peacefare.net

More Righting the Balance

Sarah Saleeb’s writeup of the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute Righting the Balance event Thursday evening makes me acutely aware that I did not do a good enough job distinguishing between the State Department and AID as institutions and the people who staff them.  My thought experiment concerns the institutions, not the people.  I never intended to suggest we throw all of those babies out with the bath water.  –DPS

Carla Freeman opened the discussion calling this a “timely and provocative book”.

Daniel Serwer, author of Righting the Balance: How You Can Help Protect America, opened his comments by expressing his respect for the work that the State Department does, particularly the Foreign Service officers who carry out that work. However, he sees two imbalance in the way the US carries out its foreign relations.  The civilians do not have sufficient support.  So the military has been making up for civilian deficiencies.  In Iraq and Afghanistan there were many examples of the military stepping in for civilians. Unless the US is willing to fight endless wars, it needs civilians who can help prevent the collapse of states and promote reforms before the need for military intervention. This is something that the US failed to do in the Arab world.

Serwer outlined five major things that the State Department and USAID are lacking: Read more