Barack Obama, Robert Gates, and the Rumsfeld Pentagon-State Relationship
They used to make movies about men like Robert Gates, redemptive tales of the quiet hero who is called in to save a desperate situation and, through grit, cunning, and fair play, prevails against impossible odds. Fade to black; roll credits.
But not yet for Citizen Gates. The U.S. secretary of defense, who has spent the past two years cleaning up after his inimical predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, has been asked by President-elect Barack Obama to remain for the new administration's transition period. In many ways, it is an inspired choice. Since his appointment in 2006, Gates has worked assiduously to salve alliances estranged by Bush unilateralism. He has criticized the Pentagon's new weapons systems, including the $65 billion F-22 fighter program, as extravagant and outdated. Most admirably, he has called for a revival of American diplomacy with an expansion of the State Department's foreign service, which, he points out, has fewer diplomats than the Pentagon has lawyers. (With an annual budget of over $500 billion, the Defense Department spends more than 50 times as much as Foggy Bottom.)
Beneath Gates's reaffirming Hollywood narrative, however, is a noir subtext. For the soft-spoken, gray-flanneled defense secretary has defined Pentagon authority more broadly and more aggressively than any of his predecessors. While warning against the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, as he did in a noteworthy July speech, Gates has done less to empower the State Department and more to entrench the concept of civilian-military partnerships in "stability operations"—Pentagon jargon for the rebuilding of failed states before they become incubators of radical Islam. If neglected civilian agencies cannot keep up with the abundantly resourced military, Gates has implied, the Pentagon will take the lead, and often in areas where it was once prohibited from going.
A Rumsfeld legacy that Gates has pointedly not repealed is Pentagon Directive 3000.05. It declares that "U.S. military forces shall be prepared to perform all tasks necessary to establish or maintain order [in unstable or post-conflict areas] when civilians cannot do so." Such tasks, according to the directive, include the rebuilding of security forces, correctional facilities, and judicial systems, as well as reviving private enterprise, constructing or repairing critical infrastructure, and developing representative government. Lest there be any confusion about the chain of command in such operations, Directive 3000.05 states that the Defense Department "shall continue to lead and support the development of military-civilian teams."
Such a sweeping interpretation of Pentagon authority has rattled civilian aid agencies like the United States Agency for International Development and its NGO partners, which are opposed to working closely with the U.S. military on practical grounds as well as moral ones. While the goal of civilian aid workers is to establish sustainable programs aimed at improving people's lives, the military is in the business of winning allies in the war against radical Islam. Civilian groups note how military officers, in an attempt to win over a prominent sheik or warlord in Afghanistan or Iraq, for example, have built schools and healthcare centers in remote areas that quickly fell into disrepair. They also point out that associating with U.S. soldiers and marines exposes their staffs to possible reprisal from hostile regimes. "If we become identified with the military, we become compromised," says George Rupp, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. "We should stay in our lane, and [the military] should stay in theirs."
The money that supports the Pentagon's nonlethal activity comes largely from its so-called Global Train and Equip budget, another holdover from the Rumsfeld era that has been expanded under Gates. This $300 million fund, established under Section 1206 of the 2006 Defense Authorization Act, was set aside originally to finance counterterrorist activity in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, 1206 programs flourish from Colombia to Pakistan. Since the launch of 1206, the U.S. military has effectively taken the lead in funding foreign armies, a responsibility that under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 belongs to the State Department. (A related provision under Section 1207 funds humanitarian work carried out in tandem with AID.) Outlays under Section 1206 require the concurrence of the secretary of state, which technically makes them compliant with the FAA. But legal experts in the NGO community and on Capitol Hill say the breadth of 1206 funding is beyond Congress's oversight capacity.
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Reader Comments
Civilian Agencies at Risk in some areas
The military has assumed many of the tasks normally associated with civilian agencies and NGO's because of the risks involved in these areas. The military (notably the SEABEEs and Red Horse) have been able to establish critically necessary infrastructure like roads, drinking water, shelter, and set security standards all at the same time. They can not only do the job by working alongside the locals - they can protect the worksite. NGO's often also have a track record of being co-opted and used by the recipients of the aid to further other political objectives - ie. many of the NGO's in the Philippines funneled cash and equipment to the CPP and other criminal groups. This doesn't happen with the USMIL. The Army Special Forces is particularly adept at establishing training bases that dove-tail with community projects in areas where a civilian organization would not be allowed to operate. All of this came about in recent times because of the instability in areas like Iraq and Afghanistan. The military became the defacto USG representative on some of these projects in Iraq and Afghanistan because of risk - not because DOD wanted to assume this responsibility. As far as something failing in Afghanistan - well - you have to go there to appreciate how that could happen. I think the writer Stephen Gaine must have been lobbied by a civilian agency with an agenda.
Civilian Agencies are over their heads
DOD is the only expeditionary organization in the US Gov. It trains its personnel to do deliberative planning and then to be brutally honest in its self critique. I may have taken years, and a immature private can cause strategic failures, but military leadership - at least at the "nuts and bolts" level - is based on effectiveness, not agendas and politics.
I have worked for civilian agencies and left to take a commission in the Army. As an Infantry officer in Baghdad last year, I particpated in the most meaningful work of my life. The civilians on the ground were completely ineffective and just too slow at execution. They hid on large FOBs and wasted money on silly, needless projects. Their fear bred contempt on the streets and they never gained the trust of the locals. Civilians complaining about the role of the military in Stability Ops do not have US policy or the people/nation we are help as their primary interest. They are mearly campaigning for more funds and their own self promotion.
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