Years ago, the House Appropriations Committee opened an inquiry into “cultural diplomacy.” The response from the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs at the time was that it was a necessary response to the “enormous sums” our adversary was spending on propaganda, “possibly more than the rest of the world combined.” Below is an excerpt from the newspaper story reporting on State’s defense of its cultural efforts (details on the story are below the fold):
[Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs] said the giving of “ideas” or “propaganda” to other countries had become the “fourth arm” of foreign policy. … Congress and even the State Department did not fully appreciate its value, [the Assistant Secretary] said.
[The House Appropriations Committee Chairman] contended that most of the information [from the State Department] was “slanted” to favor the department’s views and thus constituted a “ministry of propaganda.”
[The Assistant Secretary] replied that everything that emerged from his office was “straight information”; that any “slanted or one-sided information” always gave the source, thus removing it from the “propaganda classification.
[A]sked why [State’s Public Affairs] had more employees – 3,000, – than the entire State Department had [only four years prior], the [Assistant Secretary] explained the State Department rarely received requests for information [before] but now got an average of 34,000 a month.
Many use “strategic communication” (the singular form is most common) and “public diplomacy” as synonyms. While I have done the same, they are actually different. In the enduring debate over the definitions of “strategic communication” and “public diplomacy”, one thing is certain: strategic communication is global and public diplomacy is non-US (or external the geographic territory of the 50 United States but possibly not the territories and possessions).
It is then ironic and mildly amusing to find a job opening for a “Strategic Communications Officer” at State in USAJobs:
This position is located in the Office of Policy, Programs, and Resources supporting the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and serves as Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications. The incumbent plays an important leadership role in proposing and developing programmatic public diplomacy initiatives within the Department and throughout the federal government.
The irony is that the Under Secretary does not to global engagement, specifically the Under Secretary does not do US engagement. That is the job of Public Affairs which she “owns” in title only. US (public affairs) and non-US (public diplomacy) engagement operations by the Under Secretary’s office is so bifurcated that the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs is operationally equal to rather than a subordinate under the Under Secretary. Unless the “Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications” is going to bridge the PA/PD gap in State, specifically within “R”, the title serves little purpose but to dilute and confuse the definition of “public diplomacy.” Is OPPR a step behind and adopting “strategic communication” at a time when the chief user of the title – DOD – backing away? Why is this position not the “Senior Advisor for Public Diplomacy”?
State Dept Project Signals Foreign Policy Shift: Review Could Shift Resources to Civilian Agencies for Foreign Development, by Spencer Ackerman, 22 October 2009, in The Washington Independent.
In July, [State Department’s director of policy planning Anne-Marie] Slaughter’s boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, announced a new planning and budgeting document, called the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, or QDDR, created to “effectively design, fund, and implement development and foreign assistance as part of a broader foreign policy” every four years. It is the first such effort for the State Department, which is not known for a culture of planning, and is modeled after a planning document produced by the Defense Department that reassesses and guides strategy on a recurring basis. …
The review comes as at a time when the State Department is facing existential questions about its utility to American foreign policy, and some aren’t so sure that it will be as influential as Slaughter believes. In a provocative article last month for Foreign Policy magazine, public-diplomacy specialist Matt Armstrong called the agency “broken and paralyzed, unable to respond to the new 21st-Century paradigm” where both state and non-state actors influence the global agenda. “The QDDR will ultimately be just a document. What it spurs will be the real test,” Armstrong, whose article urged radical departmental restructuring, said in an interview. “As we know from the struggle for minds and wills around the world today, words only go so far.” …
Only one policy option has been ruled out: dissolving USAID and moving development work to the State Department. “There will be no merger,” Slaughter said. “Secretary Clinton has made clear she wants a strong AID, a well-resourced AID, [and] wants diplomacy and development well-integrated.”
Armstrong has a similar focus, but he wondered how thoroughly the QDDR would adopt the critique. “A focus of the QDDR seems to be State’s ability to play well with others,” he said. “But creating more plugs and sockets to connect with other agencies will be of little value if the internal bureaucratic friction that inhibits agility and creativity are not addressed.” He said that the department would need to abandon its bureaucratic “emphasis on national borders”- the State Department is primarily organized around countries, rather than transnational phenomena — if it wants to become “become an effective alternative and counterweight to DOD.”
