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:

1. Localizing for local action;
2. Reforming security forces;
3. Promoting democracy;
4. Countering violent extremism;
5. And encouraging citizen and cultural diplomacy.

Many well-led and well-intended reform efforts at State and USAID have failed.  The right approach is to rebuild from the ground up a single Foreign Office designed to meet future challenges, including a far more mobile and agile civilian corps ready to deploy for conflict resolution and state-building missions.  Our nongovernmental efforts also need beefing up and should be run at arm’s length from government control.  This can be paid for by shrinking overgrown embassies that house and service mainly domestic US government agencies.

Kristin Lord, Executive Vice President at USIP, called the book “thought provoking and a good read.” She supports the idea that civilian power can be more effective in serving U.S interests than the military. There are things the military does not have the capabilities to deal, but civilians can. She liked the emphasis on preventing conflict, but demonstrating effectiveness is difficult except in cases like electoral violence. She also sees the real value in public-private partnerships in U.S. foreign relations. Finally, she also appreciates that the book recognizes that difficulty of balancing US politics with local politics.

Lord questioned how the U.S. can cultivate talent outside State and USAID to be used for diplomacy.  The universities (like SAIS) should do that. Second, how do we convince the American public, who is opposed to US intervention abroad, to increase civilian diplomacy? Third, she defended the existing institutions. She does not see how it would be possible to completely rebuild these institutions.  But there are reforms, like rewards to teamwork, that could move State and AID in the right directions.

Thomas Pickering, a retired Career Ambassador, also praised Righting the Balance as readable and interesting with a personal touch. He values four particular themes from the book:

1. The military doesn’t do well with diplomatic problems;
2. There is a greater need to prevent conflict;
3. There are problems that arise when states fail;
4. And there are ways of doing things better.

A smaller State Department would be better. He sees individual parts of government working well, but not government as a whole. Third, he emphasized the importance of multilateral cooperation for effective diplomacy. In the post-Cold War era, US dependence on military instruments has not solved problems.  It only creates more problems that need to be later addressed.  Diplomacy has been marginalized and its effectiveness decreased.

Pickering thought the French Revolution approach–using the guillotine on the institution–is not practical.  It just isn’t possible to bring on an entirely new workforce to fill the new institution. This is not a good idea but a good objective. He sees real value in making the bureaucracy smaller (at headquarters and embassies) and increasing cooperation between State and USAID.  But these two institutions serve different purposes and should remain as separate entities. USAID should have its own budget and program responsibilities.

To these critiques, Serwer responded that his is a thought experiment. He wants to provoke readers because the conventional means of reform haven’t been working.  A provocative proposal could precipitate change.  Once you focus on what you really need, you start seeing how inadequate the current institutions really are.