Message for the next president

I've had a brief hiatus while I took a long weekend to visit family down South. So I will try to do a bit of catching up in the next few days. I hope you will bear with me.

WhirledView has a message for our next president regarding diplomacy and soft vs. hard power:

This guns-and-steel-first approach by which America has been engaging - or more accurately disengaging - the world throughout the past eight years has boomeranged. It has increased – not decreased – support for those who truly hate America. It has resulted in budget busting defense spending. It has created an overstretched and weary professional military unable to accomplish the Herculean tasks assigned it. And it is an unsung piece of the current financial crisis. This lethal concoction has weakened the country abroad and sapped our ability to meet our citizens’ needs at home.

Leading with Diplomacy: The Single Realistic Foreign Policy Option Left

The next president will, in reality, have only one foreign policy option. This is the imperative to rely far more on traditional diplomacy, public diplomacy and foreign aid delivered through civilian means to begin to repair America’s face and effectively conduct its business abroad. The military first “solution” has proven to be no solution. Fighting elusive militant terrorists ensconced in ungovernable areas is not akin to rolling back the Axis Powers in 1944 or facing off the Red Army and the Warsaw Pact over the Fulda Gap during the Cold War.

[...]

This system is in wrack and ruin and a new administration needs to change it sooner rather than later if it is to address America’s pressing foreign policy needs. Diplomacy is, in the end, our only option. We desperately need to change direction. To make it work effectively, those changes must begin at home.

You can read the entire piece here.

Anti-War comments on the issue as well:

While the Pentagon's budget has risen to heights not seen since World War II, US diplomatic and foreign aid assets have largely atrophied and must be quickly rebuilt by any new administration that takes office in January, according to a new report released here this week by former senior foreign service officers.

The report by the American Academy of Diplomacy (AAD) and the Henry L. Stimson Center is calling for a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of diplomats and aid and development specialists recruited into the foreign service over the next five years. This would cost about three billion dollars – or approximately what the Pentagon is currently spending every 10 days on military operations in Iraq – over current budget estimates.

''Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the diplomatic capacity of the United States has been hollowed out," according to the 26-page report, "A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future." "The status quo cannot continue without serious damage to our vital interests."

The vacuum created by the lack of diplomatic resources – particularly in comparison to the Pentagon's budget and manpower – has translated into the militarization of US foreign policy, warns the report.

You can read that entire piece here.

AFRICOM: DOD's New "Soft Power"?

Diplopundit has an interesting piece today about AFRICOM, which was stood up today.

Diplopundit writes:

Pittman writes that "from the beginning, AFRICOM was cast as a different kind of command, one that would focus American military might not on fighting wars, but on preventing them through "soft power." And that as part of the new approach, a civilian deputy equal to Moeller was appointed to coordinate humanitarian operations with other U.S. agencies. AFRICOM's "interagency" makeup was trumpeted as a better way to meet the continent's development needs."

The civilian deputy equivalent to Moeller has the official title, "Deputy to the Commander for Civil-Military Activities," and that is Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates. She will reportedly direct the command's plans and programs associated with health, humanitarian assistance and de-mining action, disaster response, security sector reform, and Peace Support Operations. She also directs Outreach, Strategic Communication and AFRICOM's partner-building functions, as well as assuring that policy development and implementation are consistent with U.S. Foreign Policy.

That makes me feel better. I guess I should say, congratulations for coming into being. But now this is getting me a tad confused. I thought State has the "soft power" while Defense has the "hard" part. Hmmn....that must have changed during the commercial. I hate it when they do that, don't you?

Militarization of our foreign policy? Now don't you believe what you read. In individual countries, U.S. Ambassadors will continue to be the President's personal representatives in diplomatic relations with host nations. State will continue to be the primary foreign policy arm; USAID will continue to be the development arm. Yup! Yup! Except that State is counting pennies and paper clips (don't know about AID, too many stubbed toes under one confusing roof right now) and DOD has the money.

You can read the entire post here.

Charleston Post-Courier: Pay More for Diplomacy

This piece is a little dated, but the Charleston Post and Courier is a paper that is near and dear to my heart, so I had to post it.