The below structural and operational recommendations by retired public diplomacy officers and diplomats originally appeared at AmericanDiplomacy.org. Long in development by the authors, it appeared at AD as a response to Amb. Bill Rugh’s “Enabling Public Diplomacy Field Officer’s to do their Jobs.” The goal of both the below and Rugh’s recommendations is to make the State Department effective – not simply more effective – in today’s global information environment by addressing internal issues that the many studies on public diplomacy from various government groups, think tanks, and academia have failed to really get at. Related reading is Hitting Bottom at Foggy Bottom and How to win the GWOT – or whatever it’s called today.
The merger – abolishment really – of USIA in 1999 was never complete. The recommendations below seek to create an “internal” USIA within the Department. They are not comprehensive or end-all changes, but they are a starting point to centralize the resourcing, planning, and execution of engagement activities.
On the specific recommendations, recommendation #1 – creating a bureau for field operations headed by an assistant secretary (essential) – would put field ops on par with IIP (which is still waiting its Assistant Secretary) and ECA (which is also still waiting for its Assistant Secretary). It is not clear what relationship of the field PD officers would have with this new bureau within Judith McHale’s office – perhaps they’ll comment below – but presumably the field officers would report first and foremost to the new bureau instead of the Ambassador.
Both Recommendation #1 and #2 – transferring regional bureau PD desks to the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs – are ultimately partial steps without top-down pressure to better integrate post or regional bureau PD into Department operations (see the report on the Africa Bureau).
Other – many other – recommendations could be added, I appreciate the brevity the authors sought (most of whom I’ve met). However, I would add at least two more on the short list. First, the functional integration of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, both of which Judith McHale is ostensibly in charge of. We operate in a global information environment and weekly “coordination” meetings are inadequate. Second, elevate the prestige and importance of the public diplomacy “cone”. The Department of State must become also the Department of Non-State. This requires empowering, resourcing, and integrating public diplomacy officers that advise, inform, and engage leadership and publics.
The commentary is important enough to post it in its entirety. Bold within the text are mine.
The following was delivered at “New Approaches to U.S. Global Outreach” hosted by The Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication at George Washington University on October 5, 2009. It is available here by permission of Bruce.
Due to travel, there will be no posting until 4 October. If you haven’t already, check out the posts below (additional comments in italics) as well as explore other previous posts through the Archives or through the categories in the bottom left of the page.
Preparing to Lose the Information War? – Is Congress or the media paying attention? Apparently not based on the statements and questions from both Congress and the media that include words like “mystifying” and continue to focus on Taliban kinetic capabilities. Has anybody read Appendix D of McChrystal’s report that declares the need “win the battle of perceptions” through “gaining and maintaining…trust and confidence in [Afghan Government] institutions.” Among the overdue recommendations is the need to “orientate the the message from a struggle for the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Afghan population to one of giving them ‘trust and confidence’.
U.S. envoys hesitate to report bad news by Nicholas Kralev at The Washington Times on the “rampant self-censorship” of “bad news” from the diplomats in the field to DC.
Hitting Bottom at Foggy Bottom – My article at ForeignPolicy.com on the structural failures at State and the need to fix it rather than let it breakup – or be cannibalized. (Sep 11, 2009) Subsequent to the article was the request by US Department of Agriculture Secretary Vilsack to Secretaries Gates and Clinton to transfer $170m from State, Defense, and USAID over two years to USDA efforts in Afghanistan. USDA should be involved – and has been involved – but at a time that USAID and State’s internal S/CRS – headed by John Herbst – is struggling with leadership, funding, mission, and just inclusion, this request appears a lot more like cannibalism than anything else.
Understanding and Engaging ‘Now Media’ professional development course – a professional development course taught by me examining the convergence of "new media" and "old media" into "now media" with the purpose of educating and empowering the student to be a more effective information actor.
