By PHK
Can Bob do what Condi and Karen should have done, but didn’t? That’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and soon to be former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes, of course.
I sure hope so. Why is it that the Defense Secretary seems to be the only person in this administration to see the necessity of this country engaging in “soft” as well as “hard” power and to advocate in a prestigious public forum the need for sufficient resources and requisite structural changes for the US to have a chance of becoming effective abroad again?
The lip service about selling America abroad that has been the mantra of W’s chief occasional-burqa-wearing soon to depart, public relations "guru" Karen Hughes – in comparison – is a bad joke at best, and a nightmare at worst. And if she, Condi, W, Cheney, Henrietta Fore and others think that private corporations, an ineffectual State Department run on the cheap, and just-on-time pay-for-by-the-hour contractors can do what should have been, and still needs to be done, on diplomatic and public diplomacy fronts after years of bipartisan neglect, they’re having yet another oxycodin-inspired dream of the Edgar Alan Poe “Quoth the raven, Nevermore” variety.
Making the case for “soft power”
Meanwhile, thank you Bob Gates. Finally, someone in the administration with enough clout has it right and is willing to say so: US military power now costing nearly one half-trillion dollars per year in comparison with Rice’s $36 billion request for the State Department, is insufficient to successfully project American power and interests abroad.
Sorry guys and gals, tanks, Howitzers and bombs that fall on mostly civilian populations from above do not do it. These lethal “toys” represent the last resort in dispute resolution, not the first, and even then, wars are settled at negotiating tables through peace treaties that stick politically and seemingly intractable interethnic conflicts require patience and considerable expertise to deal with – that is, if one wants to bring and keep the soldiers home and safely away from IEDs.
As Gates told students, faculty and others in the Landon Lecture at Kansas State University on Monday, if the US is “to meet the myriad of challenges around the world in the coming decades, this country must strengthen” elements of national power beyond the military “both institutionally and financially, and create the capability to integrate and apply all of the elements of national power to problems and challenges abroad.” This means “strengthening America’s capacity to use “soft” power and for integrating it with “hard” power.
But what next?
That’s exactly what the US did so successfully during the Cold War. But during those years we had the operational and organizational wherewithal on the civilian as well as the military side to do it. As Gates told his KSU audience, with the dismantling of the US Information Agency in 1999 and the collapsing of USAID into the State Department – the two organizations established under the Eisenhower administration and designed to do just that – the US no longer has the capability.
What, however, he proposes in their stead is unclear and this, in my view, is the speech’s major weakness. Why administration officials – and too many others – still dance around the fundamental organizational issue – is beyond me. On the one hand, they now admit at least that it was a mistake to have abolished USIA and decimated USAID and that no established US government bureaucracy can perform the operational functions they did, but on the other hand, these same people still – head-in-sand-like – refuse to recognize that the way to make things work is to reinvent and update these smaller, more nimble organizations while reinvigorating the State Department's capacity to perform the things it does best – like political, political-military and economic reporting, policy development, negotiations and even interagency policy coordination to meet the challenges of this still new century.
Since at least 2004, the Pentagon has tried to pick up pieces of the public diplomacy function lost in the State Department takeover of USIA – but let’s face it, the military just can’t talk to civilians in other societies as effectively as civilian public diplomacy professionals can and it certainly can’t manage Fulbright Programs, educational and other cultural exchanges.
Furthermore, the US military has never been interested in performing all those non-war-fighting activities that relate to “nation-building.” Yet USAID which was once-upon-a-time a robust civilian agency of about 15,000 professionals during the Vietnam era who could and did engage in “nation-building," has become a mere contracting-out shell of about 3,000 people under State's umbrella of whom about 30% could retire next year. When they leave, they will take with them years of expertise and experience that cannot be bought in the private sector – unless, of course, the government hires them back on contract at a hefty price.
"Military success is not sufficient to win"
It’s still unclear to me why this country is taking so long to relearn lessons we knew all too well during the Cold War years. Namely, that in Gates’ words, “military success is not sufficient to win: economic development, institution-building and the rule of law, promoting internal reconciliation, good governance, providing basic services to the people, training and equipping indigenous military and police forces, strategic communications, and more – these along with security, are essential ingredients for long-term success.” Regardless, that’s what’s happened.
Maybe it was – and still is - the neocon “might-makes-right” siren song that has held the less than astute White House and too much of the mainstream US media in its thrall for far too long - combined with elements of a greedy defense industry that have enriched themselves over the course of the past seven years - although even some of America's political right wing has also seen the value of public diplomacy’s words, if not international development deeds in the implementation of successful US foreign policy.
Whether Gates’ speech represents just another straw blowing in the wind or something more significant is beyond me. It could be either. Time, I suppose, will tell. If the administration were really serious about its foreign relations legacy then this is precisely the kind of speech this country’s president should have made and it should have happened several years ago. But then again, maybe it’s better to have it come from one of the few people in this administration who still commands respect.
Will people who can make a difference please listen?
Notes: With special thanks to John Brown for suggesting this post's title.
Gates' speech was reported on the bottom of page A-6 in The New York Times and on page A-02 in The Washington Post. Here is Gates' speech text courtesy of Defenselink.