The Foreign Service Journal, December 2007

indebtedness to China? Or the stellar scientists from Agriculture, whose work on dry-land farming might be crucial to sustaining our food supply? When the premier federal institu- tions of learning are those designed for professional military education, that tells us something about our na- tional priorities. This is not new: the panic over Sputnik in the 1950s led to the National Defense Education Act, and the same period saw further bil- lions spent on the Eisenhower Inter- state and Defense Highways. Though NDU and the other war colleges, to their credit, also study the other elements of national power, including diplomatic, economic and informa- tional resources, the stress is inevit- ably on national security in the classic Defense Department sense. The fact that FSOs are “embedded” in classes for some diplomatic leavening does not alter the fact that these institutions remain war colleges. The superstars of the U.S. official presence overseas are, let’s face it, not the 190 or so ambassadors accredited to conduct bilateral relations, but the four-star geographic combatant com- manders of EUCOM, CENTCOM, PACOM, SOUTHCOM and AFRI- COM. For their full-spectrum ap- proach to their respective areas of responsibility, the Pentagon wants the various commands to fund such programs as “Building Global Partner- ships” and greatly expand the Com- mander’s Emergency Response Pro- gram. This is not your $5,000 “Am- bassador’s Self-Help Program” dis- bursing grants for village schools; we are talking about many millions of dollars here. In a May 13 Washington Post arti- cle, Walter Pincus quotes a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report: “As a result of inadequate funding for civilian programs ... U.S. defense agencies are increasingly being grant- ed authority and funding to fill perceived gaps ... weakening the Secretary of State’s primacy in setting the agenda for U.S. relations with foreign countries. Some foreign officials question what appears to be a new emphasis by the United States on military approaches to problems that are not seen as lending themselves to military solutions.” Indeed. Generals are naturally assertive about their role in their areas of responsibility. Stuttgart and the U.S. European Command are actually on the River Neckar, but a “Washington on the Rhine” outlook can develop there or at any of the overseas commands. In their quest for greater unity of effort, combatant commanders lament the bureaucratic barriers to their centrali- zing interagency coordination. Some of them would like to “mature” the interagency process to the regional level (see “Extending the Phase Zero Campaign Mindset,” Joint Force Quarterly , Issue 45, 2nd Quarter 2007). But how do you do that when there are some 50 U.S. ambassadors in Africa, but only one four-star general? Here’s the rub: when you establish and fund regional combatant com- mands, they must “do something” about crises in their bailiwick. As the U.S. launches another continental- sized mission in AFRICOM, we should consider what Andrew Bace- vich, in his 2005 book The New Ameri- can Militarism , said regarding the 1980s growth of CENTCOM activities in its Mideast domain: “As the U.S. military profile in the region became ever more prominent, the difficulties with which the United States felt obliged to contend also multiplied.” This is not just a matter of historical interest. The establishment of AFRICOM — how it is to be configured, where headquartered and with what missions — is a live issue. Is it to be a classic geographic com- batant command, with the force structure that comes with four- stardom? Maybe not. Will it move from collocation with EUCOM in Germany, from which it was created, to Africa? Probably, but where? Throughout the continent there is clear reluctance to host a foreign military presence. And what missions will AFRICOM undertake? Maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea’s oil shipping lanes is a strategic interest, as is transnational terrorism across the Sahel. But Afri- can publics and governments have already begun to complain that U.S. engagement is increasingly military, pitting 50 U.S. ambassadors and their self-help programs against a brand- new U.S. commander for whom Africa is his sole job description. Stake Out the Core Turf: Diplomacy Some analysts argue that the unprecedented size, resources and strategic reach of the U.S. military give us a comparative advantage in power projection, similar to the one China has in producing cheap products for the world, or the European Union has in unifying a continent. The strength of the U.S. military is undoubtedly a prime asset, but as Thomas Barnett recently wrote in Esquire (“The Americans Have Landed,” June), the danger is that “the poised hammer makes every- thing suddenly look like a nail.” Does the U.S. need “expeditionary diplomacy?” Perhaps, but not as its 16 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 7 S P E A K I N G O U T 21st-century challenges demand more of the FS than to be sidekicks to the armed forces.