The Foreign Service Journal, February 2005

garnering Islamabad’s support in the war on terror. Powell also sustained the ongoing improvement in strategic relations with the region’s rising giant, India, after years of estrangement. Secretary Powell’s force of personality proved vital in improving Sino-American relations after a volatile start early in the Bush administration. In April 2001, a Chinese fighter collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3 recon- naissance plane over the South China Sea, precipitat- ing an unexpected crisis for the new foreign policy team. Powell not only resolved the crisis, but went on to put Sino-American relations on a more solid basis than at any time in the recent past. He concluded the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions (known as the Moscow Treaty), while paving the way for missile defense. Secretary Powell also played an important role in strengthening relations with such key allies as Japan, Britain and Australia and, despite differences over Iraq, kept alive hopes of better trans-Atlantic ties. He championed global action against HIV/AIDS, which is killing more people than terrorism. And under his leadership, the U.S. Agency for International Develop- ment and State Department partnered to develop the Millennium Challenge Account, an innovative way of dispensing foreign aid to those countries that will make the best use of it. On the proliferation front, Powell advanced efforts to stem the spread of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles through such innovative measures as the Proliferation Security Initiative and the peaceful disarming of Libya’s WMD, which provides a model for resolving both the North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons programs. He was also instrumental in devel- oping a multilateral approach for getting North Korea back to the negotiating table on its nuclear weapons program. The new format, known as the Six-Party Talks, includes not only the U.S., North and South Korea, Japan and Russia, but also the People’s Republic of China, the country with the most influence over the reclusive Pyongyang regime. Powell also encouraged Pres. Bush to support the European Union’s diplomat- ic efforts, led by France, Germany and Britain, to end Iran’s troubling nuclear program. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice recently called Powell “a great and inspirational” leader. She is right. And perhaps Colin Powell’s greatest contribution to American diplomacy was his leadership and manage- ment of the State Department itself. In the estimation of many, Foggy Bottom’s morale had dipped to record lows when Powell took over in 2001. Using his star-qual- ity, Powell went to Capitol Hill early on in his tenure, made his case and got more money for the department. He leaves State with improved morale, better-equipped technologically, with more manpower — and with addi- tional foreign aid for advancing American interests abroad. Powell also instituted the State Department’s first leadership training courses. You Win Some, You Lose Some Powell’s record is not without blemishes, to be sure. High on many State-watchers’ lists is Iraq, where they feel he should have tried harder to head off military action — or at least push it off until a later date with more international support. But the Secretary did con- vince Pres. Bush to go the multilateral route in the fall of 2002, and deserves credit for rounding up the votes required to unanimously approve U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, which threatened Iraq with “serious consequences” if it did not adhere to all U.N. resolutions and cooperate with weapons inspectors. However, Powell ultimately lost the interagency battle over how and when the United States went to war in Iraq. In that regard, he has expressed regrets about the presentation he gave at the U.N. in February 2003 on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program, which turned out to be based on faulty CIA intelligence. Powell also leaves his post having made little progress on the Middle East peace process. While the political environment was certainly not conducive to negotiations, some had at least hoped for more person- al involvement on his part. In the plus column, he did persuade President Bush to be the first American pres- ident to publicly support the establishment of a Palestinian state. And with Yassir Arafat’s death, Powell’s successor may be in a better position to finally bring peace to the troubled region. It is true that Powell did not win every foreign-policy battle over the past four years. But what Secretary of F O C U S 28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 5 Peter Brookes is the senior fellow for national security affairs at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank.