The Foreign Service Journal, January 2007

The Necessary Civilian Force The Cato Institute’s Justin Logan and Christopher Preble misrepresent the mission of the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Recon- struction and Stabilization (“The Case Against State’s Nationbuilding Office,” November FSJ ). By labeling S/CRS a “nationbuilding office,” they attempt to give a derogatory name to an orga- nization that eventually could fill a key gap in U.S. capabilities. S/CRS’s main purposes are to be a coordinator and civilian force provider for U.S. operations abroad. Prior ex- perience has demonstrated that U.S. military missions often need greater civilian expertise in order to succeed. For example, by providing vital human services, civilian resources can enable the U.S. troop presence to be tolerat- ed rather than opposed by local popu- lations. The sorts of functions that S/CRS would undertake do not in- volve “building nations” from scratch — quite an impossibility — but con- stitute a balanced approach to prob- lems the U.S. must surmount if it is to advance its interests and values. If S/CRS develops a civilian cadre, it will offer valuable knowledge and skills to a wide range of stability, humanitarian and reconstruction oper- ations. Given the course of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, it is surprising that Logan and Preble seem to con- clude that the U.S. should have fewer resources on the civilian side of the national security apparatus and dimin- ished capability to conduct integrated civil-military operations. There will be contingencies, far different than Iraq and Afghanistan, that require the U.S. to have more deployable civilian expertise than it has now to comple- ment its military firepower. Securing the peace is no less difficult than win- ning the battle, but requires a differ- ent set of tools, quantitatively and qualitatively, than the U.S. currently possesses. S/CRS is not expected to fix global instability writ large, but at critical moments the U.S. will be called upon to perform stability and reconstruction operations. We live in an era in which geographical and political boundaries have become increasingly porous. In such an environment, instability in Africa or the Middle East can, in fact, have disproportionate global reper- cussions. Whether we like it or not, developing the capabilities to meet emerging threats is a necessity. Dr. Jeffrey Nadaner Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Office of Stability Operations U.S. Department of Defense U/S Burns Defends Karen Hughes I am writing to express my strong disagreement with several assertions made in Shawn Zeller’s October arti- cle, “Damage Control: Karen Hughes Does PD,” as well as with the overall thrust of the piece. As a career officer who has worked closely with Under Secretary Karen Hughes, and as a member of AFSA since 1982, I first of all take issue with the notion that she is “wary of the Foreign Service” and has surrounded herself with political appointees. This is simply untrue. Karen is an inclusive leader who has shown great respect for the Foreign and Civil Service since taking office. It is also my impression that the officers who work in her office feel a great sense of loyalty to her. Her chief of staff is a senior FSO, and the vast majority of her staff, including most of her senior advisers, are career Foreign Service and Civil Service employees. She relies on her career staff to carry out all of her initiatives. To say that “Foreign Service offi- cers are deeply skeptical of whether Hughes is doing enough to tap the expertise around her” is an unfounded generalization that is not at all accu- rate, in my judgment. Neither is it accurate to state that she is focused overwhelmingly on media outreach. That is indeed one piece of the public diplomacy puzzle, but this misleading assertion ignores the wide range of short-term and long- term programs that Karen has pro- moted to bring Americans together with citizens of nearly every country on earth, from exchanges to cultural events to Web chats. In that regard, our recent efforts to reach out to the people of Iran through renewed exchanges and educational initiatives is precisely the kind of long-term investment in improving America’s engagement with the world that Zeller says we need more of. Karen has L ETTERS 6 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 7