Pay more for diplomacy
Monday, July 21, 2008

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been rightly warning the president, Congress and the nation since last year that U.S. policy in developing nations places too much reliance on the military and not enough on diplomacy.

He repeated that advice last week in a headline-grabbing speech warning of the "creeping militarization" of American foreign policy. According to The Washington Post, Mr. Gates said that in the next 20 years, "The most persistent and potentially dangerous threats will come less from emerging ambitious states, than from failing ones that cannot meet the basic needs — much less the aspirations — of their people."

"We cannot kill or capture our way to victory" in future campaigns against terrorists and other destabilizing forces, he said. "Broadly speaking, when it comes to America's engagement with the rest of the world, it is important that the military is — and is clearly seen to be — in a supporting role to civilian agencies."

The defense secretary's assessment was echoed two days later by a non-governmental aid organization, Refugees International, in a report saying that American aid to Africa is becoming increasingly militarized and short-term in its priorities at the expense of longer-term development.

Mr. Gates, in his speech, returned to a theme he first expounded in a speech last year at Kansas State University. There he said, "We must focus our energies beyond the guns and steel of the military. There is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on civilian instruments of national security — diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and development."

This week he observed that the budget increases for the State Department and the Agency for International Development since 2001 have largely been eaten up by the costs of heightened security for embassies and other missions, and by the declining dollar.

"America's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long — relative to what we traditionally spend on the military, and more importantly, relative to the responsibilities and challenges our nation has around the world," Mr. Gates said.

Mr. Gates's complaint has been frequently heard in the past 60 years. What makes his comments particularly arresting is that they come from the head of the defense establishment, not from the Foreign Service.

They should get the full attention of the next president and Congress, recognizing that when diplomacy succeeds, armies don't have to fight.

Huffington Post: Gates warns of militarization of US foreign policy

I saw this today in the Washington Post, but the Huffington Post carried the version below. You know, just a thought, and not even an original one (can't remember where I read it), but the next president, regardless of party affiliation, should consider keeping Secretary Gates. He is certainly an ally of the State Department.

Gates warns of militarization of US foreign policy

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military's growing role in rebuilding war-battered nations has fueled concerns about a "creeping militarization" of American foreign policy, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

As the conflict in Afghanistan shows, coordinating war-fighting with diplomacy, job creation and road-building often doesn't work well, the Pentagon chief said in remarks prepared for delivery at an international policy dinner.

"Getting all these different elements to coordinate operations and share best practices has been a colossal _ and so far an all too often unsuccessful _ undertaking," said Gates.

He added that the increased involvement of the military in jobs that historically were done by civilian agencies has led to concerns of "a creeping militarization of some aspects of America's foreign policy."

[...]

Gates has repeatedly said that the State Department and some non-governmental organizations have been underfunded and understaffed for too long. And he has warned that military might alone cannot win wars.

Instead, he has called for more support for so-called soft power, with civilians contributing more in nonmilitary areas such as communication, economic assistance and political development.

[...]

Gates on Tuesday was introduced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice _ a choice that reflected their generally strong working relationship and his vocal support for giving her more resources.

"We cannot kill or capture our way to victory," Gates said, adding that military operations should support measures that promote economic and political growth. That effort, he said, must be coordinated with the U.N., NATO, other nations and agencies such as United States Agency for International Development.

"The Foreign Service is not the Foreign Legion, and the U.S. military should never be mistaken for a Peace Corps with guns," said Gates.

[...]

Delivering the Foreigners

Avuncular American, a retired Foreign Service Officer, has an interesting piece about what he calls "the increasingly subordinate role performed by American diplomats vis-a-vis the U.S. Military."

"What Diplomats Do: "Deliver the Foreigners"

Parents in the diplomatic service have to answer the same questions that other mommies and daddies do, but their answers are of necessity more complicated. Children aren't the only ones flummoxed by what diplomats do; many an American Foreign Service Officer working for the State Department has experienced the bemused looks of neighbors and family back home. "State" department sounds like you work in Harrisburg, Tallahassee, or any other American state capital bureaucracy. What you're doing in Tallinn or Algiers, they have no idea."

Digger comments:
This is definitely true. I was in NC when I joined the FS. I told one woman I was going to work for the State Department and she asked if I was moving to Raleigh. I finally gave up on telling people I was a Foreign Service Officer and just said diplomat instead, sacrificing my desire to not sound pretentious in exchange for at least a little clarity.

