The bipartisanship between the Republican and Democratic parties of the U.S. warfare-“welfare” empire was nothing new after 9/11, but the Bush and Obama administrations came to a conspicuous “consensus” upon using the tragic events of 9/11 as the pretext for implementing a bipartisan “grand strategy” called “Smart Power” — applying the combination of coercive “hard power” and co-optive “soft power,” by both soldiers and civilians, in order to make imperial war appear peaceful.

Contents:

Introduction

Post-WWII “Instruments of Power”
•The National Security Council: The “Joint” Military Plus the “Interagency” Civilians of the Executive Branch
•Euphemisms of Empire: “Civil” War and “Reconstruction,” Spanish-American War “Moderates,” World Wars “Democracy,” and Cold War “National Security”
Post-Cold War “Hard Power” and “Soft Power”
• From “Containment” to “Engagement”
• Bipartisan “Grand Strategy,” the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, and the International Affairs Budget
• “Unity of Effort” and “Unified Action”
Post-9/11 “Smart Power”
• The Military “Hard Power” Emphasis of the Bush Administration
— 9/11 and Bush’s “War on Terror”
— The 9/11 Commission Report and “Transnational” Tricks
— “Grand Strategy” via the “Whole of Government Planning” of “Complex Operations”
— The Military “Surge,” the Civilian Response Corps, and the “Unified Action” Experiment
— A Conspicuous “Consensus”
• The Civilian “Soft Power” Emphasis of the Obama Administration
— Obama’s “civilian national security force”
— “Grand Strategy” via the “Whole of Government Planning” of “Complex Operations”
— The Civilian Response Corps: “Smart Power in Action”
— “The Arab Spring,” “A National Strategic Narrative,” and “ISIS”

Introduction

Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.

-Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, 1951

We must, therefore, emphasize that “we” are not the government; the government is not “us.”

-Murray Rothbard, Anatomy of the State, 1974

Being individuals, rulers have ends and means. The State is the organization of the rulers’ political ends and means of aggression — through which resources are obtained not by voluntary exchange in the free market, but rather by theft in the rulers’ realm. Being rulers, these individuals wield the State in conquests to permanently plunder people. In order to trick their subjects into supporting the State, the rulers use a language of power to make their ends and means via the State appear to be legitimate.

Not long after a group of colonists seceded from the British king for independence, they became rulers themselves by switching from defense to aggression against the independence of people in the realm of their new government. It was promised that the United States would not be ruled by king prone to continue hereditary tyranny, but instead ruled by a “civilian” president poised to command the military.

From the Civil War and “reconstruction,” to the Spanish-American War and “stabilization,” to “the world must be made safe for democracy” in the World Wars: the rulers of the U.S. warfare-“welfare” empire made their Machiavellian “manifest destiny” by mass murdering and manipulating people around the world, overthrowing governments and establishing new ones in their own image. They sought to “win the hearts and minds” of the survivors — to trick them into believing that the same U.S. that led these mass murder campaigns had magically saved them, and that the new U.S.-controlled puppet government was a “democracy” that magically empowered them to rule themselves.

The U.S. led its allies in the establishment of the United Nations at the end of World War II in 1945 promising “international peace and security,” but then only a couple of months later — the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities full of innocent people. Amidst the atomic aftermath, President Truman and the rest of the rulers realized they couldn’t keep nuking the planet while also appearing to be peaceful, so they had to shift away from using the maximum means of warfare.

Post-World War II “Instruments of Power”

The Nazis used the term Gleichschaltung to describe this process of“coordination” or “synchronization” of all government functions by centralizing power in the Chief Executive. This was accomplished through a series of executive decrees supposedly authorized by the 1933 Enabling Act, formally known as the “Law for Removing the Distress of People and Reich.”

-William N. Grigg, “All the Reich Moves,” Pro Libertate, January 14, 2010.

The National Security Council:
The “Joint” Military Plus the “Interagency” Civilians of the Executive Branch

The function of the Council shall be to advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security so as to enable the military services and the other departments and agencies of the Government to cooperate more effectively in matters involving the national security.

National Security Act of 1947

The U.S. supercharged the White House cabinet in the establishment of the National Security Council (NSC) in 1947 — designed to combine the military and civilian actors, and the foreign and domestic actions of U.S. policies — promising “national security.” The NSC was augmented further by new civilian agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), and the Department of Defense (DoD), as well as the new military Joint Chiefs of Staff within the DoD. Following the “Long Telegram” by “Mr. X” (Ambassador George Kennan, 1946), the NSC came to an inconspicuous “consensus” in two classified documents, NSC-20/4 (1948) and NSC-68 (1950): the U.S. was taking a 180 degree turn on a WWII ally, the Soviet Union, and launching the Cold War to “contain” not just the Soviets, but “world communism” itself. The U.S. still fanned the fears of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, but also applied the language of power as a self-fulfilling prophecy by broadly defining the “complex” context of “national security” and dividing the “threats” of the new Cold War enemy into categories of power less than nuclear warfare— “means short of war” (“political, economic, and psychological,” “military”) —in order to frame the seemingly inevitable conclusion that the U.S. could overcome such “means short of war” only if the U.S. itself combines “all means short of war” (“political, economic, and military,” “psychological”).

As for the policy of “containment,” it is one which seeks by all means short of war to (1) block further expansion of Soviet power, (2) expose the falsities of Soviet upretensions, (3) induce a retraction of the Kremlin’s control and influence, and (4) in general,so foster the seeds of destruction within the Soviet system that the Kremlin is brought at least to the point of modifying its behavior to conform to generally accepted international standards….

The full power which resides within the American people will be evoked only through the traditional democratic process: This process requires, firstly, that sufficient information regarding the basic political, economic, and military elements of the present situation be made publicly available so that an intelligent popular opinion may be formed. Having achieved a comprehension of the issues now confronting this Republic, it will then be possible for the American people and the American Government to arrive at a consensus. Out of this common view will develop a determination of the national will and a solid resolute expression of that will. The initiative in this process lies with the Government….

The whole success of the proposed program hangs ultimately on recognition by this Government, the American people, and all free peoples, that the cold war is in fact a real war in which the survival of the free world is at stake. Essential prerequisites to success are consultations with Congressional leaders designed to make the program the object of non-partisan legislative support, and a presentation to the public of a full explanation of the facts and implications of the present international situation. The prosecution of the program will require of us all the ingenuity, sacrifice, and unity demanded by the vital importance of the issue and the tenacity to persevere until our national objectives have been attained.

NSC-68 (1950)

Beneath the NSC level, the Army established Military Government/Civil Affairs units that — along with civilians — were tasked to carry out the “reconstruction” and “stabilization” of foreign regimes via “foreign aid” schemes. They would co-opt the “moderate” victims of non-defensive wars into believing that they’d been saved and given a “democracy” to keep it that way.

The primary functions of CA/MG personnel during hostilities is to further the mission of combat forces in every way possible, such as by administration of the civilian population so as to prevent interference with military operations, and by reconstruction of civilian administration and the economy so that local resources in manpower and essential materials may be utilized to further the military operations. The duties of CA/MG personnel will involve a variety of activities since the responsibility of the commanding officer may range from controlling a few simple functions of government in a small, isolated, rural region or primitive island, to controlling the many and complicated functions of government in a large, densely populated, industralized continental area.

U.S. Army and Navy Manual of Civil Affairs/Military Government, October, 1947.

Euphemisms of Empire:

“Civil” War and “Reconstruction,” Spanish-American War “Moderates,”
World Wars “Democracy,” and Cold War “National Security”

In theory, “Reconstruction” was the process of re-integrating the rebellious states into the One Holy Eternal Union. In practice, it was a reign of terror and plunder swaddled in the rhetoric of righteousness and carried out through the apparatus of military dictatorship.

-William N. Grigg, “‘Civil Rights’ and Total War,”Pro Libertate, May 26, 2010.

In “The Rise of Empire,” published in 1952, Garet Garrett summarized the hallmarks of the U.S. empire in the first years of the Cold War.

“the executive power of government shall be dominant”
“[d]omestic policy becomes subordinate to foreign policy”
“ascendancy of the military mind”
“a system of satellite nations”
“a complex of vaunting and fear”

Eisenhower, as president, established the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) particularly for putting out “public diplomacy” propaganda to co-opt populations. John F. Kennedy established the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the early sixties, and signed the Foreign Assistance Act– splitting “foreign assistance” into “security assistance” and “economic assistance,” both of which have been key to “regime-change” and “reconstruction” since. The State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs was formed in the late sixties for coordinating “security assistance” along with the relatively-new Department of Defense.

The Spanish-American War practice of sponsoring “moderates” — the U.S.-sponsored “counterinsurgency” used in carrying out the “reconstruction” of an allied government, or the U.S.-sponsored “insurgency” used in carrying out the “regime-change” of an enemy government– was revamped in the CIA’s coups in the early Cold War, in the CIA’s Phoenix Program in the middle, and in the CIA’s use of mujahideen “freedom fighters” against the Soviet Union in the late Cold War.

[See Murray Rothbard, “New Deal and Cold War: The Link of State Domination,” Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007; Dan Sanchez, “The Cold War on the Gray Zone,” 2016; Stephen Kizner, The Brothers, Times Books, 2015; Ron Paul, Swords into Plowshares, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, 2015; G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, American Media, 1994.]

Since its rule is exploitative and parasitic, the State must purchase the alliance of a group of “Court Intellectuals,” whose task is to bamboozle the public into accepting and celebrating the rule of its particular State. The Court Intellectuals have their work cut out for them. In exchange for their continuing work of apologetics and bamboozlement, the Court Intellectuals win their place as junior partners in the power, prestige, and loot extracted by the State apparatus from the deluded public.

-Murray Rothbard,“Revisionism and Libertarianism,” The Libertarian Forum, 1976.

Joseph S. Nye Jr., a Harvard professor of “political science,” first introduced his imperial language of power in the middle of the Cold War, in a volume of essays he co-edited titled Transnational Relations and World Politics(1971).

Nye and Keohane begin by setting the “international politics” stage with a summary of the prevailing “state-centric paradigm” of power, in which:

The state, regarded as an actor with purposes and power, is the basic unit of action; its main agents are the diplomat and soldier. The interplay of governmental policies yields the pattern of behavior that students of international politics attempt to understand and that practitioners attempt to adjust to or control. Since force, violence, and the threat thereof are at the core of this interplay, the struggle for power, whether as end or necessary means, is the distinguishing mark of politics among nations. (p. 329)

They then introduce a rising realm of power:

“transnational relations” — contacts, coalitions and interactions across state boundaries that are not controlled by the central foreign policy organs of governments (p. 331)

The “effects of transnational relations on interstate politics” are:

“attitude changes”
“international pluralism”
“increases in constraints on states through dependence and interdependence”
“increases in the ability of certain governments to influence others”;”creating new instruments for influence for use by some governments over others”
“the emergence of autonomous actors with private foreign policies that may deliberately oppose or impinge on state policies” (p. 337)

For Nye and Keohane, these “effects of transnational relations on interstate politics” are “complex,” and necessitate moving beyond the “state-centric paradigm” into a new “world politics paradigm.”

[A] definition of politics in terms of state behavior alone may lead us to ignore important nongovernmental actors that allocate value and that use means similar to those used by governments to achieve their ends.

We therefore prefer a definition of politics that refers to relationships in which at least one actor consciously employs resources, both material and symbolic, including the threat or exercise of punishment, to induce other actors to behave differently than they would otherwise behave. Using this definition of politics, we define world politics as all political interactions between significant actors in a world system in which a significant actor is any somewhat autonomous individual or organization that controls substantial resources and participates in political relationships with other actors across state lines.

…

[T]he conclusion to this volume attempts to draw the evidence together in order to buttress the case that has been sketched above and to introduce our alternative “world politics paradigm” as a substitute for the state-centric analytic framework.

V. Transnational Relations and Values

Thus far in this essay we have been viewing transnational relations largely from an empirical perspective, but they can also be evaluated normatively. (pp. 344-345)

Mixing empirical claims about the existence of what they themselves define as “transnational relations” and normative arguments advocating that U.S. should “act” with respect to “transnational relations” in this “world politics” context is not imperialism, the authors contend, but the “emerging dialectic” for the U.S., allies, and special interests to ostensibly overcome not only new “transnational” types of “dangers” but also to take new “transnational” types of “opportunities.”

A discussion of the effects of transnational relations on values and of America’s role in transnational networks raises the inevitable further question of intergovernmental cooperation to control these effects and to limit or legitimate American dominance. It is clear that most if not all governments will find it very difficult to cope alone with many aspects of transnational relations in the decade of the 1970s and thereafter. (p. 348)

The Spanish American War practice of sponsoring “moderates” — the U.S.-sponsored “counterinsurgency” used in carrying out the “reconstruction” of an allied government, or the U.S.-sponsored “insurgency” used in carrying out the “regime-change” of an enemy government– was revamped in the CIA’s coups in the early Cold War, in the CIA’s Phoenix Program in the middle, and in the CIA’s use of mujahideen “freedom fighters” against the Soviet Union in the late Cold War.

Despite differences in nuance, it is clear that Ronald Reagan’s originally proclaimed challenge to Rockefeller-Morgan power in the Council of Foreign Relations and to the Rockefeller-created Trilateral Commission has fizzled, and that the “permanent government” continues to rule regardless of the party nominally in power. As a result, the much-heralded “bipartisan foreign policy” consensus imposed by the Establishment since World War II seems to remain safely in place.

-Murray Rothbard, Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, 1984, p. 34.

Decades after the CIA carried out a coup and installed Iran’s new dictator in 1953 via Operation Ajax, the operations of President Carter’s administration supposedly weren’t centralized enough to rescue American hostages in Iran according to the Special Operations Review Group. So, amidst arming both sides of the Iraq-Iran war, President Ronald Reagan signed the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 — organizing the military under new “joint,” “unified combatant commands” — to, among other things, “increase attention to the formulation of strategy and to contingency planning.”

National Security Strategy of 1987: the newly formalized National Security Strategy for the last years of the Cold War called for the “coordinated use of national power” to bring “democracy” to the world, as President Wilson had done in bringing the U.S. into World War I. The authors celebrate the U.S. sponsorship of mujahideen “freedom fighters” used against the Soviet Union, and prescribe “the full range of political, economic, informational, and military instruments of power” in order to indirectly and pre-emptively participate in the “protracted struggles” of Low Intensity Conflict, especially via “special operations” overseen by the Pentagon’s new Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities (ASD SO/LIC & IC). The very concept of “instruments of power” would become a common reference to the mix of military and non-military means of bipartisan “grand strategy” after the Cold War, what the Pentagon and military call “DIME” (Diplomatic, Intelligence, Military, Economic). The bipartisan National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was still in its early years of election-rigging throughout foreign lands.

[See Will Grigg, “He Didn’t Say ‘Infidels’: Homeland Security Theater, Continued,” June 2, 2011; Dan Sanchez, “They Sow the Cyclone — We Reap the Blowback,” November 23, 2015; Jim Bovard, “National Endowment for Democracy’s Shameless Vote Racketeering,” June 19, 2015.]

Post-Cold War “Hard Power” and “Soft Power”

Joseph S. Nye — the North American chairman of the Trilateral Commission who worked in the State Department for President Carter, and in the Defense Department for President Clinton — confirmed the lone “superpower” status of the U.S. after the Cold War, and coined the term “soft power” as an indirect way to augment the “hard power” of “American military power” (e.g. “war,” “alliance” and “coercive diplomacy”) and “American economic power” (e.g. “sanctions,” “bribes” and “aid”). Leadership, according to Nye, is about carrying out “grand strategy” that combines “hard power” and “soft power.” [See Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, April, 2005; Joel Whitney’s interview with Joseph Nye, “How Soft is Smart,” Guernica, October 8, 2008.]

Soft co-optive power is just as important as hard command power. If a state can make its power seem legitimate in the eyes of others, it will encounter less resistance to its wishes. If its culture and ideology are attractive, others will more willingly follow. If it can establish international norms consistent with its society, it is less likely to have to change. If it can support institutions that make other states wish to channel or limit their activities in ways the dominant state prefers, it may be spared the costly exercise of coercive or hard power.

-Joseph S. Nye, “Soft Power,” Foreign Policy, No. 80, Twentieth Anniversary (Autumn 1990), 153-171.

Further, “official instruments of soft power” include “public diplomacy, broadcasting, exchange programs, development assistance, disaster relief, even military-to-military contacts” and “nonofficial generators of soft power” include “everything from Hollywood to Harvard to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.” [See Joseph Nye, “Toward a Liberal Realist Foreign Policy: A memo for the next president,” Harvard Magazine, March-April 2008; “Progressive Realism,” Harvard Magazine, August 25, 2006.]

…“soft power” imperialism, the supposedly benign variety that focuses more on hectoring foreigners about their shortcomings, rather than unceremoniously bombing them into blood pudding. Oh, sure – even “soft power” imperialism involves the threat and occasional practice of bombing, but usually only amid cries of anguished reluctance following the performance of the proper multilateralist sacraments. (For useful examples, consult the Clinton-era bombing campaigns in the former Yugoslavia.)

William N. Grigg, “Rubicon in the Rear-View, Part III: En Route to Military Rule,” Pro Libertate, December 24, 2008.

As the Cold War began with the 180-degree reversal by the U.S. on a WWII ally, Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, the post-Cold War period began with a 180-degree reversal on a Cold War ally, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who the Reagan administration had previously sold weapons to. Just after the declared end of the Cold War, president George H.W. Bush declared a “New World Order,” which was followed by the Gulf War with Iraq. [See Ron Paul, “Greenlight for the American Empire,” Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, March 14, 2015.]

In the Gulf crisis it was important to get the hard power of the military to Saudi Arabia quickly, but it was equally important to have the soft power to shape the UN resolutions that defined Iraq’s entry into Kuwait as a violation calling for sanctions.

-Joseph S. Nye, “Why the Gulf War Served the National Interest,” The Atlantic Monthly, July, 1991, Volume 268, No. 1; pages 56 – 64.

In 1992, President Bush unilaterally signed the U.S. onto “Agenda 21”: the United Nations “global to local action plan” for “sustainable development.” In the same year, the Overseas Development Council published a document sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation, and the Rockefeller, Ford, and Hewlett foundations entitled, Challenges and Priorities in the 1990s: An Alternative U.S. International Affairs Budget, FY1993.

The United States has an unprecedented opportunity in the next few years to exercise global leadership in shaping the post-Cold War world and simultaneously to address pressing, previously neglected challenges. (p. 7)

From “Containment” to “Engagement”

In the first year of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the Pentagon issued its Bottom-Up Review Report (BUR), a “comprehensive review of the nation’s defense strategy, force structure, modernization, infrastructure, and foundations.” Section I of the BUR, “National Security in the Post-Cold War Era,” outlines “An Era of New Dangers,” “An Era of New Opportunities,” “Enduring U.S. Goals,” and “A Strategy of Engagement, Prevention, and Partnership.” What would U.S. wars be without what Garet Garrett called a “a complex of vaunting and fear”? Joseph Nye was the chair of the National Intelligence Council during this time, and would work in the Pentagon the following year. (Note 1)

Our predictions and conclusions about the nature and characteristics of these dangers will help mold our strategy and size and shape our future military forces. (p. 2)

To protect and advance these enduring goals in this new era, the United States must pursue a strategy characterized by continued political, economic, and military engagement internationally. Such an approach helps to avoid the risks of global instability and imbalance that could accompany a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from security commitments. It also helps shape the international environment in ways needed to protect and advance U.S. objectives over the longer term, and to prevent threats to our interests from arising. (p. 3)

To address the new regional dangers and seize new opportunities, we have developed a multifaceted strategy based on defeating aggressors in major regional conflicts, maintaining overseas presence to deter conflicts and provide regional stability, and conducting smaller-scale intervention operations, such as peace enforcement, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief to further U.S. interests and objectives. (p. 7)

While deterring and defeating major regional aggression will be the most demanding requirement of the new defense strategy, our emphasis on engagement, prevention, and partnership means that, in this new era, U.S. military forces are more likely to be involved in operations short of declared or intense warfare. (p. 8)

There are some forces and capabilities that are particularly well suited for intervention operations – for example, special operations forces, including psychological operations and civil affairs units. (p. 9)

Military power supports and is supported by political and economic power. Likewise, security relationships support and are supported by trade relationships. We cannot expect to improve our trade relations or our trading position with our allies if we withdraw from our security relationships. At the same time, we must recognize that domestic support for overseas commitments depends in part on the perception of fairness in trade and other matters. (p. 10)

Bipartisan “Grand Strategy,” the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, and the International Affairs Budget

Anthony Lake, a national security advisor to Clinton, would present testimony in late 1993, titled “From Containment to Enlargement.” President Clinton then issued A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement in 1994. Secretary of State Warren Christopher testified before the Senate on the “six strategic priorities” of the “the first true post-Cold War foreign affairs budget,” the reformulated, interagency International Affairs Budget (Note 2) for Fiscal Year 1995, which those in the White House and newly-established U.S. Global Leadership Campaign would use in the funding of bipartisan “grand strategy” into the 21st century:

Promoting U.S. Prosperity
Building Democracy
Promoting Sustainable Development
Promoting Peace
Providing Humanitarian Assistance
Advancing Diplomacy

————————————————

Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 56 (PDD-56): Managing Complex Contingency Operations, in May, 1997. The Overseas Contingency Operations Transfer Fund (OCOTF) was also established for the Clinton administration’s “regime-change” of Slobodan Milosevic’s rule of Bosnia (the former Yugoslavia) and its “reconstruction,” as well as for intervention in Southwest Asia, primarily Iraq. The OCOTF would later be used for intervention in Kosovo, and as the main International Affairs Budget account after 9/11.

