Lecture
Seminar
"Diplomacy is a vital tool for countering threats to our national security. To be most effective, force, diplomacy and our other policy tools must complement and reinforce each other - for there will be many occasions and many places where we must rely on diplomatic shaping activities to protect and advance our interests."
A National Security Strategy for a New Century, October 1998."To succeed, we must continually change the ways and means of U.S. diplomacy. That is why we are consolidating and restructuring our foreign affairs agencies, training our people to use new technologies, creating incentives for them to acquire expertise on global issues, and encouraging them to interact with ever-more-important nongovernmental organizations."
Secretary Albright, October 1998."Wagner's music is far better than it sounds."
Mark Twain.
The Department of State is a key formulator of national security policy, the main agency that implements U.S. foreign policy decisions, and the major source of data and assessments on foreign issues that are under consideration in the interagency process. In performing these duties, the Department regularly confronts aggressive single-issue groups, 24-hour media coverage, ideological critics, lack of a domestic constituency, and severe resource constraints. No wonder Secretaries of State find their traditional primacy in foreign affairs under challenge!
The Ambassador, or Chief of Mission, is the personal representative of the President of the United States in the country to which he or she is accredited. The President authorizes the Ambassador to supervise all overseas Executive Branch agencies and personnel except those (a) under the authority of a U.S. area military commander or (b) detailed to the staff of an international organization. At large posts, State personnel are often outnumbered by colleagues from agencies such as the DoD, intelligence community, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the FBI, the DEA, the Foreign Commercial Service, the Foreign Agricultural Service, and the Social Security Administration. Out of that bureaucratic welter, the Department expects the Chief of Mission to forge a coherent U.S. approach, and as needed to prioritize policies among the U.S. agencies under his or her purview. This oversight responsibility is laid out in the President's letter of instructions to each Chief of Mission, the NSDD-38 process that handles staffing requests, and related laws, agreements, and regulations.
State has many overseas and domestic roles. Its officers report on fast-breaking events, analyze issues, and advise Washington on both. They give vital consular services to Americans abroad-e.g., notarizing legal documents, help with voting registration, evacuation in emergencies-and to foreigners who need a visa to visit the United States. State personnel care for refugees, resolve hostilities, build international economic and security architecture, negotiate treaties on environmental issues, and gain market access for American firms. Working with NGOs and others, State ensures that the "value agenda" of our nation - human rights, religious freedom, democracy-plays a role in U.S. bilateral relations. To a growing degree, State focuses on transnational problems of refugees, drugs, crime, terrorism, and pollution. The Department works with agencies that use "soft power"-e.g., AID-to attain U.S. objectives. When the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) seeks to negotiate an agreement on intellectual property, State supplies intelligence and advises on strategy. In international efforts to combat terrorism, crime, and drug trafficking, State works with law-enforcement agencies to attain U.S. goals in a way that promotes bilateral relations with the host country.
This year, the interagency arena had a sea change when State acquired new responsibilities under the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 (PL 105-277). That law, passed after long debate, folded into State the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) and the United States Information Agency (USIA), and mandated closer ties with the Agency for International Development (AID). Those changes are still being digested, but not without controversy. The Administration and the Congress expect PL l05-277 to foster "reinvention" of State and to yield eventual budgetary savings. In April 1999, when the White House issued PDD/NSC 68 on "International Public Information (IPI)," Public Diplomacy became a focal point of the national security process. That document lodged in State an IPI Core Group tasked to focus and streamline U.S. policy messages to foreign audiences. As of October 1, that Group is led by the new Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Some critics claim that this PDD seeks to "spin" domestic American opinion; others worry that State will inevitably equate public diplomacy with public relations, and that the former function will disappear into the latter one.
While State has few natural allies in the interagency arena, its relative standing in that arena can be affected by several variables. First, some Secretaries focus their decision-making in a tight group of advisors; others draw more broadly on State's experienced professional cadre. Excerpted memoirs by Secretaries Kissinger, Baker, and Christopher show how they viewed State's culture and role in the national security process. Second, State's career staff-especially Foreign Service Officers-are commonly portrayed as out of touch with domestic American views, risk-averse, elitist, and unable to send a strong signal inside the beltway or beyond. As with all blends of fact and fiction, this caricature does justice to neither. Though a staple of conventional wisdom, it is grossly out of date. Career officers of all ranks and specialties far more accurately represent today's Department and Foreign Service than the striped-pants, tea-sipping, cookie-pushing WASP of yore.