Smith-Mundt Symposium Report (PDF, 387kb) – The January 13, 2009, symposium, subtitled “A Discourse to Shape America’s Discourse”, was a frank and open discussion included a diverse group of stakeholders, practitioners, and observers from Congress, the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, and outside of government, many of whom never had a reason to be in the same room with one another before, to discuss public diplomacy, strategic communication, or whatever their particular "tribe" calls information and perception warfare.
Josh Rogin at ForeignPolicy.com tells us about a forthcoming GAO report on the State Department. These conditions clearly indicate major impediments to effective public diplomacy as well as demonstrate the need for Defense Department strategic communication and military public diplomacy resources (primarily, but not exclusively, MIST – Military Information Support Teams). Too many public diplomacy officers circulate only within the elite circles in their countries because of the lack of resources, time, or skills, while still believing (and reporting) they are engaging foreign publics. Hopefully Congress reads the GAO report – and other enlightening analysis of the state of State – as it considers funding Defense Department strategic communication in Europe, Africa, and elsewhere, at least for the time being.
About a third of Foreign Service officers in jobs that require language skills don’t have the proficiency required to do their jobs, hurting America’s ability to advocate its interests around the world, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
The report, which has not yet been released, but was obtained by The Cable, spells out the consequences of having a Foreign Service that in many cases can’t communicate with local officials or populations, relies too heavily on local staff for critical functions, and can’t respond to bad press when it appears in foreign languages.
According to the GAO, the State Department blames the shortcoming on the “recent increase in language-intensive positions.” The sad truth is the Department is struggling to undo its abrogation of responsibility under the past leadership as responsibilities were shuffled of to the Defense Department with little to not struggle.
Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) captures the essence of the recommendation in my Hitting Bottom at Foggy Bottom post when he says the State Department “must take advantage of this situation and plan strategically to meet short- and long-term diplomatic needs.”
But, as the GAO report notes, a strategic plan to address this problem does not exist. Secretary Clinton did, however, recently speak at State’s Foreign Service Institute and say increases were coming.
More to come on this.
Related:
U.S. envoys hesitate to report bad news by Nicholas Kralev at The Washington Times on the “rampant self-censorship” of “bad news” from the diplomats in the field to DC.
Hitting Bottom at Foggy Bottom – My article at ForeignPolicy.com on the structural failures at State and the need to fix it rather than let it breakup – or be cannibalized. (Sep 11, 2009)
From Walter Roberts, Barry Zorthian, and Alan Heil, three men who have more than a half-century of combined experience managing US Government broadcasting in the practice of public diplomacy.
On October 1, the Broadcasting Board of Governors will mark the tenth anniversary of its establishment as the sole overseer of U.S. publicly funded overseas broadcasts. We recommend a bipartisan Executive and Legislative Branch commission to review U.S. international broadcasting based on these [eight] principles:
1. Restore and reinvigorate VOA English radio worldwide. …
2. Ensure that all United Nations languages and those judged by the State Department and NSC as critical to national security be broadcast interactively by VOA on radio, television and a variety of Internet, social networks and cell phone platforms. …
3. Re-establish a VOA Arabic website. …Audience claims by Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa in that arc of crisis have been questioned by the GAO and Middle East specialists. Lack of an official Voice seems counter to U.S. interests in a strategically important region.
4. Name a qualified professional as Director of International Broadcasting to coordinate all the publicly-funded overseas networks, exercise most day-to-day management functions, and report to the Board. …Board members must be nationally known foreign affairs, journalistic and corporate level management professionals committed to the credibility of all networks cited below and principles contained in the VOA Charter and surrogate mission directives.
The fourth (of eight) point above is important. In my recent post on the failure to appoint members to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, I did not mention the Director of International Broadcasting, which is, as the authors above note, is the day-to-day manager of America’s non-military international broadcasting. The position has been vacant for four years.