After president Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, legalizing the eventual “regime-change” of Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq, and bombing of Iraq in late 1998, the International Affairs Strategic Plan (i.e. “grand strategy”) was issued in ’99 (Note 3):

The National Security Strategy, Foreign Policy, and the IASP

We are frequently asked, “What is the difference between the International Affairs Strategic Plan and the President’s National Security Strategy?” The answer is, both are entirely compatible statements of United States grand strategy that view foreign affairs from related but distinct perspectives.

The National Security Strategy articulates the priorities of the Administration in terms of the policies and tools employed to meet the principal international security threats to the United States. It serves as the touchstone from which the national security agencies – the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community – derive their roles and missions under the direction of the National Command Authority, that is the President.

The International Affairs Strategic Plan sets out a comprehensive and systematic vision of United States national interests. In addition to including challenges and threats to national security articulated in the National Security Strategy, the IASP encompasses the range of U.S. international affairs goals and activities of all USG agencies overseas.

United States Strategic Plan for International Affairs, First Revision-February 1999, pp. 3-4.

[In addition to the Project for the New American Century publishing Rebuilding America’s Defenses, which suggested an opportunity through a “catastrophic catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor” before 9/11, the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC) published Comprehensive Strategic Reform of which Joseph Nye was a signatory. Also, The United States Commission on National Security for the 21st Century issued Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change.]

What if Bush had expressed the views of all his neoconservative advisers and told the American people the truth about the plan laid out in the Project for the New American Century, years before 9/11, to go to war to remake the entire Middle East?…September 11, 2001 turned out to be that “Pearl Harbor event” the neoconservatives were hoping for…

Ron Paul, Swords into Plowshares, 2015, p. 89.

“Unity of Effort” and “Unified Action”

Unity of Effort

Unity of effort requires coordination among government departments and agencies within the executive branch, between the executive and legislative branches, with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), international organizations (IOs), and among nations in any alliance or coalition.

The President of the United States, advised by the National Security Council, is responsible to the American people for national strategic unity of effort.
…

Unified Action

The term “unified action” is a broad generic term referring to the broad scope of activities (including the synchronization and/or integration of the activities of governmental and nongovernmental agencies) taking place within unified commands, subordinate unified commands, or joint task forces (JTFs) under the overall direction of the commanders of those commands. Within this general category of operations, subordinate commanders of forces conduct either single-Service or joint operations to support the overall operation. Unified action synchronizes and/or integrates joint, single-Service, special, multinational, and supporting operations with the operations of government agencies, NGOs, and IOs to achieve unity of effort in the operational area. Unified action within the military instrument of national power supports the national strategic unity of effort through close coordination with the other instruments of national power.

Joint Publication 0-2, Unified Action Armed Forces (UAAF), 10 July 2001.

Post 9/11 “Smart Power”

The Military “Hard Power” Emphasis of the
Bush Administration

Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command — every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war — to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.

–George W. Bush, September 20, 2001

Government has one tool, and that’s violence.

It has one method of operation, and that’s aggression.

It has one strategy, and that’s escalation.

-William N. Grigg, 2015

Post-9/11 Projects
-Project on Forward Engagement
-Post-Conflict Reconstruction (PCR) Project
-Princeton Project on National Security
-Hamilton Project
-Next Generation Project
-Project Horizon
-Project on National Security Reform (PNSR)

Post-9/11 Commissions (bipartisan)
-9/11 Commission
-Commission on Post Conflict Reconstruction (PCR)
-Commission on Weak States and U.S. National Security
-Smart Power Commission

9/11 and Bush’s “War on Terror”

After 9/11, Bush spoke the “War on Terror” into being, and did what “civilian” presidents do through the National Security Council: command the military. The Pentagon issued the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) Report less than two weeks later, at Secretary Rumsfeld’s request prior to 9/11, highlighting the prospects for pre-emptive war, the rise of “regime-change,” and the “stability”of U.S. military intervention into the future. The next month, Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), and then in an October 11th interview vaunted the $300M of “foreign aid” being sent for “nation-building” Afghanistan: what Bush said he’d rather call “stabilization.” The U.S. military invaded Afghanistan, supported an “insurgency,” and overthrew the Taliban regime. In late ’01, the U.N.-charade called the Bonn Agreement established the new puppet-government for Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Interim Authority, and Hamid Karzai would be its puppet-dictator. [See William N. Grigg on the Authorization for Use of Military Force, “All the Reich Moves,” Pro Libertate, January 14, 2010.]

Civil Affairs (CA) soldiers of the Army went out to co-opt the very Afghan people whom the Army was occupying with the warfare state, via the “foreign aid” of the “welfare” state. The CA soldiers from the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion formed a “civil-military” entity, called a Coalition Humanitarian Liason Cell (CHLC), in Islamabad, Pakistan as a means of getting U.S., U.N., and special interest “foreign aid” into Afghanistan for the “reconstruction” of the same country being destroyed by…the U.S., U.N., and special interests. Additional CHLCs were then formed inside Afghanistan in order to “win the hearts and minds” of Afghans through “quick impact projects,” using the Pentagon’s Overseas Humanitarian Disaster, and Civic Aid. The projects that the CHLCs implemented were organized as part of larger “civil-military operations,” commanded by the new multinational Combined Joint Civil-Military Operations Task Force near the U.S. embassy in Kabul. These “civil-military operations” would enable broader “stability operations,” led in the Pentagon by Dr. Joseph J. Collins, and the “comprehensive civil-military efforts” of Counterinsurgency.

A Coalition Joint Civil-Military Operations Task Force deployed to Kabul and Coalition Humanitarian Liaison Cells (CHLC) expanded in the key locations in Afghanistan to expend Overseas Humanitarian Disaster, and Civic Aid (OHDACA) funds on quick impact, high visibility projects to “win the hearts and minds” of the Afghan people.

(William Flavin, Civil Military Operations: Afghanistan, Observations on Civil-Military Operations During the First Year of Operation Enduring Freedom, U.S. Army War College, Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI), March 2004.)

Civilian assistance providers insist that they cannot allow their efforts to be perceived as part of the campaign plan of a belligerent force. Otherwise, the “humanitarian space” they need to alleviate suffering—wherever it is found—will be placed in jeopardy, along with the lives of relief workers and those they seek to assist. A clear distinction between civilian and military roles is considered to be vital to the preservation of humanitarian space.

(Michael J. Dziedzic and Colonel Michael K. Seidl, Provincial Reconstruction Teams and Military Relations with International and Nongovernmental Organizations in Afghanistan,United States Institute for Peace, Special Report 147, September 2005.)

A dozen Army Civil Affairs (CA) soldiers staffed these small outposts, dubbed “Chiclets,” with the task to assess humanitarian needs, implement small-scale reconstruction projects, and establish relations with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and nongovernmental organizations already in the field.

(Robert M. Perito, The U.S. Experience With Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, United States Institute for Peace, Special Report 152, October 2005.)

General Tommy Franks, the head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), deployed the multinational Combined Joint Task Force-180 in early 2002 as the senior headquarters in Afghanistan under Lt. Gen. Dan McNeill, in order to carry out Phase IV of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), “stabilize.” Operation Anaconda, part of OEF, was then launched. After Operation Anaconda, Bush called for a Cold War-style “Marshall Plan for Afghanistan.”

The Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army— co-sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Net Assessments —established the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Series in 2002, themed “Anticipating Challenges, Seizing Opportunities, Building Capabilities.” According to the website, it is a “full year of programs and activities that engage and involve all facets of the national security community. The media, corporate and economic policy representatives, academia and think tanks, all departments of the U.S. government, nongovernmental and international organizations, the diplomatic community, members of Congress and their staffs, foreign officials and specialists are all invited and have the opportunity to contribute.”

The Association of the U.S. Army and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) launched the bipartisan Commission on Post-Conflict Reconstruction, which issued its first report in May of 2002, titled “Post-Conflict Reconstruction Task Framework.” This document

provides a starting point for considering what needs to be done in most cases. It does not suggest how it should be done, or who should do it. p. 2

…

The framework is organized into three conceptual phases, defined as initial response, transformation, and fostering sustainability. p. 2

…

The framework tasks are organized around four distinct issue areas, or “pillars”: security; justice/reconciliation; social/economic well-being; and governance/participation. p. 3

The Bush administration’s first National Security Strategy for the new War on Terror, released a year after 9/11, promised “preemption” and “anticipatory action” for finding endless enemies faster. It featured a statement by Bush invoking President Woodrow Wilson, who said “the world must be made safe for democracy” as he directed the U.S. into World War I, and the post-World War II Marshall Plan for ruling Europe through the “reconstruction” of it.

In World War II we fought to make the world safer, then worked to rebuild it. As we wage war today to keep the world safe from terror, we must also work to make the world a better place for all its citizens.

President Bush, Washington, D.C. (Inter-American Development Bank), March 14, 2002; reprinted in The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, vii. Expand the Circle of Development by Opening Societies and Building the Infrastructure of Democracy, September, 2002.

—–

The top neo-con of the 20th century was Woodrow Wilson. His supposed idealism, symbolized in the slogan “make the world safe for democracy,” resulted in untold destruction and death across the world for many decades. His deceit and manipulation of the pre-war intelligence from Europe dragged America into an unnecessary conflict that cost the world and us dearly. Without the disastrous Versailles Treaty, World War II could have been averted–and the rise to power of Communists around the world might have been halted.

Ron Paul, “Making the World Safe for Christianity” (Congressional speech), March 28, 2006; reprinted in A Foreign Policy of Freedom, 2007, p. 343

The National Security Council established after World War II was joined by Bush’s new post-9/11 Homeland Security Council (HSC), the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the new public-private National Homeland Security Consortium (NHSC) (Note 4). (On the history of police militarization, see William N. Grigg, Liberty in Eclipse: The War on Terror and the Rise of the Homeland Security State, 2007; and Ron Paul, A Foreign Policy of Freedom, 2007; Revolution: A Manifesto, 2008; Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom, 2012; and Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity, 2015.)

What if Bush had expressed the views of all his neoconservative advisers and told the American people the truth about the plan laid out in the Project for the New American Century. years before 9/11, to go to war to remake the entire Middle East?…September 11 turned out to be that “Pearl Harbor event” the neoconservatives were hoping for….

Ron Paul, Swords into Plowshares, 2015, p.89

This was true, even if Bush’s post-9/11 manifestation of this was called a “partnership” [i.e. Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), a slush fund of the International Affairs Budget].

The Pentagon’s Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict (SOLIC) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) launched a new research program at an October 7-8 conference, which was undertaken by the RAND Corporation and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), and published as, “Aid in Conflict: Interaction Between Military and Civilian Assistance Providers in Afghanistan, September 2001– June 2002.”

Bush followed his own call for a “Marshall Plan for Afghanistan” by signing the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act in late 2002, authorizing “assistance” in the forms of “humanitarian,” “development,” and “security.” CENTCOM rolled out the tactical “civil-military” Joint Regional Team (JRT) concept (replacing CHLC) in order to “spread the ISAF effect”— of NATO’s new International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) —beyond the militarily-imposed government in Kabul to the populations of the local provinces. The first JRT, renamed Provisional Reconstruction Team (PRT), was established by Colonel Michael Stout in Gardez, Afghanistan in November of 2002. The Departments of Defense, State, and USAID formed the Afghanistan Interagency Operations Group, and later the Afghanistan Reconstruction Group at the embassy in Kabul. [The JRT/PRT concept was modeled after the “civil-military” Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) used in Vietnam during the Cold War, out of which came the “civilian” CIA’s Phoenix Program.]

This report is the product of the United States Institute of Peace’s Afghanistan Experience Project. It is based on extensive interviews conducted with American and foreign officials, soldiers, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations that worked directly with Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan. It also reflects interviews conducted with a broad range of contacts during the author’s visit to Afghanistan in June 2005. The report discusses lessons identified by those who served in Afghanistan. It is intended as a training aid for developing programs that prepare American personnel for service in peace and stability operations.

Robert M. Perito, Coordinator of the Afghanistan Experience Project at the U.S. Institute of Peace, prepared this report. The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training conducted the interviews under a contract with the Institute.

…

Summary

• Important lessons for current and future U.S. peace and stability operations can be found in the experiences of Americans who served in Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan. PRTs are small, joint civilian-military organizations whose mission is to promote governance, security, and reconstruction throughout the country.

• In June 2005, the United States led thirteen PRTs and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) directed nine. This multinational program was characterized by an emphasis on flexibility, a proliferation of national models, and an ad hoc approach to security and development.

• The U.S. model featured a complement of seventy-nine American military and three civilian government representatives. The U.S. PRTs stressed governance, force protection, and quick impact development projects to “win hearts and minds.”

• The PRT emphasis on governance translated into supporting the respective provincial governors.

…

In February 2003, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a general set of parameters in a document entitled Principles Guiding PRT Working Relations with UNAMA, NGOs and Local Government. These principles established three primary objectives for the PRT program: extend the authority of the Afghan central government, improve security, and promote reconstruction. The PRT Executive Steering Committee, chaired by the Afghan Minister of the Interior, endorsed these objectives. The Steering Committee provided a forum for consultations among Afghan government ministries, UNAMA, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. military commanders, and donor country representatives.

…

The U.S. PRT Model

The size and composition of U.S. PRTs vary depending on maturity, local circumstances, and the availability of personnel from civilian agencies. Combined Forces Command (CFC) does, however, have a model, which U.S. PRTs generally emulate. According to the model, an Army Lt. Colonel commands the U.S. PRTs, which have a complement of eighty-two American military and civilian personnel. There are also an Afghan Ministry of the Interior (MOI) representative and three to four local interpreters. The model’s civilian component includes representatives from the Department of State, the Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The PRT’s military component is intended to include the following staff: Commanding officer and his immediate staff;
• Army Civil Affairs Teams (two teams, four soldiers on each team);
• Military Police Unit (three soldiers);
• Psychological Operations Unit;
• Explosive Ordnance/De-mining Unit;
• Intelligence Team;
• Medics;
• Force Protection Unit (infantry platoon of forty soldiers); and
• administrative and support personnel.

In actuality, most U.S. PRTs did not have all of these representatives. Many had less than two CA teams; military police and other special units often were also missing. Lack of skilled personnel was a significant constraint on PRT effectiveness.

(Robert M. Perito, The U.S. Experience With Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, United States Institute for Peace, Special Report 152, October 2005.)

The bipartisan Commission on Post-Conflict Reconstruction issued its second report, titled “Play to Win,” in early 2003 — just months before the invasion of Iraq.

This bi-partisan Commission on Post Conflict Reconstruction was convened by the Association of the U.S. Army and the Center for Strategic and International Studies to make recommendations on what the United States will have to do to enable itself to help countries successfully rebuild themselves following conflict. The commissioners- 27 distinguished individuals with extensive experience in the U.S. Congress, military, various executive branch agencies, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations- met throughout 2002 to consider recommendations that surfaced over two years of research, expert working groups, and vetting with current policy-makers and practitioners.

This report represents the Commission’s final assessment of the top priority issues that the United States needs to address. It makes 17 specific recommendations broken out by the substantive pillars of post-conflict reconstruction – security, justice and reconciliation, economic and social well being, and governance and participation – as well as by the four crucial “enablers” that facilitate successful engagement: strategy and planning, implementation infrastructure, training and education, and funding. p. 3

…

September 1 1 provided an undeniable impetus to revisit the question of post-conflict reconstruction by forcing the United States to reevaluate its approach to dealing with failed states. For national security as well as for humanitarian reasons, failed states – if left to their own devices can provide safe haven for a diverse array of transnational threats, including terrorist networks, global organized crime, and narcotics traffickers who also exploit the dysfunctional environment. As such, failed states can pose a direct threat to the national interests of the United States and to the stability of entire regions. President Bush has recognized the gravity of the threat in his recently released National Security Strategy, which goes so far as to argue that “America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones.”1 p. 4

In order to institute the “pillars” and “enablers” of “reconstruction,” the authors of “Play to Win” advocated for a Cold War 2.0 “unity of the international effort,” and their “recommendations” would pave the imperial path ahead.

In 1998 Congress capitulated to the desires of the Clinton administration and overwhelmingly passed the Iraq Liberation Act, which stated quite clearly that our policy was to get rid of Saddam Hussein. This act made it official: “The policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein.” This resolution has been cited on numerous occasions by neoconservatives as justification for the pre-emptive, deliberate invasion of Iraq.

…

Though the plan had existed for years, it quickly was recognized that the fear engendered by the 9/11 attacks could be used to mobilize the American people and Congress to support this war. Nevertheless, supposedly legitimate reasons had to be given for the already planned pre-emptive war, and as we now know the “intelligence had to be fixed to the policy.”

…

The administration repeatedly pumped out alarming propaganda that Saddam Hussein was a threat to us with his weapons of mass destruction, meaning nuclear, biological, and chemical. Since we helped Saddam Hussein obtain biological and chemical weapons in the 1980s, we assumed that he had maintained a large supply–which of course turned out not to be true. The people, frightened by 9/11, easily accepted these fear-mongering charges.

Ron Paul, Why We Fight (Congressional speech), September 8, 2005; reprinted in A Foreign Policy of Freedom, 2007, pp. 328-329

The Bush administration fixed its “intelligence” of Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession of “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs) to fit the prior policy of “regime-change” in Iraq, which it then carried out in the “pre-emptive” overthrow of Hussein in March of 2003, starting another U.S. war in Iraq. The Coalition Provisional Authority imposed the new puppet-government for Iraq, the Iraqi Interim Government, and Iyad Allawi would be its puppet-dictator. The Directorate of Special Plans and the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance were established in the Pentagon, and the Joint Interagency Coordination Group (JIACG) concept was being prototyped in the military combatant commands, directed by a civilian Senior Executive Service (SES) member of the executive branch. At the provincial and local-level in Iraq, the new Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) would carry out operations using an assortment of “foreign aid”: including the old Economic Support Fund (ESF); and the new Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP), the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF), and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Development Fund for Iraq. (The ESF, CERP, and IRRF— at least —are International Affairs Budget funds.) [See Robert Perito, “Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq,” Special Report 185, United States Institute of Peace, March 2007.]

The theme of the 2003 National Security Series was “National Security for the 21st Century-National Power in an Unpredictable World,” and Joseph Nye gave the Opening Address at the follow-up Conference in September, titled “The Changing Role of National Power.”

Soft power is probably more effective in the areas that are more difficult to measure. But if one considers various American national interests, soft power may be less relevant than hard power in preventing attacks, policing our borders, and protecting allies. But it is a crucial role to play in promoting democracy, human rights, and open markets.
…
It’s true that the United States has recovered from unpopular policies in the past. But that was against the backdrop of the Cold War in which other countries faced and feared a Soviet Union as a greater evil. Moreover, while American size and association with disruptive modernity is constant and will always lead to some degree of concern and resentment about the United States, wise policies can soften the sharp edges of the reality and reduce the resentments they engender. And that’s what the United States did after World War II. We used our soft power resources and co-opted others into a set of alliances and institutions that lasted for 60 years. We won the Cold War against the Soviet Union with a mixed strategy- military force for effective containment and soft power for domestic transformation inside the Soviet bloc.
…
Beneath the surface structure of world politics, there have been profound changes. September 11 was like a flash of lightning on a summer evening that illuminated those changes brought about by globalization and democratization of technology. The Bush administration has correctly identified the new challenges and has reoriented Amencan strategy accordingly. But the administration, like the Congress and the public. has been torn between different approaches to the implementation of the new strategy. The result has been a mixture of both successes and failures. We have been far more successful in the domain of hard power, where we invested more and trained more and have a clearer idea of what we’re doing. We have been less successful in the areas of soft power, where our public diplomacy has been inadequate and our neglect of allies and institutions has created a sense of illegitimacy that has squandered our attractiveness.
…
Wilsonians are correct about the importance of democratic transformation of world politics over the long run, but they need to temper their impatience with more Hamiltonian realism. ln short, Americas success will depend upon our deeper understanding of the role of soft power and developing a better strategy to use hard and soft power to reinforce each other. We’ve done it before, and I believe we can do it again.
…
It’s a very good point, which is when we think about the use of power in today’s world it varies in different areas, depending on whether you have functioning states. And I think this is something that the National Security Strategy stated very well, which it said we have more to fear from failed states than from other great powers. When you look at the condition of Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Afghanistan , there is a great danger that there is nobody at the other end of the line in terms of effective governments. And in cases like that, obviously you need to use hard power. Nothing I said about soft power was designed to undercut the significance of hard power. It was to say that our great mistake is to think that hard power is sufficient. It’s not. lts necessary, but its not sufficient. What we need to do is use hard power military force as we did in Afghanistan and hard power of economic assistance, inducements, to try to create structures in places like Afghanistan or Sierra Leone or Liberia. But we also have to remember that the reason we’re doing this is to prevent these areas from becoming breeding grounds for terrorism. And we need to get them integrated into the globalizaton systems.

For example, if you look at the Middle East, most Middle Eastern economies have fallen badly behind in terms of economic growth and modernization. And we need to use our capacity, our hard capacities, both to police the area and to attract them-I’m sorry, to get them into the system of these other areas of economic growth. But we also need to attract them, in particularly the moderate elements there. In other words, the great danger in terrorism is you need hard power to kill people like bin Laden. You’re never going to attract him, but you need soft power to attract the moderates so that he can’t recruit them. And we have spent a lot more effort and been a lot more successful on the killing part than on the attracting part of it.

-Joseph Nye, Opening Address, Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Conference, Compendium 2003, pp. 25- 29.

