Prime Candidates for Iraq (Updated)

Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, reports on a new US State Department intitiative; nay, order; that will see additional diplomats taking posts in Iraq next year because of expected shortfalls in filling openings, the first such large-scale forced assignment since the Vietnam War. As far as we are concerned this is a long overdue move by State to fulfill its end of the 80% political, 20% military counterinsurgency (COIN) fight in Iraq.

... On Monday, 200 to 300 employees will be notified of their selection as "prime candidates" for 50 open positions in Iraq, said Harry K. Thomas, director general of the Foreign Service. Some are expected to respond by volunteering, he said. However, if an insufficient number volunteers by Nov. 12, a department panel will determine which ones will be ordered to report to the Baghdad embassy next summer...

While we applaud (what we call "long overdue") this move, we do acknowledge that State and other non-military departments and agencies lack the resources to fulfill their COIN obligations. It is time for Congress to get serious and ensure that our Nation has the capacity to deploy fully-trained and mission-capable personnel that truly represent all elements of national power.

Abu Muqawama on the resource shortage:

Folks in the Department of Defense like to blame things in Iraq on State and the other agencies, but there are two big problems with the State Department: One, it's too darn small. It is no accident that 2008 presidential candidates are echoing Newt Gingrich's call to triple the size of the department -- or at least increase the number of officers. Two, unlike the U.S. military, State has no real expeditionary history. When a soldier is ordered to war, he goes. State, meanwhile, does not "mobilize" and "deploy" it's personnel. Neither, for that matter, does the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury, or any of the other agencies that need to partner with Defense in an effort like that in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Dr. David Kilcullen on the imbalance in government capability:

At present, the U.S. defense budget accounts for approximately half of total global defense spending, while the U.S. armed forces employ about 1.68 million uniformed members. By comparison, the State Department employs about 6,000 foreign service officers, while the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has about 2,000. In other words, the Department of Defense is about 210 times larger than USAID and State combined—there are substantially more people employed as musicians in Defense bands than in the entire foreign service.

This is not to criticize Defense—armed services are labor- and capital-intensive and are always larger than diplomatic or aid agencies. But considering the importance, in this form of conflict, of development, diplomacy, and information (the U.S. Information Agency was abolished in 1999 and the State Department figures given include its successor bureau), a clear imbalance exists between military and nonmilitary elements of capacity. This distorts policy and is unusual by global standards. For example, Australia's military is approximately nine times larger than its diplomatic and aid agencies combined: The military arm is larger, but not 210 times larger, than the other elements of national power.

To its credit, the Department of Defense recognizes the problems inherent in such an imbalance, and said so in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review. And the Bush administration has programs in train to increase nonmilitary capacity. But to succeed over the long haul, we need a sustained commitment to build nonmilitary elements of national power. So-called soft powers, such as private-sector economic strength, national reputation, and cultural confidence, are crucial, because military power alone cannot compensate for their loss.

Of course there is dissent, most notably by the American Foreign Service Association, the union representing Foreign Service employees. John Naland, AFSA President, on 17 October:

The State Department so far has been able to fill its Iraq positions with volunteers. Every one of the more than 2,000 career Foreign Service members who have stepped up to the plate to serve in Iraq has done so as a volunteer. They receive less than two-weeks of special training to serve in a combat zone (unlike their predecessors 40 years ago who received three to four months of training before deploying to South Vietnam in the CORDS program). While Foreign Service volunteers in Iraq do receive added pay and other incentives (but not tax-free income like the military enjoys), surveys show that most are motivated by patriotism and a professional desire to contribute to our nation's top foreign policy objective. If the State Department ever does run out of volunteers, the Secretary of State retains the legal authority to direct assignments.

Well Mr. Naland, Secretary Rice is exercising that legal authority and directing assignments to Iraq. But still, AFSA resists:

"We believe, and we have told the secretary of state, that directing unarmed civilians who are untrained for combat into a war zone should be done on a voluntary basis," said Steve Kashkett, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association. "Directed assignments, we fear, can be detrimental to the individual, to the post, and to the Foreign Service as a whole."

Kashkett said the association had contended in meetings with Rice and Thomas that a diplomatic draft is unnecessary and that "thousands" of diplomats have volunteered for Iraq over the past five years. "We're not weenies, we're not cowards, we're not cookie pushers in Europe," he said. "This has never been necessary in a generation."

In related news, Inside the Pentagon reports on a speech given by retired US Army Colonel Robert Killebrew, former deputy director of the 'Army After Next Project' at U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. He spoke at a 22 October event organized by the Brookings Institution and the U.S. Army War College. Concerning the Department of State and its role in COIN operations Killebrew stated:

... "We are best served by a strategy of decentralization to forward-station forces that are permanently in the country, that can be molded and adapted and reinforced as the crises builds," he continued. "And when I say forces, I mean primarily the U.S. State Department country team headed by a capable ambassador" and other government organizations enforcing an interagency approach to the situation.

"Every counterinsurgency expert always says that in a counterinsurgency situation, the political should lead the military. And we absolutely do not do that when we send military forces into a country with the U.S. ambassador," Killebrew said.

The emphasis on local forces waging a war is rooted in a belief that the presence of foreign troops in a country like Iraq, regardless of well-meaning motives, always prompts insurgents to claim that infidels are trying to conquer their lands, he explained.

To that end, the next administration must rebuild the State Department's capabilities, he said. "And when you do that, you have to understand that you're dealing with a traumatized child. State is so accustomed to being abused by Congress," he said, adding there are not enough senior staffers to fight for more resources on Capitol Hill. "That has got to change," Killebrew said...

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Prime Candidates for Iraq (Updated)