The Foreign Service Journal, September 2004

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 77 n November 2003, President Bush announced a major shift in American foreign policy in several speeches both at home and abroad. He elevated democracy promotion to a strategic priority, asserting that a new rationale would drive U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and by exten- sion the rest of the world. The United States would now focus its foreign policy on promoting three pil- lars: encouraging the strength and effectiveness of interna- tional institutions; using force when necessary in the defense of freedom; and promoting an ideal of democracy in every part of the world. Democracy promotion has been a part of U.S. foreign policy to varying degrees over the past 50 years, but it has always been secondary to higher-level U.S. strategic and commercial priorities. The U.S. foreign policy apparatus was grounded in a realpolitik approach. U.S. national inter- ests, not values, were supposed to be the primary determi- nant for decision-making in the pursuit of foreign policy objectives. The Bush administration’s success in reorienting U.S. foreign policy to achieve its stated strategic objective of pro- moting “an ideal of democracy in every part of the world” will depend in part on external factors — whether societies in developing and transitioning countries can overcome a myriad of institutional and cultural obstacles. More impor- tantly, however, its success will also depend on internal fac- tors — chiefly, whether the administration can articulate, form and implement a coherent, cohesive and consistent foreign policy with an apparatus that remains largely unchanged from the Cold War era. During the year leading up to his announcement, State and USAID were preparing the joint U.S. Department of State-U.S. Agency for International Development Strategic Plan, FY 2004-2009. Published last fall, before the president’s recent proclamation, the plan will serve as these two institutions’ shared blueprint for achieving the three strategic objectives in the new U.S. foreign policy agenda. However, while the State-USAID plan creates a policy and a management council to conduct regular high-level discussions between the two organization’s leaders, it pro- vides little detail on how such discussions will systemati- cally transform the State Department and USAID bureaucracies so that their missions, cultures and incen- tive structures will support the elevation of democracy promotion to the top of their policy and program agendas. The Strategic Plan states that democracy promotion, which falls under “development,” will support and be sup- ported by complementary initiatives and efforts that fall under the “diplomacy” and “security” pillars. Yet nowhere does the plan describe how the State Department and USAID will fundamentally change the way they carry out their work to accommodate democracy promotion’s new status as a foreign policy priority. Meanwhile, the limits of current interagency relation- ships are shown rather dramatically in the following exam- ples from each of the four regions comprising the USAID world. All represent recent major U.S. foreign policy initia- tives or high-priority countries in their respective regions. They also point up the fact that unless the U.S. foreign pol- icy apparatus undergoes significant structural reform, it is highly unlikely that the president’s recent proclamations will be sufficient to reverse decades of institutional practice and habits at the State Department and USAID. Aaron M. Chassy is a former USAID FSO. He and his wife, a USAID FSO, reside in Pretoria. I P ROMOTING D EMOCRACY C AN A FOREIGN POLICY APPARATUS CONFIGURED TO FIGHT THE C OLD W AR IMPLEMENT THE B USH ADMINISTRATION ’ S NEW DEMOCRACY - LED U.S. FOREIGN POLICY ? B Y A ARON M. C HASSY