Hitting Bottom at Foggy Bottom – My article at ForeignPolicy.com on the structural failures at State and the need to fix it rather than let it breakup – or be cannibalized. (Sep 11, 2009)
The many studies recommending public diplomacy reform have paid little attention to how public diplomacy is carried out at field posts around the world. The USIA-State merger has hampered public diplomacy field operation effectiveness because assumptions behind the merger over-emphasized the similarities between traditional diplomacy and public diplomacy which is a specialized profession requiring a separate set of skills. Those skills are learned primarily through on the job training, and proficiency grows with experience. While every Foreign Service Officer should understand public diplomacy and support it that does not mean every FSO needs a PD assignment. Public diplomacy positions at embassies above entry level should be filled by PD cone officers to ensure effectiveness at post. Moreover, PAOs at every embassy need more local authority to manage their programs. They also need a more efficient backup system in Washington, and that can best be provided by creating a new Bureau for Public Diplomacy Field Operations staffed by experienced PD professionals. This restructuring proposal is fairly simple because it could be accomplished within the State Department. …
Today, a PAO must deal with PD professionals scattered all over the State Department under layers of bureaucracy and no single point of coordination. Karen Hughes as Undersecretary happened to have excellent relations with the President, but she had no effective bureaucratic control over PD professionals in the State Department or at embassies abroad. The budgetary and personnel control was in several other hands, including ambassadors, regional assistant secretaries and State’s personnel system. At one point, Karen Hughes tried to assert more authority over the PD professionals by sending a telegram to PAOs telling them that they should consider her office as their “home office” at State, but that has not worked in practice because the Undersecretary does not control their budgets and she does not write their performance evaluations or make their assignments. Her staff is very small and does not have the expertise or understanding of each PAO’s situation in the field that the USIA area offices used to have.
At the Foreign Service Institute last week, Secretary of State Clinton gave some related comments:
I want to assure you that I will continue to do everything I can to make sure you have the resources and support necessary to continue that tradition of excellence. I know that your new expansion will provide badly needed classroom spaces, a larger cafeteria, a childcare center. The President and I have requested funding that will allow us to create the positions we need for training and career development for all of our employees – Foreign Service, Civil Service, and locally hired staff overseas.
Both the President and I recognize that maintaining a diverse, well-trained, highly skilled workforce is absolutely critical to pursuing our nation’s foreign policy. I said on the first day that I walked into the Department that smart power requires smart people, and FSI is training the smartest people around. And every day, I am reminded what an honor I have to serve with the dedicated professionals that not only do the work that is so necessary around the world, but who really represent America and our values, and who communicate that in a million different ways every single day.
Public Diplomacy is not Public Relations – The State Department must become a hub of innovation that implements, trains, and coordinates with the rest of the government. This means revamping the incentive structure, breaking from zero-tolerance of informational errors, introducing the military concept of "commander’s intent", and educating, empowering, encouraging, and equipping all of the State Department of the "now" and ubiquitous global information environment. (Jan 23, 2009)
Hitting Bottom at Foggy Bottom – My article at ForeignPolicy.com on the structural failures at State and the need to fix it rather than let it breakup – or be cannibalized. (Sep 11, 2009)
From the President to the Secretaries of State and Defense, we have frequently heard how public diplomacy is key to America’s national security. While Congress debates the encroachment of the military into areas traditionally occupied, lead, and resourced by civilian agencies, there remains too much darkness when it comes to understanding the dysfunction in the structures of America’s public diplomacy, let alone at the State Department as a whole. Whether it is absent leadership at USAID, empty Undersecretary and Assistant Secretary positions across State, including the Assistant Secretary positions at International Information Programs.
Such absence of leadership leads to meandering efforts and poor use of resources. This is a core issue behind the Congressional examination into Defense strategic communication activities – a warranted development considering the lack of leadership, as noted in this report from earlier this year.
The absence of leadership – even if the seat is being warmed – can lead to other agencies taking a piece of your pie. In the case of State, the void left by inaction and poor action by State in global engagement led to the often clumsy buildup by Defense. Today, USAID may suffer: the US Department of Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, has asked the Secretaries of State and Defense to reallocate $170 million from DOD, DOS, and USAID to USDA for work in Afghanistan. In IIP’s America.gov (a site I used to tout) there’s a clear shift from informing and engaging through news to engaging through social media for the sake of engagement (apparently under the what-I-thought-was the outdated rubric of “to know me is to love me”). It’s perhaps a bit ironic that the same failure of leadership led to the disestablishment (abolishment to be blunt) of USIA ten years ago.
