-- “There has been a migration of functions and authorities from U.S. civilian agencies to the Department of Defense,” Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr., August 2, 2008
Senator Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, couldn’t have said it better in his opening statement at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on “the creeping militarization of U.S. foreign policy”- in veteran Washington Post national security reporter Walter Pinkus’ words.
In fact, the hearing at which Biden read this opening statement only focused on a smidgen of the problem, a 2006 decision which at the time gave the Pentagon “the authority to spend $200 million to train and equip foreign military forces to carry out counterterrorism operations in their own countries or give support elsewhere – say Iraq – in association with U.S. forces.”
In essence, this moved the funding from the State Department to the Pentagon because “the traditional approach through State was ‘too slow and cumbersome’ according to a May 2008 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report." The amount requested now by the Pentagon has reportedly risen from a total of $300 million in 2006 to $950 million for 2009 from two separate accounts previously handled by State.
CRS is right.
Let’s get this straight. State’s budgetary process is and has been, in my view, too slow and cumbersome. CRS is right. That’s just one of the many reasons I think the consolidation of the U.S. Information Agency into the Department was and remains a mammoth mistake and why I think USAID needs to be rejuvenated and rescued from State’s stranglehold. The problem is that State’s culture is not, and has never been, that of a program agency: that’s just not its core business or identity. And it doesn’t have the expertise either. Nor should it.
But that’s a different issue than what has happened to the militarization of US foreign policy over the past seven and one-half years and which Biden was correct in highlighting last week. I wouldn’t even, however, call it “creeping.”
Just look at the budgets and policies that are supported by the war rhetoric emanating from the Bush administration and now the McCain campaign. This verbal bellicosity seeks to frighten the American people into voting for a president who will usher in yet another round of massive budget deficits in support of a misguided approach to dealing with a loose-jointed rag-tag band of ultra-religious Islamic terrorists whose primary goal seems to be to chase the US out of Saudi Arabia and secondarily to establish some kind of mythical Islamic caliphate somewhere in the Middle East.
Stuck in Over-Drive
To deal with this problem the US, however, has become stuck in over-drive. We have the largest military budget in the world many times over, a mess on our hands in Iraq, public opinion abroad at an all time low – except when asked about a possible Obama presidency, and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan – who supported Osama Bin Laden when US bombing of Sudan under Clinton forced him to find another refuge. Then there’s the dramatic increase in oil prices which certainly relates to the US military overspending that has caught up with a now deficit-ridden nation that was instructed by our God-forsaken president to go out and spend its way further into debt. Sacrifice by going to the mall and helping out Chinese manufacturing? Yeah right. That's a really sensible policy.
All of this is a tale of foreign policy success? To the contrary.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the Pentagon has launched the controversial $50 million “Minerva Research Initiative” that will “fund social science research deemed crucial to national security.” The purpose of this exercise, according to reporter Maria Glod, is “to devote more resources to ‘elements of national power beyond guns and steel of the military.’”
Now I certainly agree that the Pentagon – indeed the administration – needs lots of help in learning how to deal with people from other cultures by actually talking to them and learning about their societies – but I also think there are better ways to obtain the information and expertise than through yet another Pentagon funded research program, this time, for civilians.
Why the Pentagon and not Fulbright?
How about instead, for instance, substantially expanding social science research grants for American researchers through the highly respected Fulbright program which sends Americans academics abroad as well as brings foreign counterparts here?
Why should the funding necessarily have a military imprint? This only makes grantees suspect abroad – and besides that, look at the practical side. Who backstops them when they have problems? Military Attaches in US Embassies? Come on, tell me another.
Fulbrighters, in contrast, have institutions called Binational Commissions in each country or at least an exchanges officer in a U.S. Embassy to help them cope logistically and step in during unforeseen emergencies. Been there in Moscow, Manila and as branch chief of the European Academic Exchanges Program in USIA. Done that numerous times. The system works: and a special line item in State’s budget has protected the program from otherwise being decimated by a department leadership with other priorities. Peace Corps Country Offices abroad serve similar functions for our PCVs.
How about teaching the US military destined for assignment abroad to speak the foreign language at least passably and learn the culture of the country to which they are being sent? And before they arrive on the scene.
Now I realize this won’t benefit the arms manufacturers or the other military contractors that hover like wasps around the Pentagon and the Members of Congress on the Armed Services, Appropriations and Budget Committees, but wouldn’t it be more effective and far cheaper in the long run? Besides it might help educate a few more Americans about the world rather than simply teach them how to shoot better at the rifle range. Might even cut down on incidences of and expenses for PTSD.
Not how to win friends and influence people
I don’t see that working through interpreters and from behind the barrel of a gun is the way to gain anyone’s confidence or support. Coercion and deadly misunderstanding are no ways to succeed overseas. All they do is provide an easy target for those who hate the US to find sympathy and support as well as a place to hide.
This is not to denigrate the relatively few US military fortunate enough to go through one of the Pentagon’s special language programs before being shipped out yet again or, for that matter, those who receive terrific training through the US Army’s Foreign Area Specialist program which for years has trained a smattering of career officers in the US and then overseas to be linguistically proficient and culturally aware in the foreign country to which they are assigned. Quite the opposite. I think FAS – or whatever it’s called now - should be substantially expanded. This is, or was, a terrific program and if it hasn’t grown it should.
Yet I remain terribly troubled by the continuing, counterproductive and ill-thought out war rhetoric (most recently exemplified by Wolf Blitzer’s CNN interview of James Glassman, the new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, on Sunday) as well as the over-militarization of US foreign policy that such rhetoric encourages and underpins.
Thank you, Senator Biden for calling a spade a spade and Walter Pincus for reporting it.