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State Dept vs Colonial Office?
June 18, 2008 | Posted by Charlie - 9:18am | 70 Comments
A WaPo op-ed on the future of the State Department has been making the rounds the last couple days and has generated some interesting traffic in Charlie's inbox. It gets at two pretty basic questions:
1) Should State go all-in in Iraq (and to a lesser extent Afghanistan) with its newly "transformed" diplomats or should it keep its eye on longer term relationships and concerns elsewhere in the globe?
2) What, exactly, do we want from a 21st Century State Department?
We've discussed State's staffing problem before. Charlie has yet to hear a good reason why we shouldn't double the number of FSOs (there's currently a significant shortage of officers at a myriad of posts as a result of staffing shortages and the behemoth Embassy Baghdad). But while Charlie spends a fair amount of time explaining FSO culture to her students (and has a fair degree of sympathy for them and their work), State doesn't exactly get a free pass around here.
Unlike the Pentagon, currently benefiting from rare, gifted leadership by Secretary Gates, State suffers under Secretary Rice (to the point that Gates is a much better advocate for State than she is). They are adrift, and major changes are required as we move forward in the Long War (like how not to alienate the entire WaPo readership by bitching about assignments to Iraq). But there has also been little in the way of the kind of strategic thought that might give them any sort of guidance. A little strategy goes a long way. (And oh, btw, don't forget that most of the things we want "civilians" to do in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't core competancies of the Foreign Service either. If you want a Colonial Office, you're gonna have to build a Colonial Office.)
State needs to sack up and do the job in Iraq (and Afghanistan) if only because it won't be the last time they're asked to work closely with the military or in a conflict environment. But we absolutely need State's core diplomatic skills, something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the government (except for the rare 4-star like Gen Zinni). Diplomacy isn't appeasement; it's the process by which we convince others of the correctness (or at least utility) of the American position. Surely we could use a little more of that right now.
1) Should State go all-in in Iraq (and to a lesser extent Afghanistan) with its newly "transformed" diplomats or should it keep its eye on longer term relationships and concerns elsewhere in the globe?
2) What, exactly, do we want from a 21st Century State Department?
We've discussed State's staffing problem before. Charlie has yet to hear a good reason why we shouldn't double the number of FSOs (there's currently a significant shortage of officers at a myriad of posts as a result of staffing shortages and the behemoth Embassy Baghdad). But while Charlie spends a fair amount of time explaining FSO culture to her students (and has a fair degree of sympathy for them and their work), State doesn't exactly get a free pass around here.
Unlike the Pentagon, currently benefiting from rare, gifted leadership by Secretary Gates, State suffers under Secretary Rice (to the point that Gates is a much better advocate for State than she is). They are adrift, and major changes are required as we move forward in the Long War (like how not to alienate the entire WaPo readership by bitching about assignments to Iraq). But there has also been little in the way of the kind of strategic thought that might give them any sort of guidance. A little strategy goes a long way. (And oh, btw, don't forget that most of the things we want "civilians" to do in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't core competancies of the Foreign Service either. If you want a Colonial Office, you're gonna have to build a Colonial Office.)
State needs to sack up and do the job in Iraq (and Afghanistan) if only because it won't be the last time they're asked to work closely with the military or in a conflict environment. But we absolutely need State's core diplomatic skills, something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the government (except for the rare 4-star like Gen Zinni). Diplomacy isn't appeasement; it's the process by which we convince others of the correctness (or at least utility) of the American position. Surely we could use a little more of that right now.
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