Posts Tagged ‘ Diplomacy ’

Obama Finds His Voice – And America’s

Friday, September 24th, 2010
Will Marshall


Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Will Marshall

Ordinarily, U.S. presidents don’t make headlines by extolling liberty and democracy before an international audience. But when President Obama did just that yesterday at the United Nations, it signaled a welcome shift from his previous reticence on these themes.

Here’s the key passage:

Yet experience shows us that history is on the side of liberty; that the strongest foundation for human progress lies in open economies, open societies, and open governments. To put it simply, democracy, more than any other form of government, delivers for our citizens. And I believe that truth will only grow stronger in a world where the borders between nations are blurred.

For sure, in his 2009 Cairo speech and elsewhere, the President has argued that individual freedom and democracy are universal aspirations. But in general, the administration’s voice has often seemed muted when it comes to standing up for liberal values.

Critics, for example, have cited Obama’s apparent downgrading of human rights in relations with China; U.S. eagerness to “reset” relations with Russia even as that country slides back into authoritarianism; and, the White House’s failure to offer full-throated support to Iran’s “green” movement which arose in protest over a rigged 2009 election.

The administration’s ambivalence about America’s responsibility to abet the spread of liberal democracy is no mystery. It’s a reaction to George W. Bush’s ill-conceived “freedom agenda”, which seemed to conflate U. S. democracy promotion with the use of force in Iraq and threats of “regime change” in hostile countries like Iran and North Korea. Bush’s unmodulated, even messianic, rhetoric about supporting democratic revolutions everywhere rattled America’s foes but also unnerved our friends as well.

President Obama has devoted his first two years to reassuring the world that America is returning to its tradition of cooperative internationalism, and he’s largely succeeded.  The U.S. “brand” has been refurbished and America’s global approval ratings have risen.

But in rectifying its predecessor’s mistakes, this administration sometimes leaned too far in the opposition direction. At times it seemed to embrace foreign policy “realism”, which emphasizes material interests and geopolitics and downplays the role of political values and structures in shaping countries’ international conduct.  In a telling omission, the administration has organized its foreign policy around the “three Ds” – diplomacy, development and defense – conspicuously excluding a fourth D for democracy.

But realism is antithetical to liberalism, which is why it has been most often associated with Republicans like Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft. From Woodrow Wilson’s day on, Democrats have argued that America can best advance its interests and ideals by throwing her weight on the side of individual rights, economic freedom and democracy. Their guiding philosophy is not realism but liberal internationalism, which holds that a freer world is a safer, more prosperous world.

Obama seemed to reaffirm that outlook yesterday. At the same time, the President continued to be clear that his administration’s approach to supporting democracy would be nothing like Bush’s. Picking up a theme introduced in recent speeches by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he promised greater U.S. support for embattled civil society organizations in authoritarian countries.

Finally, Obama stressed that promoting democracy is not something America should do unilaterally, but in concert with new democracies as well as old allies. That was a pointed challenge to countries like South Africa and some Latin American countries, who have been reluctant to speak out against human rights abuses and tyrannical rule in their own neighborhoods.

In all, it was an important speech that realigned U.S. foreign policy with core values that have defined it at its best, and led to its greatest triumphs.

photo credit: transplanted mountaineer

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Confronting Iran: The Case for Targeted Sanctions

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
Pirooz Hamvatan


Pirooz Hamvatan is the pseudonym for a Washington, D.C.-based analyst focusing on Iranian domestic and security issues.

Ali K


Ali K is currently a business student in the U.S. and a supporter of Iran’s Green Movement who was severely beaten by the Basij militia during a peaceful demonstration in Tehran last year.

by Pirooz Hamvatan and Ali K

The following is a guest column from Pirooz Hamvatan, a pseudonym for a Washington, D.C.-based analyst focusing on Iranian domestic and security issues, and Ali K., currently a business student in the U.S. and a supporter of Iran’s Green Movement who was severely beaten by the Basij militia during a peaceful demonstration in Tehran last year.

Congress is on the verge of sending a petroleum sanctions bill to President Obama that has wide bipartisan support in Congress. But far from posing a serious challenge to the regime, the bill could in fact inadvertently undermine long-term U.S. interests by weakening the Iranian civil rights movement and strengthening President Ahmadinejad and his cronies.

The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2009, currently in conference committee, will direct the president to impose sanctions on any entity providing Iran with “refined petroleum products” worth $200,000 or more per transaction, or $1 million per year. The bill defines refined petroleum products to include diesel, gasoline, jet fuel and aviation gasoline.

The new bill aims to cripple Iran’s economy in response to Iran’s refusal to halt its nuclear program. But the sanctions being proposed are not the right answer. Such a sweeping measure would end up only hurting ordinary Iranians, especially the middle class that the U.S. must shore up to improve Iran’s chances for reform.

