U.S. Diplomacy

Career Foreign Service Officer James DeHart discusses whether the diplomatic corps have become too militarized in an op-ed in the Washington Posttoday.

Noting the large numbers of diplomats who have volunteered for war-zone appointments in Afghanistan and Iraq, DeHart says:

“This surge in war-zone assignments is an extension of the “transformational diplomacy” for which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called in a 2006 speech at Georgetown UniversityShe said then that Foreign Service officers must learn to partner more directly with the military. True, no doubt, but as they have done so, these new ties have raised fears that diplomacy itself is becoming militarized.”

DeHart queries: “…While expertise in military affairs is a good thing, should it overshadow all else in a world of shifting challenges — climate change, energy security and the threat of global pandemics, to name just a few? As China buys up U.S. debt by the billions, let’s hope that some U.S. diplomats are reading the Financial Times and not just Sun Tzu.

Today, we’re seeing not only transformational diplomacy but also the transformation of diplomacy. Foreign Service officers emerging from war zones are in many cases being promoted ahead of their peers. This is understandable, but as they rise up the chain and gain a bigger say in future personnel decisions, the practitioners of more “traditional” diplomacy may find themselves relegated to an even slower track.”

He predicts: “As a bumper sticker, transformational diplomacy is bound to be peeled away by the next administration. But as a set of ideas, it’s here to stay. Foreign Service officers have always been the first to say that they can’t be cooped up in foreign ministries or fortress embassies — that they need to be out on the street, engaging with diverse communities.

Here’s a startling statistic: “In recent years, the number of Foreign Service assignments categorized as “unaccompanied” — that is, too dangerous for families — has surged from 200 to 900. If the trend continues, new recruits may no longer view the Foreign Service as a career but as something to do for a few years before settling down to real life — a bit like the Peace Corps, minus the peace. In a recent survey by the American Foreign Service Association, 44 percent of active Foreign Service officers said that “developments in the last few years” have made it less likely that they will remain in the Foreign Service for a full career.”

He concludes: “A Foreign Service that knows its strengths and conducts diplomacy without apology will be locked and loaded to advance America’s place in the world.”

Well said. It is important to recognize these transformations occurring in the nature of US’ diplomacy. I do hope DeHart is wrong in suggesting that the State Department might react to the upsurge in military posts by measuring new Foreign Service Officers against the military’s yard-stick. While the military and our diplomatic corps must work together, one needn’t morph into the other.

Former US Ambassador Chas Freeman addressed a conference of the University of Continuing Education Association last week.

Before retiring from the Foreign Service Freeman served at posts in nearly every continent and became a specialist in China. Notably, Freeman was Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, from 1989-1992. In 1993–94, he served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Projects International, Inc., a Washington-based business development firm, and as President of the Middle East Policy Council.

Needless to say, the depth of Ambassador Freeman’s foreign policy experience makes him an excellent source for an analysis of the potential that diplomacy holds as a tool to leverage the critical threats the US faces today. As one would expect, his diplomatic experiences has also made him a natural advocate for employing diplomacy over military force in the international realm. His remarks (published on Middle East Online) on the potential of diplomacy to solve conflicts are powerful ones, and they are worth citing here.

Overall, Freeman wants to see a stronger, more cooperative United States. He believes the only path to achieving that goal is through the use of diplomacy.

Freeman begins by citing the massive expenditures the US spends on its military budget. He comments: “Somehow, however, despite all the money we’ve spent, the debt we’ve accumulated, and the sacrifices patriotic Americans have made in distant foreign lands, our leaders tell us that we have never been so threatened. Given all the enemies we have been making recently, they may be right… Massive military spending has, in fact, become an indispensable part of our political-economy…”

Freeman emphasized the importance of involving diplomats from the outset: “Most of our leaders, in both major political parties, now espouse a reversal of the longstanding American view that coercion, especially through military means, is a last resort to be brought into play only when diplomacy – in the form of persuasion, diplomatic bargaining, alliance-building, and other measures short of war – has failed. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the sequence approved on both sides of the aisle was to shoot first, then send in the diplomats to mop up. Since this hasn’t worked out too well, there is now a lot of talk about how to recruit more diplomats and buy more mops. That’s probably a good idea, but it might be more effective and cheaper to involve the diplomats at the outset and avoid creating such a mess in the first place.”