Nye credited himself with forming the “smart power” concept in 2003, in a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Foreign Affairs article titled “Get Smart: Combining Hard and Soft Power.” Nye would soon be a Steering Committee member of the Princeton Project on National Security, a Senior Advisory Council member of the Next Generation Project, a Guiding Coalition member of the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR), and co-chair of the bipartisan Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) Smart Power Commission. A key figure in the upcoming Obama administration’s intervention into Libya, Suzanne Nossel of the CFR and State Department, is also credited with coining the term “smart power.”

“Smart power” is a term I developed in 2003 to counter the misperception that soft power alone can produce effective foreign policy. Power is one’s ability to affect the behavior of others to get what one wants. There are three basic ways to do this: coercion, payment, and attraction. Hard power is the use of coercion and payment. Soft power is the ability to obtain preferred outcomes through attraction. If a state can set the agenda for others or shape their preferences, it can save a lot on carrots and sticks. But rarely can it totally replace either. Thus the need for smart strategies that combine the tools of both hard and soft power.

-Joseph Nye, “Get Smart: Combining Hard and Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs, 2009

Barack Obama’s future vice president, Democratic Senator Joe Biden, co-sponsored the bipartisan Stabilization and Reconstruction Civilian Management Act of 2004 with Republican Senator Richard Lugar, seeking to make the War on Terror appear peaceful by way of “the development, as a core mission of the Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), of an expert civilian response capability to carry out stabilization and reconstruction activities in a country or region that is in, or is in transition from, conflict or civil strife”: what would eventually become the Civilian Response Corps (CRC).

And after Senator Joe Biden spoke at an event hosted by the Center for Global Development that sponsored the bipartisan Commission on Weak States and U.S. National Security, the commission issued its report in the summer of 2004 titled, On the Brink: Weak States and U.S. National Security. According to the CGD website,

On June 8, 2004, the Commission on Weak States and US National Security released its report, On the Brink: Weak States and US National Security. On the Brink is the culmination of nine months of work by a bi-partisan panel of thirty former government officials, senior business leaders, academics, and NGO representatives, with wide-ranging expertise on the issues at the intersection of development and security. On the Brink recognizes that weak and failed states matter to US national security, American values and the prospects for global economic growth; and that a successful response to addressing the challenges of weak states combines security and development policies. Weak states are the “sleeping giant” threat to national security, receiving extremely limited attention within the highest levels of government. On the Brink outlines a framework for action – one that seeks to mobilize key actors and instruments in US foreign policy to the task of meeting the threat.

Linking the official story pertaining to the events of 9/11 to “development,” the foreword of the report proclaimed that:

The Center for Global Development opened its doors in November 2001, just two months after the terrorist attacks of September 11. The terrorist network behind the attacks was based in Afghanistan, having been expelled from Sudan, and was associated with earlier fatal attacks against US targets in Kenya, Tanzania, and Yemen. These attacks constituted a wake-up call, in both the development and security communities, to a new, shared challenge. In the 21st century, a sensible national security strategy would have to tackle the risks to Americans of development failures in faraway places.

The Center’s remit is to reduce global poverty and inequality, including and especially by finding ways to encourage better policy on the part of the United States and other industrialized nations. Following 9/11, the Center naturally began to think about the relevance of the new challenge of global terrorism for our mission of improving the lives of people in the developing world. The large number of weak and failed states emerged as a central challenge of both the fight against terrorism and the fight against global poverty. It is in weak and fragile states that the development project often fails, and it is in those settings too where militant and extremist ideologies too easily take root.

The report alleged that “weak states” supposedly pose numerous “threats” to the U.S. and allies, particularly to the “soft power” of the U.S., and advocated for the bipartisan Stabilization and Reconstruction Civilian Management Act that Biden and Lugar had introduced, among other things.

The 9/11 Commission Report and “Transnational” Tricks

The bipartisan 9/11 Commission released the 9/11 Commission Report in 2004, which blamed the failure of the U.S. to defend America from the events of 9/11 on the “stove-piped” bureaucracy that hindered “intelligence” before and on 9/11. Big things needed to be done, so the authors wrote, to give the White House the means of making a shortcut for the bureaucracy that it would continue to simultaneously depend upon, like the establishment of the National Security Council system after WWII for the Cold War.

The report featured the government narrative of the post-9/11 world, particularly chapter 12 “What to Do? A Global Strategy” and chapter 13 “How to Do It? A Different Way of Organizing the Government.” The authors defined “terrorism” as part of a broader “transnational” enemy, and called for an overall strategy using “all elements of national power” in order to achieve “unity of effort”: the prescribed result of the combined actions of the military plus the civilians of the executive branch along with key legislators, as well as allies and special interests. Particularly, the commission emphasized the role of civilians and the stories they tell, for “a moderate consensus can be found,” and asserted that “[a] ‘smart’ government” would “see the enemy as a whole” and “inform and shape strategies to collect more intelligence.” The report stressed that the role of civilians in conducting “counterterrorism” via the new militarized “strategic operational planning” of “intelligence operations for the whole government on major problems” be embodied in the establishment of two new government entities: the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and National Intelligence Director.

Ch. 12: “What to Do? A Global Strategy” (excerpts)

Defining the Threat
In the post-9/11 world, threats are defined more by the fault lines within societies than by the territorial boundaries between them. From terrorism to global disease or environmental degradation, the challenges have become transnational rather than international. This is the defining quality of world politics in the twenty-first century.

…9/11 has taught us that terrorism against American interests “over there” should be regarded just as we regard terrorism against America “over here.” In this same sense, the American homeland is the planet.

But the enemy is not just “terrorism,” some generic evil.2 This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism—-especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology.3

(9/11 Commission Report, What to Do? A Global Strategy, ch. 12, pp. 361-362)

More Than a War on Terrorism
Terrorism is a tactic used by individuals and organizations to kill and destroy. Our efforts should be directed at those individuals and organizations.

Calling this struggle a war accurately describes the use of American and allied armed forces to find and destroy terrorist groups and their allies in the field, notably in Afghanistan. The language of war also evokes the mobilization for a national effort. Yet the strategy should be balanced.

The first phase of our post-9/11 efforts rightly included military action to topple the Taliban and pursue al Qaeda. This work continues. But long-term success demands the use of all elements of national power: diplomacy, intelligence, covert action, law enforcement, economic policy, foreign aid, public diplomacy, and homeland defense. If we favor one tool while neglecting others, we leave ourselves vulnerable and weaken our national effort. (pp. 363-364)
…
Recommendation: The U.S. Government must define what the message is, what it stands for. We should offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors. America and Muslim friends can agree on respect for human dignity and opportunity. To Muslim parents, terrorists like Bin Laden have nothing to offer their children but visions of violence and death. American and its friends have a crucial advantage—we can offer these parents a vision that might give their children a better future. If we heed the views of thoughtful leaders in the Arab and Muslim world, a moderate consensus can be found. (p. 376)

Ch. 13: “How to Do It? A Different Way of Organizing the Government” (excerpts)

The United States has the resources and the people. The government should combine them more effectively, achieving unity of effort. We offer five major recommendations to do that:

unifying strategic intelligence and operational planning against Islamist terrorists across the foreign-domestic divide with a National Counterterrorism Center;

unifying the intelligence community with a new National Intelligence Director;

unifying the many participants in the counterterrorism effort and their knowledge in a network-based information-sharing system that transcends traditional governmental boundaries;

unifying and strengthening congressional oversight to improve quality and accountability; and

strengthening the FBI and homeland defenders.

(9/11 Commission Report, How to Do It? A Different Way of Organizing the Government, ch. 13, p. 399-400)
…
A “smart” government would integrate all sources of information to see the enemy as a whole. Integrated all-source analysis should also inform and shape strategies to collect more intelligence. (p. 401)
…
Recalling the Goldwater-Nichols legislation of 1986, Secretary Rumsfeld reminded us that to achieve better joint capability, each of the armed services had to “give up some of their turf and authorities and prerogatives.”Today, he said, the executive branch is “stove-piped much like the four services were nearly 20 years ago.” He wondered if it might be appropriate to ask agencies to “give up some of their existing turf and authority in exchange for a stronger, faster, more efficient government wide joint effort.”3 Privately, other key officials have made the same point to us.

We therefore propose a new institution: a civilian-led unified joint command for counterterrorism. It should combine strategic intelligence and joint operational planning.

In the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, which serves the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, intelligence is handled by the J-2 directorate, operational planning by J-3, and overall policy by J-5. Our concept combines the J-2 and J-3 functions (intelligence and operational planning) in one agency, keeping overall policy coordination where it belongs, in the National Security Council.

Recommendation: We recommend the establishment of a National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), built on the foundation of the existing Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC). Breaking the older mold of national government organization, this NCTC should be a center for joint operational planning and joint intelligence, staffed by personnel from the various agencies. The head of the NCTC should have authority to evaluate the performance of the people assigned to the Center. (p. 403)
…
NCTC—Intelligence. The NCTC should lead strategic analysis, pooling all-source intelligence, foreign and domestic, about transnational terrorist organizations with global reach. It should develop net assessments (comparing enemy capabilities and intentions against U.S. defenses and countermeasures). It should also provide warning. It should do this work by drawing on the efforts of the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and other departments and agencies. It should task collection requirements both inside and outside the United States. (p. 404)
…
NCTC—Operations. The NCTC should perform joint planning. The plans would assign operational responsibilities to lead agencies, such as State, the CIA, the FBI, Defense and its combatant commands, Homeland Security, and other agencies.The NCTC should not direct the actual execution of these operations, leaving that job to the agencies. The NCTC would then track implementation; it would look across the foreign-domestic divide and across agency boundaries, updating plans to follow through on cases.4 (p. 404)
…
Recommendation:The current position of Director of Central Intelligence should be replaced by a National Intelligence Director with two main areas of responsibility: (1) to oversee national intelligence centers on specific subjects of interest across the U.S. government and (2) to manage the national intelligence program and oversee the agencies that contribute to it.

First, the National Intelligence Director should oversee national intelligence centers to provide all-source analysis and plan intelligence operations for the whole government on major problems. (p. 411)
…
Second, the National Intelligence Director should manage the national intelligence program and oversee the component agencies of the intelligence community. (p. 412)

Bush’s Executive Order 13354, directing the establishment of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), mirrored the recent, bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report. (Note 5) Three of the five major recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission were then cast into law as Bush signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) in 2004, codifying the establishment of:

1. the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)
2. the Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning (DSOP) organized within the NCTC
3. the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), formed the next year within the Executive Office of the President (EOP) to oversee the National Intelligence Program for the rest of the Intelligence Community (IC)

The 9/11 Commission-recommended establishment of the public-private Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA), the intergovernmental Information Sharing Environment (ISE), and the National Network of state and local-level “fusion centers” would follow. The Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC), modeled after the Overseas Security Assistance Council (OSAC), was also established by the FBI.

The activities of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission would continue through the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Homeland Security Project, and Joseph Nye’s bipartisan Smart Power Commission among others. (Two of the 9/11 commissioners, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, would later become advisors to the bipartisan U.S. Global Leadership Campaign.)

“Grand Strategy” via the “Whole of Government Planning” of “Complex Operations”

Secretary of State Colin Powell established the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) in August 2004, and President Bush appointed a “nation-building” czar (its first Coordinator, Carlos Pascual) to lead the “whole of government planning” for “reconstruction and stabilization” (R&S) of “weak,” “failing” and “failed” governments around the world via the new CRC. (Note 6) The first officially deployed members of the CRC were going in to supposedly save Darfur (in Sudan, Africa) from what the Bush administration alleged was “genocide,” scoring “soft power” political points on top of the ongoing U.S. “reconstruction” of that same country, Sudan. The Pentagon would eventually place “reconstruction and stabilization” into the broader category of “complex operations” of which the “definition includes stability operations, security operations, transition and reconstruction operations, counterinsurgency operations, and operations included within the Department of Defense’s concept of irregular warfare.” (Note 7)

On December 7, 2005, Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 44: Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Reconstruction and Stabilization (NSPD-44). (Note 8)

Policy

The United States has a significant stake in enhancing the capacity to assist in stabilizing and reconstructing countries or regions, especially those at risk of, in, or in transition from conflict or civil strife, and to help them establish a sustainable path toward peaceful societies, democracies, and market economies. The United States should work with other countries and organizations to anticipate state failure, avoid it whenever possible, and respond quickly and effectively when necessary and appropriate to promote peace, security, development, democratic practices, market economies, and the rule of law. Such work should aim to enable governments abroad to exercise sovereignty over their own territories and to prevent those territories from being used as a base of operations or safe haven for extremists, terrorists, organized crime groups, or others who pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy, security, or economic interests.

Responsibilities of the Department of State Need for Coordinated U.S. Efforts.

To achieve maximum effect, a focal point is needed (i) to coordinate and strengthen efforts of the United States Government to prepare, plan for, and conduct reconstruction and stabilization assistance and related activities in a range of situations that require the response capabilities of multiple United States Government entities and (ii) to harmonize such efforts with U.S. military plans and operations. The relevant situations include complex emergencies and transitions, failing states, failed states, and environments across the spectrum of conflict, particularly those involving transitions from peacekeeping and other military interventions. The reponse (sic) to these crises will include among others, activities relating to internal security, governance and participation, social and economic well-being, and justice and reconciliation.

In 2006, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) launched the bipartisan Smart Power Commission, co-chaired by Joseph Nye and Bush’s Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage. Nye, along with Leon Fuerth of the Project on Forward Engagement (est. 2001), the first-ever Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (“nation-building” czar), Carlos Pascual, one of the first Directors of National Intelligence (DNI), Dennis Blair, and soon-to-be White House officials in the Obama administration, including National Security Advisor James L. Jones, were among the Guiding Coalition members of the public-private and bipartisan Project on National Security Reform (PNSR).

The Vision Working Group of the Project on National Security Reform began its efforts in December 2005 when the Honorable James R. Locher III, soon to be the Project’s Executive Director, met with the author and Robert B. Polk and Daniel R. Langberg of the Institute for Defense Analyses to discuss the urgent need for national security reform. The mission of the overall Project was clear—rewrite the National Security Act of 1947 along with the associated Presidential Directives and Executive Orders required to put in place a U.S. national security system for the 21st century.

(Sheila R. Ronis ed., “Vision Working Group Report and Scenarios,” PNSR, 2010.)

The president of PNSR, James R. Locher III, authored “Defense Organization: The Need For Change” that resulted in the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 under Ronald Reagan, and was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict & Interdependent Capabilities (ASD SO/LIC & IC) under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. PNSR — sponsored by the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC) — featured high-level government officials spanning multiple presidential administrations, executive branch agencies, state and local government partners, and a network of corporate (including the new Millennium Challenge Corporation), think tank, academic, law and foreign government (U.K. Ministry of Defense) “partners.” (The CSPC also sponsored the Strengthening America’s Future Initiative (SAFI), modeled after Eisenhower’s Project Solarium.) The PNSR website lists the following executive branch agencies and entities as PNSR “partners”:

Federal Government: Agency for International Development • American Red Cross • Bureau of Industry and Security • Central Intelligence Agency Combating Terrorism Technology Support Office • Commission on the National Guard and Reserves • Congressional Research Service • Department of Defense • Department of Homeland Security • Department of State • General Services Administration • Immigration & Customs Enforcement • Millennium Challenge Corporation • National Aeronautics and Space Administration • National Security Council • Office of Management and Budget • Office of Personnel Management • Office of the Director of National Intelligence • Sandia National Laboratories.

For the remainder of the Bush administration and into the next, the executive branch with legislative and judicial support, and key private-sector partners, would tinker by PNSR’s slogan “Transforming Government for the 21st Century.”

Bush’s 2006 National Security Strategy augmented his Wilsonian one from 2002, and he got the funding for his own “nation-building” directive (NSPD-44) by signing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in early 2006, especially via Section 1207 authorizing that the

“Secretary of Defense may provide services to, and transfer defense articles and funds to, the Secretary of State for the purposes of facilitating the provision by the Secretary of State of reconstruction, security, or stabilization assistance to a foreign country.”

Weeks later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the Transformational Diplomacy initiative. The “Fact Sheet” issued on Transformational Diplomacy ends with a section highlighting Bush’s NSPD-44, and the $100 million “1207 Program” that Carlos Pascual would manage from the State Department’s new S/CRS office. [Two other sections from the NDAA that would come into play include Section 1206: Authority to Build the Capacity of Foreign Military Forces, and Section 1208: Reimbursement of Certain Coalition Nations for Support Provided to United States Military Operations. Sections 1206 and 1207 would eventually authorize the creation of two new International Affairs Budget accounts: the Global Security Contingency Fund and the Complex Crises Fund respectively.]

Empower Diplomats to work jointly with other federal agencies. Success in transformational diplomacy requires collaborations that result in the more effective dispersion of people and programs to share information on common platforms. Vital to this vision is continued collaboration between civilians and the military. Diplomats must be able to work effectively at the critical intersections of diplomatic affairs, economic reconstruction, and military operations. Ways to enhance this effort include:

Expanding Stabilization Capabilities Created by the President in 2004, the Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization responds to the nation’s need for a standing capability that could integrate planning with the military and civilian agencies, and deploy civilians quickly to a post-conflict environment to undertake a mission successfully. Secretary Rice is committed to expanding the capabilities of State’s Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization (CRS). CRS has now received broadened authority and mandate under a new National Security Presidential Directive. Recently enacted legislation allows a transfer of up to $100 million of Defense Department funds for post-conflict operations, funds available to empower CRS in a critical situation. CRS will work to develop a civilian reserve corps in which police officers, judges, electricians and engineers, bankers and economists will be available as needed in post conflict situations.

Political Advisors to the Military Forces serve as the diplomatic and policy advisors to military commanders, deploying with them and giving them the benefit of their diplomatic and regional experience. The presence of the political advisors will be expanded throughout all levels of the military to fully utilize diplomats’ regional expertise and political advice.

Project Horizon

Project Horizon has brought together U.S. Government senior executives from global affairs agencies and the National Security Council staff to explore ways to improve U.S. Government interagency coordination in global affairs using the techniques of scenario-based planning. The purpose of the ongoing project is threefold. First, it is to develop strategic interagency capabilities in which the U.S. Government should consider investing in order to prepare for the threats and opportunities that will face the Nation over the next 20 years. Second, it is to provide participating agencies with a scenario-planning toolset that can be used to support both internal agency planning and planning across agencies. Finally, it is to provide a starting point for an institutionalized interagency planning process.

The project is funded, managed and governed by the following interagency participants: the Department of Agriculture; the Department of Commerce; the Department of Defense (including both the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff); the Department of Energy; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Department of Health and Human Services (including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention); the Department of Homeland Security; the Department of Labor; the Millennium Challenge Corporation; the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; the Department of State; the Department of the Treasury; the U.S. Agency for International Development; and the National Defense University/Interagency Transformation, Education and After Action Review (ITEA). The National Security Council staff is also an active participant.

John E. Herbst, as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, had “worked to enhance U.S-Ukrainian relations, to help ensure the conduct of a fair Ukrainian presidential election, and to prevent violence during the Orange Revolution,” according to his bio on the website of the Center for Complex Operations, where he would later be appointed director. Herbst succeeded Carlos Pascual as the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization in mid-2006, and “oversaw the establishment of the Civilian Response Corps of the United States. The Corps’ Active, Standby, and Reserve components will span eight federal government agencies, local governments, and the private sector. The Corps is the U.S. civilian rapid response force for reconstruction and stabilization operations overseas.” In Fiscal Years 2006 and 2007, the Civilian Response Corps (CRC) had deployed to: Darfur, Chad, Haiti, Iraq, Liberia, AFRICOM, and Sudan. (Note 9) According to Herbst, ARC members of the CRC were also deployed to Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Kosovo.

The current struggle against extremist jihadist violence is not a clash of civilizations, but a civil war within Islam. We cannot win unless the Muslim moderates win. While we need hard power to battle the extremists, we need the soft power of attraction to win the hearts and minds of the majority of Muslims.

Nye, Joseph Jr. “Smart Power: In Search of the Balance between Hard and Soft Power (Book Review of Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security By Kurt M. Campbell and Michael E. O’Hanlon).” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas no. 2 (Fall 2006).

The Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review of 2006 revamped the “protracted struggles” of Reagan’s ’87 National Security Strategy, calling the War on Terror “the Long War,” and among other things advertises the rise of indirect, Irregular Warfare (IW). [See Dan Sanchez, “The Long Game for the Long War,” December 8, 2015.] As the Federal Reserve bankrolled the new Iraqi government, the Pentagon established the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, priming Iraq and later Afghanistan for J.P. Morgan and other war-enabled special interests. The White House’s new Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning (DSOP) would portray “the enemy as a whole” like the 9/11 Commission recommended, in its creation of the National Implementation Plan-War on Terror (NIP-WOT).

NIP I was born of the classified 2006 National Strategy to Combat Terrorism and was associated with a shift in strategy “back from military dominance, better balancing the military ‘whack’ with diplomacy and the ‘hearts and minds’ campaigns that are now seen as critical to long-term victory.”63 It recognized that the then-War on Terrorism would not be won through military means alone but required the use of all instruments of national power. Moreover, it acknowledged three key tenets: 1) the “war of ideas” was a crucial component of our efforts to defeat violent extremism and terrorism; 2) building institutional capacity across the Executive Branch (and its functional components) was essential; and 3) bolstering the political will and indigenous capabilities of key foreign partners to join the counterterrorism efforts within their own nations/regions was equally crucial for long-term success. It included 25 objectives and “designated lead and subordinate agencies to carry out more than 500 discrete counterterrorism tasks, among them vanquishing al-Qaeda, protecting the homeland, wooing allies, training experts in other languages and cultures, and understanding and influencing the Islamic psyche.”64 (p.55)

(“Toward Integrating Complex National Missions: Lessons from the National Counterterrorism Center’s Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning,” PNSR, February, 2010.)

