The Foreign Service Journal, November 2010

N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 31 U.S. Peacefare: Organizing American Peace-Building Operations Dane F. Smith Jr., Praeger, 2010, $44.95, hardcover, 301 pages. While conducting peace at- tracts only a fraction of the re- sources committed to conduct- ing war, it is no doubt the pre- ferable (and more cost-effective) means of dealing with international conflict. In U.S. Peacefare , author Dane Smith examines America’s peacebuilding infrastructure. (The neologism “peacefare,” the author explains, is synonymous with “peacebuilding,” which is an um- brella term covering a range of activities to reduce con- flict generally or end specific conflicts.) Beginning with an historical overview of official peacebuilding, Smith then examines the organization and interaction of five key bureaucratic entities in- volved in this work: the National Security Council, the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Defense Department, as well as the U.S. Institute for Peace. Smith focuses on agency interaction because the success of peacemaking efforts — such as in the post-conflict Balkans, for example — is dependent on each agency’s precise understanding of its role and cooperation to coordinate their actions to- ward a common goal. Considering the high stakes of international conflict — lost lives, political instability and huge sums of money — Smith is passionate about providing the rec- ommendations needed to strengthen and expand American ‘peacefare’ abroad. While the book’s tech- nical jargon and meticulous detail may not be for the general reader, it fills a critical gap in understanding the different agency players. Retired career FSO Dane Smith, who served as U.S. ambassador to Senegal and to Guinea and as spe- cial presidential envoy for Liberia, is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an adjunct professor at American University in Washington, D.C. Drawing on 17 years of residence and travel in 32 African countries, he lectures on African history and culture, and trains expatriate teams to work effectively on the continent. Help AFSA Go Green and Save Some Green t Please make sure we have your e-mail address! As AFSA prepares to institute more environmentally friendly practices, significantly reducing our consumption of paper, we are asking our members to please ensure that we have their valid e-mail addresses on file. This will allow us to contact you by e-mail rather than cluttering up your home with paper mail, and it also leads to significant savings in postage. We ask our active-duty members to give us their “.gov” e-mail addresses, as those are unlikely to change throughout your career. For all others, any valid e-mail address works! Thanks for helping us go green — and save some green! You can submit your e-mail address either by sending it to member@afsa.org or visiting www.afsa.org/addresschange.cfm. American Foreign Service Association www.afsa.org Art: iStockphoto.com