Discussion over the fate of Foggy Bottom usually focuses on the tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the troubles of public diplomacy, and the rise of special envoys on everything from European pipelines to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Americans would benefit more from a reassessment of the core functionality of the U.S. State Department.
Years of neglect and marginalization, as well as a dearth of long-term vision and strategic planning, have left the 19th-century institution hamstrung with fiefdoms and bureaucratic bottlenecks. The Pentagon now funds and controls a wide range of foreign-policy and diplomatic priorities — from development to public diplomacy and beyond. The world has changed, with everyone from politicians to talking heads to terrorists directly influencing global audiences. The most pressing issues are stateless: pandemics, recession, terrorism, poverty, proliferation, and conflict. But as report after report, investigation after investigation, has highlighted, the State Department is broken and paralyzed, unable to respond to the new 21st-century paradigm. …
Read the rest at ForeignPolicy.com. Originally titled “Fixing State” (my title was too staid and the “State of State” was taken), it highlights forgotten or ignored structural and capacity issues at State that contributed to Defense leadership in foreign policy and public diplomacy.
American public diplomacy wears combat boots from May 2008 highlighted the leadership in basic engagement the Defense Department was exercising in the absence of an effective alternative.
The Cost of Keeping the Principal off the X from October 2007 is particularly relevant post on State’s view of the world. This issue resurfaced with the recent “outing” of the behavior of both the contracted Kabul security and the lack of action by the Department. See also an event I put on October 2006 titled American Mercenaries of Public Diplomacy.
Much has been made of made of Congressional concerns over the Defense Department’s role in strategic communication and as the de facto leading public diplomat in policy, engagement, and personnel. At first the lack of informed media coverage – and shallow or error-filled when it exists – is ironic considering the subject, but there it is part of a trend when considering that in general public diplomacy and the laws governing it are also subject to misinformation and misinterpretation (PDF, 140kb).
When The Washington Post reported on July 28 on the House Appropriations decision to slash $500 million from the estimated Defense budget request for strategic communication programs – for 10 (ten) programs which should have been “IO” (information operations) programs, a minor difference – Walter Pincus mentioned requests from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees (HASC and SASC, respectively) that preceded the House Appropriations – Defense Subcommittee (HACD) action. For your reference, the actionable items for the Defense Department in the area of strategic communication from the reports of the HASC, SASC, and HACD are below.
Discussion over the fate of Foggy Bottom usually focuses on the tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the troubles of public diplomacy, and the rise of special envoys on everything from European pipelines to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Americans would benefit more from a reassessment of the core functionality of the U.S. State Department.
Years of neglect and marginalization, as well as a dearth of long-term vision and strategic planning, have left the 19th-century institution hamstrung with fiefdoms and bureaucratic bottlenecks. The Pentagon now funds and controls a wide range of foreign-policy and diplomatic priorities — from development to public diplomacy and beyond. The world has changed, with everyone from politicians to talking heads to terrorists directly influencing global audiences. The most pressing issues are stateless: pandemics, recession, terrorism, poverty, proliferation, and conflict. But as report after report, investigation after investigation, has highlighted, the State Department is broken and paralyzed, unable to respond to the new 21st-century paradigm. …
[A]tomizing the State Department would ultimately prove dangerous and further the militarization of foreign policy. The Pentagon needs a counterbalance, a vertically integrated State Department that the president, Congress, and the U.S. public can count on. Change, rather than creative destruction, is what Foggy Bottom needs.
Envision a State Department capable of leading whole-of-government initiatives with a strategic focus instead of one hidebound department geared by structure and tradition to execute state-to-state diplomacy. This “Department of State and Non-State” would be as deft at tackling stateless terrorist networks and hurricanes as it would be at fostering and upholding alliances with foreign ministers. To transform Foggy Bottom in this way will require breaking the rigid hierarchy, stovepipes, and bottlenecks which make the Pentagon look lean and dynamic in comparison.