Joseph Nye authored “Transformational Leadership and U.S. Grand Strategy” in the July/August 2006 Issue of the CFR’s Foreign Affairs publication.

The Military “Surge,” the Civilian Response Corps, and the “Unified Action” Experiment

On January 10, 2007, Bush announced the military “surge” of 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, and that U.S. strategy “goes beyond military operations” and would “strengthen moderates.”

America will change our approach to help the Iraqi government as it works to meet these benchmarks. In keeping with the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, we will increase the embedding of American advisers in Iraqi Army units and partner a coalition brigade with every Iraqi Army division.

We will help the Iraqis build a larger and better-equipped Army, and we will accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, which remains the essential U.S. security mission in Iraq.

We will give our commanders and civilians greater flexibility to spend funds for economic assistance.

We will double the number of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. These teams bring together military and civilian experts to help local Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strengthen moderates and speed the transition to Iraqi self-reliance.

Bush then gave a speech about his upcoming International Affairs Budget at a U.S. Global Leadership Campaign event in May.

It is time to turn the page. It is time to write a new chapter in our response to 9/11.
…
To succeed, we must improve our civilian capacity. The finest military in the world is adapting to the challenges of the 21^st century. But it cannot counter insurgent and terrorist threats without civilian counterparts who can carry out economic and political reconstruction missions – sometimes in dangerous places. As President, I will strengthen these civilian capacities, recruiting our best and brightest to take on this challenge. I will increase both the numbers and capabilities of our diplomats, development experts, and other civilians who can work alongside our military. We can’t just say there is no military solution to these problems. We need to integrate all aspects of American might.

Barack Obama speech, August 1, 2007, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

John Herbst presented testimony on October 30, 2007 titled “Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations: Learning from the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) Experience.”

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today to address the Department of State’s efforts to build civilian capacity for reconstruction and stabilization crises.

Weak and failed states pose a serious security challenge for the United States and the international community. They can become breeding grounds for terrorism, weapons proliferation, trafficking in humans and narcotics, organized crime, and humanitarian catastrophes. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been involved in or contributed significant resources to more than 17 reconstruction and stabilization operations. And the challenge persists. RAND recently reported that in this same time period, the pace of U.S. military interventions has risen to about one every two years. If the U.S. Government is going to meet these threats, we must adapt our national security architecture. The Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, or S/CRS, is part of that effort within the Administration.

S/CRS was established in 2004. Starting with just a handful of staff, the office has now grown to over 80. While S/CRS is based in the State Department, it has been designed as an interagency office. During the past three years, we have had staff detailed from other parts of State, USAID, Defense, Treasury, Justice, Homeland Security, CIA, Labor, and DIA. We now have a modest rapid response capability and a growing cadre of civilian planners.

My office is charged with two tasks. The first is to ensure that the entire U.S. Government is organized to deal with reconstruction and stabilization (R&S) crises affecting U.S. national interests, to include harmonizing civilian and military activities. The second and equally important task is to build the civilian capacity to staff these missions when called upon to respond.

These tasks are simple to describe, but not so simple to achieve. It requires a major, perhaps even a revolutionary, change in the way the U.S. approaches conflict response. Just as the military underwent tremendous reform in the 1980s following the passage of Goldwater-Nichols legislation, we are proposing shifts across our civilian agencies that similarly promote unity of effort so that we best leverage limited resources, and avoid working at cross-purposes.

Herbst outlines the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) experiment named “Unified Action,” regarding the implementation of Bush’s NSPD-44 via the new Interagency Management System (IMS).

Testing the IMS, including the establishment of civilian-military cooperation, is an important part of our work. We have been using Unified Action, an interagency experiment similar to a military exercise and supported by Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), to do that. Unified Action is part of the JFCOM-led Multinational Experiment series. It is the first civilian-driven experiment of its kind to test and refine the planning and coordination processes necessary to implement NSPD-44 via the Interagency Management System. It is designed to improve U.S. whole-of-government capacity to plan for and execute integrated conflict and crisis prevention, mitigation or response operations.

Bush brought in a “War Czar” to oversee the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan: Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan, Meghan O’Sullivan.

A Conspicuous “Consensus”

Following the report by the bipartisan Smart Power Commission, Joseph Nye and Richard Armitage presented an official testimony, titled “Smart Power and the U.S. Strategy for Security in a Post-9/11 World,” on November 7, 2007 to the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Hearing on Smart Power and the United States Strategy for Security in the Post-9/11 World.

Robert M. Gates — former National Security Advisor and CIA Director, and Secretary of Defense under both W. Bush and Obama– in his 2007 Landon Lecture at Kansas State University coming soon after the Nye and Armitage testimony, attributed “victory in the Cold War” to particularly “soft power” and the bipartisan presidency, and as Nye had in his Opening Address at the ’03 National Security Conference, repeated the bipartisan narrative that 9/11 was the justification for emphasizing “soft power” in combination with “hard power.” (Note 10)

The end of the Cold War, and the attacks of September 11, marked the dawn of another new era in international relations – an era whose challenges may be unprecedented in complexity and scope.

…

But, my message today is not about the defense budget or military power. My message is that if we are to meet the myriad challenges around the world in the coming decades, this country must strengthen other important elements of national power both institutionally and financially, and create the capability to integrate and apply all of the elements of national power to problems and challenges abroad. In short, based on my experience serving seven presidents, as a former Director of CIA and now as Secretary of Defense, I am here to make the case for strengthening our capacity to use “soft” power and for better integrating it with “hard” power.

One of the most important lessons of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that military success is not sufficient to win: economic development, institution-building and the rule of law, promoting internal reconciliation, good governance, providing basic services to the people, training and equipping indigenous military and police forces, strategic communications, and more – these, along with security, are essential ingredients for long-term success. Accomplishing all of these tasks will be necessary to meet the diverse challenges I have described.

… we need to develop a permanent, sizeable cadre of immediately deployable experts with disparate skills, a need which president bush called for in his 2007 state of the union address, and which the State Department is now working on with its initiative to build a civilian response corps. Both the President and Secretary of State have asked for full funding for this initiative. But we also need new thinking about how to integrate our government’s capabilities in these areas, and then how to integrate government capabilities with those in the private sector, in universities, in other non-governmental organizations, with the capabilities of our allies and friends — and with the nascent capabilities of those we are trying to help.

The Interagency Counterinsurgency Initiative was launched by the executive branch, led by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and USAID Administrator Henrietta Fore. Bush’s International Affairs Budget request for Fiscal Year 2009 included a Civilian Stabilization Initiative for “whole-of-government” civilian-military integration, which would operationalize the new “nation-building” (S/CRS) office that Herbst ran in Washington via the Civilian Response Corps (CRC). The Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act passed only a House vote, but was codified in the NDAA, and the CRC would be funded through the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008 (P.L. 110–252). [and later, through the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2009 (Div. H, P.L. 111–8)] The NDAA also authorized the establishment of the Pentagon’s Center for Complex Operations (CCO), and the Pentagon also established the Human Social Culture Behavior Modeling Program (HSCB), led by Captain Dylan Schmorrow.

General Anthony C. Zinni (USMC Ret.) and Admiral Leighton W. Smith Jr. (USN Ret.) presented joint testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 8, 2008, titled “Smart Power: Building a Better, Safer World.” (Note 11)

Our presence here today may surprise some. Why would a Marine and a former Navy attack pilot come to this committee to support the budget for the State Department, for USAID, and the civilian activities of our government that impact the lives of people around the world?

We are here because from our time on the front line of America’s presence in the world, we know that the U.S. cannot rely on military power alone to keep us safe from terrorism, infectious disease and other global threats that recognize no borders.

We are here representing a group of over 50 retired flag and general officers who share a concern about the future of our country and our ability to lead effectively. (p. 1)

…

For the United States to be an effective world leader, it must strategically balance all three aspects of its power – defense, diplomacy, and development. This is what we refer to as using “smart power”: the integration and appropriate application of all the tools of statecraft.

“Toward a Liberal-Realist Foreign Policy: A memo for the next president,” by Joseph Nye, was published in the March/April 2008 issue of Harvard Magazine.

The crisis of September 11, 2001, created an opportunity for George W. Bush to express a bold vision….

This new U.S. unilateralism of the early twenty-first century was based on a profound misunderstanding of the nature of power in world politics. Power is the ability to get the outcomes one wants. Whether the resources one possesses will produce such outcomes depends upon the context. In the past, it was assumed that military power dominated most issues, but in today’s world, the contexts of power differ greatly for military, economic, and transnational issues.
…
The old distinction between realists and liberals needs to give way to a new synthesis that you might choose to call “liberal realism.” What should a liberal realist foreign policy comprise?

First, it would start with an understanding of the strength and limits of American power. We are the only superpower, but preponderance is not empire or hegemony. We can influence, but not control, other parts of the world. The context of world politics today is like a three-dimensional chess game. The top board of military power is unipolar; but on the middle board of economic relations, the world is multipolar. On the bottom board of transnational relations (such as climate change, illegal drugs, pandemics, and terrorism) power is chaotically distributed. Military power is only a small part of the solution in responding to these new threats. They require cooperation among governments and international institutions.
…
Second, a liberal realist policy would stress the importance of developing an integrated grand strategy that combines hard military power with soft “attractive power” to create smart power of the sort that won the Cold War. In a war on terrorism, we need to use hard power against the hard-core terrorists, but we cannot hope to win unless we gain the hearts and minds of the moderates.
…
Third, the objective of a liberal realist policy should be to advance the principle of “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” that has long constituted American political culture. Such a grand strategy would have four key pillars:

providing security for the United States and its allies;

maintaining a strong domestic and international economy;

avoiding environmental disasters (such as pandemics and negative climate change); and

encouraging liberal democracy and human rights at home and abroad where feasible at reasonable levels of cost.

…

Your Vision and Smart Power

THE UNITED STATES needs to rediscover how to be a “smart power.” That was the conclusion of a bipartisan commission that I recently co-chaired with Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state in the Bush administration. A group of Republican and Democratic members of Congress, former ambassadors, retired military officers, and heads of nonprofit organizations was convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. We concluded that the effects of the September 11 terrorist attacks have thrown America off course.

Since the shock of 9/11, the United States has been exporting fear and anger, rather than our more traditional values of hope and optimism. Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo have become more powerful global icons of America than the Statue of Liberty. Terrorism is a real threat and likely to be with us for decades, but over-responding to the provocations of extremists does us more damage than the terrorists ever could. Success in the struggle against terrorism means finding a new central premise for American foreign policy to replace the current theme of a “war on terror.” A commitment to providing for the global good can provide that premise.

The United States can become a smart power by once again investing in global public goods—providing services and policies that people and governments in all quarters of the world want but cannot attain in the absence of leadership by the largest country. That means support for international institutions, aligning our country with international development, promoting public health, increasing interactions of our civil society with others, maintaining an open international economy, and dealing seriously with climate change. By complementing American military and economic might with greater investments in soft power and a broader vision, you can rebuild the framework that we will need to tackle the tough problems ahead.

Nye and Armitage then testified again, this time to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 24, 2008, with a statement titled, “Implementing Smart Power: Setting an Agenda for National Security Reform.”

Mr. Chairman, as you know, your committee held a hearing on Smart Power in March of this year, receiving testimony from Admiral Leighton Smith and General Tony Zinni, who is also a member of our Commission. Admiral Smith and General Zinni spoke on behalf of 52 retired generals and admirals who are backing the idea of Smart Power, organized by the Center for U.S. Global Engagement. The pair did an excellent job of explaining Smart Power, so we do not want to spend too much time here on what you already know. But please allow us to briefly explain how we came to this idea.

Would a shift from relative “hard power” to “soft power” be quite the same without an “army of federal civilian volunteers”?

The United States has deployed a large part of our volunteer military to support the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we have also called on an army of federal civilian volunteers from the Department of Defense and other departments and agencies to serve. Over the course of more than seven years of war, nearly 10,000 federal civilian employees have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan to support security, political, and economic development.4 While certainly unique in scale and complexity, the stability and reconstruction missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are also unprecedented in their risk to our deployed citizens. Some claim these posts are exposed to such a high level of threat that most civilian personnel would have been evacuated from them in the pre-9/11 era.

“Deploying Federal Civilians to the Battlefield: Incentives, Benefits, and Medical Care,” U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, April 2008

The Reconstruction and Stabilization Policy Coordinating Committee (R&S PCC) of the National Security Council, established by Bush’s NSPD-44 and co-chaired by the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, approved the Principles of the USG Planning Framework for Reconstruction, Stabilization and Conflict Transformation (“Planning Framework”) in May, 2008. (Note 12) Also, an “interagency working group” (IWG) of the R&S PCC, co-chared by the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) and USAID Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation (CMM), and featuring officials from the Defense Department, Joint Forces Command, and the Army’s Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI), approved the Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework (ICAF) in July, 2008. (Note 13) Four years after its establishment, S/CRS published a statement titled “The S/CRS Inter-Agency Team,” statements on its “Mission,” “Core Objectives” and “Core Organizational Functions,” as well as “Frequently Asked Questions” and “1207 Funding.” (Note 14)

The S/CRS Inter-Agency Team

Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization
July 13, 2008

S/CRS is a State Department office, but it is inter-agency in both character and function. We are staffed by representatives from agencies throughout the U.S. Government, allowing us to build upon and draw on existing skills and expertise, and more easily reach back to inter-agency partners.

Currently, S/CRS staff come from the State Department, USAID, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Joint Forces Command, and the Department of Justice.

———-

Mission

To lead, coordinate and institutionalize U.S. Government civilian capacity to prevent or prepare for post-conflict situations, and to help stabilize and reconstruct societies in transition from conflict or civil strife, so they can reach a sustainable path toward peace, democracy and a market economy.

A consensus has developed within the Executive Branch, in Congress and among independent experts that the U.S. Government needs a more robust capability to prevent conflict when possible, and if necessary manage stabilization and reconstruction operations in countries emerging from conflict or civil strife.

Robert M. Perito of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) published a report the same month, requested by the Departments of State and Defense, titled Integrated Security Assistance: The 1207 Program.

Summary

…

• Congress’s intent in authorizing this program was to jump start the new State Department Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. It was also to promote a “whole of government” approach to security-assistance programs.

…

Introduction

Section 1207 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of FY 2006 and FY 2007 authorized the Defense Department (DOD) to provide up to $200 million over two years in funds, services, and defense articles to the State Department (DOS) for security, reconstruction, and stabilization. The State Department Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) assumed leadership of an interagency process to develop proposals and request funding for projects that would carry out the intent of the NDAA. In FY 2006, the DOD transferred $10 million in Section 1207 assistance to the DOS for a program to support the internal security forces in Lebanon following Israel’s war against Hezbollah. In FY 2007, the DOD transferred over $99 million in Section 1207 assistance to the DOS to fund projects in Haiti ($20m), Somalia ($25m), Nepal ($10m), Colombia ($4m), trans-Sahara Africa ($15m), Yemen ($8.8m), and Southeast Asia ($16.9m). Section 1210 of the National Defense Authorization Act of FY 2008 provides a one-year extension of Section 1207 authority and provides an additional $100 million (see appendix 1).

…

The DOS and the DOD published formal guidelines for the 1207 application process for 2008. On February 28, the DOS sent a telegram to all diplomatic and consular posts from the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization containing “Guidance for FY 08 Section 1210 Proposal Submissions.”

…

The telegram contained a set of seven principles established by S/CRS and DOD’s Office of Partnership Strategies to guide the development of project proposals (see appendix 2). According to the principles, programs should focus on security, stabilization, or reconstruction objectives. They should advance U.S. national security interests by promoting regional stability and/or building the governance capacity of partner countries to address conflict, instability, and sources of terrorism. Programs should address urgent or emergent threats or opportunities and should involve countries where a failure to act could lead to the deployment of U.S. military forces.

Programs funded by 1207 should address situations that could not be dealt with by conventional forms of foreign assistance. These short-term programs should be coordinated with longer-term development efforts that are expected to be assumed by host governments or other donors. They should also be coordinated with other U.S. security-building programs, such as 1206-funded programs. Programs should involve a ”whole-of- government” approach by integrating initiatives across multiple sectors. Proposals may originate from embassies, DOS bureaus, USAID, or combatant commands, but they must be developed by embassy country teams and be submitted by the ambassador to the relevant DOS regional bureau.

After consideration by regional bureaus, proposals are transmitted to S/CRS, which will convene the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to decide on whether proposals will receive funding. The five-member TAC is cochaired by S/CRS and the DOD/OSD Office of Partnership Strategies and includes the Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance (F) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J5). USAID is a new member. Representatives from DOS bureaus and other government agencies are invited to attend when their expertise is required. Approved proposals are recommended to the S/CRS coordinator, who then sends them to the secretary of state for approval and submission to the DOD with a request for 1207 funds. Proposals are transmitted to the DOD under cover of a memorandum from the DOS’s executive secretary to his or her DOD counterpart. At DOD, proposals are transmitted by the executive secretary to the comptroller for funding.

Robert M. Perito, Integrated Security Assistance: The 1207 Program, pp. 1-4, Special Report 207, United States Institute of Peace (USIP), July 2008

The Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) published Forging a New Shield in 2008. (Note 15)

The legacy structures and processes of a national security system that is now more than 60 years old no longer help American leaders to formulate coherent national strategy. They do not enable them to integrate America’s hard and soft power to achieve policy goals. They prevent them from matching resources to objectives, and from planning rationally and effectively for future contingencies. As presently constituted, too, these structures and processes lack means to detect and remedy their own deficiencies.
…
We have not kept up with the character and scope of change in the world despite the tectonic shift occasioned by the end of the Cold War and the shock of the 9/11 attacks.
…
A NEW CONCEPT OF NATIONAL SECURITY

For all these reasons, we must learn to think differently about national security and devise new means to ensure it. The Cold War-era concept of national security has broadened as new categories of issues have pushed their way onto the national security agenda; yet others are bound to arrive in coming years, too, without neat labels or instructions for assembly and operation. This means that the operative definition of security itself must change from an essentially static concept to a dynamic one.

The Center for U.S. Global Engagement, of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, launched the Impact ’08 initiative during the 2008 presidential election.

Impact ’08: Building a Better, Safer World was the Center’s national, non-partisan initiative, chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, calling on all of the Presidential candidates during the 2008 election to elevate and strengthen America’s investments in global development and diplomacy.

Through outreach and events in seven of the early primary and battleground general election states, Impact ’08 brought together Republicans, Democrats and Business, Civic, Military and Faith based leaders together to call on the candidates to take a “smart power” approach to global engagement. Both Barack Obama and John McCain made strong commitments to answer this call. In the end, President Obama’s election was historic in many ways, including his significant commitment to the most in-depth and far reaching platform embracing “smart power” of any candidate in our history. Obama pledged to “make the case to the American people that [development assistance] can be our best investment in increasing the common security of the entire world.” Specifically, Obama pledged to:

Double annual U.S. foreign assistance to $50 billion

Embrace Millennium Development Goal of halving global poverty by 2015

Increase the size of the Foreign Service, USAID and the Peace Corps

Modernize our foreign assistance policies, tools and operations

The Center for U.S. Global Engagement would also publish Putting Smart Power to Work: An Action Agenda for the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress:

More than 20 reports issued in the last two years by a diverse group of experts and institutions reflect broad agreement that many of the security threats facing the United States today do not lend themselves to traditional military and security approaches, and the new Administration must use new, or previously underutilized, tools to address these challenges more strategically. The prominent strategic themes across these reports include:

Weak and failing states will pose an increasing danger to the United States in the short- and long-term.

America must focus not only on challenges presented by states, but also on transnational threats from non-state actors and from destabilizing conditions within states.

Reducing poverty, advancing education and good governance, and promoting human rights and the rule of law should play a more central role in our foreign policy and national security strategy.

America must modernize its foreign assistance to achieve greater effectiveness and ensure accountability and transparency.

A smart power strategy that comprises an array of military and nonmilitary tools is an effective and necessary approach to address instability, extremism and terrorism around the globe.

These experts concur that such a shift in strategy will be necessary to improve America’s image in the world and make our global engagement efforts more effective. A majority of the reports conclude that the undisputed decline in America’s reputation in most parts of the world in recent years is a real and significant threat both to our national security and prosperity.

There was an impressive consensus on seven actions the United States should take to address these strategic challenges, representing a modernized approach to how America engages in the world and utilizes its civilian capacity. These seven actions are:

Formulate a comprehensive national security or global development strategy that articulates and elevates the role of development and diplomacy alongside defense

Increase substantially funding and resources for civilian-led agencies and programs, especially through USAID and the State Department

Elevate and streamline the U.S. foreign assistance apparatus to improve policy and program coherence and coordination

Reform Congressional involvement and oversight, including revamping the Foreign Assistance Act

Integrate civilian and military instruments to deal with weak and fragile states

Rebalance authorities for certain foreign assistance activities currently under the Department of Defense to civilian agencies

Strengthen U.S. support for international organizations and other tools of international cooperation.

The Civilian “Soft Power” Emphasis of the
Obama Administration

Obama’s “civilian national security force”

The first U.S. President to chair the U.N. Security Council, Barack Obama, said in a July 2, 2008 “call to service” speech:

“It’s not called Bobby’s Dream or Jane’s Dream, it’s the American Dream. That is why this is a great nation, because time and again Americans have been willing to serve on stages both great and small, to draw on the same spirit that launched America’s improbable journey to meet the challenges of each defining moment in our history. And one of those moments came on September 11, 2001.”

“I want this to be a central cause of my presidency. We will ask Americans to serve, we will create new opportunities for Americans to serve, and we will direct that service to our most pressing national challenges.”

