The Foreign Service Journal, May 2010

12 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 1 0 partnership striving to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and mal- aria has already saved approximately 4.9 million lives since its creation eight years ago. A “Creative, Inexpensive” Security Paradigm The Defense Department’s Quad- rennial Defense Review, released in February, constitutes another step in institutionalizing the reform and re- shaping of America’s military begun a decade ago ( www.defense.gov/qdr ) . As commentators note, however, its real significance will be determined only by the final FY 2011 budget. And on March 23, the National Strategy Information Center released a study titled “Adapting America’s Se- curity Paradigm and Security Agenda.” Highlighting trends that point to a highly complex security environment with new technological means to instill terror and disorder, the study proposes a “creative, relatively inexpensive 21st- century security agenda” that is based more on “dedicated units of civilian and military professionals with certain skill sets” than on “super-enhanced technology and more divisions and firepower.” The National Strategy Information Center ( www.strategycenter.org ) is a nonpartisan, nongovernmental or- ganization that seeks to assess and en- hance the security of the United States and democratic institutions abroad. 21st-Century Statecraft: The Jury’s Still Out It has become fashionable in many quarters to assume that the traditional system of government-to-government relations is obsolete. Once the postwar bipolar world came to an end, a shift- ing panoply of state and nonstate ac- tors emerged on the world stage, presenting new opportunities and new dangers and challenges. In this en- vironment, the effort to define a new “diplomacy for the 21st century” has proceeded apace. In a March 28 commentary in The Guardian , Kenneth Weisbrode ob- serves that regionalism is moving to the fore in global politics — except in the U.S. The European Union recently established a new foreign policy appa- ratus called the European External Ac- tion Service, meant to represent the common interest of all 27 member- states. However, the lines of authority between the new Euro-diplomats and existing national foreign ministries are still unclear. Members of organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Na- tions, the AfricanUnion and the Shang- hai Cooperation Organization are also talking seriously of increased harmo- nization of policies, but their plans re- main largely on the drawing boards, as well. By contrast, Weisbrode observes, efforts to improve communications across borders and at all levels of soci- ety appear to be the priority for the U.S. He cites State Department Pol- icy Planning Director Anne-Marie Slaughter’s promotion of the U.S. as “the favored hub of a global network of people, institutions and relationships.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Jan. 21 speech on Internet freedom made the same point, as has Senior Adviser for Innovation Alec Ross. But we must take care not to con- fuse the means and ends of policy, Weisbrode observes. Better and faster communication is only a means to an end for diplomats. Building consensus among constituencies, promoting so- cial networking and connecting groups behind policy have always been the meat of their work and the stuff of their expertise, and it remains so today. For the “global network enthusi- asts,” Weisbrode suggests, “old diplo- macy” may be a straw man. Zimbabwe Struggles with Transition, Prepares for 2011 Elections Despite intensive efforts by South African President Jacob Zuma, talks in Harare aimed at removing the stum- bling blocks to full implementation of the power-sharing agreement between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai appeared to have come to a standstill at the end of March. The two had agreed to share power after elections in 2008 in which Tsvan- girai’s Movement for Democratic Change defeated the 30-year, one- party rule of Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front, but ZANU-PF re- fused to yield power. So far, however, little progress has been made as the country battles eco- nomic disarray, the continent’s worst C Y B E R N O T E S 50 Years Ago... “ I don’t always approve of what the American do, but your effort at Agadir [Morocco] was magnificent. You flipped open the book to the page marked ‘Disaster,’ went in and worked your bloody heads off.” — A British correspondent in Casablanca, cited in “Earth- quake at Agadir” by Robert Sherwood, FSJ , May 1960.