Instead, our top priority should be helping to increase the space for the Iranian civil rights movement. That means moving beyond the limited focus on “solving” the nuclear issue. An Iranian government that is more accountable to — and representative of — its moderate majority would not pose a security threat to the U.S. and its allies. Rather than heavy-handed sanctions, the Obama administration should consider restrictions that are more targeted, which would hit the ruling regime where it hurts, and increase the possibility of change from within.

The Wrong Path

Introduced in the House by Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) and in the Senate by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), the sanctions bill currently in conference aims to limit Iran’s access to gasoline in the hopes that the suffering population will pressure the regime to give in to Western demands. But if the end goal is to induce Iran to be a more responsible regional actor that doesn’t threaten U.S. security interests, then petroleum sanctions are likely to achieve the opposite effect.

Just look at the experience of the last couple of decades. In 1995, in response to Iranian pursuit of nuclear technology and support of terrorism, President Clinton issued two executive orders prohibiting American investment in Iran’s energy sector and banning U.S. imports of most Iranian goods. The following year, Congress passed the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (PDF), calling for sanctions on foreign firms investing more than $20 million per year in Iran’s energy sector. Although such measures have impeded the development of Iran’s economy, they have not caused the Islamic Republic to change course on its nuclear program or its funding of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. In fact, in order to achieve their foreign policy and domestic goals, Iran’s leaders have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to let the Iranian people suffer.

Just as important, history has shown that crippling sanctions undermine the middle class — the very people who are the backbone of civil society and the voices of moderation. International sanctions on Iraq weakened its population, making them more reliant on, and more vulnerable to, Saddam Hussein’s regime. Gasoline sanctions on Iran could have a similar effect, exacerbating inflation, lowering the quality of life for the middle class and pushing more people below the poverty line.

Gasoline sanctions would also distract Iranians from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s own mismanagement of the economy — an important issue mobilizing people around the Green Movement — and divert blame to the U.S. Iran is already facing a 20-percent inflation rate, a crippled domestic industry, unemployment of over 11 percent (with 24 percent of 15-to-24 year-olds unemployed), and one of the worst rates of brain drain in the world. Many Iranians are still seething over the fact that, since becoming president in 2005, Ahmadinejad squandered unprecedented oil revenues that the Islamic Republic accrued as a result of high world oil prices. Amid all of this, Ahmadinejad has backed a controversial measure that would phase out government subsidies on gasoline and is likely to increase inflation. The Iranian people are already facing enough hardship without the U.S. adding to their woes and diminishing the pro-American sentiments of a wide array of Iranians.

Nor will the sanctions loosen the regime’s grip on power. Ahmadinejad’s faction would, in fact, fare better than the majority of the populace. Masters of smuggling, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members would still be able to bring in gasoline through Iran’s porous borders, perversely enriching themselves even more.

The Right Path

But if broad sanctions are a heavy-handed tool that could only risk the development of Iran’s civil rights movement, what options do U.S. policy makers have to challenge the regime?

A preferred approach would be something more targeted against those responsible for Iran’s actions: the members of the ruling regime. Congress should consider the following:

  • Pass a bill calling on the U.S. State Department to identify Iranian human rights abusers (primarily from within the Revolutionary Guards; the Basij, the regime’s volunteer militia; and the judiciary) and impose travel bans on them. The bill should also seek the cooperation of our allies in enforcing the ban as widely as possible and place pressure on key countries like Dubai to block entry to these individuals. The list of targeted offenders should be made public in order to show the Iranian people that the U.S. is on their side.
  • Pass a measure calling for human rights abusers’ assets to be frozen. Because Iranian officials have gone to great lengths to distance themselves from the U.S. financial system, the U.S. Treasury may not have much of a role to play here. Rather, such a measure would simply be a first step in convincing banks in Europe and the United Arab Emirates — where many regime insiders’ assets are squirreled away — to enforce restrictions.

What specific effect will travel bans have on hardline officials and their mid-ranking employees? Besides being a major inconvenience, it would hurt their pocketbooks. This is because a large number of these individuals have side-businesses in which they smuggle goods from places like Dubai, Thailand, Indonesia and Syria — buying, for example, electronic goods and bringing them back to Iran through Revolutionary Guard-controlled customs stations without having to pay import duties. They then sell these goods at highly marked-up prices in the isolated Iranian market. A strictly enforced travel ban — including on individuals working for these human rights abusers’ front companies — would close off a lucrative source of income.

To be clear, the overall intent of this plan is not necessarily to deal a significant economic blow to the entire hardline establishment — that would be next to impossible. Neither will it convince, in the short term, current Iranian leaders to change course on the nuclear program — no outside pressure will. Rather the strategy is to increase the disincentives for individuals to participate in or condone oppressive behavior, with the goal of helping the Green Movement flourish.

