What’s the Story on Militarization?
FrontLines - November 2009
By Ron Capps
This article originally appeared in the August 2009 issue
of Monday Developments magazine, published by InterAction,
the largest alliance of U.S. based international development
and non-governmental organizations, and is reprinted with the
magazine’s permission.
Ron Capps, peacekeeping program manager for Refugees
International, is a retired Foreign Service Officer and a retired
Army lieutenant colonel. His 25-year career with the U.S.
government included service in Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Sudan.
The sprawling, isolated
desert town of Nema,
1,100 kilometers from
the Mauritanian capital
Nouakchott, has a new,
U.S.-funded health clinic.
But the clinic is unused. In
fact, it never opened. Fully
constructed, the clinic sits
abandoned because people
cannot get to it and because
the Ministry of Health cannot
support it.
This sounds like the
beginning of a story where
the good intentions of donors
are for naught because the
host nation lacks the capacity
for follow-through. Well,
not exactly. The Ministry
of Health can’t support the
clinic because the Ministry
was not consulted before
construction began. Funds to
build the clinic came from the
U.S. Department of Defense
and the Special Forces soldiers
who coordinated the
construction worked through
the Mauritanian Ministry of
Defense.
But this isn’t just a story
about the militarization of
America’s foreign policy.
While a critic would say that
if the soldiers had coordinated
with USAID maybe
this would not have happened,
the problem is that
there is no USAID office
in Nouakchott. There is no
USAID presence for the
soldiers to coordinate their
activities with.
The Nema medical clinic
is a monument to poor U.S.
interagency coordination
due to a staggering lack of
civilian capacity in foreign
affairs. So this is a story
about the effect in the field that
the absence of civilian capacity
has on the recipients of our
assistance and on America’s
image in the world.
The numbers are overwhelming.
While there are over
2,300,000 uniformed service
members, there are fewer than
6,800 Foreign Service Officers
at the Department of State and
about 1,400 Foreign Service
Officers at USAID. The General
Accounting Office claims nearly
30 percent of language-designated
positions at American
embassies are filled by inadequately
trained officials, and a
recent article in Foreign Affairs
noted that American embassies
in Africa are short 30 percent of
their assigned staffs. Things are
so bad the State Department has
hired over 2,300 family members
to fill embassy positions.
Personnel numbers alone
still don’t tell the whole story. A
recent study by the Association
for American Diplomacy and the
Henry L. Stimson Center repeatedly
cited a lack of program
management skills at State and
USAID. Congress has granted
the Department of Defense
authorities and funding for security
and development assistance
that should reside with State and
USAID; and it did so principally
because the civilian agencies
cannot carry their load. A congressional
report cites a waning
of diplomatic effectiveness in
representing U.S. interests as
foreign officials “follow the
money,” increasingly emphasizing
defense relations over diplomacy.
The RAND Corporation
calls these discrepancies “a dysfunctional
skewing of resourcesto-
tasks.”
|
The real story
here is that
America has just
passed the
outermost point
of one of our
regular foreign
policy pendulum
swings and we are
headed back to a
more centered
approach. |
In 1971, former Secretary
of State Dean Acheson wrote
in Foreign Affairs, “For over
a decade it has been received
as accepted truth in the highly
charged political atmosphere of
Washington that the role, power
and prestige of the Secretary
and Department of State in the
conduct of foreign affairs have
steadily declined.” Things have
not gotten any better in the
38 years since Acheson wrote
his article. For the past two
generations, the Department
of State and USAID have atrophied
thanks to budget cuts and
reductions in force driven by a misguided belief that American
security is solely the provenance
of the military and the intelligence
services. But recently,
Congress and the executive
branch have begun to reverse
the trend.
In 2004, a presidential
order gave the Office of the
Coordinator for Reconstruction
and Stability (S/CRS) at
State the task of coordinating
a “whole of government”
approach to reconstruction and
stability operations. At that time,
interagency processes were
strained by struggles over power
and influence at the highest
levels of government and staff
were overwhelmed by the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over
time, the office produced a blueprint
for civilian response.
S/CRS has also created a
Civilian Response Corps to
serve as the civilian expeditionary
capability the United States
so urgently needs as a complement
to its unparalleled military
capacity. Once complete, it
will include 250 active officers,
2,000 government officials on
standby, and 2,000 in a reserve
corps. These officers will bring
civilian expertise from State,
USAID, and the Departments
of Commerce, Homeland
Security, Health and Human
Services, Treasury, Agriculture,
and Justice. In 2008, Congress
funded the active response corps
and hiring began.
RAND, among others,
has called for a multi-agency
National Security College to
address interagency planning
and management shortcomings.
In the 2006 Quadrennial
Defense Review, the
Department of Defense offered
to turn the National Defense
University into a university for
national security professionals.
The National Security Council
(NSC) approved a management
system for interagency operations
in March 2007.
So now we have a civilian
expeditionary force, an education
and training program, and
an interagency management system.
Is this the happy ending?
No, the story isn’t finished yet.
The officers in the civilian
response corps are an
expeditionary force. They
don’t increase the staff of
the Department of State or
USAID, only rearrange it. The
Department of State remains
critically short of personnel,
particularly in the mid- and
senior-level ranks. USAID is
embarrassingly understaffed.
State plans to hire 700 new
officers this year, while USAID
wants to bring in 300. These
numbers are insufficient to meet
the needs.
The interagency management
system approved by the NSC and the supporting structures
of S/CRS and the Civilian
Response Corps remain
substantially untested. As
of late May, there were only
about 35 active response
corps officers on the job.
Training programs at the
Foreign Service Institute
were scheduled to begin in
July. At a recent war game
at U.S. European Command,
officials stated that the
military officers involved
seemed reluctant to cede
authority over reconstruction
and stability activities to the
civilians.
Defense Secretary Robert
Gates is often lauded for his
public calls for increased
civilian capacity. However, in
October 2007, he laid down
his marker on the expanded
role of the Department
of Defense: “All these
so-called ‘nontraditional’
capabilities have moved
into the mainstream of military
thinking, planning, and
strategy—where they must
stay.” Once the Department
of State regains the personnel
strength and capacities to
lead America’s foreign affairs
enterprise, Congress should
pass the funding and authorities
it has granted to the
Department of Defense back
to State.
The real story here is that
America has just passed the
outermost point of one of
our regular foreign policy
pendulum swings and we
are headed back to a more
centered approach. Right
now, we in the development,
humanitarian assistance,
and advocacy communities
have an opportunity to influence
the political story line. Now is the time to press for
greater funding for civilian
personnel, more training to
increase civilian capacity,
and a return of authorities
and funding and oversight
of development and security
assistance to the Department
of State and USAID.
★
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