The Foreign Service Journal, June 2017

8 JUNE 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL I was pleased to hear the admiral argue against that false choice. He explained how the hard power he commanded depended on the soft power the embassy and the career Foreign Service deliver around the world. I am still searching for the perfect metaphor to describe the partnership between the Foreign Service and our military colleagues. Being asked to choose between hard power and soft power strikes me as akin to being asked by hotel staff, when I urgently need to sew on a button before a meeting, whether I would prefer a needle or thread. But that metaphor is too simplistic to capture the richness of what can be achieved by expertly combining soft and hard power. When I taught the Ambas- sadorial Seminar, I used to speak about the role of the chief of mission as orches- tra conductor. It is your job, I would tell new ambassadors, to bring your entire interagency team together around a single sheet of music, a shared strategic vision. When I was ambassador to Panama, my team worked closely with the U.S. Southern Command to develop a strat- egy for addressing the alarming rise in drug trafficking, which had suddenly caused the murder rate in Panama to double. We agreed on a desired out- come: Panama’s Darien province (home to a dense rainforest bordering Colom- bia) would be free of FARC guerillas who were behind the drug trafficking. We sought—and received—fund- ing for our strategy. The FBI provided indictments that were unsealed at just the right moment. USAID helped divert indigenous youth from drug trafficking by providing an alternative—a forestry school in the Darien, an alternative to moving to the city. SOUTHCOM provided funding for coast guard stations to enable Panama- nian forces to respond instantly to reports (usually fromU.S. counter-narcotics patrols) of attempted landings by drug boats. SOUTHCOM also provided MIST support—a “military information support team” from its Special Forces component. Is this a set-up to a cautionary tale about the bad things that can happen when an ambassador invites military partners—Special Forces, at that!—into her country? To the contrary. Because we had developed a clear strategy that all partners understood (no mean feat), we were able to insert tailored language into the memorandum of agreement with the MIST. The MIST teamunderstood its mission, brought significant resources to bear that would have otherwise been unavailable and worked very well under chief-of- mission authority. It was instrumental in achieving our shared goal, captured in an OIG report a few years after I left: “Now that the Darien is free of FARC guerillas … ” I look forward every year to the update I receive at Christmas from the Navy cap- tain who headed our milgroup in Panama and helped me forge this highly pro- ductive partnership with SOUTHCOM. Many of us remember this experience of multifaceted interagency collaboration as a career highlight. I urge you to read the perspectives in this edition of the FSJ to think about how you can make the most of the potential offered by partnering with the military, the potential of the marriage of soft and hard power. Every host country and every situa- tion is different, and we count on you, the career Foreign Service, to understand the local context better than anyone else. We also count on you to frame an effective interagency strategy—it’s called the “Inte- grated Country Strategy” for a reason— that brings all agencies at post, including DOD, into the effort. Many if not most of the cautionary tales I have heard on the theme of bad things that happen when DOD gets involved could have been averted or at least mitigated by a COM-led effort to frame a strategy in partnership with Defense. Combatant commands often have significant resources; and, if you don’t produce a plan for bringing them to bear effectively in your country, they will. Try- ing later to explain why the plan hatched many miles away at the combatant command will not work where you live and work—now there’s a time sink that is frustrating for all concerned and usually leaves relationships strained. So head that off by getting out in front and—here is my last metaphor, I prom- ise!—leading the parade. As I used to tell new ambassadors, it may well be that your combatant command is resourced and staffed to hold a parade in your country. You can either get out in front, plan the route, choose the participants, and decide the order and the timing of the parade— or you can walk behind the elephants. The view is much better from the front. Remember, America’s global leader- ship role rests in large measure on your shoulders. n Every host country and every situation is different, and we count on you, the career Foreign Service, to understand the local context better than anyone else.