The Foreign Service Journal, March 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2015 15 The Washington-Field Relationship T here is inWashington a widespread tendency to regard the field missions as the eyes and arms of United States policy, but taking no part in the function of the brain. It should be obvious, of course, that policy toward any country cannot be determined exclusively by the field mission there. The relationship between the United States and any other country in today’s world is not merely a bilateral matter. It must be placed within a framework of regional and global policy and strategy. At the same time, the field mission has the great advantage over Washington of being in intimate contact with the whole spectrum of relationships— political, economic, psychological and military; and the ambassador is better placed than any singleWashington officer to weigh together the various ele- ments in a broad country strategy. It follows that the field mission should be called upon to think in strategic terms, and to recommend policies actively toWashington, rather than merely serving as observer, reporter and executant. This is equally true of the com- ponent operating units in the aid, information and military fields. At the same time, in order to maintain a regional and global unity, the field mission should be kept abreast of the evolution of Washington policies, with ample opportu- nity to comment on them and to participate in their formulation. Much has been done in recent years to improve this relationship. — Excerpt from Lincoln Gordon’s testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on National Security Staffing and Operations regarding relations between embassy andWashington, in “On the Front Lines of History” by Robert McClintock, FSJ , March 1965. At the time, Gordon was ambassador to Brazil, a political appointee. 50 Years Ago tify lessons learned and best practices in aid coordination, and has also developed a “High-Risk List”—seven program areas that are vital to the reconstruction effort’s success, but are at risk of failure due to waste, fraud or abuse. In each area, the sources of risk are detailed and the degree of risk documented. More significant in this latest report, however, is what is missing: informa- tion and analysis of the status of the Afghan National Security Forces—whose development and sustenance account for $65 billion, or more than half, of the $107 billion U.S. investment on the civilian account since 2002. In his letter of transmittal, Mr. Sopko calls attention to the Jan. 18 decision by General John F. Campbell—com- mander of the downsized and renamed NATO mission in Afghanistan, Resolute Support—to classify a broad range of information that SIGAR has used, until now, to publicly report on the progress of the ANSF, Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of the Interior. “The classification of this volume of data for SIGAR’s quarterly report is unprecedented,” the report states. “The decision leaves SIGAR for the first time in six years unable to publicly report on most of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded efforts to build, train, equip and sustain the ANSF.” The list of questions for the Reso- lute Support Mission, whose answers are off-limits to the public, is included in Appendix E, and Campbell’s letter appears in Appendix F. The trend toward greater classification is not new. As Sopko notes, in the previ- ous quarter the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had classified the executive summary of a report SIGAR used as a primary source of information on ANSF capability. “ISAF’s classification of the report summary deprives the American people of an essential tool to measure the success or failure of the single most costly feature of the Afghanistan recon- struction effort,” Sopko stated in his October report. “SIGAR and Congress can, of course, request classified briefings on this infor- mation, but its inexplicable classification now and its disappearance from public view does a disservice to the interest of informed national discussion,” he added, questioning how dissemination of aggregate national data on ANSF could compromise operational security. Earlier in the year, ISAF had stopped publicly reporting data on Taliban attacks, and SIGAR has faulted it for classifying information about the Afghan Special Mission Wing. Created by Congress in 2008, SIGAR’s