At the same time, it is important not to target certain high level officials who may have the capacity to play a role in moving Iran toward reform. For instance, while it may be justified to sanction Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani for allowing hardliners to abuse Iran’s legal system to persecute reformers, his brother Ali Larijani — the pragmatic conservative Speaker of Parliament and bitter Ahmadinejad rival — has not been complicit in human rights abuses, and thus should not be snared by the sanctions net. This nuanced targeting will send a signal to the regime’s officials that they will be left alone if they refrain from abusing their fellow citizens.

Moreover, certain Iranian leaders are sensitive to international accusations of human rights abuses. This is not for altruistic reasons, but because they want the Islamic Republic to be seen as a role model to the Islamic world, and not simply another run-of-the-mill Middle Eastern dictatorship.

To be sure, human rights sanctions alone may not alleviate the pressure currently being placed on Iran’s Green Movement. Regime hardliners could blame the U.S. for fomenting post-election unrest and paint Iran’s dissidents as Western spies. Republican Guard members and Basijis could continue their human rights abuses regardless of travel bans and asset freezes. But that is the status quo in Iran. There is little cost to the U.S. if human rights sanctions don’t work — and much to gain if they do.

A Broader, Pro-Reform Agenda

Human rights sanctions are not a silver bullet. They will not bring the regime to its knees. But neither will gasoline sanctions. Fortunately, it appears that the Obama administration is asking Congress to slow down its push for unilateral gasoline sanctions as the U.N. Security Council deliberates over its own sanctions during the next few months. Meanwhile, targeted sanctions against human rights abusers is being pushed by Sen. John McCain, though not as stand-alone legislation but as an amendment to the flawed gas sanctions bill.

A human rights sanctions package can be an effective part of a broader effort to help Iran’s Green Movement chart its own course toward a better future for Iranians. Other essential pieces to this strategy would include:

  • Rep. Jim Moran’s (D-VA) Iranian Digital Empowerment Act, which seeks to help get information-sharing software and filter-breaking technology into the hands of Iranian reformers.
  • Rep. Keith Ellison’s (D-MN) Stand With the Iranian People Act, which (in addition to calling for human rights abusers to be sanctioned) calls for suspension of U.S. government funding to entities that sell censorship and surveillance equipment to the regime, and seeks to ease restrictions on American charities that want to work in Iran.

Bills focusing on the Islamic Republic’s human rights abuses have an excellent chance of passing in Congress because they are politically appealing — they help legislators look tough on national security while promoting American values of freedom and democracy. Moreover, they avoid the danger that is inherent with sweeping economic sanctions: that of harming the people they were intended to help.

Moreover, U.S. passage of human rights sanctions could lead allies in Europe to follow suit. Although the U.N. Security Council is unlikely to do so — China and Russia are adamantly opposed to interfering in others’ domestic affairs — if the U.S. and European allies banded together to pressure countries like Dubai to enforce travel bans, sanctions would have a greater chance of success.

In the end, it is important to remember that the members of the Green Movement are fighting for reform within the Islamic Republic system. Their demands include an independent electoral commission, the release of all political prisoners and freedom of speech. Acknowledging that it is up to the Iranian people to chart their own course, the U.S. can best protect its own security interests by helping to level the playing field in Iran, allowing the moderate, peace-loving majority of Iranians to continue their journey toward a better future for their country and the broader Middle East.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Progressive Policy Institute.

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The Five Most Ridiculous Conservative Statements About Obama’s Nuclear Policy

Friday, April 9th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

The other day, I wrote a column about how the president’s focus on nuclear weapons was a solid opportunity to finally achieve some bipartisanship. I won’t rehash those arguments here, but I encourage you to read the piece. Much of the conservative intelligentsia actually agrees with me, and some have noted that any objections to the president’s moves are simply rooted in politics because there is “no substantive disagreement with what Obama has done.” But that hasn’t stopped some from favoring politics over good governance and — as Kevin Sullivan at RCW points out – start a new “silly season.”

So here, friends, are the five most ridiculous conservative lines about this week’s focus on nuclear security:

5. “[T]he real threat today is proliferation and terrorism. This treaty, of course, doesn’t have anything to do with that.” – Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

Au contraire — the New START has EVERYTHING to do with proliferation and terrorism. The key to convincing the Irans, North Koreas and Pakistans of the world that building and/or selling nuclear weapons isn’t necessary is to have demonstrable proof that the big nuclear nations are serious about arms control themselves. So we have to start (no pun intended) with the idea that the U.S. and Russia are making a real commitment to limit their own arsenals over time. Don’t expect Tehran and Pyongyang to bite on this immediately, but this is a decades-long project and New START is a good step in this direction.