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve gotta have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

The “civilian national security force” from Obama’s ’08 speech was a reference to the civilian “soft power” emphasis, relative to the military “hard power” emphasis of the Bush administration, of bipartisan Smart Power “grand strategy.” Obama’s first International Affairs Budget request for a Civilian Stabilization Initiative to fund the Civilian Response Corps (CRC), “establishes a permanent interagency civilian reconstruction and stabilization response capacity. This capacity is an essential part of this Administration‘s strategy to enhance the tools of soft power projection and to permit the Defense Department to focus on its core military mission responsibilities.”

In addition to the shift to “soft power” in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan; the Obama administration would write an increasing number of smaller conflicts into the script of “the War on Terror,” like the made-for-a-movie dramatization in going after “pirates” off the coast of Somalia, and the pursuit and assassination of a U.S. citizen in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her confirmation testimony, said

I believe that American leadership has been wanting, but is still wanted. We must use what has been called ‘‘smart power,’’ the full range of tools at our disposal—diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural—picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation.

The U.S. Global Leadership Campaign (est. 1995) and Center for U.S. Global Leadership (est. 2004) would reform in 2009 as the U.S. Global Leadershi p Coalition (USGLC) of special interests leveraging the bipartisan Smart Power, “America’s Global Strategy,” of the International Affairs Budget. The USGLC Advisory Council features all Secretaries of State still living (e.g. Kissinger, Albright), National Security Advisors (e.g. Brzezinski), former Secretaries of Defense and Treasury, the first-ever Secretary of Homeland Security, two Governors and Congressmen (e.g. Kean and Hamilton of the 9-11 Commission, Richard Lugar, who co-sponsored the bill with Joe Biden to establish the Civilian Response Corps), two World Bank presidents, and a National Security Advisory Council of over 130 retired military generals and admirals.

OUR MISSION

WHO WE ARE

The U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) is a broad-based influential network of 400 businesses and NGOs; national security and foreign policy experts; and business, faith-based, academic and community leaders in all 50 states who support a smart power approach of elevating diplomacy and development alongside defense in order to build a better, safer world.

WHY IT MATTERS

In today’s interconnected world, America must use all of the instruments of national security and foreign policy at its disposal. America’s smart power tools of diplomacy and development are underfunded and undermanned, which is why the USGLC supports a strong and effective International Affairs Budget for: Protecting National Security by fighting terrorism, stabilizing weak and fragile states, combating weapons proliferation and promoting global stability; Building Economic Prosperity by developing international markets, driving economic development, building micro-enterprises and expanding exports; Strengthening Humanitarian Values by saving lives, alleviating global poverty, fighting HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases as well as hunger, expanding educational opportunities and strengthening democratic institutions.

WHAT WE DO

The USGLC works in our nation’s capital and across the country to educate and inspire support from the American public and policymakers on the importance of America’s civilian-led tools of diplomacy and development. By advocating for increases in the International Affairs Budget, the USGLC is working to make the smart power tools of diplomacy and development a keystone of America’s engagement with the world.

(USGLC website)

“Grand Strategy” via the “Whole of Government Planning” of “Complex Operations”

The U.S. Counterinsurgency Guide for the War on Terror was published as Obama took office in January of 2009, as part of the “Whole-of-Government”-“Whole-of-Society” Interagency Counterinsurgency Initiative that was undertaken in last year of the Bush administration.

PREFACE

In recent years the United States has engaged in prolonged counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has supported many other friendly governments facing internal subversion around the globe. In so doing it has both relearned old lessons, and forged new methods and concepts for the stabilization of moderate, freedom-oriented governments. This Guide, the first of its kind in almost half a century, distills the best of contemporary thought, historical knowledge, and hard-won practice. It is the best kind of doctrinal work: intellectually rigorous, yet practical.

Irregular warfare is far more varied than conventional conflict: hence the importance of an intellectual framework that is coherent enough to provide guidance, and flexible enough to adapt to circumstances. Counterinsurgency places great demands on the ability of bureaucracies to work together, with allies, and increasingly, with non- governmental organizations. That it is co-signed by the leaders of the Departments of State and Defense and the U.S. Agency for International Development says a great deal about the partnership between these and other departments that has been, and will be, required if we are to succeed in the future. Although much of our ability to knit together lines of effort arises from the field, there is an important role for policy-relevant thought about first order questions. This Guide provides that.

American counterinsurgency practice rests on a number of assumptions: that the decisive effort is rarely military (although security is the essential prerequisite for success); that our efforts must be directed to the creation of local and national governmental structures that will serve their populations, and, over time, replace the efforts of foreign partners; that superior knowledge, and in particular, understanding of the ‘human terrain’ is essential; and that we must have the patience to persevere in what will necessarily prove long struggles.

[The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and the U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) co-published the Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction in ’09.]

The Obama administration immediately expanded Bush’s “nation-building” directive (NSPD-44) for “stabilization and reconstruction,” as well as his 2006 National Security Strategy, via Security Sector Reform (SSR).

The guidance contained in this document draws on a range of diplomatic, defense, and development assets to support SSR in partner governments and reflects international best practices.Although this paper applies to the Department of State, DoD, and USAID, SSR is a whole-of-government effort and requires the full support of all Federal departments and agencies with an SSR role.This document complements related efforts such as implementation of NSPD-44 and Transformational Diplomacy by clarifying guidance for the reform, restructuring, and re-establishment of partner security and justice institutions.
…

The 2006 U.S. National Security Strategy stated that the goal of U.S. statecraft is “to help create a world of democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system.” SSR can help achieve that objective, reinforce U.S. diplomatic, development, and defense priorities, and reduce long-term threats to U.S. security by helping to build stable, prosperous, and peaceful societies beyond our borders. SSR enables U.S. foreign assistance providers to respond to national strategic guidance and transform our approaches towards cooperation, partnership capacity building, stabilization and reconstruction, and engagement. Accordingly, the principles contained in this paper guide relevant actors to conduct security-related engagement in more holistic, integrated ways.
…

Security Sector Reform6 is the set of policies, plans, programs, and activities that a government undertakes to improve the way it provides safety, security, and justice.The overall objective is to provide these services in a way that promotes an effective and legitimate public service that is transparent, accountable to civilian authority, and responsive to the needs of the public. From a donor perspective, SSR is an umbrella term that might include integrated activities in support of: defense and armed forces reform; civilian management and oversight; justice; police; corrections; intelligence reform; national security planning and strategy support; border management; disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR); and/or reduction of armed violence.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR, also a PNSR Partner) and 3D Security co-sponsored the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum (CPRF) Series on Defense, Development, and Diplomacy (3Ds) Approach to Foreign Policy, from February 2009-October 2010. In May of 2009, the White House announced the establishment of the Global Engagement Directorate, and Pradeep Ramamurthy was selected as its first director. Joseph Nye was one of the “key working group members” of the Wilson Center’s bipartisan Strengthening America’s Global Engagement (SAGE) Initiative, that would convene in 2010 to establish an “independent, nonpartisan support organization to help strengthen America’s public diplomacy and strategic communication efforts.” SAGE featured both Bush and Obama administration officials, including Captain Wayne Porter: one of the two Pentagon staffers who, along with Mark Mykleby, would take credit for authoring “A National Strategic Narrative” in 2011 as “Mr. Y.” (Note 16)

Hillary Clinton announced the new Pentagon-modeled “Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) Process” of the State Department in 2009. (Note 17) Andrew J. Shapiro, Clinton’s assistant secretary, said in his speech titled “Political-Military Affairs: Smart Power Starts Here,” that “Secretary Clinton is institutionalizing smart power in the recently announced Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, the QDDR, a blueprint for building effective global leadership through a robust and effective State Department and USAID working side-by-side with a strong military.” The “mission” of the State Department’s new Office of Global Partnerships (S/GP), “is to build public-private partnerships that strengthen diplomacy and development outcomes.”

The Civilian Response Corps: “Smart Power in Action”

“A Whole of Government Approach to Stability,” by Matthew Cordova, Deputy Director of Planning for Civil-Military Affairs in the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), briefly summarizes the role of the Civilian Response Corps (CRC) in the implementation of Smart Power: “These efforts to operationalize smart power through the Civilian Response Corps and interagency planners reflect the USG’s new approach to planning and conducting stability operations: a civilian-led whole-of-government plan, properly resourced civilian capabilities and the U.S. military in a support role. The Department of Defense has been among the strongest champions of this new approach.”

Overview

The Civilian Stabilization Initiative (CSI) builds on three years of interagency development, exercises, and pilot efforts to create a robust Civilian Response Corps, the need for which has been consistently highlighted by the Administration. The Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act of 2008 (Title XVI of Public Law 110-447) charged the Department of State with leading the interagency effort to significantly improve the ability of the United States to respond to conflict and create a civilian counterpart to the U.S. military ready and capable to stabilize countries in the transition from war to peace. This vital initiative establishes a permanent interagency civilian reconstruction and stabilization response capacity. This capacity is an essential part of this Administration‘s strategy to enhance the tools of soft power projection and to permit the Defense Department to focus on its core military mission responsibilities. The requested resources will provide funding to build, train, equip, and deploy a 4,250-member interagency Civilian Response Corps managed by the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS).

Civilian Stabilization Initiative, International Affairs Budget request, FY 2010 excerpt (Note 18)

In his 2010 Foreign Affairs interview with Greg Bruno titled “Waiting on a Civilian Surge in Afghanistan,” John Herbst talked of using “the CIA, the Army Corps of Engineers, Joint Forces Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff” in addition to the agencies of the Civilian Stabilization Initiative listed in the excerpt above. When asked about the operation of the CRC in Afghanistan, Herbst stated: “The most significant is that we have been the folks who have helped put together plans integrating all American efforts in Afghanistan. We have written what we call “civ-mil” operational plans for all twelve American Provincial Reconstruction Teams. We also wrote the civ-mil operational plans for Regional Command East, for Regional Command South, and in November of 2008 we established a civ-mil group in the American embassy in Kabul.” The relatively-decentralized “‘civ-mil’ operational plans” were molded out of the centralized United States Government Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign Plan for Support to Afghanistan, and the “civ-mil group in the American embassy,” would be called the Integrated Civilian Military Action Group (ICMAG). Herbst added that, “we dispatched eight people to Afghanistan; they helped the embassy keep track of preparations for the August 2009 presidential elections in Afghanistan. We did the same thing for Ambassador Holbrooke in the fall, when he asked us for support in fielding a strategic communications team to go out to Kabul.”

We received our first funds for the Civilian Response Corps late in the fall of 2008, so the civilian uplift began in earnest around this time last year. At this time last year, we only had about twenty-five active members of the Civilian Response Corps; by late summer we had maybe 200, that’s all. We’re building a Civilian Response Corps of 1,264. We have 719 on board today. But 719 on board means we’re only able to deploy about 250, 300 maximum. There’s a need for much more. So the office of Ambassador Holbrooke chose to use mechanisms we use in Iraq, essentially hiring contractors to go out and do the large majority of civilian jobs. Once we have a substantial-sized Civilian Response Corps, we’ll be able to take on missions like Afghanistan and provide most, if not all, of the civilians required.
…
Our office is dedicated to two tasks: conflict prevention and peace building. Ideally we will be engaged when a country is experiencing some serious problems of governance, but before things spiral out of control. Classic conflict prevention or where there’s the danger of hostilities within a society. Alternatively, we can be engaged when you have a war break out, and you have had a peace-keeping mission and you need to restore order, restore stability. Or when a government has completely fallen apart and you have to restore government services. These are very specific missions. These specific missions are part of the overall brief of the State Department, but until our office was created, you did not have staff dedicated se to precisely these problems.

The six “central capabilities”of the CRC, according to the State Department webpage that has been taken offline and/or moved, were:

Security Sector Reform

Assessing the security factors in host countries that drive and mitigate conflict

Guiding establishment of judicial and law enforcement activities

Rule of Law, Justice, and Police Reform

Providing legal, corrections, law enforcement, and judicial expertise

Planning and supporting fair and legitimate legal structures

Mentoring, advising, and training host nation rule of law personnel

Governance

Providing direct reporting to U.S. policymakers

Engaging with local actors to promote U.S. stability and conflict prevention objectives

Guiding establishment and monitoring of good governance programs

Providing public diplomacy and strategic communications support

Conflict Mediation

Assisting with workshops, programs, and engagement strategies to foster dialogue

Help to identify underlying grievances and lingering problems in affected groups

Reconciliation

Identifying possible paths away from conflict and towards sustainable peace

Working with local populations to ensure continued dialogue

Gender, Youth, and Religious Civil Society Engagement

Engaging “silenced majorities” and finding specific ways to include them in the peace process

Protecting the rights and freedoms of these groups as a means of guaranteeing lasting peace

In a United States Institute of Peace (USIP) report from May 2010 titled, “The Link Between DDR and SSR in Conflict-Affected Countries,” Sean McFate authored a wrap-up of a conference held at National Defense University on March 5, 2010, called “Monopoly of Force: The Link between DDR and SSR,” co-sponsored by the Pentagon’s new Center for Complex Operations (CCO) established in Bush’s last year as president, and USIP.

Summary
• Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) and security sector reform (SSR) processes should be interrelated and mutually reinforcing. As DDR and SSR share the same objective—consolidation of the state’s monopoly of force to uphold the rule of law—they succeed or fail together and should be planned, resourced, implemented, and evaluated in a coordinated manner. The natural point of intersection for DDR and SSR is in the reintegration phase, as many ex-combatants find employment in the security apparatus that SSR creates.

• DDR helps ensure the long-term success of SSR, as it shifts ex-combatants into the new security forces, where they no longer threaten the state’s monopoly of force. If done properly, this reenforces the peace settlement by fostering mutual trust between former enemies, encouraging further disarmament and transition into civilian life.

• SSR helps ensure the long-term success of DDR, as security-sector governance includes ministry programs that provide for the welfare of former combatants. This focus prevents ex-combatants from becoming insurgents or joining criminal gangs. At the same time, effective SSR produces professional security forces that can control spoilers and contain violence.

• DDR and SSR together promote development by preserving resources and infrastructure, freeing and managing labor, and supporting reconciliation that encourages investment and entrepreneurship. They also promote the interests of women, minorities, and former child soldiers, who should be supported in a consistent manner between the two programs.

Sean McFate, “The Link Between DDR and SSR in Conflict-Afflicted Countries,” United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Special Report 238, May 2010.

Obama’s National Security Strategy of May, 2010 mainstreamed the PNSR-inspired “Whole of Government Approach,” (Note 19) and the “3Ds” were augmented by additional “capabilities”: Economic, Homeland Security, Intelligence, Strategic Communications, and The American People and the Private Sector. One “Advancing Our Interests” subsection of the strategy was titled “Accelerating Sustainable Development” (i.e. Agenda 21). Obama then issued Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development in September of 2010, “the first of its kind by a U.S. administration,” was predicated upon those in White House and special interests dictating “sustainable development outcomes” to consumers, and would later be streamlined via the White House-level Global Development Council, established via Executive Order 13600 in 2012.

In November, 2010, the State Department issued its Agency Financial Report for Fiscal Year 2010, also called “Smart Power in Action,” featuring the “Sidebar on The 3Ds-Diplomacy, Development, and Defense,” which introduced the 3D Planning Group (3DPG) of the National Security Council. (The 3D Planning Guide: Diplomacy, Development, Defense would be published in July, 2012.)

“Our Armed Forces will always be a cornerstone of our security, but they must be complemented.Our security also depends upon diplomats who can act in every corner of the world, from grand capitals to dangerous outposts [and] development experts who can strengthen governance and support human dignity….”

— President Barack Obama

Diplomacy, Development and Defense, the “3Ds” of U.S. national security, form a central framework for American strength and influence. Increasing the profile of diplomacy and development, alongside defense, is smart — mainly because the cost of conflict is higher than ever before. Prevention, including greater attention to failed and failing States, is imperative.

The U.S. Government recognizes the importance of preventing and deterring conflict by working with and through partners and allies as well as through better collaboration between defense and civilian agencies and organizations. We have come to realize that the global challenges and opportunities of the future will demand a greater scale, more resources, and more strategic focus for our diplomacy and development efforts as key partners alongside defense.

USAID Administrator Shah, Secretary of Defense Gates, and Secretary of State Clinton take part in a U.S. Global Leadership Coalition roundtable discussion, September 28, 2010. ©AP Image

The U.S. Government recognizes the importance of preventing and deterring conflict by working with and through partners and allies as well as through better collaboration between defense and civilian agencies and organizations. We have come to realize that the global challenges and opportunities of the future will demand a greater scale, more resources, and more strategic focus for our diplomacy and development efforts as key partners alongside defense.

“Unity of effort” is an overriding principle in the 3D framework. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah share the commitment to improve a whole-of-government approach to national security challenges. There is a heavy focus on how U.S. Government programs are aligned and on building whole-of-government policy responses to key themes as well as a more comprehensive look at the resources involved and available to support our programs and initiatives.

The Diplomacy, Development and Defense (3D) Planning Group was chartered to improve inter-departmental coordination of planning between the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and USAID. All three agencies recognize that their planning is strengthened by the inclusion of perspectives from other agencies with resulting plans reflecting a unity of the U.S. Government effort.

“The Arab Spring,” “A National Strategic Narrative,” and “ISIS”

From the new Complex Crises Fund (succeeding Bush’s “1207 Program”) in Tunisia, to the old Economic Support Fund in Egypt; the White House would continue to flood Africa with International Affairs Budget funds, and Obama would “lead from behind.”

Bush’s Office of the Coordinator of Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) would be formally succeeded by Obama’s Bureau of Conflict Stabilization Operations (CSO) in late 2011, but the State Department published the following statement on the CSO’s role in the “regime-change” of Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi’s rule in Libya:

Libya

2011-2012

Situation
Nationwide political violence erupted in February 2011, following the Libyan Government’s brutal suppression of popular protests against Libyan leader Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi.

Approach
CSO and evacuated members of the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli worked together to develop comprehensive scenario and transition plans to better organize the United States government response during and after the uprising. CSO and embassy staff also worked with key international partners to ensure a common approach to assistance, and worked directly with the Libyan opposition leadership to assist in their development of transition planning and preparations for a post-Qadhafi future.

Results
CSO’s planning work was adopted by the National Security Staff (NSS) and Congress, and shaped multiple high-level decisions for U.S. action in Libya at critical junctures. Today, CSO supports several deployments in Libya addressing the priority sectors of governance, economy, health care, and security sector reform, each of which plays a part in supporting post-revolution stabilization.

According to his bio on Linkedin.com, Matt Van Etten was the CSO official who led the “transition” (i.e. “regime-change”) of not only Afghanistan, but of Libya, Syria, and elsewhere.

Experience

Foreign Affairs Officer and Team Lead, Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations

U.S. Department of State

April 2010 – Present (6 years)

Currently serving as Team Lead for Counter-Boko Haram and Lake Chad Basin regional efforts. Lead the CSO Bureau’s contributions to conflict mitigation and transitional security priorities in the Lake Chad Basin region of Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger. Support coordination between U.S. interagency stakeholders in the management of assistance and evaluation efforts towards countering the threat of terrorist group Boko Haram.

As Team Lead and Operations Officer, Libya engagement, July 2011-April 2014:
-Designed and led all aspects of CSO engagement in Washington and in country. Focused CSO’s programmatic and policy advocacy resources on U.S. stabilization priorities including security sector reform, judicial security and economic stabilization.
-Managed team members in Washington, the deployments of eight interagency conflict experts serving in Tripoli and Benghazi, and a third-party security sector assessment team in country.
-Designed Libya priority assistance objectives and planning metrics for the National Security Staff, including programmatic gap analyses and 90-day results management frameworks, and led interagency resource planning process against these objectives.
-Identified and incorporated best practices from previous stabilization response efforts, as well as in-country experience, into strategic and operational efforts.

As Planning and Assessment Specialist, CSO Syria engagement, January-June 2012:
-Conducted interagency transition planning efforts that resulted in prioritized objectives and key decisions for U.S. principals.
-Analyzed and conveyed conflict dynamics of the Syrian civil war through written products and briefings for the National Security Council and State Department principals.

Suzanne Nossel- Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) senior fellow, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of State’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs- presented a speech called “Smart Power: From Theory to Practice,” at the Citizens for Global Solutions Annual Conference on March 17, 2011; on the same day that the U.N. Security Council approved a “No-Fly Zone” in Libya.

In the spring of 2004 I published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine entitled Smart Power. In it I countered the idea that either “soft power” – U.S. cultural influence – or “hard power” – military might, could alone be the basis for a winning foreign policy strategy. I argued that the effective exercise of U.S. power must involve multiple tools and approaches, including reliance on allies, outreach to civil society, and robust institutions, in order to deliver results. Four years later, in her confirmation testimony to become Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton picked up the term and made it her own She said that smart power means using “the full range of tools at our disposal — diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural — picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation.”

…

Another critical component in broadening the array of power tools at the U.S.’s disposal has come through the Administration’s commitment to reengagement across the spectrum of multilateral bodies and international organizations. As a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of International Organizations, this is where my focus lies. Properly leveraged, international institutions – the United Nations and its subsidiary bodies and specialized agencies like the World Food Program, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees; regional organizations like NATO and the Organization of American States; and functional bodies like the G-8 and the Community of Democracies – can operate as tools to further U.S. priorities, and as force multipliers to help us deliver on our goals.

(Smart Power: From Theory to Practice excerpts, Citizens for Global Solutions Annual Conference, Washington, DC, March 17, 2011 excerpt)

Two days later, Obama invoked the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) U.N. doctrine on March 19, 2011, authorizing the “limited military action in Libya” by the U.S. “in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians.”

