US
foreign policy for the 21st Century
Gerard
M. Gallucci & Philip Christenson
Maintaining
US leadership in the 21st
Century no longer means
means having the biggest and best military or seeking to manage all
of the changes that come with globalization. Rather it means
concentrating America's resources on ensuring its domestic economic
and technological strength along with a foreign policy directed at
fundamental national interests including helping to ensure a fair,
open world market. The US can do this with a leaner State Department
operating within a revamped foreign policy apparatus.
As
Washington’s response to events since the Arab “spring”
suggests, the US foreign policy apparatus seems woefully unprepared
for global change driven by competition for economic advantage and
failed political systems. China, India, Brazil and other rising
countries are pushing their economies to grow within the global
market of trade, advanced technology and resource exploitation.
Others remain burdened by poverty and authoritarian and corrupt
political systems and face the difficult choice between unleashing
democratic forces that may bring chaos or finding transitional means
to preserve stability while allowing reform.
The
traditional forms of US power – military, political and economic –
are less relevant and often push Washington to focus on the wrong
things, in the wrong way and at the wrong time. The US fights wars
against “enemies” that it cannot eliminate and contests on
asymmetric terms. It preaches democracy and human rights without
consideration of the complexities of societies – not as privileged
as America – that must somehow make their
way
in a world in which the dominant powers have left them little room to
maneuver. Meanwhile, and as a result too of its own questionable
behavior in Iraq and Guantanamo and with drone warfare, the world
looks less to America for moral guidance.
While
the US economy remains the world's most potent, the resources needed
to maintain leadership in innovation and production are considerable.
America needs to update its infrastructure and education system,
support basic and applied research, develop alternative energy and
invest in retaining the high ground of space exploration. To fund
these efforts, America should look to cost savings from reducing a
bloated and outdated military and intelligence establishment while
refocusing on rapid intervention capabilities to protect direct US
national interests abroad and serve as part of international
peacekeeping operations where necessary. Reducing the US military to
these core missions and ending redundancies in the intelligence
community could gain substantial savings.
Reducing
federal spending has been pushed to the top of the US national
agenda. The defense budget is usually immune to real cuts – the
current sequester notwithstanding – while funding to help prevent
conflict through diplomacy is rarely protected. In the 21st
Century,
national security should be understood to include diplomacy as the
means to avoid and manage conflict and serve national economic and
commercial interests abroad. But the US can
do more diplomacy with less by reforming the policy making process
and changing how its national interests are served abroad.
The
first track would focus on rebalancing the inter-agency process and
streamlining the State Department. The proliferation of special
envoys would end and the traditional role of the core assistant
secretaries be restored. Development of regional expertise would be
emphasized along with priority given to prior experience in the
policy process in choosing senior officials.
The
second track would move away from "universal"
representation by utilizing US Foreign Service assets more
efficiently and looking to alternate forms of US presence abroad.
Alternatives might include conducting bilateral relations with some
countries through an enlarged US Mission to the UN in New York and
centralizing or regionalizing reporting functions. Full-blown
embassies overseas might be limited to areas of special interest –
such as Russia, China, India, Nigeria, Brazil, Western Europe and
Japan. Beyond these, the US presence on the ground could be limited
to that necessary to provide essential consular and business
services.
Track
One: The Washington Foreign Affairs Process
The
Department of State was established in 1789 as the sole federal
agency to support the President in carrying out his responsibility
for foreign affairs. Yet over the past decades, the foreign affairs
establishment has grown to include dozens of agencies and departments
while State's role in leading policy formulation and implementation
has eroded. The inter-agency process – coordinating US objectives
and efforts across the wide range of issues an Administration choses
to prioritize – has become a jungle of working groups in which the
State Department is usually just one player. Participants often come
to interagency meetings chaired by the National Security Council
(NSC) and with each participant having, in effect, an equal voice.
The NSC has few staff of its own and depends on other agencies to
provide personnel. This tends to skew its work toward the
perspectives of the largest, richest agencies and those with special
interests. The NSC presides over what is effectively an example of
typical American interest-group politics.
The
result is a hodgepodge approach to issues that produces, all too
frequently, policies that are little more than postures. The
Department of State – with its experienced staff, expertise and
direct access to personalities, issues and information abroad – is
treated as just another player. Without State leadership of the
interagency process, policy-making is deprived of the executive
branch's greatest resource for achieving a degree of informed
coherence and focus in a timely fashion. Issues often become stuck in
the “interagency” process, requiring senior level “deputies”
involvement or higher to sort out disagreements. The
State assistant secretary should almost always lead the interagency
process to better ensure that those who know the situation best lead
the framing of the issues.