4. “[W]e don’t need the treaty, we are willing to do these things unilaterally and the Russians will probably do it unilaterally themselves.” — Doug Feith, former Bush Undersecretary of Defense for Policy

Okay, fair enough…maybe both sides would do things unilaterally. But when I bought my house, I felt a lot better knowing the terms of the deal were actually written down. Feith spent a good chunk of his career negotiating arms control treaties for a living, so it’s curious why he’d slap down his former profession. Also, see #5 again.

3. “A friendly reality check for exuberant Democrats on the first day of the Nuclear-Zero Pax Obama — this treaty is almost certainly dead on arrival.” – Michael Goldfarb, Weekly Standard

Actually, Michael, I don’t think it is. Here‘s Sen. Richard Lugar (IN), the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee: ”I remain hopeful that it will be signed and that there will be time assigned on the floor for debate and a vote this year.” And here‘s Henry Kissinger and George Shultz supporting it, too. Ratification will be a tough fight — two-thirds of the Senate is needed — but it’s hardly DOA.

2. “Does anyone think that the Obama administration will use force — much less nuclear force — against Iran? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad certainly doesn’t, to judge by his reaction to the Nuclear Posture Review.” — Max Boot, Commentary

Actually, I think Ahmadinejad does. Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons program over the last decade is the act of a country that’s convinced America would use force against it. After all, we’ve only invaded both of their next-door neighbors. Obama’s nuclear policy only isolates Iran more. Boot says that Robert Gates’ assertion that all options are on the table against Iran is not true. But actions speak louder than words. Judging by Iran’s actions, they still seem pretty convinced of America’s willingness to use force, Ahmadinejad’s bluster notwithstanding.

1. “(Our response is then restricted to bullets, bombs, and other conventional munitions.)” – Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post

Boasting more nonsense than a Phish show, Krauthammer’s piece imagines a scenario where hundreds of Americans are dead due to a nerve gas attack in Boston. Then he claims that the new Nuclear Posture Review ties the U.S. president’s hands because America couldn’t respond with a nuclear strike, and would have to — sigh – respond with just bullets, bombs and the like. Yeah, that’s right – apparently, the only good deterrent is a nuclear one. Really, why would anyone be scared of a conventional military that spends more on bullets, ICBMs and other conventional weapons than the rest of the world combined?

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Iran’s Role in Iraq

Friday, April 2nd, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

Tom Ricks, author of Fiasco and The Gamble, the two definitive contemporary histories of the Iraq War, has long said that Iran has been the biggest winner since Shock and Awe.

I’ve always been inclined to agree with him, even if there was scant overt evidence to support the claim. Sure, the U.S. military would parade allegedly Iranian-made explosives out to the media to “prove” Tehran’s support of Shi’ite Iraqi militias. And it has long been assumed that the leading figure of those Shi’ite militias, Muqtada al-Sadr, put his tail between his legs and decamped to Iran as soon as the U.S. figured out what it was doing in Baghdad. But for the first time, we have unquestionable evidence of Iran’s waxing influence on the new Iraqi government: They invited (almost all of) them over to play. Or their Shi’ite cousins anyway:

The ink was hardly dry on the polling results when three of the four major political alliances rushed delegations off to Tehran. Yet none of them sent anyone to the United States Embassy here, let alone to Washington. … The Iranians, however, have shown no such qualms, publicly urging the Shiite religious parties to bury their differences so they can use their superior numbers to choose the next prime minister. Their openness, and Washington’s reticence, is a measure of the changed political dynamic in Iraq.

The uninvited fourth major political party was Iraqiya, the largest vote-getter in last month’s election, a largely Sunni party (headed by Ayad Allawi, a secular Shia), which has the first crack at forming a government with Allawi as the new prime minister. This is, of course, provided they can stave off the latest round of politically motivated witch-hunting. Incumbent PM Nouri al-Maliki is fighting for his political life, and has come out swinging. He’s trying to make it as difficult as possible for Iraqiya to capitalize on its victory by having the national election commission — a body Maliki essentially controls — begin to disqualify other Iraqiya candidates on the shaky grounds that they were members of Saddam Hussein’s old Ba’ath Party. When combined with Iran’s efforts to broker peace between the Shi’ite parties, this is the best hope Tehran has of getting a large, friendly, Shi’ite majority and prime minister in Baghdad.

Will it work? It’s obviously way too early to say. The U.S. is trying to toe a razor thin line between respecting a democratic process they created and cultivating the new government (no matter who runs it) against Iranian influence. But while Tehran’s overtures are worrisome to say the least, the U.S. will continue to hold plenty of cards in the poker game of Iraqi politics. That’s because if Mr. Allawi isn’t the next prime minister, the current one will be.