Third, State is a poor cousin in an arena where an agency's influence can be enhanced by the resources it brings to the table. Since the Cold War ended, State's budget and personnel have not kept pace with its missions to staff new embassies in the former USSR and elsewhere, and to address new issues on the global agenda. In the last six years, State's operating budget has shrunk by l7 % in real terms. In FY 2000 the Department seeks a budget of just over $ 3.3 billion. It projects a direct-hire workforce with ACDA and USIA of 27,000, of whom 11,000 are Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs) and the rest Civil Service and Foreign Service personnel. An urgent issue for the budget is that U.S. personnel overseas seem ever more vulnerable to terrorist attack, as shown by the August 1998 bombings of Embassies Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam and the 1996 bombing of the al-Khobar military housing complex in Saudi Arabia. Though Congress has given the Administration substantial extra funds to protect State buildings and personnel in the most high-threat posts, achieving that goal will take years.
State often has poor ties with Members of Congress and their staffs. The readings offer different views of that relationship. Pressure from the Congress and elsewhere has changed the internal structure of State in ways that can lead to divided counsel. In addition to six regional bureaus (Europe, Western Hemisphere, Middle East, South Asia, Africa, East Asia/Pacific), State now has bureaus for human rights and religious freedom, refugees, drugs, and environment. Within the Department and in the interagency arena, functional and regional bureaus compete with each other. Unable fully to resolve such systemic conflicts, State can take heat from the Congress, NGOs, and others over a given outcome.
Topic Objectives
- To understand the role of the Department of State in the national security process, and the degree to which PL 105-277 and the information and communications revolutions are likely to impact that role.
Questions for Consideration
- How can the interagency process deal with competing equities to forge policies that best serve the national interest? What role should State play in that process? Is it correct, as Kissinger asserts, that State cannot be accepted as an impartial leader by other players in the interagency arena?
- In formulating U.S. national security policy, distinguish between "clientitis" and willingness to consider viewpoints and interests of others. Does "clientitis" afflict all agencies in the national security arena?
- Why do State and DOD sometimes differ on the role of military force? Does this difference reflect a broader difference between civilian and uniformed personnel?
- Define the optimum role for public diplomacy in the national security process. Distinguish public diplomacy from public relations. How will PDD/NSC-68 serve the national interest?
- Is it more important that the Secretary of State have expertise in foreign affairs, or a close personal tie to the President? Is the national interest better served when the Secretary uses a small team to achieve goals (Baker), or draws more heavily on career professionals (Christopher)? Does it matter?
- Assuming that State's relationship with Congress is broken, how would you fix it? Why is this relationship important for the national security process?
- Should other agencies in the national security arena try to help State obtain more resources from the Congress? Is State's main problem a lack of resources?
Required Readings.
* U.S. Department of State, Chief of Mission Authority and Overseas Staffing (updated 8/19/99), pp 1-10, attachments 1 and 2. (Reprint)
* Douglas A. Hartwick, The Culture at State, the Services, and Military Operations: Bridging the Communication Gap. NWC Student Paper, April 12, 1994. (Reprint)
* Reorganization Plan and Report. Submitted December 30, 1998 Pursuant to Section 1601 of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, as Contained in Public Law l05-277, pp. 1-11, 89-95. (Reprint)
* "Reinventing State, ACDA, USIA, and AID," The White House: Statement of the Vice President and Fact Sheet, April 18, 1997. (Reprint)
* "International Public Information (IPI)," White Paper: Presidential Decision Directive/NSC-68, April 30, 1999. (Reprint)
* Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980), pp. 432-446. (Reprint)
* James A. Baker, III, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace 1989-1992 (C. P. Putnam's Sons, 1993), pp. 27-36. (Reprint)
* Warren Christopher, In the Stream of History: Shaping Foreign Policy for the New Era (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), pp. 316-319. (Reprint)
* Kenton Keith, "Troubled Takeover: The Demise of USIA," Foreign Service Journal.
* Thomas Graham, Jr., "A Farewell to ACDA," Foreign Service Journal (September 1999), pp. 24-29.
* Peter Galbraith, "The Decline and Fall of USIA," Foreign Service Journal (September 1999), pp. 30-33.
* Marguerite Cooper, "How Congress Views FSO's," Foreign Service Journal (January 1998), pp. 40-45. (Reprint)
* William Seth Shepard, "State's Congressional Office," Foreign Service Journal (January 1998), pp. 46-53. (Reprint)
Supplemental Readings.
* U.S. Department of State. State Programs: 2000 Overview, February 1, 1999.
* Donald M. Snow and Eugene Brown, Puzzle Palaces and Foggy Bottom: U.S. Foreign and Defense Policymaking in the 1990's (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994), pp. 90-100. (Reprint)
* Peter Galbraith, "Reinventing Diplomacy, Again,"
* Reinventing Diplomacy in the Information Age: A Report of the CSIS Advisory Panel on Diplomacy in the Information Age. (December 1998).
* Equipped for the Future: Managing U.S. Foreign Affairs in the 2lst Century. The Henry L. Stimson Center (October 1998).
* Publics and Diplomats in the Global Communications Age. United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy 1998 Report.
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