The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

brokers rather than holding elections, for example, or pay- ing young men for public works projects to get them off the street. This can result in friction when civilians see such efforts as properly non-military tasks or as inconsis- tent with established procedures. National policy can help reduce this friction by defining counterinsurgency’s purpose and character, as well as the easier task of deter- mining (at least on paper) who calls which shots when. But it must also face the underlying issue of civilian abili- ty to take on its assigned tasks. Civilian Leadership and Capacity In the same axiomatic way that counterinsurgency doc- trine cannot be revolutionary, it cannot be militarized. By definition a predominantly political affair, counterinsur- gency demands civilian leadership and action to achieve its fundamental purpose. Yet within the U.S. government, this has been largely a rhetorical conceit. Civilians have been grossly under-resourced for the enormous demands made of them in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. This problem extends beyond bench strength to include the ability to plan and conduct oper- ations. Many agencies have simply become contracting organizations, having lost the operational art entirely. And as we have seen in Iraq, contractors are not the per- fect solution. Shrinking government in the name of effi- ciency means losing capacity, whether in development work or information operations. The State Department has sought additional financ- ing and related expertise, as the creation of the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization indicates. Even this partial success appears stillborn, though. For all the counterinsurgency demands it has created, the Bush administration appears uninterested in fighting to fund and staff them. Understandably, there is also ambivalence within civil- ian agencies about counterinsurgency. The bureaucracy seems supportive of nationbuilding when it is executed after a conflict, preferably with a U.N. mandate and plen- ty of multinational partners. But what about nationbuild- F O C U S S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37