That leads to two consoling final thoughts: the U.S. will continue to have strong pull with whoever is in charge, and is legally scheduled to get out anyway. In essence, Iran’s influence may be increasing, but that doesn’t mean it’s coming at the expense of America’s.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/ / CC BY 2.0

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Human Rights Really Is the Key

Friday, February 5th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

Here I sit in my soon-to-be snowbound DC office, preparing for the certain doom that lurks behind the next menacing cloud. I should be standing in line with 542 of my neighbors at Safeway, buying two weeks’ worth of bread, milk, frozen pizzas, and Miller Lites for this 36-hour storm, but instead, I’m too busy brooding on the notion that the Obama administration has to do a better job on human rights.

A few days ago on Iranian television, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad let it slip that after months of heel-dragging, outright refusal, and/or disinterest, he was suddenly intrigued by a long-dead international uranium swap, designed to remove low-enriched uranium from Iran in exchange for higher-enriched uranium needed by Iran’s medical facilities. I’m brushing over the details, but the goal of the exchange was to provide Iran with uranium required for humanitarian purposes while denying Tehran the practice of performing the enrichment — an experience that could be applied to making a nuclear bomb.

Ahmadinejad isn’t really serious about suddenly embracing the international community’s offer, of course. But by appearing interested in continuing dialogue, Iran was attempting to drive a wedge between members of the UN Security Council as talk of new sanctions against the regime are discussed. Guess what? It’s working. China, a veto-wielding member of the Security Council that isn’t too hot on punishing a fellow despotic regime, has reacted positively to Ahmadinejad’s overtures, calling any discussion of sanctions now premature in light of a possible diplomatic solution.

It’s a critical juncture — any diplomat worth his salt knows that the international community shouldn’t back away, but should keep pushing sanctions to force Tehran to prove its seriousness. But China is letting them off the hook. Why? In part, it’s because China has the U.S. back on its heels.

Consider two recent events: The U.S. agreed to sell $6.4 billion of military equipment to Taiwan, and President Obama set a meeting with the Dalai Lama. The Chinese continue to warn that such actions endanger U.S.-China relations and they profess to be deeply offended. The pattern of events is clear — the U.S. does something, China gets offended, and the U.S. is thrown on its heels.

It’s time to level the playing field. Instead of having to explain or apologize for American actions, the Obama adminstration should knock China off the offensive by opening another diplomatic front: human rights. Every time China is offended for something we’ve done, the Obama administration has to hit right back, and hard, about China’s disregard for basic rights and freedoms. Secretary Clinton’s speech on Internet freedom was a good start, but the issue needs to be highlighted every time the Chinese take offense at an American decision. It puts China on the defensive by having to explain their actions, and would free the White House to pressure China on other issues, like Iran – another candidate for the same human rights treatment.

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Restructuring the State Department From Within

Sunday, January 24th, 2010
Steven Chlapecka


Steven K. Chlapecka is the director of public affairs for the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Steven Chlapecka

Matt Armstrong discusses some of the challenges facing the U.S. Department of State in the globalized world and his recent PPI memo, State of State: A Proposal for Reorganization at Foggy Bottom, with Pete Dominick at StandUp! at XM/Sirius radio.

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Haiti, Nation-Building, and Soft Power

Monday, January 18th, 2010
Scott Winship


Scott Winship is research manager of the Pew Economic Mobility Project and a recent graduate of Harvard's doctoral program in social policy. The views he expresses do not represent those of Pew.

by Scott Winship

I am minimally qualified to comment on the crisis in Haiti, but one of Talking Points Memo‘s readers has what sounds to me like an important perspective on American involvement in reconstructing the country over the coming years (not months). Since Haiti is in our backyard, the reader says, we will have to assume nation-building efforts on the scale of Iraq or Afghanistan if Haiti is not to devolve into chaos.

I’m sure Jim will have much sharper thoughts on all of this, but I’ll just throw out there the suggestion that the great tragedy before us presents at least one silver lining — it gives us an opportunity to gain valuable experience in nation-building, and to do so in a context where our help is viewed gratefully rather than resentfully.

If soft power and nation-building are to become increasingly important in foreign policy to avoid the prospect of failed states (or to address actually existing failed states), then the United States must not only repair its image as a hegemonic bull in a china shop, but it must show that we can actually produce an unambiguously good reconstruction. Simply, we need to be trusted and seen as effective. I don’t think it’s too controversial to say that we’re not exactly effusing these qualities today when it comes to our nation-building efforts.

Of course, our efforts could go badly in Haiti, which would be another setback for us. But what alternative do we have than to hope for the best?