State
has added to its problems by diluting the role of the assistant
secretaries through creation of a herd of special envoys. (Once a
“special” envoy or office is created – often to suggest
“action” on the day’s hot issue without actually formulating
any new policy approach – they never seem to go away.) Special
envoys demand their own staff, their own perks and their own seat at
the table. They may be presented as an effort to bring together the
various USG actors on an issue but often simply add to the confusion
while appeasing outside constituencies. It is also unfortunate that
the choice of assistant secretaries – career and political –
often leaves much to be desired in terms of experience. These jobs
are often seen as political plums or places to recognize the
political importance of special interests. The
President should appoint as assistant secretaries seasoned regional
or functional experts – whether from inside or outside – with
records indicating they are able to carry their weight within State –
including professionally managing their bureaus – and in the
interagency process. The special envoys should go and the number of
assistant secretaries reduced.
State
Department bureaus – especially core regional and functional ones –
can call on hundreds of dedicated and experienced staff. While State
has most often treated its Civil Service staff as second class, they
are a great reservoir of talent and expertise and probably could take
on many of the functions now filled by Foreign Service officers
serving domestically as well as some abroad. In places such as the
Intelligence and Research Bureau (INR), but also on country and
functional desks, State should develop and reward those willing to
spend a career working on – and gaining in-depth knowledge of –
one region or issue set. The CIA used to have a cadre of subject
matter experts on the analytic side. But it has come to see its
people as inter-changeable parts and has eroded its expertise by
moving staff around rather than allowing them to do one thing but
that one thing well. State should not follow this pattern. Also, much
of the State Department's reporting functions now carried out abroad
could be more efficiently done by domestically based subject-matter
experts. The wide availability of information – obtained through
open sources and intelligence – plus the power of centrally
available analytic tools in the hands of those properly trained means
many reporting positions now abroad can be kept in Washington.
State's contribution to
foreign policy formulation and implementation would improve by
cultivating subject matter experts and putting them to work at the
headquarters level.
Track
Two: The US Government Abroad
State
follows two traditional approaches that have outlasted their
usefulness: officers writing dispatches from abroad and the rule of
"universality" requiring a US presence in all foreign
states with which it has relations. Adherence to the first is mostly
a matter of habit. In the 19th
and
20th
Centuries,
political officers went abroad to observe foreign parts and send
reports back across the ocean to the country desks. The major
innovation was the use of the telegraph. (Even now, State officers
send their email reports in cable form.) But while it remains useful
to have eyes on the ground in places where US interests are most in
play, in many others there is little reason to have a highly trained
and expensive foreign service officer work to provide information and
insight already available through Google or intelligence agencies.
This is true for those covering economic matters as well as
political. Also, there would seem to be only a limited number of
instances where US national interest requires labor, environmental or
human rights watchers on the ground. (Their public output – such as
the yearly Human Rights Reports – have come to seen as intrusions
into the domestic affairs of other states and may cost America more
influence than gained.) State
should look to reducing the number of reporting officers abroad and
either abolishing or relocating many of these back to Washington.
Other US non-military or non-intelligence agencies should be required
to zero-base their overseas presence and justify positions they
request through the State Department at least every five years.
“Universality”
is an anachronism in an age where communications is instantaneous and
travel quick and affordable. One may argue that US has a
responsibility to treat all states equally and therefore must be
physically present everywhere. Physical presence also might also be
seen to facilitate lobbying each state with a seat in the UN and
other international organizations where the votes are equal whatever
the size of a country. “Universality” also reflects America's
eagerness to instruct the many governments and bodies that make up
the international community on what Washington believes to be the
proper norms and objectives of their behavior, domestic and
international. However, the need to look to budget savings provides
an opportunity to reconsider “universality” from the ground up.
Why
be abroad?
In
truth, in most places around the world, little exists of direct
interest to the US beyond those votes in international organizations.
What does directly affect US interests can be sifted out through
skimming the world's media. The actual effects of negative events in
far distant places travels slower than the electronic media will
carry word out of potential problems.
This
is not an augment for isolationism, least of all for the US, the
world's chief status quo power. The world is increasingly an
interconnected whole and threats to international peace and security
can easily become problems at “home.” The US economy rests on
imports and exports. The well-being and life-style of the average
American depends on both foreign workers and customers. Also, as the
world becomes more violent from ethnic, tribal, racial, religious,
economic and ideological strife, it becomes more unsafe for everyone,
Americans too. There is no sure way to keep violence from anyone's
shores. Prudence dictates making some effort to minimize violence and
causes of violence and to assist less developed regions attain at
least a moderate rate of economic growth and prosperity. This
requires a foreign policy that goes beyond immediate security and
commercial interests.
The
real reason to looking afresh at how and where America conducts it
foreign relations is more mundane: It must be asked whether Americans
can do foreign policy well enough? Simply because it would be prudent
to have foreign policy does not mean that the US is capable of doing
it. George Kennan long ago noted the pernicious – and apparently
unavoidable – effects of domestic politics on America's ability to
formulate and carry out effective and consistent foreign policy. The
relationship between American foreign policy and its domestic
politics is inescapable. The result is that often the US acts abroad
as if it were ignorant of the dreams, hopes, problems and realities
of anybody except itself and its friends.