It has now been eight years since 9/11 and we finally seem to understand that in the modern struggles against terrorism, insurgency, and instability, the tools of public diplomacy are invaluable and essential. We live in a world where an individual with a camera phone can wield more influence than an F-22 stealth fighter jet. The capability of engaging public audiences has long been thought of as the domain of civilians. But for the past eight years, the functions, authorities, and funding for engaging global audiences, from anti-AIDS literature to soccer balls to development projects, has migrated from the State Department to the Defense Department. It seems whole forests have fallen over the same period on the need to enhance civilian agencies – be it the State Department or a new USIA-like entity – to provide a valid alternative to the Defense Department who most, even the detractors, agree was filling a void left by civilians who abrogated their responsibility for one reason or another.
This summer may be a turning point. Some in Congress have unilaterally decided that 2010 is the year America’s public diplomacy will stop wearing combat boots. Sounds good, right? This is the future most, including analysts and the military, have wished for. The military has been the unwilling (if passionate once engaged) and often clumsy surrogate and partner for the State Department in representing the US and its interests in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world through what the House Armed Services Committee now calls “military public diplomacy.” In some regions, State is almost wholly dependent on Defense money and resources to accomplish its mandate.
There are few that would question that the US State Department is a dysfunctional organization. The structure, fiefdoms, and bureaucratic knots have many knowledgeable analysts whether it is possible to bring State into the 20th century, let alone the 21st century. I believe it is possible, indeed absolutely essential but doing so requires major Congressional intervention as State cannot or will not revamp itself, regardless of the leadership of the Secretary of State or of her Under Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries (many of these critical leadership positions, by the way, remain empty).
There is no congressional constituency in Congress for destroying the State Department to create some fantastical super-totally-capable-New State Department. If there’s a constituency at all for destroying the State Department, it’s a constituency that wants to weaken diplomacy as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy. See, for instance, Newt Gingrich’s long-forgotten 2003 rant about the State Department representing a fifth column within the Bush administration. … My suspicion is that overhauling the State Department will miss the point in the same way that the post-Vietnam era military purge of counterinsurgency capabilities missed the point or the period calls to abolish the CIA miss the point.
The State Department’s Inspector General released an important report on the Africa Bureau (689kb PDF), or “AF” in State’s lexicon. Of particular interest is AF’s resource troubles and problems with integrating and supporting public diplomacy.
As the report notes, there were significant expectations with regard to Africa policy with the election of President Obama. It is important as both the President and the Secretary of State have recently completed high profile trips to the continent.
The troubles at AF could indicate deeper problems at the State Department at a time when Congress is asking why America’s public diplomacy wears combat boots. The report includes a little data on the military support to public diplomacy that may surprise Congress and shows State must do more to not only fix its organization but to solicit more funds.
The report repeatedly highlights the failure to incorporate public diplomacy into AF operations ten years after USIA was abolished. However, it never addresses the reality that AF public diplomacy has, at best, only an informal relationship with the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs office, known as “R”. This is a widespread but hidden issue many, especially in Congress but also pundits on public diplomacy don’t “get”: the Under Secretary actually has severely limited direct authorities over not only money but staff and programs. The report fails to mention that public diplomacy taskings from “R” to AF do not go through official channels to AF’s leadership but through informal channels that bypass the leadership, both in the Bureau and in field, does not always know what the public diplomacy officers are working on or their impact.
The GPO will issue a report Monday (March 2, 2009) from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee titled “U.S. Public Diplomacy–Time to Get Back in the Game” (2.3mb PDF modified to be searchable, see below for a more useful version). It will be the latest in a series of events from the SFRC that includes a resolution recommending changes in security policies that pulled American “libraries”, now known as the by the sterile name “Information Resource Centers”, away from possible users, an op-ed by Senator Lugar at Foreign Policy.com, and a hearing titled Engaging with Muslim Communities Around the World that included testimony from former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former CENTCOM Commander Admiral William J. Fallon testifying, among others.
