rules for sending our troops to war

Another excerpt out of my book Supreme Command (which I can't believe I haven't finished yet, schoolwork has seriously slowed my reading pace lately). This was written by SecDef Caspar Weinberger in 1984 and it is 6 principles for the use of our armed forces and was for awhile the normal theory of civil-military relations:

1) The United States should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest.
2) If we decide it is necessary to put our combat troops into a given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly and with the clear intention of winning. If we are unwilling to commit the forces or resources necessary to achieve our objectives, we should no commit them at all.
3) If we do decide to commit forces to combat overseas, we should have clearly defined political and military objectives. And we should know precisely how our forces can accomplish those clearly defined objectives. And we should have and send the forces needed to do just that. As Clausewitz wrote, "No one starts a war - or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so - without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war, and how he intends to conduct it"
4) The relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed - their size, composition, and disposition - must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary. Conditions and objectives invariably change during the course of a conflict. When they do change, then our combat requirements must also change. We must continuously keep as a beacon light before us the basic question: "Is this conflict in our national interest?" "Does our national interest require us to fight, to use force of arms?" If the answers are "yes," then we must win. If the answers are "no," then we should no be in combat.
5) Before the United States commits combat forces abroad, there must be some reasonable assurance we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress.
6) The commitment of US forces to combat should be a last resort.

Can you see where the motivation for this doctrine came from? I'd say it was very much influenced from the last major conflict that the US was involved in at this point in time: Vietnam.

Does this doctrine survive at all in the present day? Was it ever really put into practice? I'd say that we came pretty close with the 1st Gulf War. Overall, the author calls these six points an "impossible standard of purity" but they are "an ideal to which succeeding political and military leaders pledged allegiance."

They all sound pretty good to me. There was some criticism from George Shultz, who hated to see "America's hands tied by a reduction of strategy to rules of thumb," but I would say that these principles should be at the center of decision makers' thoughts when considering committing our armed forces to war.