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The State of State: A Proposal for Reorganization at Foggy Bottom

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Matt Armstrong


Matt Armstrong is an advisor and consultant on public diplomacy and strategic communication to the Departments of Defense and State, Congress, NATO and others. He is a principal with Armstrong Strategic Insights Group, LLC, and publishes the blog www.MountainRunner.us.

by Matt Armstrong

The State of StateDownload the full report.

The past decade has seen the U.S. government expand its activities around the globe in response to complex and stateless threats. In the face of these challenges, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, and members of Congress have all called for increasing the resources and capabilities of the State Department to roll back what Gates has termed the “creeping militarization” of foreign policy. But efforts at reform are hindered by an institutional structure rooted in a 19th-century view of the world.

The days of traditional diplomacy conducted behind closed doors are over. The democratization of information and means of destruction makes a kid with a keyboard potentially more dangerous than an F-22. Addressing poverty, pandemics, resource security, and terrorism requires multilateral and dynamic partnerships with governments and publics. But the State Department has yet to adapt to the new context of global engagement. The diverse threats that confront the U.S. and our allies cannot be managed through a country-centric approach. For State to be effective and relevant, it needs to evolve and become both a Department of State and Non-State.

Currently, State’s structure impedes its efforts to develop coherent responses to pressing threats. The vesting of authority in U.S. embassies too often complicates interagency and pan-regional coordination and inhibits the effective request for and distribution of resources. No less significant, the structure also implicitly empowers the Defense Department’s regionally focused combatant commands, like Central Command, as alternatives to the State Department. Compounded by years of managerial neglect, and a lack of long-term vision, strategic planning, and budgeting, the State Department requires high-level patches and workarounds to do its job adequately.

State’s ineffectiveness has created voids filled by other agencies, notably the Pentagon. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) has also sought to move in on the space left by State. USDA in late 2009 asked that funds be transferred from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and State Department for projects in Afghanistan. Such a move would further dilute State’s efficacy, sow confusion, and widen gaps between requirements and actions in foreign policy.

Fixing the Old Hierarchy

The last major reorganization of the State Department was in 1944. That reshuffling was internally driven, and today’s change could occur within the bureaucracy’s walls as well. But the complexity of the department today likely requires a major realignment of fundamentals, something on the order of magnitude of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. That landmark legislation shifted the Defense Department’s operational focus from the services (Army, Navy, Air Force) to the regional commands (Central Command, Pacific Command, etc.).

Foggy Bottom’s regional bureaus are, on their face, like the Defense Department’s combatant commands. But in reality, they are merely support staff for the embassies (the “country teams”). If Defense were to mimic State’s structure, it would be akin to making European Command subservient to individual U.S. military bases in Europe.

Each of State’s regional bureaus are led by an assistant secretary who reports to the under secretary for political affairs. (The under secretary also has other responsibilities, such as overseeing development and implementation of U.S. government policies with the United Nations and its affiliated agencies, as well as the fight against international narcotics and crime.) The under secretary, in turn, reports to the Secretary of State. By contrast, the combatant commander, the assistant secretary’s ostensible counterpart in Defense, has a direct line to the Secretary of Defense.1

The State Department’s hierarchy was fine for another era when issues were confined within state borders by local authority, geography, and technology. But in recent years, the structure’s flaws have become conspicuous. The department’s ability to respond to crisis is fragmented and sclerotic. When successes do happen, they tend to be the result of individuals working around or outside the bureaucracy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has circumvented the current system with crisis-specific czars called Special Representatives. These Special Representatives, like Richard Holbrooke for Afghanistan and Pakistan, operate like super ambassadors with regional powers that should reside – but don’t – in the regional bureaus.2

For State to be a viable national security actor, the old hierarchy must be flattened and power should be redistributed. It is hard to imagine isolating a combatant commander by reducing his rank to three-star general and having him report to a four-star general – who then decides what the Secretary of Defense should be bothered with.

Why do we allow such a structure at State? Instead, each regional bureau should be empowered with leadership from a dedicated under secretary who reports directly to the secretary. This would make regional bureau leadership functionally equivalent to combatant commanders in rank and access to senior leadership.

Recalibrating the leadership would help build congressional confidence toward increasing State’s resources, enhance the department’s interagency role, facilitate integration as interagency authorities are matched up, and ultimately begin a shift toward greater balance between State and Defense. The regional bureau under secretaries would act and be seen as the high-level authorities that the U.S. requires, and likely become viable alternatives to the combatant commanders.

The geographic breakdowns of the State Department and the Defense Department must also be synchronized to facilitate greater government coordination. State’s six regional bureaus – Western Hemisphere, European and Eurasian, Near Eastern, African, South and Central Asian, and East Asian and Pacific – only loosely align with the seven combatant commands (the Pentagon splits the Western Hemisphere into two commands).