This is an interesting report with interesting and sensible recommendations. I have made, by permission of the report’s author, a “live” version of the report that is in color and includes clickable URL links. The GPO’s black and white version is a technological “marvel:” they clearly printed out the document then scanned it using a black and white scanner. They did not even make the report text searchable (tech-speak: it is an image-only PDF; will somebody tell the GPO to update their processes?). A “live” report with clickable URLs and color charts and pictures is available here (2.5mb PDF).
“The world today can be much better understood if you think of it from the perspective of regions and not states,” said Gen. Jim Jones
International affairs is increasingly shaped by geography that disregards state boundaries and the primacy of governments. Discussions around America’s ability to operate in this modern reality often ignore the effect bureaucratic structures and cultures.
In the debates over how the State Department will engage foreign publics, lost in the shuffle is how the State Department remains oriented on countries instead of regions. The Department of State needs to become the Department of Non-State if it is to be effective as international affairs transcend the increasingly quaint issues of bilateral diplomacy.
For a variety of reasons, the Department of Defence has increased its role in foreign affairs. Decades ago, at the same time USIA was introduced, State was to have primacy in international affairs. Now it is one member of the interagency collaboration of unequal partners.
The map below gives a clue to an aspect of continuing incompatibility between these two agencies, and suggests an functional division that does not match modern needs. The lack of alignment in three critical area – Africa, Middle East, and South Asia – is one issue. Another, arguably more critical, is not indicated by the map: while Defense looks at regions, State functions at the country level. This is a problem when public affairs officers in one country does not have the same priorities as the PAO in the neighboring country. The greater issue is when the ambassadors in a region do not agree or concur on courses of action.
Source: Depeartment of State http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/65617.pdf
State can, and must, do more to be a partner, or a leader among equals. Authorities at several levels of leaders do not equate across the agencies, the ranks do not match, and resources available fosters real and perceived differences in power to affect change with audiences abroad and domestically.
As collaboration between State and Defense increases, State and Defense must align how they divide up the world and adjust their organizations accordingly. As it is, State should adapt its nineteenth century model to Defense’s model. This means State needs to do some promoting and one elimination. State must get rid of the Under Secretary for Political Affairs and elevate the Assistant Secretaries in charge of each regional bureaus to Under Secretary, making the head of the regional bureau the equivalent of a four-star general and thus a co-equal, by rank, to the Combatant Commander. Whenever a Combatant Commander appears on the Hill, so to should the Regional Under Secretary.
I’ve received some push back on this structure because of the additional reporting to the Secretary of State, but if the Secretary of Defense can have Combatant Commanders report directly to him, why can’t the Secretary of State have Regional Bureaus report directly to here? Let’s flatten the hierarchy and move away from the 19th century alignment. Food for thought: should State instantiate a Joint Chiefs-like entity for an additional advisor?
Sure, Ambassadors would lose some independence as the Bureaus become more powerful as State shifts to a regional view from a country-level view, but this isn’t necessarily a zero-sum. (Side note: regarding Ambassadors, keep in mind that everyone at State and Defense are the President’s representative.)
H/T to DF who scored big time finding the above map.
There’s another blogger conference call – “roundtable” – with the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs tomorrow, Tuesday, 28 October 2008. The focus of the call will be on South America. Jim will probably discuss the public diplomacy / citizen diplomacy within Colombia against FARC.
The official invite:
You are cordially invited to call-in to an on-the-record blogger’s roundtable with Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James K. Glassman on Tuesday, October 28, 2008, at 2 pm EST. During the roundtable, Under Secretary Glassman will provide an update on public diplomacy efforts, with an emphasis on recent efforts and successes in combating terrorist groups in the Western Hemisphere.
Should you wish to join, please RSVP to robertsgf@state.gov, by noon on Monday, October 27, and, if it’s your first roundtable with us, please provide a link to your blog as well as a brief biography of yourself. A link to U/S Glassman’s biography is attached. Because we wish to facilitate a valuable discussion of the issues, we unfortunately need to limit the number of available callers, so please RSVP quickly, as callers will accommodated on a first-come, first served basis.
The number to call and the passcode to enter the conference will be provided to you upon receipt of your RSVP. Also, a transcript will be provided 24 hours after the roundtable.
