By Patricia H. Kushlis
That’s right. Hillary’s nomination for Secretary of State raises a huge question mark in my mind. It’s unclear to me why Obama offered her the appointment or why she accepted it. I would have much preferred to see her on the Supreme Court where she could have been counted on to weigh in on issues for which her expertise is well suited, and where she could and would make a major difference on issues near to her and my heart.
But Secretary of State?
Does she realize how shrunken the State Department has become and will she be willing to spend the capital to turn the situation around? Does she understand how demoralized its professional staff is?
How does she plan to handle that new category of employees created by the Bush administration called Schedule B – created to place W loyalists in positions they can hold onto for life – unless the individual position itself is abolished in its entirety? Talk about W’s Trojan Horses and the expansion of the political spoils system, once again, at the expense of professionalism.
Does Hillary understand how the post Cold War “reforms” that destroyed the US Information Agency and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and emaciated USAID happened during her husband’s watch and that to wrest many of their former functions and budget back from the free wheeling Pentagon where they now reside under W’s hyper-militarized foreign policy may not be easy?
With heavy-weight national security experts Bob Gates staying on as Secretary of Defense and General Jim Jones becoming the new NSC Advisor, will Hillary really have the foreign affairs acumen and managerial skills needed to lead this country’s oldest and most prestigious bureaucracy? Or will she be marginalized – or marginalize herself - and read out of decision-making particularly related to the warzones?
Or will her strong political connections on the Hill and elsewhere allow her to re-inject at least some of State’s power and influence back into the US foreign policy decision-making process. And will she do so?
A future Hillary fiefdom – I doubt it.
I disagree with Peggy Noonan and others on the right of America’s political equation who argue that Hillary is likely to turn State into a Hillary fiefdom accountable unto herself.
What does concern me, however, is the fact that the civilian foreign affairs bureaucracy – and State as its lead agency – have been decimated and politicized under the W regime – and to demilitarize US foreign policy these bureaucracies will need major renovation and reinvention.
Administrative vision and implementation required
This means not just strong diplomatic smarts and excellent contacts but also strong – almost Herculean - administrative skills and vision. I wonder if Hillary and the new team will have them. If not, there will be little she can do to promote US foreign policy abroad effectively in the long run. Obama’s charisma and Hillary’s personal acquaintance with a whole host of foreign leaders from her time as First Lady and Senator will only last so long and take them and this country so far. Above all there needs to be a coordinated public diplomacy effort: State has conclusively demonstrated over the years that it cannot deliver.
Studies have indicated that the State Department is between 1,000 and 4,000 Foreign Service Officers short. The Human Resources Division is widely rumored to be a crony ridden nightmare. The Consular Affairs Bureau is a fiefdom unto itself: Come summer 2009 we could well be hit hard by yet another passport issuance delay scandal. And the Visa Appointments system is Theater of the Absurd. The Bureau of International Information Programs – which should be being tasked with explaining US policies to foreigners – has been emaciated and relegated to designing quizzes for school kiddies and promulgating other non-policy products. Its redesigned website (www.America.gov) is a bad joke: that’s foremost the fault of the current public diplomacy leadership. Never should have happened and policy explanation to foreigners should never have been stripped from the Bureau’s core mission.
State's Red-Haired Step Children: Public Diplomacy and Foreign Aid
In a recent article in Foreign Affairs Magazine, not one but three former USAID Directors argued persuasively for a re-establishment of USAID with its own Director (not the two-hatted arrangement now in operation) for the US to depoliticize and make effective once again the whole range of US assistance programs abroad.
Unfortunately, public diplomacy does not have those dedicated high level advocates – Charles Wick, USIA’s last strong director died this summer, and his successors are weak sisters indeed. .
Development assistance and public diplomacy are not part of State’s core mission or expertise. In my view, State should be allowed to concentrate on what it does well: Top notch political and economic reporting, analysis combined with traditional diplomacy and foreign policy development.
As a result of State's over-reach and under-performance, both AID and public diplomacy have been neglected criminally over the past eight years with the military jumping in to fill some of the breach. But that hasn’t worked well either because these are functions the US military simply cannot perform well no matter how much it tries or how many of my former public diplomacy colleagues it hires on contract.
Seems to me, then that the time is ripe to undo the post Cold War “End of History” mistakes that W’s administration has substantially worsened. This won’t be easy.
I just hope Hillary and the rest of the Obama’s foreign policy national security team are up to the task. It’s crucial for the good of the country.