He continued: “Sadly, theories of coercion and plans to use military means to impose our will on other nations have for some time squeezed out serious consideration of diplomacy as an alternative to the use of force. Diplomacy is more than saying “nice doggie,” till you can find a rock. Weapons are tools to change men’s minds but they are far from the only means of doing so… The weapons of diplomats are words and their power is their persuasiveness. Talk is cheaper than firepower and does less collateral damage, so it makes sense to try it before blazing away at the adversary.”

On the supremely unequal funding of the country’s military and diplomatic services, Freeman commented: “You get what you pay for. In this case, that’s a superbly professional and supremely lethal military and an anemically staffed and undertrained diplomatic service led by inexperienced political appointees on sabbatical from high incomes… It is a truism that skilled work requires skilled workmen. Americans are now without peer in the military arts. To prevail against our current enemies, we must attain equal excellence in diplomacy.”

He concludes by offering some sage advice to his audience, the next President and the American people: “We cannot hope to appeal to the conscience of humankind if we do not continue to embody its aspirations. If we do not restore our country’s good name, others will not follow when we lead or share the burdens we take up. To regain the cooperation of allies and friends, we must rediscover how to listen, how to persuade, how to be a team player, and how to follow the rules we demand others follow… A return to diplomacy, not threats and the use of force, is the surest path to the reassertion of American leadership. It is time to rediscover and explore that path.”

Sage advice indeed.

A new report from the Washington, DC-based think tanks the Center for International Policy, the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) examines the gradual shift of foreign policy decision-making away from the State Department toward the Defense Department. Cleverly titled “Ready, Aim, Foreign Policy,” it can be downloaded here.

Here’s a snippet:

“…A disturbing transformation of U.S. foreign policy decision-making is quietly underway. The Defense Department’s leadership of foreign military aid and training programs is increasing. The State Department, which once had sole authority to direct and monitor such programs, is ceding control. Moreover, changes to the U.S. military’s geographic command structure could grant the military a greater role in shaping, and becoming the face of, U.S. foreign policy where it counts—on the ground.”

While the authors explain that the Defense Department has been gradually seeping into activities usually reserved for the State Department for the last two decades, three recent examples demonstrate that this trend has been accelarting in recent years:

• “First, the Bush Administration endeavored to expand a pilot program, known as “Section 1206,” into a permanent, large-scale, global Defense Department military aid fund with few strings attached.
• Second, the State Department, rather than contesting this challenge to its authority, called for a restructuring of foreign aid that would happily cede its management of military aid programs to the Defense Department and reduce congressional oversight.
• Third, the U.S. military offered plans to restructure geographic commands to give them a greater role in coordinating U.S. civilian agencies’ activities.” [An example of this restructuring, the Defense Department’s new central command for all of Africa, or AFRICOM, was discussed in an earlier post on this blog].

The report’s authors underscore why it matters that the Defense Department increasingly controls military aid programs: “[These changes] diminish Congressional, public and even diplomatic control over a substantial lever and symbol of foreign policy. They will undercut human rights values in our relations with the rest of the world, and increase the trend toward a projection of U.S. global power based primarily on military might.” The authors go on to cite several examples from their region of expertise, Latin America, but maintain that the changes effect U.S. foreign policy in all regions of the world.

Veteran IPS correspondent Jim Lobe reported summarized the findings of the report and added some inside-the-beltway perspective:

“While the Pentagon, like Gates, clearly understands that Washington faces regional challenges that are not susceptible to military solutions, according to the report, its sheer size compared to the civilian agencies give it an increasingly dominant role in relations with other countries, greater even than that of the resident ambassador who traditionally has been the main coordinator of U.S. policy and representative of the U.S. government in foreign states.

The risk is that the security dimensions of the bilateral relationship are given greater weight, often at the expense of other key considerations, such as human rights, equitable development, and the rule of law, according to the report. In addition, a greater emphasis on sustaining and building up local militaries, which may be repressive and corrupt, may actually prove counter-productive.”

He added that this report is just the latest in a series of studies warning of the increasing militarisation of U.S. foreign policy. This is an extremly important, timely, report. It is essential reading for the next administration for sure, if not all of you interested in foreign policy issues.

Public Radio International’s The World show also broadcast a segment about the report, and interviewed Washington PostSenior Diplomatic Correspondent Karen DeYoung about the significance of this shift.

The report was released the same day that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had breakfast with the members of the House Foreign Relations Committee (HFAC) hearing to discuss what was called “the persistent imbalance between U.S. funding for defense and diplomacy.”

