The Foreign Service Journal, June 2016

28 JUNE 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL CounteringCorruption Regionally: THE “EUR” INITIATIVE Foreign Service Officer George Kent served as the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs’ first senior anti-corruption coordinator from 2014 to 2015, and previously directed Europe-Asia programming for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. This spring he began a tour as deputy chief of mission in Kyiv. W hen FSO Victoria Nuland became assistant secretary for European and Eur- asian affairs in late 2013, she set out her strategic priorities for U.S. relations with Europe in an Atlantic Council speech titled “Toward a Trans-Atlantic Renaissance.” To the surprise of some, Assistant Secretary Nuland added countering corruption to the more traditional issues on our core Europe policy agenda, such as promoting trans-Atlantic trade, European energy security and refreshed trans-Atlantic security ties. For more than two years, the EUR Bureau has treated coun- tering corruption as a strategic priority with regional stability Here are one bureau’s country- specific plans and unique, multivector approaches. BY GEORGE KENT implications. Corruption not only limits prosperity and weakens effective democratic governance, but also acts as a wormhole for malevolent outside influences, subverting sovereignty and regional stability. These actors can be nation-state actors, such as Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation, or transnational organi- zations, like organized crime or terror networks. The multivector democratic, economic and geopolitical implications of corruption played out most clearly in Ukraine, where popular outrage against the excesses of a kleptocratic regime sparked the Revolution of Dignity (also known as the Euromaidan Revolution), which took place there between November 2013 and February 2014. The bureau’s next challenge was putting the new strategic priority into action. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the col- lapse of the Soviet Union, EUR had pioneered a cross-cutting approach of matching foreign assistance to country-specific priorities, both through the Office of the Coordinator of U.S. Assistance to Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia (ACE) and intensive engagement with posts. However, the new counter- corruption priority did not fit neatly into the previous paradigm, for two reasons. First, many of the countries for which counter- ing corruption is a priority graduated from foreign assistance a decade ago. Second, much of what is needed falls in the realm FOCUS ON CORRUPTION AND FOREIGN POLICY