There are a few, but significant, differences. For example, the State Department includes North Africa in its Near East Bureau, while Central Command, which covers the Middle East, includes only Egypt among North African countries (Libya, Algeria, and Morocco, among others, fall under the African Command). Another difference: the Near East Bureau’s eastern border is Iran, and thus does not include Afghanistan, Pakistan, or the other -stans, which fall under the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs; all those countries fall under Centcom in the Defense Department.

The under secretaries, like the Defense Department’s combatant commander, must be career officers. These positions require tremendous depth of experience within the State Department and across agencies and should not be politically appointed.

Some critics opposed to empowering the regional bureaus argue that only the ambassador can serve as the president’s personal envoy. Besides implying that the rest of the State Department does not represent the president, the distinction is a historical artifact from a time when communications were slow. Each regional bureau under secretary should be empowered with the same plenipotentiary authority to represent the president that America’s ambassadors possess.

The creation of new regional under secretaries should prompt the reevaluation of other under secretary and assistant secretary offices. Certainly the under secretary for political affairs, to whom the geographic bureaus would no longer report, should be downgraded. There will certainly be a ripple effect as roles and responsibilities are shifted and realigned.

To be clear, a macro-regional design must not result in the elimination of embassies or consular posts, or any other reduction in physical, diplomatic (public or traditional) presence abroad. Some may argue that international postings are redundant in an interconnected era, but any such drawdown would be a massive blow to our public diplomacy, as studies have shown that connectivity in the virtual world is stronger when reinforced by real-world interactions.3

Climbing the Hill

As with Goldwater-Nichols, Congress will likely need to be involved in any major shake-up of the State Department. But unlike the Pentagon, State has not actively cultivated and engaged key Hill leadership or staffs. The historic lack of communication between State and Congress is emblematized by the fact that State has one congressional liaison office on Capitol Hill (in the basement of a House office building) whereas the Defense Department has eight (four on the Senate side and four on the House side). The relationship between the Defense Department and the Armed Services Committees is substantially more interactive than that of the State Department and the relevant committees. As a result, the State Department is essentially a black box of unknown workings and products, inhibiting the cultivation of a congressional constituency.

Over the decades, Congress has at times been suspicious of the State Department. At the beginning of the Cold War, Congress restricted domestic dissemination of the State Department’s public diplomacy products because of concerns over the department’s “Communist infiltration and pro-Russian policy” (according to the Democratic chairman of the House Rules Committee in 1946) and the “drones, the loafers, and the incompetents” that comprised its staff (according to the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee in 1947).

Since 9/11, the State Department has done little to earn the confidence of Congress, which resisted expanding the department until the election of President Obama. The department’s own inspector general has found significant systemic failures in many areas, including in its efforts to reorganize its nonproliferation bureau. Under the Bush administration, State’s senior leadership abrogated critical responsibilities that were subsequently taken up, if reluctantly and clumsily, by the Defense Department, notably in the areas of public diplomacy but also in reconstruction and development.

The State Department’s inaugural Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), underway now, is a platform not only for changing the country focus but also engaging Congress. The QDDR is modeled on the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review, which examines the Pentagon’s strategic capabilities and requirements based on the threats and challenges today and tomorrow. The QDDR should take up the reorganization proposed here.

Realignment will not be easy. It requires the committed support of the president, the secretaries of state and defense, the National Security Council, and Congress. But the potential benefits are considerable. Adjusting the focus of the State Department from country to region would permit the secretary of state to exercise more effective leadership and oversight over the instruments of power. It’s the logical step to take in a new era of stateless challenges, and a demonstration to the world that U.S. power does not always have to wear combat boots.

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1 The under secretary for political affairs is the most senior Foreign Service Officer in the State Department and is the third-ranking official in the department, below the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary.

2 In addition to Special Representatives, the new senior advisor for innovation, attached directly to the Secretary’s office, should arguably reside within either the under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs or the under secretary for democracy and global affairs but understandably does not because of issues of capacity and capability.

3 See Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives (Little, Brown & Company, 2009).

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Shadi Hamid on the “Cairo Conundrum”

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

A great new piece from Shadi Hamid in the latest Democracy: A Journal of Ideas on “The Cairo Conundrum” — the seeming paradox between peace and stability in the Middle East. Hamid examines American policy towards Egypt, arguing convincingly:

[T]he pursuit of peace came to depend on prevailing authoritarian structures. Unless autocracy can be made permanent–and there is little reason to think that it can–this state of affairs is unsustainable. If Obama wishes to repair relationships with Middle Eastern governments, then he may, in the process, alienate the other key constituency he seemed to be speaking to [in Cairo] on June 4: the millions of everyday Arabs and Muslims hoping for more freedom and democracy.