The contrast between the killing of Bin Laden and the intervention in Libya illustrates the Obama Doctrine. In the former case, Obama personally managed a unilateral use of force. In the latter case, he demonstrated smart power by waiting until an Arab League and UN resolution provided the legitimacy that ensured that the soft power narrative would not be that of another American attack on a Muslim country. Then he shared the leadership of the hard power operation with NATO allies. An incautious comment by a midlevel White House official characterized the Libya policy as “leading from behind,” and this became a target for political criticism, but as we saw earlier, Eisenhower was a great exemplar of knowing that sometimes it is most effective to keep a low profile and to lead from behind.

-Joseph Nye, “The Cult of Transformational Leadership,” The Diplomat, May 31, 2013, p. 4.

In April, 2011, A National Strategic Narrative, by “Mr. Y,” was published.

A National Strategic Narrative

This Strategic Narrative is intended to frame our National policy decisions regarding investment, security, economic development, the environment, and engagement well into this century. It is built upon the premise that we must sustain our enduring national interests — prosperity and security — within a “strategic ecosystem,” at home and abroad; that in complexity and uncertainty, there are opportunities and hope, as well as challenges, risk, and threat. The primary approach this Strategic Narrative advocates to achieve sustainable prosperity and security, is through the application of credible influence and strength, the pursuit of fair competition, acknowledgement of interdependencies and converging interests, and adaptation to complex, dynamic systems – all bounded by our national values.

…

We often hear the term “smart power” applied to the tools of development and diplomacy abroad empowering people all over the world to improve their own lives and to help establish the stability needed to sustain security and prosperity on a global scale. But we can not export “smart power” until we practice “smart growth” at home. We must seize the opportunity to be a model of stability, a model of the values we cherish for the rest of the world to emulate. And we must ensure that our domestic policies are aligned with our foreign policies. Our own “smart growth” can serve as the exportable model of “smart power.” Because, truthfully, it is in our interest to see the rest of the world prosper and the world market thrive, just as it is in our interest to see our neighbors prosper and our own urban centers and rural communities come back to life.

The military issued Joint Publication 3-8, Interorganizational Coordination During Joint Operations, in late June.

3. Whole-of-Government Approach

a. A whole-of-government approach integrates the collaborative efforts of the departments and agencies of the USG to achieve unity of effort. Under unified action, a whole-of-government approach identifies combinations of the full range of available USG capabilities and resources that reinforce progress and create synergies. This approach facilitates all USG capabilities and resources being shared, leveraged, synchronized, and applied toward the strategic end state. In order to do this, interagency members must, to the greatest degree possible, resist seeing their resources (e.g., financial, diplomatic, military, development, intelligence, economic, law enforcement, consular, commerce) as belonging to a single agency, but rather as tools of USG power.

b. Whole-of-government planning refers to NSC/HSC-sponsored processes by which multiple USG departments and agencies come together to develop plans that address critical challenges to national interests. The NRF commits the USG, in partnership with local, tribal, and state governments and the private sector, to complete both strategic and operational plans for the incident scenarios specified in the National Preparedness Guidelines. Whole- of-government planning is distinct from the contributions of USG departments and agencies to DOD planning, which remains a DOD responsibility.

c. It is imperative that all stakeholders in an operation participate in the planning and consultation processes to optimize the use of various instruments toward achievement of the operation’s goals. Maximum inclusion of all stakeholders (i.e., federal, state, local, and tribal governments, IGOs, NGOs, the private sector, HN partners, as applicable) is desired whether the operation is USG-only or multinational. Typically, policy and strategy are determined through a civilian-led process which is supported by military participants wherein the USG defines its strategic objectives, integrates them with partners (federal, state, local, tribal, multinational, and HNs, as applicable), and collaborates with IGOs, NGOs, and the private sector to achieve coherency. (p. I-7)

In the same month that the White House announced the new Lifeline: Embattled Civil Society Organizations Assistance Fund, Hillary Clinton spoke on the public-private fascism of “whole-of-government” Smart Power–themed “Investing in the Future: A Smart Power Approach to Global Leadership.”–at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) on July, 12, 2011:

I have formally instructed all of our ambassadors to act as CEOs of whole-of-government efforts to promote U.S. exports to their countries. And we are partnering more with chambers of commerce here and abroad. I will be working with Tom Donohue and the American Chamber to bring together representatives from American Chambers of Commerce around the world to discuss how we can boost American exports together so that we partner up more between our government and our private sector so that we have greater resources and greater reach.

Now, these steps are part of a whole-of-government effort to increase exports that includes Treasury, Commerce, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and many others. And it also includes the President’s Export Council, which President Obama convened to bring together business leaders, lawmakers, members of the Cabinet, including myself.

…

This is a moment to lean forward and take the kinds of informed risks that have led to some of our greatest successes. We need American businesses to recognize the long-term stakes as well as the short-term rewards. And as they do, they will have our full support. With persistence, patient diplomacy, we can ensure that American companies large and small get a fair shake and a chance to compete on their merits. But that takes resources. And to win those resources, we need political will and we need your support, because that political will depends to a large extent on our ability to tell our story, make our case, and win the argument that this is important for purposes far beyond doing the right thing. It is part of what we call smart power.

The 1 percent of our budget we spend on all diplomacy and development is not what is driving our deficit. Not only can we afford to maintain a strong civilian presence; we cannot afford not to. The simple truth is if we don’t seize the opportunities available today, other countries will. Other countries will fight for their companies while ours fend for themselves. Other countries will promote their own models and serve their own interests instead of opening markets, reinforcing the rule of law, and creating widespread inclusive growth. Other countries will create the jobs that should be created here, and even claim the mantle of global leadership. None of us want to see that happen, and I don’t believe most of the people around the world do either.

In August, the White House announced the “Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States” plan, and Obama directed the establishment of the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB), extending the reach of the nascent 3D Planning Group (3DPG) of the National Security Council, followed in September with the launch of the Open Government Partnership.

The primary purpose of the Atrocities Prevention Board shall be to coordinate a whole of government approach to preventing mass atrocities and genocide. By institutionalizing the coordination of atrocity prevention, we can ensure: (1) that our national security apparatus recognizes and is responsive to early indicators of potential atrocities; (2) that departments and agencies develop and implement comprehensive atrocity prevention and response strategies in a manner that allows “red flags” and dissent to be raised to decision makers; (3) that we increase the capacity and develop doctrine for our foreign service, armed services, development professionals, and other actors to engage in the full spectrum of smart prevention activities; and (4) that we are optimally positioned to work with our allies in order to ensure that the burdens of atrocity prevention and response are appropriately shared.

(Presidential Study Directive 10 excerpt)

The Obama administration had expanded the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) enacted under President Bill Clinton with its own GPRA “Modernization Act” in 2010, mandating that executive branch agencies establish “Agency Priority Goals” (and broader Cross-Agency Priority Goals). Agency Priority Goal (APG) #3, published in “State-USAID Agency Priority Goals” (FY2012-FY2013), is “Democracy, Good Governance, and Human Rights”:

Goal:

Advance progress toward sustained and consolidated democratic transitions in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, Syria, and West Bank/Gaza. By September 30, 2013, support continued progress toward or lay the foundations for transitions to accountable electoral democracies in 11 countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) that respect civil and political liberties and human rights.

The Department of State and USAID are undertaking the following internal programs to achieve the APG for Democracy:

Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI)
Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance

The Department of State and USAID are collaborating with the following external agencies to achieve the APG for Democracy:

The National Security Council
The Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP)
DOJ’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training (OPDAT)
The Department of Defense
The Department of Labor and the United States Trade Representative
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)

The State Department established the Office of The Special Coordinator For Middle East Transitions (D/MET) in September, 2011. The office, “coordinates United States Government assistance to incipient democracies arising from popular revolts across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The Special Coordinator for Middle East Transitions implements a coordinated interagency strategy to support designated MENA countries undergoing transitions to democracy – currently, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya.”

The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) created under the Bush administration would be augmented for “the Arab Spring” with the establishment of the Middle East North Africa Incentive Fund (MENA IF) in 2012:

MENA IF is a new initiative that provides $770 million to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the Arab Spring, supporting those countries that are moving to undertake the democratic and economic reforms necessary to address citizens’ demands and provide lasting stability in the region. The approach of an incentive-based fund will ensure that additional assistance is tied to reforms. This fund puts into practice the President’s strategy in the region, provides support to citizen demands for change, improves the ability to respond adroitly to contingencies and new opportunities, and begins to address the imbalance between security and economic assistance in the region. The fund will also provide the United States with additional tools to work with international partners to support changes in the MENA region, allowing the United States to use its investment to leverage international resources. The MENA IF also allows for a significant increase in the resources available to the region for non-military assistance.

Congressional Budget Justification, Volume 2, Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2013, p. 53.

Hillary Clinton made a speech on October 14, 2011 at the Economic Club of New York (Empire State Building), “the foremost nonpartisan forum… in this country,” revamping the 20th century “economic statecraft ” of U.S. imperialism– particularly the combination of economic policy and foreign policy of the Cold War –as key to Obama’s Keynesian “recovery” from the 2008 economic crisis, as well as the broader “whole of government effort” of post-9/11 “smart power.” When Abby Joseph Cohen,”trustee of the Economic Club and senior investment strategist at Goldman Sachs,” asked Hillary how she would use “corporate strength to benefit the creation of jobs and enhance economic growth in the United States,” Hillary rebranded the “Open Door” mercantilist economic policy of the late-twentieth century Spanish-American War once more: “Do we have to begin thinking more about how we try to enlist our businesses in an effort to change codes of conduct and international rules that will benefit them but also benefit the United States? I think so.”

“It was, after all, Harry Truman who said: “Our relations, foreign and economic, are indivisible.” Because President Truman understood that if America wanted to shape the postwar world, America had to lead – not just diplomatically or militarily, but critically, and maybe most importantly, economically. And so we marshaled our economic strength to rebuild friends and even former enemies, we led the charge to create a new international economic order, and we made the investments we needed here at home to advance our ideals and promote shared prosperity.

Well, today, it’s just as true. Our foreign and economic relations remain indivisible. Only now, our great challenge is not deterring any single military foe, but advancing our global leadership at a time when power is more often measured and exercised in economic terms.”

“Simply put, America’s economic strength and our global leadership are a package deal. A strong economy has been a pillar of American power in the world. It gives us the leverage we need to exert influence and advance our interests. It gives other countries the confidence in our leadership and a greater stake in partnering with us. And over time, it underwrites all the elements of smart power: robust diplomacy and development and the strongest military the world has ever seen.

Right now, the challenges of a changing world and the needs of the American people demand that our foreign policy community, as the late Steve Jobs put it, “think different.” Our problems have never respected dividing lines between global economics and international diplomacy. And neither can our solutions. That is why I have put what I call economic statecraft at the heart of our foreign policy agenda. Economic statecraft has two parts: first, how we harness the forces and use the tools of global economics to strengthen our diplomacy and presence abroad; and second, how we put that diplomacy and presence to work to strengthen our economy at home.

Following this speech, tomorrow I am issuing updated instructions on economic statecraft to every single embassy around the world. We have made it a core diplomatic mission to enhance our economic leadership in the world and to drive domestic economic renewal. Under President Obama’s leadership, our National Security Strategy is focused on shoring up the sources of our global strength.”

“As we embrace economic statecraft, it’s not just our priorities that are changing. The way we pursue them is evolving as well. And this is my second point. We are honing our ability to develop and execute economic solutions to strategic challenges. A belief in the strategic power of economic forces is not new in American foreign policy. What is new is the reach and complexity of global markets; the expertise, sophistication, and creative cooperation needed across the whole of government for us to remain effective.

Consider the transitions underway in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. If we want to see democracy take root, which we do, we have to bring advanced tools to bear to help countries reform economic systems designed to keep autocrats and elites in power. And we know that aid alone, no matter how generous, is not enough. We need a sophisticated effort to integrate the region’s economies, to promote investment, and to assist in economic modernization. This is the logic behind the Middle East proposals that the President laid out in May, which I have been urging Congress to support. To succeed, the Arab political awakening must also be an economic awakening.

We’re supplying similar tools in Afghanistan, where any successful endgame requires a viable economic vision that helps stabilize the country and gives its neighbors a greater stake in its success through greater regional trade and integration. And in our development efforts in Africa and elsewhere, where we are insisting that our dollars reinforce, not substitute for, what markets can achieve on their own, we are pushing an investment agenda.

We are aiming for that same market-minded creativity and sophistication in addressing security challenges. When Iran threatens global security or Syria threatens its own people, we are responding with ever more targeted and hard hitting tools, not only sanctions against leaders and generals but more sophisticated measures to cut these regimes off from insurance, banking, and shipping industries as well as the shell companies that they depend on. We are committed to raising the economic cost of unacceptable behavior and denying the resources that make it possible.

If sanctions are among our more powerful sticks, our culture of entrepreneurship is one of our most effective carrots, an often overlooked element of our economic statecraft and a source of American power. At a time when there are compelling visions for the future of the global economy that are competing visions, this is a part of the American brand that speaks to people and wins them over to the values we promote around the world – the free markets, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas. That’s one reason we created a global entrepreneurship program that builds networks of innovators in strategic locations around the world. We’re very well aware of the fact that we’re not only in a political and economic competition; we are in a competition for ideas. If people don’t believe that democracy and free markets deliver, then they’re going to be looking elsewhere for models that more readily respond to their daily needs.”

“After 9/11, we realized that we had to break down the silos that prevented our intelligence and law enforcement agencies from working together. Today, many of the responsibilities of economic statecraft are similarly split among many government agencies. So we all need to bring our unique strengths to the same table. And under the leadership of the President and the White House, we are taking part in a genuine whole of government effort.

For our part, the State Department has talented, tireless diplomats engaged in economic outreach around the world. At every level, we are trying to up our game. We are reorganizing to break down old bureaucratic silos, creating a new under secretariat for economic growth, energy, and environment, and appointing the first-ever chief economist to the State Department. We will also do more to train our diplomats to understand economics, finance, and markets, and more to promote those who do. We should be aiming for universal economic literacy and widespread expertise. We need to be a Department where more people can read both Foreign Affairs and a Bloomberg Terminal.”

“But it is true that we expect fair treatment for our investors overseas. And if we do that, we have to welcome foreign investment in America. Through the President’s Job Council, which I chaired a meeting of last week, and a whole of government paradigm called SelectUSA, we are focused on attracting billions of dollars of new investment to create American jobs.”

Soon after Hillary Clinton’s speech, the State Department announced the QDDR-requested establishment of a new Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO), as the successor to the Bush’s Office of the Coordinator of Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), for “conflict prevention, crisis response, and stabilization activities.” The CSO led by Rick Barton– who had overseen the establishment of USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) under President Clinton, had been the senior adviser and codirector of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project and a member of Joseph Nye’s Smart Power Commission under President Bush —organized alongside the rest of the “J Family” of bureaus and offices under the new Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, guided by the new International Operational Response Framework (IORF).

Fact Sheet

Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
November 22, 2011

Today, the U.S. Department of State established a new Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) to focus on conflict prevention, crisis response, and stabilization activities. The bureau will subsume the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS).

CSO advances U.S. national security by driving integrated, civilian-led efforts to prevent, respond to, and stabilize crises in priority states, setting conditions for long-term peace. The bureau emphasizes sustainable solutions guided by local dynamics and actors. CSO promotes unity of effort, the strategic use of scarce resources, and burden-sharing with international partners. The bureau’s comprehensive approach will help the State Department anticipate and adapt to the security challenges of the 21st century, while supporting America’s leadership in emerging crises. CSO will seek to:

1. Get ahead of change. While the scale and types of future crises cannot be predicted, the complex nature and cascading effects of 21st century challenges require a more forward-looking State Department. CSO will support the State Department’s ability to anticipate major security challenges by providing timely, operational solutions.

2. Drive an integrated response. CSO will build integrated approaches to conflict prevention and stabilization by linking analysis, planning, resources, operational solutions, and active learning and training. The bureau will call on its civilian responders to deploy in a timely manner to areas of instability in order to bring the right mix of expertise to each unique situation.

3. Leverage partnerships. CSO will work with a range of non-governmental and international partners to prevent conflict, address sources of violence, build on existing resiliencies, and promote burden-sharing. In particular, CSO will encourage greater involvement of local civil society – including women, youth, and the media – to prevent and respond to conflict.

As for the Civilian Response Corps (CRC), according to the State Department’s “fifth and final annual report and strategy” mandated by the Reconstruction and Stabilization Management Act of 2008:

CSO spent $19 million in FY 2012 to support salaries and benefits for CRC members.
As of March 31, 2013, 41 civilian responders were deployed to 10 countries/engagements.
As of March 31, 2013, there are 44 active members of the CRC, down from 61 at the beginning of FY 2013.
CSO conducted 213 individual deployments to 30 countries/engagements in FY 2012. Salaries, travel, lodging, danger and differential pay, and other operational expenses for deployments totaled $17.1 million.

“Report to Congress Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Report“

According to Table 1 in the report cited above, the CRC was deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan (the “frontline states” of the War on Terror), plus Libya, Syria, and beyond.

On December 31, 2011, the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) formally ended, but of course “had a variety of incremental successes and significantly influenced the prevailing narrative on national security reform.” Among PNSR’s self-identified achievements is the concept of an “end-to-end set of strategic management processes for the national security system: policy formulation, strategy making and presidential planning and resource guidance, aligning resources with strategy, interagency planning, oversight of execution, and assessment.”

The Global Security Contingency Fund (GSCF), established by Congress in December of 2011, would succeed the section 1206 (a.k.a. “train and equip”) of the NDAA used throughout the Bush administration, formalizing a State Department/Defense Department account “to provide security sector assistance for partner countries so they can address emergent challenges and opportunities important to U.S. national security.” Joseph Kony and Boko Haram wouldn’t be the only enemies of the Obama administration that would be perpetuated via the new CSO.

The Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account — established by President Bill Clinton and called the “Global War on Terror (GWOT)” account by the Bush administration — was expanded from Pentagon and State Dept. funding to “3D” funding for the Department of Defense (“defense”), Department of State (“diplomacy”), as well as USAID (“development”). Congress authorized “$96.7 billion in unified Defense, State, and USAID funding for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)” for Fiscal Year 2013 beginning in October of 2012. From the “Funding Highlights”:

• Provides $96.7 billion in unified Defense, State, and USAID funding for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), a reduction of 24 percent below the 2012 enacted level. This primarily reflects the savings from the end of military operations in Iraq and the drawdown of forces in Afghanistan.

• Maintains a unified approach to budgeting in conflict areas by continuing to integrate International Affairs resource requirements related to extraordinary and temporary national security needs with Department of Defense budget plans.

• Caps OCO spending through 2021 at $450 billion, which allows year-by-year flexibility for the Administration to respond effectively to changing circumstances on the ground, and which prevents the use of OCO funding as a way around discretionary caps.

• Addresses the military and civilian costs necessary to achieve U.S. national security goals in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, including support for an entirely civilian-led mission in Iraq.

• Supports the security, diplomatic, and development requirements for successful military-to- civilian transitions in Iraq and Afghanistan, including continued support to critical coalition partners.

Ron Paul’s column for June 17, 2013 titled, “Obama’s Syria Policy Looks a Lot Like Bush’s Iraq Policy” showed the plain-language parallel between the pivotal politics behind the “regime-change” of Iraq by Bush, and of Syria by Obama:

President Obama announced late last week that the US intelligence community had just determined that the Syrian government had used poison gas on a small scale, killing some 100 people in a civil conflict that has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. Because of this use of gas, the president claimed, Syria had crossed his “red line” and the US must begin to arm the rebels fighting to overthrow the Syrian government.

Setting aside the question of why 100 killed by gas is somehow more important than 99,900 killed by other means, the fact is his above explanation is full of holes. The Washington Post reported this week that the decision to overtly arm the Syrian rebels was made “weeks ago” – in other words, it was made at a time when the intelligence community did not believe “with high confidence” that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons.

Further, this plan to transfer weapons to the Syrian rebels had become policy much earlier than that, as the Washington Post reported that the CIA had expanded over the past year its secret bases in Jordan to prepare for the transfer of weapons to the rebels in Syria.

The process was identical to the massive deception campaign that led us into the Iraq war. Remember the famous quote from the leaked “Downing Street Memo,” where representatives of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration discussed Washington’s push for war on Iraq?

Here the head of British intelligence was reporting back to his government after a trip to Washington in the summer of 2002:

“Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

That is exactly what the Obama Administration is doing with Syria: fixing the intelligence and facts around the already determined policy. And Congress just goes along, just as they did the last time.

This “fixing the intelligence and facts around the already determined policy,” is what the 9/11 Commission effectively recommended: “A “smart” government would integrate all sources of information to see the enemy as a whole. Integrated all-source analysis should also inform and shape strategies to collect more intelligence.” (p. 401) The Obama administration’s own Atrocities Prevention Board had raised the “red flag”; of course the Obama administration’s “red line” would be crossed.

At the USGLC Impact 2012 Symposium, Senator John Kerry sang the Cold War/Marshall Plan 2.0 song, as Robert Gates had in his Landon Lecture and Hillary Clinton had in her Economic Statecraft speech, focusing on public-private Smart Power.