AA continues:
"But now, thanks to the increasingly subordinate role performed by American diplomats vis-a-vis the US military (see my blast when General David Petraeus insisted on referring to the US Ambassador to Iraq as his "diplomatic wingman"), we have a new wrinkle on the concept of diplomats-as-enablers. The January 18, 2008 Washington Times ("State Doubles Military Advisers," by Nicholas Kralev) tells us that diplomats are much in demand in the burgeoning US military:

The State Department is doubling the number of resident diplomatic advisers that it sends to the offices of the nation's top military commanders at home and overseas — a move encouraged by the Pentagon as its uniformed leaders take on larger public roles abroad.

The diplomats also help to "deliver the foreigners," as one official put it, whenever advice or assistance is needed from allies or other countries. Sometimes, they simply offer their counsel on foreign affairs, ensuring that the commander is familiar with current U.S. policy before making public remarks.

It's good that seasoned diplomats advise generals on current US foreign policy. After all, they have to do the same thing when US presidents persist in sending fat cat campaign donors abroad as political appointee ambassadors, in recognition of their generosity. But it's the preamble of the article that hits the core problem: "a move encouraged by the Pentagon as its uniformed leaders take on larger public roles abroad."

"Delivering the foreigners" for four star (and more junior) generals is increasingly the lot of American diplomats. Increasingly, the US military is taking on "roles and responsibilities" (to use a good Pentagon term) that are very far from basic soldiering. You need a website to bring the Muslims around to the American Way? The Pentagon has it. How about development projects, to win hearts and minds? We got that too: the Special Operations Command excels in "public safety, agriculture, finance, economy, and support of dislocated civilian operations."

In the recent "stand up" of the Pentagon's newest regional combatant command, AFRICOM, the US military proceeded to reinvent the diplomatic and development wheels that the State Department and USAID have had in Africa ever since President John F. Kennedy determined that the United States would have a "universal" presence in every one of the newly-independent African countries that started appearing during his tenure. A USAID veteran told me of his particular experience:

I've had conversations during 2007 with university colleagues whose brains are being picked by the Africa command folks on this side of the Atlantic. The content of these DOD-university dialogues is often incredibly basic. As a consequence, the new partnership crowds out long-established relationships that USAID and USDA [Agriculture Department] had/have with the university agriculture community. The Administration has duplicated USAID with MCC [Millenium Challenge Corporation], and now the Pentagon will do so again with the Africa Command's emphasis on civilian topics.

Meanwhile, USAID's well-planned agriculture projects in Africa limp along with stagnant funding. "

Digger comments:
I think much of this is a duel problem of State having too little money and too much focus on Iraq. I am not one of the nay-sayers who thinks we should withdraw immediately from Iraq (in fact, I hope the military stays there until at least after I serve my tour there, as we all will, because I am a big fan of having folks there with guns who are on our side!). I don't even think withdrawal is a realistic possibility, though I do think our embassy there is too large given the current environment (any other embassy on earth would have been long ago evacuated). I do think that having Iraq as our primary foreign policy focus is short-sighted (at a Junior Officer conference, department leaders from the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) said anything outside of Iraq and the Middle East was just "fisheries." I suppose that means Russia and China are not important) and has lead to vast amounts of money being pumped into the military at State's expense. One might even argue that State's initial reluctance to go into Iraq without proper planning for reconstruction opened a door for the military to take the lead, and we have remained somewhat marginalized.

That the military is taking over so many of the functions we should be doing (and could do better because that is our area of expertise) is no surprise given the size of their budget. And no one can blame them for trying to increase their budget by taking on new projects. The problem is an issue of soft power versus hard power. We should be using diplomacy as a soft power before we use hard power and we should be properly funding the soft power so it can do the tasks it was meant to do. Regardless of what anyone thinks about the war, we are there, and we need to do our jobs. And conducting diplomacy abroad is the role of the State Department, not the military.

The point is we need both, each doing what we are expert at doing and letting the other do what they are expert at doing. The carrot and the stick approach only works when you have both a carrot AND and stick and the two are held in different hands.