University of Chicago mentor, nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter. Khalilzad completed the draft in March 1992 and requested Libby's permission to circulate it within the Pentagon. Libby agreed, according to James Mann without reading it, and within three days, Khalilzad's draft had been leaked to The New York Times by "an official who believed this post-Cold War strategy debate should be ctanarried out in the public domain."
In a 2003 interview, Wolfowitz told Sam Tanenhaus he had not reviewed or even seen the document before it was leaked.
According to James Mann, attributing the authorship to Wolfowitz himself, is a common misconception....although Wolfowitz and his staff played key roles, the ultimate sponsor of the new strategy was Cheney.
Origins and background According to Barton Gellmann much of the document (first draft) "parallels the extensive public statements of Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney and Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
Gellmann suggests Cheney and Powell believed that 1992's defense debate was a "pivotal moment" in the development of a post-Cold War security framework. For that reason, he concludes, both have given "unusually detailed briefings" to Congress to explain the "rationale for the U.S. involvement around the world as 'a constant fixture' in an era of fundamental change", "the rationale for the force, which they designed after collapse of the Warsaw Pact in late 1989."Like their public statements, the classified memo emphasizes the virtues of collective action and the central U.S. interest in promoting increased respect for international law and "the spread of democratic forms of government and open economic systems." Also like their public statements, the document describes a reorientation of U.S. defenses away from the threat of global war with the former Soviet Union and toward potential regional conflicts.James Mann discerns an evolution in the composition of the memorandum from 1989 to 1992. As Cold War doctrines became obsolete, the Pentagon gradually shifted its rationale for maintaining military power. Mann identifies Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz as the "central figures in this drama." Cheney was the most critical of the changes under Gorbachev and the most relentless supporter of a high defense profile. Powell, on the other hand, believed in change, making him more open to cuts in defense spending. In the wake of the Berlin Wall’s fall, it became increasingly clear that Congress would pursue substantial reductions in defense spending, accompanied by a public debate over the expected peace dividend. Against this backdrop, Cheney in January 1990 asked Wolfowitz to revise the defense strategy; Wolfowitz worked closely with Powell during the process, which led to a modest proposal of defense cuts, while Bush and Cheney were refocusing the justification to different kinds of dangers like terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. By February 1991, attention shifted again to renewed risks emerging from within the disintegrating Soviet Union. After the dissolution at the end of 1991 debates about the peace dividend sparked again, and work on the DPG draft intensified.Mann, James (2004-09-07). Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet. Penguin. p. 200-203, 208-209. compare: Alexandra Homolar: How to Last Alone at the Top: US Strategic Planning for the Unipolar Era. The Journal of Strategic Studies Vol. 34, No. 2, 189–217, April 2011 https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/41766/1/WRAP_Homolar_How_last_01402390%252E2011%252E559024.pdf p.197
However, in a 2003 interview, Wolfowitz said that in May 1990 he had given Secretary Cheney and the Defense Resources Board a "substantial briefing" that served as the basis for President Bush's August 2, 1990 speech in Aspen on dealing with the Iraqi threat. "At the time that was considered a revolutionary idea. By the time the President gave the speech it (the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait) had already happened." His general briefing was then made the basis for his work on the DPG until it was leaked. Wolfowitz summarized the essence of the briefing as downsizing the military and a shifting "from a strategy for being prepared to fight a global war, to being focused on two possible regional conflicts."
Public reaction Although not intended for release, the draft was leaked to The New York Times on March 7, 1992,. wih excerpts published on March 8, and sparked a public controversy over U.S. foreign and defense policy. The document was widely criticized as imperialistic, as it was seen to outline a policy of unilateralism and pre-emptive military action to suppress potential threats from other nations and prevent hostile powers from rising to superpower status.
Article in the New York Times
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