“Now more than ever, we need a strange bedfellows coalition frankly, like the USGLC that can bring together American business with leading humanitarian NGOs, and faith-based organizations, and others to make the case for Smart Power. And it’s a case that regrettably needs to be made to deal with some of the toughest challenges that we face in an ever-more complicated world.”
“But really the bottom-line is, in my judgement, what it demands is a new strategic definition for this moment. And one that we can actually take out to the country, and be proud of, and organize around. One that has a greater commitment to diplomacy, and to development, and that understands why we do that. That America’s global leadership is a strategic imperative for us, it is not a favor that we do for other people. A strategic imperative for us. It amplifies our voice. It extends our reach. And it should be clear in a world that is growing more, not less, interdependent with forces that no politician can turn around.”
“We have three inextricably linked challenges, in my judgement, that threaten America’s strength and leadership in the world from within. First, an idealogical, an unprecedented ideological agenda on Capitol Hill that sees foreign aid as an easy target in these tough economic times. Second, a budget crises that calls on all of us to put our fiscal house in order. I could tell you a story and a half on that one, having spent six months on the Supercommittee, desperately trying to get a deal with people who just didn’t want to make a deal, who refused in the end to make a deal. And then of course we have, finally, a deficit in our diplomatic and development civilian capacity which is caused in the excessive commitment to military solutions for comprehensive problems that require a different set of solutions.”
“So, the work we do with the money that we have in that little old tiny one percent probably buys us more than any other sector of the budget in the United States of America, when you think of what we get in various parts of the world for what we do.”
“The success of President Truman and the Marshall Plan has become one of the foundational narratives of American foreign policy, and understanding that isolation was no longer a choice, it led Europe out of the darkness.”
“So if we’re gonna meet the challenges of the next century, I believe we, this century, we have to engage in a new strategic public-private partnership. And the kind of thing that John McCain and I did in Egypt I think ought to be replicated because it’s one of the ways we’re gonna attract private capital, huge amounts of private capital. “

The USGLC published the Global Plum Book in 2012, which according to the USGLC website “outlines the 100 key political appointed positions in an Administration that will shape and manage development and diplomacy policy.”

The introduction of USGLC ‘s Report on Reports from 2013 called “Smart Power Agenda for Advancing America’s Global Interests,” proclaims:

Since the September 11th attacks on the United States, a growing and broadening consensus has emerged that global development and diplomacy, alongside defense, are essential components of American national security. The question no longer is whether to strengthen diplomacy and development, but how to best shape, elevate, and reform U.S. civilian agencies to advance America’s global interests. (Note 20)

In 2013, like Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell, Hillary Clinton went from Secretary of State to the Advisory Council of the USGLC, along with other White House officials Stephen Hadley, Robert Gates and many others.

In Syria, CSO is focused on strengthening the unarmed opposition. Working from Turkey, CSO allocated $23 million in program funds to:

Enable the opposition to build mass communications and improve internal and external communications networks;

Develop civilian leadership capacity for governance transition.

CSO co-funded the Syrian-run Office of Syrian Opposition Support, the hub for an expanding network of nearly 500 Syrian activists, administrators, and journalists. This connection provides insights about events inside Syria, expands assistance networks, and identifies local leaders. Through U.S., Canadian, and UK support, creative Syrian opposition TV ads and social media promote unity and tolerance among broad audiences.

…

CSO’s engagements leveraged local change agents to increase speed, sustainability, and impact. As part of the U.S. effort to plan for a transition in Syria and prevent sectarian violence, CSO uses its growing network of Syrian trainees and contacts to monitor developments in crucial areas inside Syria.

CSO: One-Year Progress Report, Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, March 8, 2013 (Note 21)

The citing in early September by John Kerry and John McCain of Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) political director Elizabeth O’Bagy’s “assessment” of the “moderate” Syrian opposition, in determining a U.S. response, mirrored Kerry’s USGLC speech in which he spoke of a US-Saudi-Jordan “interfaith” initiative promising to “help moderate Islam be empowered to fully define the real Islam,” and to prevent ”all of the Abrahamic religions” from being “hijacked.” (Note) The Brookings Institution (PNSR Partner) event on Sept. 23, 2013 featured Maria Stephan of the CSO and Mouaz Moustafa of SETF (Coalition for a Democratic Syria). Days later at the Global Counterterrorism Forum, Kerry announced the public-private Global Fund for Community Engagement and Resilience, to “empower local actors to be able to define a path forward.”

Vice President Joe Biden was presented with an award at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition’s “#SMARTPOWER DINNER PARTY” in late 2013, celebrating conquest along with Senator John McCain and his son Hunter Biden: one of the newest directors of the USGLC and soon-to-be director of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings Limited.

Captain Wayne Porter, one of two Pentagon staffers– along with Mark Mykleby– taking credit for the authorship by “Mr. Y” of “A National Strategic Narrative,” spoke at the TEDxSantaCruz event on March 8, 2014.

In his May, 2014 “America Must Always Lead” speech at West Point, Obama announced the addition of a new Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund (CTPF) to his Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) request, playing up the Smart Power “lessons” narrative from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq of the supposed need that the military had for civilian-led “security and stabilization assistance” for “development” and “diplomacy.”

Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund

In his West Point speech, the President will announce that he would ask Congress to support a new Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund (CTPF), which will provide the flexibility and resources required to respond to emerging needs as terrorist threats around the world continue to evolve. The CTPF will build on existing tools and authorities to allow the Administration to respond to evolving terrorist threats. It will allow us to pursue a more sustainable and effective approach to combating terrorism that focuses on empowering and enabling our partners around the globe. In support of these counterterrorism capacity-building efforts, the Administration will also request funding for expanded or enhanced DOD activities, such as Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance; Special Operations; and other activities. To achieve these objectives, the Administration will seek up to $5 billion in the FY 2015 OCO request.

In partnership with other government agencies, this fund will allow DOD to:

Conduct expanded train and equip activities;

More effectively facilitate and enable the counterterrorism efforts of our partners on the front lines; and,

Together with the State Department, provide security and stabilization assistance, as well as support efforts to counter violent extremism and terrorist ideology.

Fact Sheet: The Administration’s Fiscal Year 2015 Overseas Contingency Operations Request, May 28, 2014

The U.S. Global Leadership Coalition published an update on the International Affairs Budget on June 20, in which Tod Preston summarized how Syria would be added to the to-be-ruled roster of the War on Terror: the Overseas Operations Operations (OCO) account: “While the Administration, until the FY15 request, proposed to fund only urgent diplomatic operations and foreign aid for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq within the OCO category, Congress has broadened the scope of OCO and increased funding levels to accommodate other global contingencies, especially for humanitarian needs. For the first time, the Administration also went beyond the Frontline States in its FY15 OCO request, including $1.3 billion for Syria and $150 million for a new, flexible Peacekeeping Mechanism.” On June 26, USGLC member Reuters and other global media outlets reported that Obama requested $500 million in additional foreign aid to the “moderate” Syrians, part of a new $1.5 billion Regional Stabilization Initiative (RSI), through the new Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund. On September 10, Obama announced that the U.S. would “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (a.k.a. the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or (IS)), and signed H.J.Res. 124 Continuing Appropriations Resolution on September 18, after a bipartisan congressional vote to “train and equip” the “moderates.” According to Obama, military airstrikes would continue against ISIL in Iraq: as would Bush’s War on Terror, albeit “soft power”-style. In late September, Obama announced airstrikes against ISIL in Syria. Nevertheless, the Obama-as-“weak” card is continually played by the Republican Party that supports the same “grand strategy” as the Democratic Party. [See Ryan McMaken, “No, the Military Has Not Withered Away Under Obama,” Mises Institute, November 13, 2015.]

Looking ahead in a region where the US has interests as varied as energy, Israel’s security, nuclear non-proliferation, and human rights, American policymakers will need to follow a flexible strategy of “containment plus nudging,” which implies siding with different states and groups in different circumstances.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “How to Fight the Islamic State,” Project Syndicate, September 8, 2015.

Secretary of State John Kerry appointed Joseph Nye to the Foreign Affairs Policy Board in late 2015, alongside Robert Kagan, and other high officials of the Bush, Obama, and prior presidential administrations. Obama signed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act on December 18, 2015, and would start 2016 by establishing a public-private Global Engagement Center in the State Department, with the Pentagon’s Michael D. Lumpkin appointed to head it.

A New Center for Global Engagement

Fact Sheet
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
January 8, 2016

The State Department is revamping its counter-violent-extremist communications efforts through a new Global Engagement Center. This center will more effectively coordinate, integrate and synchronize messaging to foreign audiences that undermines the disinformation espoused by violent extremist groups, including ISIL and al-Qaeda, and that offers positive alternatives. The center will focus more on empowering and enabling partners, governmental and non-governmental, who are able to speak out against these groups and provide an alternative to ISIL’s nihilistic vision. To that end, the center will offer services ranging from planning thematic social media campaigns to providing factual information that counters-disinformation to building capacity for third parties to effectively utilize social media to research and evaluation.

The State Department is pleased to announce the appointment of Michael D. Lumpkin to lead this new effort as the Director of the new Global Engagement Center. Mr. Lumpkin currently serves as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict, a Senate-confirmed position he has held since late 2013. In this role, Mr. Lumpkin oversees all special operations, including counterterrorism, counter narcotics, and humanitarian and disaster relief efforts.

“I am delighted that Michael has agreed to bring his wealth of experience and expertise on counterterrorism issues to lead the new Global Engagement Center at the State Department,” said Secretary of State John Kerry. “At this critical stage in the fight against Daesh – and in the global effort to counter violent extremism – the GEC will lead the effort to synchronize messaging to foreign audiences that will counter the destructive messages of violent extremist groups.”

Under Mr. Lumpkin’s leadership, the Global Engagement Center will employ a strategy defined by:

Drawing upon data and metrics to develop, test, and evaluate themes, messages, and messengers;

Building narratives around thematic campaigns on the misdeeds of our enemy (e.g., poor governance, abuse of women, narratives of defectors), not the daily news cycle;

Focusing on driving third-party content, in addition to our own; and

Nurturing and empowering a global network of positive messengers.

The Center will implement its strategy by:

Seeking out and engaging the best talent, within the technology sector, government and beyond

Engaging across our government to coordinate, integrate and synchronize counterterrorism communications directed toward foreign audiences;

Identifying and enabling international partners with credibility and expertise

Establishing and implementing a campaign-focused culture;

Scaling up data science and analytics and using both throughout the design, implementation and evaluation phases of these campaigns;

Providing seed funding and other support to NGOs and media startups focused on countering violent extremist messaging;

Identifying gaps in U.S. Government messaging and counter- messaging capabilities directed toward foreign audiences, and recommending steps to resolve them; and

Sharing information and best practices with U.S. Government agencies focused on the challenge of homegrown violent extremism.

Amplifying the successes of the Counter-ISIL Coalition in defeating ISIL on both the military and information battlefield.

The Center will continue to be housed within the Department of State and staffed by experts from the private sector and U.S. Government agencies charged with protecting our national interests and security – as well as the security of our allies – against the threat of international terrorism.

From the highlights of USGLC’s annual analysis of the 2016 International Affairs Budget, dated February 2:

NOTABLE INCREASES IN THE BUDGET

1. Economic Support Fund: 29.2%
ESF provides strategic economic assistance to address global crises and countries in conflict countries, including Ukraine and its neighbors, combating ISIL in Iraq and Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

At a February 2 briefing on the 2016 International Affairs Budget, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom added:

We’ve also requested $7 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations funds to respond to immediate and extraordinary national security requirements. OCO funds will support critical programs and operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, as well as exceptional costs related to our efforts to fight ISIL, respond to the conflict in Syria, and support Ukraine.

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“The immoral use of force is the source of man’s political problems. Sadly, many religious groups, secular organizations, and psychopathic authoritarians endorse government initiated force to change the world. Even when the desired goals are well-intentioned – or especially when well-intentioned – the results are dismal. The good results sought never materialize. The new problems created require even more government force as a solution. The net result is institutionalizing government initiated violence and morally justifying it on humanitarian grounds.”

– Dr. Ron Paul

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(Note 1)

MESSAGE FROM THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

In March 1993, I initiated a comprehensive review of the nation’s defense strategy, force structure, modernization, infrastructure, and foundations. I felt that a department-wide review needed to be conducted “from the bottom up” because of the dramatic changes that have occurred in the world as a result of the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. These changes in the international security environment have fundamentally altered America’s security needs. Thus, the underlying premise of the Bottom-Up Review was that we needed to reassess all of our defense concepts, plans, and programs from the ground up. (p. iii)

Section I of the BUR report, cont.

An Era of New Dangers

Today, there is promise that we can replace the East-West confrontation of the Cold War with an era in which the community of nations, guided by a common commitment to democratic principles, free-market economics, and the rule of law, can be significantly enlarged. (p. 1)

…

The new dangers fall into four broad categories:

Dangers posed by nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, including dangers associated with the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons as well as those associated with the large stocks of these weapons that remain in the former Soviet Union.

Regional dangers, posed primarily by the threat of large-scale aggression by major regional powers with interests antithetical to our own, but also by the potential for smaller, often internal, conflicts based on ethnic or religious animosities, state-sponsored terrorism, or subversion of friendly governments.

Dangers to democracy and reform,in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere.

Economic dangers to our national security, which could result if we fail to build a strong, competitive and growing economy.

Our armed forces are central to combating the first two dangers and can play a significant role in meeting the second two. Our predictions and conclusions about the nature and characteristics of these dangers will help mold our strategy and size and shape our future military forces. (p. 3)

…

An Era of New Opportunities (p. 3)

…

Enduring U.S. Goals

Despite these revolutionary changes in our security environment, the most basic goals of the United States have not changed. They are to:

• Protect the lives and personal safety of Americans, both at home and abroad.

• Maintain the political freedom and independence of the United States with its values, institutions, and territory intact.

• Provide for the well-being and prosperity of the nation and its people.

In addition to these fundamental goals, we have core values that we have an interest in promoting. These include democracy and human rights, the peaceful resolution of conflict, and the maintenance of open markets in the international economic system. The advancement of these core values contributes significantly to the achievement of our fundamental national goals: our nation will be more secure in a world of democratic and pluralistic institutions, and our economic well-being will be enhanced by the maintenance of an open international economic system.

A Strategy of Engagement, Prevention, and Partnership

To protect and advance these enduring goals in this new era, the United States must pursue a strategy characterized by continued political, economic, and military engagement internationally. Such an approach helps to avoid the risks of global instability and imbalance that could accompany a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from security commitments. It also helps shape the international environment in ways needed to protect and advance U.S. objectives over the longer term, and to prevent threats to our interests from arising…. (pp. 2-3)

Section II of the report, titled ” A Defense Strategy for the New Era,” contains a subsection titled “Regional Dangers and Opportunities,” going into more detail on the prominence given to “regional dangers,” followed by “Addressing Regional Dangers and Seizing Opportunities”:

To address the new regional dangers and seize new opportunities, we have developed a multifaceted strategy based on defeating aggressors in major regional conflicts, maintaining overseas presence to deter conflicts and provide regional stability, and conducting smaller-scale intervention operations, such as peace enforcement, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief to further U.S. interests and objectives. (p. 7)

While deterring and defeating major regional aggression will be the most demanding requirement of the new defense strategy, our emphasis on engagement, prevention, and partnership means that, in this new era, U.S. military forces are more likely to be involved in operations short of declared or intense warfare. (p. 8)

There are some forces and capabilities that are particularly well suited for intervention operations – for example, special operations forces, including psychological operations and civil affairs units. (p. 9)

Military power supports and is supported by political and economic power. Likewise, security relationships support and are supported by trade relationships. We cannot expect to improve our trade relations or our trading position with our allies if we withdraw from our security relationships. At the same time, we must recognize that domestic support for overseas commitments depends in part on the perception of fairness in trade and other matters. (p. 10)

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(Note 2)

International Affairs Budget funding was requested and later approved for the following:

Department of State (State)
Department of Treasury (Treasury)
Department of Defense, Defense Security Assistance Agency (DSAA)
Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Agency for International Development (USAID)
Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA)
Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im)
International Trade Commission (ITC)
Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC)
Peace Corps
Trade and Development Agency (TDA)
U.S. Information Agency (USIA)
U.S. Institute of Peace
African Development Foundation (ADF)
The Asia Foundation (TAF)
Inter-American Foundation (IAF)

(Preface, Summary and Highlights, FY 1999 International Affairs (Function 150) Budget Request; Resources, Plans & Policy, Office of the Secretary of State, February 2, 1998)

Although not listed above, others in subsequent years include:

International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank
United Nations (UN)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
World Trade Organization (WTO)
Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)

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(Note 3)

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS STRATEGIC PLAN

INTRODUCTION

This first revision of the International Affairs Strategic Plan (IASP, or the Plan) incorporates several refinements, drawing on extensive reviews and comments provided over the past year by members of the foreign affairs community, both within and outside the U.S. Government (USG). Most importantly, in a roundtable series held at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center between November 1997 and February 1998, over 200 representatives of USG agencies, Congressional staff, NGOs, and academia offered their critiques and recommendations for improving the IASP. The Plan also benefits from assessments contained in two recent studies on changing the way the United States conducts its international relations by the Henry L. Stimson Center and the Center for Strategic & International Studies. An analysis prepared by the National Academy of Sciences helped guide the inclusion of science and technology issues. An interagency working group surveyed performance measures used throughout the USG and developed the consensus set of indicators presented here. While not adopting every proposed modification, we have done our best to incorporate new thinking, and believe that this is a better product as a result.

The basic structure of the Plan has stood up to examination fairly well. We are reasonably confident that the seven national interests and 16 strategic goals provide a comprehensive and sensible framework for defining what it is that the United States is trying to achieve in the world.

…

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS STRATEGIC PLAN

U.S. NATIONAL INTERESTS:

•NATIONAL SECURITY
•ECONOMIC PROSPERITY
•AMERICAN CITIZENS AND U.S. BORDERS
•LAW ENFORCEMENT
•DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
•HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE
•GLOBAL ISSUES: ENVIRONMENT, POPULATION, HEALTH

…

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS STRATEGIC GOALS

• REGIONAL STABILITY: Strengthen the security of the United States and prevent instabilities from threatening the vital and important interests of the United States and its allies.
• WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: Reduce the threat to the United States and its allies from weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
• OPEN MARKETS: Open world markets to increase trade and free the flow of goods, services, and capital.
• U.S. EXPORTS: Expand U.S. exports to $1.2 trillion early in the 21st Century.
• GLOBAL GROWTH AND STABILITY: Increase global economic growth and stability.
• ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: Promote broad-based growth in developing and transitional economies to raise standards of living and lessen disparities of wealth within and among countries.
• AMERICAN CITIZENS: Protect the safety and security of American citizens who travel and live abroad.
• TRAVEL AND MIGRATION: Manage fairly and effectively the entry of immigrants and foreign visitors into the United States.
• INTERNATIONAL CRIME: Minimize the impact of international crime on the United States and its citizens.
• ILLEGAL DRUGS: Reduce the entry of illegal drugs into the United States.
• COUNTERTERRORISM: Reduce the number and impact of international terrorist attacks,especially on the United States and its citizens.
• DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS: Open political systems and societies to democratic practices, the rule of law, good governance, and respect for human rights.
• HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE: Provide humanitarian assistance to victims of crisis and disaster.
• ENVIRONMENT: Secure a sustainable global environment, and protect the United States and its citizens from the effects of international environmental degradation.
• POPULATION: Achieve a sustainable world population.
• HEALTH: Protect human health and reduce the spread of infectious diseases.

(United States Strategic Plan for International Affairs, First Revision-February 1999, pp. 9-10)

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Bush admin.

(Note 4)

NHSC Fact Sheet (excerpt; download only/no hyperlink available)

The National Homeland Security Consortium is a forum for public and private sector disciplines to coalesce efforts and perspectives about how best to protect America in the 21st century. The consortium consists of 21 national organizations that represent local, state, and private professionals. The consortium represents the array of professions that deliver the daily services vital to the safety and security of the United States. The consortium represents the first and secondary responders as well as those who will provide the sustained effort necessary to respond to any major emergency, including leadership and direction by elected and appointed officials.

NHSC Vision
Enhanced homeland security to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies, disasters and catastrophes through strategic partnerships, collaborative strategies and information sharing.

NHSC Mission
Provide a forum of key national organizations through effective communication, collaboration, and coordination that positively promotes national policies, strategies, practices and guidelines to preserve the public health, safety and security of the nation.

(NEMA website)

Participating organizations began meeting together in 2002 at the invitation of the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA). The National Homeland Security Consortium is an outgrowth of those initial discussions regarding the need for enhanced communication and coordination between disciplines and levels of government. The Consortium is now a recognized entity by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency and works in partnership with other federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Defense and others.

[The NHSC is organized parallel to older mechanisms such as John F. Kennedy’s interagency Federal Executive Boards (FEBs), organized under the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The FEB National Network is a “unifying force within the Federal Government,” and each regional FEB “is made up of the highest ranking Federal leaders in each geographic area of responsibility. Members represent civilian, military, postal, and law enforcement agencies, both small and large in size.” FEBs “often host experts from Federal agencies, the Presidential administration, and business or non-governmental organizations to share pertinent information with the local Federal leadership” and “provide a forum for local Federal leaders to share management challenges and strategies to meet agency missions and goals, identify common issues, develop collaborative efforts to address those issues, and share best practices among their peers.”

Jimmy Carter’s Senior Executive Service (SES), also overseen by the OPM, “is comprised of the men and women charged with leading the continuing transformation of government.” “Members of the SES serve in the key positions just below the top Presidential appointees. SES members are the major link between these appointees and the rest of the Federal work force. They operate and oversee nearly every government activity in approximately 75 Federal agencies.” The past several decades have also been met with “chief officers” and “interagency councils” designations (i.e. Office of Executive Councils).]

—–
(Projects)

Leon S. Fuerth — former State Department agent and long-time White House advisor (including membership on the National Security Council and National Economic Council), who Bill Clinton called “Mr. Sanctions” reflecting Fuerth’s role in overthrowing the head of Serbia– consulted with the State Department on “Forward Engagement” before 9/11, and then founded the Project on Forward Engagement in 2001 out of the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. According to the homepage of the project’s website, “Forward Engagement ® is a process of thinking systematically about complex, interactive, and longer-range issues in a way that is applicable to public policy. That application has evolved into the concept of “Anticipatory Governance:” a systems-based approach for enabling governance to cope with accelerating, complex forms of change.”

