The Foreign Service Journal, February 2006

gration of civilian teams in the course of operations. In a Dec. 14 press conference at the State Department, Ambassador Carlos Pascual, the first Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, reported that S/CRS has also had a strong international outreach program over the past year. It worked with the U.N., particularly on issues related to Haiti, but also with the E.U. and NATO, as well as bilaterally with countries such as the U.K., France, Germany, Canada and some of the Nordic countries that are also creating similar offices. Now, says Pascual, it is time to develop robust response capacities. Toward that end, for FY 2006 the administra- tion requested $24.1 million for operational expenses, $100 million for a Conflict Response Fund and a transfer authority of up to $200 million from the Department of Defense for emergency situations. A National Security Imperative The case for the capabilities that S/CRS is meant to pro- vide is strong. Throughout the 1990s, the U.S. continually responded to problems of conflict and human suffering in weak and failed states, whether in cooperation with other nations through the United Nations, in ad-hoc coalitions or on its own — but with decidedly uneven results. The record shows that U.S. responses to complex emergencies and peacebuilding have proved inadequate. For instance, the rule of law is a casualty in all post-conflict situations, yet every U.S. military deployment to such settings for the past 20 years has been unprepared for lawlessness and looting. This led to unnecessary loss of life, often extensive damage to infrastructure, and higher eventual costs for reconstruc- tion and stabilization. The complex needs of peacebuilding in post-conflict societies require a response that goes beyond any one sin- gle department or agency. The U.S. government needs a strong interagency office to plan for and coordinate recon- struction and stabilization operations, if permanent peace is to be achieved. Yet no such process is in place. Multiple offices from within the Department of State and USAID, as well as from the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department and other agencies, are involved in the U.S. government civilian response to conflict and the kinds of emergencies that result from state weakness and failure. Once personnel from these agencies finally reach the country in question, which in many cases has taken critical weeks and months to accomplish, coordination and cooperation are often lacking. An office like S/CRS that includes representatives from eachmajor federal agency involved in post-conflict and sta- bilization operations could combine and manage to maxi- mum effect the wide variety of skills, knowledge and capacities currently scattered throughout the government. This could enable the U.S. to manage two to three recon- struction and stability operations simultaneously. No less important, centralization of these capacities can better ensure that lessons learned by the different agencies can be recorded, analyzed, institutionalized and then applied to new situations. Finally, the lack of an effective civilian response has often forced the U.S. military to take on duties it does not want, and has arguably prolonged the deployment of sol- diers beyond what was necessary. It is therefore not sur- prising, perhaps, that one of the stronger supporters of S/CRS has been the uniformed military. High-level mili- tary officials have lobbied members of Congress on its behalf. The Secretary of Defense, in cooperation with the Secretary of State, even offered DOD funds to enable the new office to respond to a crisis if Congress agreed. So, in a bizarre twist, mere weeks after appropriators rejected funding for S/CRS, Congress approved an amendment to the FY 2006 Defense authorization bill that would allow DOD to transfer $100 million to the State Department for purposes S/CRS is tasked with. Support Laced with Skepticism While there is support for the reconstruction and stabi- lization office, there is also skepticism. Multiple reports from leading think-tanks, like the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations, have called for developing capabilities similar to those S/CRS is meant to fulfill. But these reports and oth- ers, by discussing the huge set of tasks and the many dif- ferent government actors also implicitly or explicitly ques- tion whether one office in the State Department can real- ly do the job. In fact, some in the foreign policy community suggest that what is actually needed is a new Cabinet-level agency that includes parts of the State Department, the entire USAID, parts of the Justice and Treasury departments, and other agencies. Yet this sort of move could potentially lessen or eliminate the critical role of diplomacy in stabi- lization and reconstruction efforts by cutting the embassy and other State Department personnel out of the process. Others argue that the problem cannot be solved with a F O C U S 36 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 6