While no transcript of Gates’ remarks is available, Gates has made several public statements about the need for better funding for more “soft power,” civilian activities. In January, at an event at the Center for International Security Studies, Gates said that the challenges posed by the global war on terrorism “cannot be overcome by military means alone and they extend well beyond the traditional domain of any single government agency or department. They require our government to operate with unity, agility, and creativity, and will require devoting considerably more resources to non-military instruments of national power.”

At the hearing, HFAC Acting Chairman Howard Berman observed “Berman observed that “in his 2002 National Security Strategy, President Bush affirmed that diplomacy and development are just as important as defense. They will not be funded equally, but we should strive to strike a better balance than we have now. The budget for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development together is anemic next to that of the Defense Department.”

Berman also expressed his concern for the problem: “This committee is examining the issue closely to guard against Defense Department over-reaching into areas traditionally under the authority of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. We’re concerned that an overly expansive military role in support of short-term security interests could work to the detriment of long-term foreign policy goals, which would be dangerous and destabilizing. The face of America abroad needs to be, first and foremost, its diplomats. Secretary Gates’ breakfast with us is a welcome first step in making sure this happens.”

This is a good first step. But the following statement Berman made at the breakfast might reveal that in this tug of war of resources between the two Departments, he might be biased toward Defense: ”The gap in civilian capacity has over-burdened the military, which has assumed tasks best performed by civilian experts.”

This is true, but ut seems a little backwards to look at an underfunded State Department and focus on how its deficiencies burden the Defense Department, rather than the practice of diplomacy itself.

(Associated Press photo)

Secretary Rice gave her last testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week.

The hearing began with a moment of silence in memory of the recently-deceased California Democrat and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Tom Lantos. Howard L. Berman, another California Democrat, was appointed as the Committee’s Acting Chairman.

He began his chairmanship by welcoming the increase in spending for the State Department’s budget: “Madame Secretary, I strongly support the Administration’s overall international affairs budget request for Fiscal Year 2009. It surpasses current spending by nearly three billion dollars, a welcome turn of events.”

Congressman Berman continued: “The new budget request starts to address the reality that we have been far too slow to face: Our civilian agencies are woefully unprepared to handle the unprecedented global security challenges confronting the United States today.

Here’s just one example of that: A study just released by the RAND Corporation shows that despite the common notion that civil capabilities and military power are equally important to counterinsurgency operations overseas, the meager and infrequent bump-ups in the State Department’s budget have been “dwarfed” by massive increases in Pentagon spending. The report goes on to note, and I’m quoting here: “If Islamic insurgency is the gravest threat to the United States and its interests in the near to middle term, and if countering this insurgency requires a broad and balanced array of capabilities, the grim implication is that the United States is ill equipped to counter the gravest threat it faces.” It goes on to say that we “must invest to correct (these) deficiencies and imbalances.”

Acting Chairman Berman’s full remarks can be viewed here.

The Committee’s minority leader, Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, also lamented Lantos’ death and then went on to express her concerns about a long list of challenges for US foreign policy, including: nuclear proliferation, North Korea, Iran, Darfur, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and others. You may access the full text of her remarks here.

Next Secretary Rice made her opening remarks, a transcript of which can be viewed here (as delivered). (A video of Secretary Rice’s testimony can be viewed by clicking here, and a video of the entire hearing can be viewed here).

Contrary to the hearing’s title “International Relations Budget for Fiscal Year 2009,” the remarks of both the lawmakers and the witness focused only briefly on the budget request, and more so on a variety of hot button conflicts in the Middle East—Iran’s nuclear program, the Israeli/Palestinian issue, US troop commitment in Iraq, the Lebanon/Syria relationship—the Pakistani election and relations with China. The bulk of Secretary Rice’s discussion about the budget is contained in her prepared remarks, which were provided to the Committee in advance.

Congressman Ackerman used this opportunity to press Secretary Rice on whether her administration intends to establish permanent military bases in Iraq. The issue caused controversy earlier this month when President Bush left the option open–in opposition to Congress’ wishes, while members of his administration spoke otherwise. In the hearing Secretary Rice confirmed that it is “not our intention to seek permanent military bases in Iraq.”

It appears that foreign audiences were also eagerly watching Rise’s testimony. The Armenian online news site Defacto reported on Congressman Brad Sherman’s proposed budget for Armenia. The Russian online news outlet Kommersant reviewed the testimony with particular attention to the Secretary’s and lawmaker’s remarks toward Russia.

The Voice of America reported yesterday on the Department of Defense’s plans for its U.S. Africa command, or AFRICOM.

While NPR reports that the idea to create the new command was “has kicked around the halls of the Pentagon for more than a decade,” the command was recently created so that US-Africa military liaisons be united under one command, as opposed to three in the past (U.S. Central Command, Pacific Command, European Command).

The unification of these units into a single command was intended to give it more focus, and the ability to act more nimbly to events that transpire on the continent, says Charles Kosak, Director of African Affairs in the office of the secretary of defense, in an interview with VOA.

VOA reports that the Africa Command is scheduled to reach full operational status about October of this year, when a full complement of 1,300 personnel will be in place at its interim headquarters at in Stuttgart, Germany. The Defense Department hopes eventually to have regional offices in various parts of Africa, but no new military bases are reported to be a part of the command.

The leaders of the new command, who met at a conference at the University of Southern California on Friday, explained that AFRICOM was designed with an understanding of the ties between security, development and diplomacy,” and therefore “will not take a leading role in African security,” but will “offer support to African governments and regional organizations.”

The Defense Department-run website for AFRICOM desribes it as “a different kind of command” that “reflects a much more integrated staff structure, one that includes significant management and staff representation by Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other U.S. government agencies involved in Africa. The command will also seek to incorporate partner nations and humanitarian organizations, from Africa and elsewhere, to work alongside the U.S. staff on common approaches to shared interests.”Kosak added in the VOA report that the integration of staff structure is intended “simply to have these skill sets in the command so that the USAID rep[resentative] can help the Department of Defense, can help Africa Command, work better with USAID, with its multitude of programs on the continent.”

This discussion comes amid concerns more broadly that the Department of Defense has began to overstep its mandate and take on more diplomatic and development work usually left to the State Department and USAID.

Nicole Lee of the Washington-based TransAfrica Forum, an advocacy group, expressed at the USC conference a concern that the restructuring of AFRICOM and its mandate signals a shift in US-African relations away from traditional diplomacy. According to the VOA, she said: “I think the biggest concern with AFRICOM is no one really is clear on what exactly it’s going to do. When the Defense Department is asked regarding the issues that AFRICOM is going to deal with, it sounds a lot like what the State Department is supposed to be involved with and leading on.”

Jendayi Frazer, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs testified her support for the creation of AFRICOM before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa in August of 2007. According to her testimony it would seem like things between Defense and State on the issue of AFRICOM were getting off to a great start:

“From the inception of AFRICOM, the State Department has been closely involved in the planning process, beginning last fall when the Department of Defense established its AFRICOM Implementation Planning Team. Both the Bureau of African Affairs and the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs assigned senior officers to this planning team, working with Department of Defense officials full time for many weeks to address the myriad of issues that arise when this type of major inter-agency collaboration is envisioned. Several other State Department bureaus also had officers participating, bringing functional expertise to key portions of the planning process. This process has largely occurred in an atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration, with both Departments sensitive to the requirements and concerns of the other. The result, to date, is the development of a framework that is supportive of both U.S foreign policy interests as well our regional security objectives.”

She closed her remarks by saying “The Department of State views the creation of AFRICOM as a major advancement in our comprehensive Africa policy and engagement strategy. It is the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration. It is, in many ways the marriage of State’s expertise and authorities with the military’s resources and security experience, and we are excited about it. I would be glad to take any questions that the committee might have.”

But according to reporting back in November by the Associated Press, there has been criticism of AFRICOM coming from “within the U.S. government itself, notably from State Department officials.”

Kurt Shillinger, an analyst at the South African Institute of International Affairs, told the Associated Press: “Some officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development worry their humanitarian programs could be “stigmatized” by direct links with the military, which has melded aid programs with combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan- wars unpopular in most of Africa.”

A/S Frazer was the keynote speaker at the USC conference on Friday. We will keep our eyes peeled for a transcript of her remarks either posted on the USC or State Department site. In the meantime, those of you looking to learn more about AFRICOM can look here:

• “Does Africa Need AFRICOM?” blog post on Nachrichten Heute
• An article titled U.S. Africa Command: A New Strategic Paradigm? published in January of 2008 in Military Review.
• An article titled “Africa’s Security Challenges and Rising Strategic Significance” published in Strategic Insights in January of 2007.
  
• Advanced Questions for General William E. “Kip” Ward, U.S. Army Nominee for Commander, U.S. Africa Command at a Senate Committee on Armed Services testimony.