He offers a dual-track approach to break the longstanding American mindset that democracy and stability in Egypt are a zero-sum game. The first track is “positive conditionality” — offering even more aid to Egypt, provided the government meets a series of democratization benchmarks. Should it fail in the first year, the money would be denied but rolled over into an accumulating fund. The entire amount would remain available once Egypt fulfilled the requirements; fail to do so, and the price of non-compliance would grow every year. The second track is “Islamic engagement” whereby the administration would facilitate political participation with moderate Islamist parties that renounce violence.

Hamid’s formula may not prove to be ultimately successful — after all it is quite possible that Egypt would be happy to accept ever-increasing American donations while feigning a reformist bent. But as long as the White House remains continually engaged across the spectrum of Egyptian politics, it is quite possible that Hamid’s formula of grassroots pressure married to large financial incentives could move Egypt along the path to democratic openness.

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Progressive Values in National Security, Take Two

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

David Brooks, oh how you are a dying breed: the rational, thoughtful conservative who holds true to his core values while having the humility to actually grant the other guy a point.

He also may have a man-crush on the president. Which is why it’s perhaps not so surprising that Brooks’ most recent column follows up on a point I made a few days ago: that Barack Obama’s foreign policy is grounded in thoroughly progressive values. Here’s an excerpt:

In 2002, Obama spoke against the Iraq war, but from the vantage point of a cold war liberal. He said he was not against war per se, just this one, and he was booed by the crowd. In 2007, he spoke about the way Niebuhr formed his thinking: “I take away the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction.”

His speeches at West Point and Oslo this year are pitch-perfect explications of the liberal internationalist approach. Other Democrats talk tough in a secular way, but Obama’s speeches were thoroughly theological. He talked about the “core struggle of human nature” between love and evil.

More than usual, he talked about the high ideals of the human rights activists and America’s history as a vehicle for democracy, prosperity and human rights. He talked about America’s “strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct.” Most of all, he talked about the paradox at the core of cold war liberalism, of the need to balance “two seemingly irreconcilable truths” — that war is both folly and necessary.

Brooks used the term “liberal internationalism” to describe Obama’s approach, something not dissimilar from what we at PPI prefer to call “progressive internationalism.” Here’s what PPI said back in 2003:

Progressive internationalism stresses the responsibilities that come with our enormous power: to use force with restraint but not to hesitate to use it when necessary, to show what the Declaration of Independence called “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” to exercise leadership primarily through persuasion rather than coercion, to reduce human suffering where we can, and to create alliances and international institutions committed to upholding a decent world order.

The Obama administration has taken a lot of heat for being “too realist” in its approach to foreign policy. Certainly there’s evidence to support that claim: Brooks says the White House “misjudged the emotional moment when Iranians were marching in Tehran.” And there was the uncomfortable incident when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sidestepped the issue of human rights in China because they “couldn’t interfere with the global economic crisis” (which she recently tried to rectify in a speech at Georgetown). True enough, at least for now.

However, when books are written on the Obama administration’s foreign policy, I’d bet the prevailing narrative will be that of an administration that sought to identify and resolve discrete national security challenges while guided by keen attention to America’s values. Closing Guantanamo is perhaps the best example thus far.

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Europe, We Love You, But Please Shut Up

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

Over the course of the past week, the Swedish government, which currently holds the EU’s soon-to-be-extinguished rotating presidency, suggested that the European Union’s foreign ministries declare Jerusalem a divided city and the future capital of a Palestinian state. The draft statement also implied that the EU would recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood.

The Israelis reacted harshly, and lobbied the Europeans to change the statement, which now reads, “If there is to be a genuine peace, a way must be found (through negotiations) to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states.”

Even the milder declaration hasn’t exactly received much enthusiasm from the Israelis, while garnering divided support between the Arab League and Palestinian Authority.

Skeptics say that Sweden’s stab at forging European unity was a cynical attempt to leave a legacy from its last crack at the EU presidency (with the advent of Herman Von Rompuy’s more permanent ascent to that post) to either show symbolic solidarity with Palestine or to forge a joint European position on an important issue.

And though the Palestinians are, of course, content to receive international backing, let’s be honest: This effort at joint European diplomacy looks like amateur hour and risks further destabilizing an already fragile process.

A few months ago, I had lunch with a friend involved in European social-democratic circles. He said (and I’m paraphrasing), “Europe can’t do anything on the diplomatic front with Israel/Palestine, but if America can broker a deal, we are ready and anxious to pay for the whole thing: security, development, trade… you name it.”

My friend was right — Europe hasn’t invested much diplomatic capital in the Middle East peace process. Issuing public and controversial statements of questionable utility could only upset – and, in the worst case, undo — the hard, delicate, behind-the-scenes work of the American administration.

We’d love for Europe to pay; but for now, we’d also love for it to shut up.

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