The Foreign Service Journal, June 2008

8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 8 An Eleventh-Hour Push for “Smart Power” In a Feb. 14 briefing Ambassador John E. Herbst, coordinator for State’s Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization, unveiled the Civil- ian Stabilization Initiative, the Bush administration’s latest move to estab- lish the capacity to respond to over- seas crises involving failed states ( www.state.gov/s/crs/rls/rm/1009 13.htm ). The CSI would create three sepa- rate pools of trained and equipped civilians — economists, engineers, public administrators, public health officials, agronomists, city planners, etc. — who could be deployed within two months of a crisis. The Fiscal Year 2009 budget request asks for $248.6 million to set up the capability. The administration appears to be making a serious, if last-minute, effort to promote this initiative. In a speech on Feb. 12 at Georgetown University, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emphasized State-Defense collabora- tion, highlighting the CSI and the need for Congress to fund it ( www. state.gov/secretary/rm/2008/02/ 100703.htm ). “Not only would a Civilian Re- sponse Corps take the burden of post- conflict reconstruction off the backs of our fighting men and women, where it was never supposed to be in the first place,” Rice said. “This civil- ian organization could be deployed in times of peace to strengthen weak states and prevent their collapse in the future.” Herbst testified about the CSI before a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 26. On April 15, Sec. Rice appeared with Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a hearing of the full committee on “Building Partnership Capacity and Development of the Interagency Process” to push for the CSI and addi- tional diplomatic manpower. On March 5, the House of Repre- sentatives passed H.R. 1084, the Reconstruction and Stabilization Civ- ilian Manpower Act of 2007, by voice vote. The measure will now be taken up in the Senate, where similar legis- lation was passed in 2006. Sen. Lugar, who wrote the bill that created S/CRS in 2004, has continued to speak out. During April he advo- cated funding of the CSI in opening statements to two sets of Senate Foreign Relations committee hear- ings on “implementing smart power” ( http://foreign.senate.gov/hearing. html ). Funding the CSI would put S/CRS firmly on the map. Operating on a shoestring budget since its inception, the office has deployed fewer than 90 people in small teams to Afghanistan, Chad, Haiti, Iraq, Kosovo, Lebanon, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Sudan. The proposal calls for an Active Response Corps of about 250 people drawn primarily from State (40 per- cent) and USAID (40 percent), with the remainder from Justice, Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, etc. Most would be deployed continuously with the military in a kind of “first respon- der” capacity. The Standby Response Corps will consist of 2,000 people who have other, full-time jobs but will be trained regularly so that they can be deployed within 45 to 60 days. The third component, the Civilian Reserve Corps would encompass 2,000 civilians from the private sector or state and local governments. They would sign up for a period of four years, with a commitment to deploy for up to one year during that time. News and information on this ini- tiative whose time may have come can C YBERNOTES Site of the Month: PC Magazine ’s Picks Every year PC Magazine selects the best Web sites in a host of categories. The Best Web Sites 2007 at www.pcmag.com/category2/0 ,2806,7488, 00.asp offers a guided tour of sites that are, in PC Magazine ’s words, “estab- lished and generally best-of-breed in their respective categories.” By definition, many of the top 100 classical sites will already be familiar. But with 13 different categories from information and reference to lifestyle, politics and government and Web applications, there’s a very good chance you will find much of interest that is new. It’s the top 100 undiscovered sites that promise surprises. Here, in 12 cate- gories ranging from gaming to health and food and reading, you will encounter an array of sites that were either new or under the radar during the past year.