America
often seems unable to conceive of the world as others see it and
therefore to balance its own capabilities and objectives against what
others may want and be able to do. Too often, the US insists on
acting either unilaterally or as the leader of “coalitions” of
those willing to do things its
way.
America seems unable to act in the international community as part
of
that community. Washington's ability to influence events beyond its
own borders has waned as the rest of the world has grown increasingly
tired of America acting as arrogant preacher and ill-informed bully.
Given
the perhaps inescapable inability of the US to do foreign policy
well, it is not at all clear who
benefits
from US representation everywhere. Rather than increase the
understanding between peoples, America's overseas diplomatic presence
– however “brilliant” the reporting may be – seems merely to
ensure that it rubs in the face of the locals Washington's own
ignorance and inattention to their interests.
The
question for the US then becomes how does it most effectively
interact in furtherance of its own interest in peace, stability, open
commerce and economic growth with the rest of the world? More
practically, what sort of overseas presence – if any – is most
effective in furthering these interests and what are the alternatives
to the present system of embassies and staffs in the entire
“universe” of countries? Having an embassy in some far distant,
otherwise forgotten place may do little good for anyone. It is also,
increasingly, not always safe.
The
US may not in every case be giving or getting sufficient value to
merit the costs of being abroad. Therefore, the case for an American
presence may best be made case-by-case. Alternatives to handling
bi-lateral and multi-lateral relations through a universal network of
embassies and ambassadors exist.
Is
there another way?
Americans
travel and do business across almost the entire globe. They expect
protection and help. Also, it remains necessary to work with foreign
governments on the various forms of trans-border challenges including
terrorism and crime. Thus some American diplomatic, consular and
other officials will remain abroad to render emergency services to
Americans, give visas, assist American business and businesspeople,
enlist local assistance in combating terrorism and international
criminal activity and realize specific, targeted objectives of US
developmental assistance. These should be the core objectives of
American missions abroad and if the local situation does not require
such involvement – or allow it to be successful or secure – than
the US should adjust its representation accordingly. Where
a US presence does not meet these requirements, it should be
withdrawn or downsized.
Relations
with some powers – America's nearest neighbors, closest allies and
chief trading partners – still merit a full diplomatic presence. US
interests are too vital and varied for it to be absent and Washington
may require more insight into local politics and economics than other
sources can regularly supply. But on close examination, these places
may be few.
There
are alternative venues for carrying out the traditional requirements
of relations between states. The UN is a "congress" of
sovereign states from around the globe. Many smaller states already
co-credit their ambassador to the UN also to the US. The UN General
Assembly offers a natural forum for US participation in world
affairs. The US could use a somewhat enlarged Mission to the UN to
conduct bilateral relations with as many countries as did not merit
ambassadorial relations in their capitals. The US could also look to
increased use of regional centers with ambassadors or other
diplomatic representatives accredited to various countries to be
visited as useful. Where the US has vital economic or commercial
interests, or in places of significant or frequent American presence,
a consulate or consular agency might suffice. In some places, a
regional or roving consular/commercial officer might be enough. But
State too should zero-base its overseas presence and present a
results-based proposal for where it stations staff abroad and for
what purposes. It would seem a priori that such a proposal would not
need to embrace universal presence.
The
Foreign Service
The
Foreign Service should be considered the front-line force of
America's non-military capability abroad. The comparative advantage
of the FSO is readiness to serve abroad and the expertise and
knowledge gained over time that enables him or her to provide
information and insight not available through other means. As a
limited resource, they should be deployed as and where necessary.
Foreign Service officers should expect to serve most of their careers
abroad leaving the great majority of domestic positions to
subject-matter experts at headquarters. Only the commitment to
continued service abroad justifies the special allowances and
emoluments they should receive in compensation for living far from
home and in often difficult circumstances. To develop the in-depth
expertise and knowledge necessary to be most effective, the foreign
service officer should spend most of his or her career – up to the
threshold of the senior service – working in a particular region
and a particular functional area. At the mid-level, some of the best
might also be assigned to quick-reaction teams to respond to
immediate requirements for special diplomatic missions or to
supplement field presences facing unexpected demands. State
should restructure training and assignment procedures to focus on a
smaller, better equipped cadre of FSOs dedicated to becoming subject
matter experts serving abroad.
Smart-sized
America
retains the great preponderance of the world's hard power through its
imposing military and economy. The US also possesses untapped
resources of soft power in that it speaks the world language, prints
the world's money and defines the 21st
Century
lifestyle of prosperity and freedom the majority of the world
desires. The effort to reinvigorate US foreign policy through
restructuring at home and concentrating its presence abroad offers an
opportunity to reduce costs while improving how American interests
are served abroad. The US – and the world – needs a lean and
focused State Department providing leadership and expertise to make
American hard and soft power smarter.