Also, “Anticipatory Governance is a “systems of systems” comprising a disciplined foresight-policy linkage, networked management and budgeting to mission, and feedback systems to monitor and adjust. Anticipatory Governance would register and track events that are just barely visible at the event-horizon; it would self-organize to deal with the unexpected and the discontinuous; and it would adjust rapidly to the interactions between our policies and our problems.” As far as funding, “the Project has been supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Defense University, the George Washington University, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.” Moreover, “Forward Engagement makes a compound statement: (1) that major social change is accelerating at a rate fast enough to challenge the adaptive capacity of whole societies, including our own; (2) that foresight – the disciplined analysis of alternative futures – can provide timely warning of major issues ahead; and (3) that governance – the process by which policy is set and carried out – needs to institutionalize foresight.”
—
Peter R. Orszag–Trilateral Commission member, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Vice Chairman of Global Banking of Citigroup, Inc., Senior Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton administration, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution- was the Founding Director of the Brooking’s Institute’s Hamilton Project before entering his role in Bush’s Congressional Budget Office and Obama’s Office of Management and Budget, where he would co-lead the launch of the public-private President’s Management Advisory Board in 2010. According to the Hamilton Project’s website, the project was named in honor of Alexander Hamilton’s mercantilism: ““prudent aids and encouragements on the part of government” to enhance and guide market forces. Hamilton was the first architect of American prosperity and is an apt symbol for what we are trying to do in our time.”

The Hamilton Project was launched in April 2006 as an economic policy initiative at the Brookings Institution by a unique combination of leading academics, business people, and public policy makers who wanted to develop a serious, systematic strategy to address the challenges that our economy faces. In support of this broad strategy, the Project puts forward innovative ideas from leading economic thinkiers across the country to inject new, sometimes controversial policy options into the national economic debate. Then-Senator Barack Obama spoke at the launch and called the Project “the sort of breath of fresh air that I think this town needs.”

The Hamilton Project Advisory Board includes:

Robert Rubin-Co-Chair of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and former Secretary of the Treasury
Timothy Geithner- former Secretary of the Treasury
Suzanne Nora Johnson-Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Peter Thiel-President of Thiel Capital and Chairman of the Bilderberg Steering Group Committee
Eric Schmidt-Executive Chairman of Google
Sheryl Sandberg-CEO of Facebook
David Rubenstein-Co-founder & Co-Chief Executive Officer of the Carlyle Group

The “vision” and “smart ideas” of Hamilton Project’s “original strategy” would be: “based on three interrelated principles: that economic growth must be broad-based to be strong and sustainable over the long term; that economic security and economic growth can be mutually reinforcing; and that an effective government can improve economic performance.” Ezekiel Emanuel co-authored a project paper titled A Comprehensive Cure: Universal Healthcare Vouchers that focused on “access” to “qualified plans” via a “dedicated tax” that would be overseen by a National Health Board, modeled after the Federal Reserve Board, which eventuated in the establishment of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

—
Richard W. Fisher — Trilateral Commission member, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and former Chairman of the American Assembly at Columbia University- was the Senior Project Advisor to the Next Generation Project: U.S. Global Policy and the Future of International Institutions. Fisher’s fellow Trilateralist, Joseph Nye, sat on the Senior Advisory Council to the project. Launched in June of 2006, the Next Generation Project was, according to the About the Project webpage, “one of the Assembly’s most ambitious undertakings since Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Assembly’s founder, commissioned “Goals for Americans,” directed by William Bundy, which became his blueprint for the nation.”

The Project Funders webpage lists:

JP Morgan Chase
Goldman Sachs
Bank of America
Morgan Stanley
Carnegie Corporation (Jessica Matthews, President, was also on the PNSR Guiding Coalition below)
Ford Foundation
Time Warner, Inc.
Coca-Cola
Walt Disney Company

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(Note 5)

The Center shall have the following functions:

(a) serve as the primary organization in the United States Government for analyzing and integrating all intelligence possessed or acquired by the United States Government pertaining to terrorism and counterterrorism, excepting purely domestic counterterrorism information. The Center may, consistent with applicable law, receive, retain, and disseminate information from any Federal, State, or local government, or other source necessary to fulfill its responsibilities concerning the policy set forth in section 1 of this order; and agencies authorized to conduct counterterrorism activities may query Center data for any information to assist in their respective responsibilities;

(b) conduct strategic operational planning for counterterrorism activities, integrating all instruments of national power, including diplomatic, financial, military, intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement activities within and among agencies;

(c) assign operational responsibilities to lead agencies for counterterrorism activities that are consistent with applicable law and that support strategic plans to counter terrorism. The Center shall ensure that agencies have access to and receive intelligence needed to accomplish their assigned activities. The Center shall not direct the execution of operations. Agencies shall inform the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council of any objections to designations and assignments made by the Center in the planning and coordination of counterterrorism activities;

(d) serve as the central and shared knowledge bank on known and suspected terrorists and international terror groups, as well as their goals, strategies, capabilities, and networks of contacts and support; and

(e) ensure that agencies, as appropriate, have access to and receive allsource intelligence support needed to execute their counterterrorism plans or perform independent, alternative analysis.

The NCTC was codified into law via the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) of 2004.

“Lead our nation’s effort to combat terrorism at home and abroad by analyzing the threat, sharing that information with our partners, and integrating all instruments of national power to ensure unity of effort.”

(“NCTC’s mission statement“)

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(Note 6)

A few months into President Bush’s second four-year term, the new S/CRS released the Post Conflict Reconstruction Essential Tasks Matrix in April, 2005: the first of a “three-part package of DOS R/S and conflict transformation documents,” that would also include the US Government Draft Planning Framework for Reconstruction, Stabilization, and Conflict Transformation (Dec. ’05); and Measuring Progress in Conflict Environments (MPICE) A Metrics Framework in 2010.

Post Conflict Reconstruction Essential Tasks Matrix (excerpt):

Preface

This is a “living” document. It serves as a tool for planners and will continue to evolve as it is used. The tables in this document catalog the results of interagency working group discussions led by the staff of the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) about the requirements to support countries in transition from armed conflict or civil strife to sustaining stability. This document builds on the “Joint CSIS/AUSA Post-Conflict Reconstruction (PCR) Task Framework” from Winning the Peace: An American Strategy for Post-Conflict Reconstruction, edited by Robert C. Orr, and published by CSIS Press in 2004.

We want to acknowledge and reaffirm the thorough research that is reflected in Winning the Peace. It was the baseline S/CRS used at its inception to lead six interagency working groups through a discussion and amplification of the task matrix. As noted in Winning the Peace: “Countries emerge from conflict under differing and unique conditions. Therefore, the priority, precedence, timing, appropriateness, and execution of tasks will vary from case to case” (page 305). We recognize it is unlikely there will be unanimity regarding the assignment of all tasks into their respective short, mid and long-term expectations. We further recognize that while we have attempted to assign priority to the sequencing of tasks, it will greatly depend upon the local environment. Subsequent updates of this document will undoubtedly show revisions of tasks and timelines.

After several months of interagency discussion, we have divided the original CSIS/AUSA task framework into five technical sectors (security, governance and participation, humanitarian assistance and social well-being, economic stabilization and infrastructure, and justice and reconciliation) and significantly expanded the list. In addition, we have identified sectoral tasks that have an infrastructure implication with both a parenthetical (I) preceding the task and gray shading. Essential tasks are divided into Initial Response (short-term), Transformation (mid-term), and Fostering Sustainability (long-term) conceptual phases. While some may believe the list is overly ambitious, its purpose is to provide a menu of issues that should be considered when working in conflict-stricken countries. The task matrix is designed to be a tool for those involved in comprehensive planning, and S/CRS therefore strove for comprehensiveness and clarity in what needs to be planned.

Many tasks are cross-cutting and require planners to reference other sectors. While we have cross-referenced some of the tasks in the matrix, we have intentionally limited the cross-referencing in order to avoid creating a cumbersome planning tool. As a result, users of the framework should review tasks in other sectors to ensure issues are considered comprehensively. With experience, we trust future updates will address the interrelationships between tasks more elegantly.

Finally, although S/CRS led this process out of the State Department, the framework is a U.S. Government interagency product. Not only did we rely on interagency staff members to contribute their expertise, we also drew on the depth of experience in their respective parent agencies to bring more thoroughness to this task matrix. We are grateful to all those who contributed.

As a “living” document, we welcome suggestions to improve this tool. Please send your comments to SCRSMatrix@state.gov.

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(Note 7)

Introduction

This lexicon is intended as a tool to help strip away one source of the endemic miscommunication and friction that now plagues both soldiers and civilians, government and non-government, who plan, coordinate, and execute the complex set of overlapping civil-military activities and tasks that have come to characterize armed conflicts and their aftermath. Collectively known as complex operations1, they demand, but too often lack, a sense of common purpose and mutual understanding between a wide array of planners and practitioners, all of whom bring with them different organizational cultures, world visions, and operational approaches.

…

1 Although increasingly in use, the term complex operations is not universally recognized, even with the relatively narrow confines of the United States national security community. Formally coined by the US Congress in legislation that established the Center for Complex Operations, the definition includes stability operations, security operations, transition and reconstruction operations, counterinsurgency operations, and operations included within the Department of Defense’s concept of irregular warfare. In truth, the term complex operations is a compromise that allows civilian agencies, to include many humanitarian non‐governmental organizations whose mandates and cultures eschew warfare and armed conflict, to examine and perhaps participate in operations that may include military operations; it is used to define the problem as inoffensively as possible. In that sense, the term is symbolic of the institutional and organizational differences this lexicon in small part tries to address.

(Complex Operations Lexicon, Center for Complex Operations)

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(Note 8)

NSPD-44 (excerpt):

Coordination.

The Secretary of State shall coordinate and lead integrated United States Government efforts, involving all U.S. Departments and Agencies with relevant capabilities, to prepare, plan for, and conduct stabilization and reconstruction activities. The Secretary of State shall coordinate such efforts with the Secretary of Defense to ensure harmonization with any planned or ongoing U.S. military operations across the spectrum of conflict. Support relationships among elements of the United States Government will depend on the particular situation being addressed. To achieve the objectives of this Directive, the Secretary of State shall be responsible for the following functions and may direct the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (“Coordinator”) to assist the Secretary to:

1. Develop and approve strategies, with respect to U.S. foreign assistance and foreign economic cooperation, for reconstruction and stabilization activities directed towards foreign states at risk of, in, or in transition from conflict or civil strife;

2. Ensure program and policy coordination among Departments and Agencies of the United States Government in carrying out the policies set forth in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the Arms Export Control Act, and other relevant assistance laws, as well as section 408 of the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary and related Agencies and Appropriations Act, 2005, with respect to such states;

3. Coordinate interagency processes to identify states at risk of instability, lead interagency planning to prevent or mitigate conflict, and develop detailed contingency plans for integrated United States Government reconstruction and stabilization efforts for those states and regions and for widely applicable scenarios, which are integrated with military contingency plans, where appropriate;

4. Provide United States Government decision makers with detailed options for an integrated United States Government response in connection with specific reconstruction and stabilization operations including to recommend when to establish a limited-time PCC-level group to focus on a country or region facing major reconstruction and stabilization challenges;

5. Coordinate United States Government responses for reconstruction and stabilization with the Secretary of Defense to ensure harmonization with any planned or ongoing U.S. military operations, including peacekeeping missions, at the planning and implementation phases; develop guiding precepts and implementation procedures for reconstruction and stabilization which, where appropriate, may be integrated with military contingency plans and doctrine;

6. Coordinate reconstruction and stabilization activities and preventative strategies with foreign countries, international and regional organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and private sector entities with capabilities that can contribute to such efforts provided that the Secretary of the Treasury shall lead coordination with the international financial institutions and multilateral financing bodies and shall facilitate the Secretary of State’s stabilization and reconstruction work with respect to these institutions and bodies;

7. As appropriate, work with people and organizations, including in expatriate and foreign communities, with relevant ties, expertise, or knowledge related to countries in which the United States may conduct stabilization and reconstruction activities;

8. Develop strategies to build partnership security capacity abroad and seek to maximize nongovernmental and international resources for reconstruction and stabilization activities;

9. Lead United States Government development of a strong civilian response capability including necessary surge capabilities; analyze, formulate, and recommend additional authorities, mechanisms, and resources needed to ensure that the United States has the civilian reserve and response capabilities necessary for stabilization and reconstruction activities to respond quickly and effectively;

10. Identify lessons learned and integrate them into operations;

11. Resolve relevant policy, program, and funding disputes among United States Government Departments and Agencies with respect to U.S. foreign assistance and foreign economic cooperation, related to reconstruction and stabilization consistent with the Office of Management and Budget’s budget and policy coordination functions; and

12. When necessary, identify appropriate issues for resolution or action through the NSC interagency process in accordance with NSPD-1. Such issues would include the establishment of a PCC-level group as described in sub-paragraph (4) above.

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(Note 9)

Civilian Stabilization Initiative (excerpts)

FY2005
Options analysis completed on how CRC-A would be used in training, military exercises, and emergencies. Training program conceptualized. Roster of eligible individuals under development.

FY2006
By end of FY 2006, 12 CRC-A personnel were aboard on detail (no FTE provided) and fully trained. Six had deployed to Darfur and Chad. Over 90 State Department employees selected and placed on CRC-S roster, along with over 250 retirees enrolled through RNet. Training and exercise requirements identified.

FY2007
By the end of FY 2007, a total of 12 CRC-A personnel were aboard on detail. All CRC-A members completed R&S training. CRC-A members deployed to Darfur, Haiti, Iraq, Liberia, and AFRICOM. Over 90 serving State Department employees retained on the CRC-S roster, along with over 250 retirees enrolled through the Department‘s Retirement Network. Nine CRC-S members participated in S/CRS sponsored training. Two CRC-S members deployed to Sudan and Chad. SOPs worked through with participating bureaus to release CRC-S members.

Herbst’s testimony (excerpt):

Currently, we have ten ARC officers, all of whom are in the State Department. They have already been sent to such places as Darfur, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Haiti, Chad, Liberia, Iraq, and Kosovo. For FY08, the President is requesting funding to triple the size of the ARC to 33 and to add staff positions in S/CRS to provide the necessary planning and deployment support for them. USAID and Treasury also have a small dedicated capacity for deployment and we need to build a similar capacity across government.

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(Note 10)
Gates’s Landon Lecture cont. (excerpts)

But despite the problems, we realized, as we had during World War II, that the nature of the conflict required us to develop key capabilities and institutions – many of them non-military. The Marshall Plan and later the United States Agency for International Development acknowledged the role of economics in the world; the CIA the role of intelligence; and the United States Information Agency the fact that the conflict would play out as much in hearts and minds as it would on any battlefield.

The key, over time, was to devote the necessary resources – people and money – and get enough things right while maintaining the ability to recover from mistakes along the way.
…
The real challenges we have seen emerge since the end of the Cold War – from Somalia to the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere – make clear we in defense need to change our priorities to be better able to deal with the prevalence of what is called “asymmetric warfare.” As I told an Army gathering last month, it is hard to conceive of any country challenging the United States directly in conventional military terms – at least for some years to come. Indeed, history shows us that smaller, irregular forces – insurgents, guerrillas, terrorists – have for centuries found ways to harass and frustrate larger, regular armies and sow chaos.

We can expect that asymmetric warfare will be the mainstay of the contemporary battlefield for some time. These conflicts will be fundamentally political in nature, and require the application of all elements of national power. Success will be less a matter of imposing one’s will and more a function of shaping behavior – of friends, adversaries, and most importantly, the people in between.

Arguably the most important military component in the War on Terror is not the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we enable and empower our partners to defend and govern themselves. The standing up and mentoring of indigenous army and police – once the province of Special Forces – is now a key mission for the military as a whole.

But these new threats also require our government to operate as a whole differently – to act with unity, agility, and creativity. And they will require considerably more resources devoted to America’s non-military instruments of power.

…
But it is no replacement for the real thing – civilian involvement and expertise.

A few examples are useful here, as microcosms of what our overall government effort should look like – one historical and a few contemporary ones.

However uncomfortable it may be to raise Vietnam all these years later, the history of that conflict is instructive. After first pursuing a strategy based on conventional military firepower, the United States shifted course and began a comprehensive, integrated program of pacification, civic action, and economic development. The CORDS program, as it was known, involved more than a thousand civilian employees from USAID and other organizations, and brought the multiple agencies into a joint effort. It had the effect of, in the words of General Creighton Abrams, putting “all of us on one side and the enemy on the other.” By the time U.S. troops were pulled out, the CORDS program had helped pacify most of the hamlets in South Vietnam.

The importance of deploying civilian expertise has been relearned – the hard way – through the effort to staff Provincial Reconstruction Teams, first in Afghanistan and more recently in Iraq. The PRTs were designed to bring in civilians experienced in agriculture, governance, and other aspects of development – to work with and alongside the military to improve the lives of the local population, a key tenet of any counterinsurgency effort. Where they are on the ground – even in small numbers – we have seen tangible and often dramatic changes. An Army brigade commander in Baghdad recently said that an embedded PRT was “pivotal” in getting Iraqis in his sector to better manage their affairs.

We also have increased our effectiveness by joining with organizations and people outside the government – untapped resources with tremendous potential.

For example, in Afghanistan the military has recently brought in professional anthropologists as advisors. The New York Times reported on the work of one of them, who said, “I’m frequently accused of militarizing anthropology. But we’re really anthropologizing the military.”

And it is having a very real impact. The same story told of a village that had just been cleared of the Taliban. The anthropologist pointed out to the military officers that there were more widows than usual, and that the sons would feel compelled to take care of them – possibly by joining the insurgency, where many of the fighters are paid. So American officers began a job training program for the widows.

…we need to develop a permanent, sizeable cadre of immediately deployable experts with disparate skills, a need which president bush called for in his 2007 state of the union address, and which the State Department is now working on with its initiative to build a civilian response corps. Both the President and Secretary of State have asked for full funding for this initiative. But we also need new thinking about how to integrate our government’s capabilities in these areas, and then how to integrate government capabilities with those in the private sector, in universities, in other non-governmental organizations, with the capabilities of our allies and friends – and with the nascent capabilities of those we are trying to help. Indeed, having robust civilian capabilities available could make it less likely that military force will have to be used in the first place, as local problems might be dealt with before they become crises.

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(Note 11)

Zinni’s testimony cont. (excerpts)

We have come to this committee today acknowledging that while the United States has done many good things in the area of foreign assistance, we still have much work to do ahead. We urgently need a new and vibrant strategic direction for our national security and foreign policy. We need strong U.S. leadership to enhance global security, strengthen democratic governance, alleviate poverty and foster global economic growth. This is not only the right thing to do, but it is in squarely in our national interest.

Mr. Chairman, there are powerful and creative forces for change in this country which reflect the vitality of our democratic system. Calls for reform, for this new concept of smart power, come from across the political spectrum, from corporations and think tanks, to faith-based and humanitarian organizations. Even from old warriors such as ourselves. In addition to the group of distinguished flag and general officers we are proud to represent, we are also here as part of a broader coalition with the Center for U.S. Global Engagement, a non-partisan organization whose allies include companies ranging from Boeing to Caterpillar to Microsoft; private voluntary groups such as CARE and Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children and World Vision. Despite our diversity of experiences, we share a common belief that America is underinvesting in the very tools that are vital to our national security, our economic prosperity and our moral leadership as a nation.

We know that it is time to act. We are part of a growing movement for change, a new constituency to support you, on this committee, as you make the hard choices and help forge a bipartisan strategy using smart power.

For this is an issue that transcends partisanship. We are talking about the future of our nation and our ability to address the most complex and perplexing global problems of our day. Shifting the emphasis of U.S. foreign policy from one that relies heavily on military might to one that elevates the value of diplomacy and development will, indeed, take strong political leadership, a decisive strategy to guide us, and ample resources and personnel to ensure we are successful. (pp. 2-3)

…

[E]merging challenges call us to come together again, with the same careful process that we practiced 50 years ago. We must analyze the problems at hand, develop a new strategy, and design and resource the institutions and policies to implement that strategy. We must work with other great nations who share our values and strengthen our alliances for peace. We cannot take on this mighty task alone.

Mr. Chairman, some call this grand strategy, but we have to get down to basics if we are to succeed. We cannot skip the first step – to analyze the problems at hand. What is the strategic threat facing the nation today?

When we entered service to our country, the answer to that question was easy. The enemy was an aggressive nation-state, with a history of insecurity and authoritarian rule, and an economic ideology that threatened our way of life. The world divided along philosophical lines; the Soviet Union and the West each had a grouping of developing nations under their wings. We did not concern ourselves with the problems facing nations in the Communist camp. That was Moscow’s responsibility.

Now the Cold War is over, but the problems facing vast regions of the world persist. We know that the “enemies” in the world today are actually conditions – poverty, infectious disease, political turmoil and corruption, environmental and energy challenges. (p. 4)

…

There is no “pure” military solution to terrorism. If we are determined to reduce the strain on our troops, respond to the threat of global and political and cultural insurgency, and protect America, we must be prepared to make bold changes. We must provide a national security tool chest that has been enhanced with a wide variety of capabilities which would flow from the integration of our nation’s “soft” power.

We must match our military might with a mature diplomatic and development effort worthy of the task ahead. We have to take some of the burden off the shoulders of our troops and shift it to those with core competencies in diplomacy and development. Our military mission has continued to expand as funding for the State Department and development agencies has been inadequate to the tasks they have been asked to perform. They have been forced to make do, with fewer personnel, more responsibility, but without the resources to match their assignments. This has not developed overnight. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Shalikashveli, warned years ago, “What we are doing to our diplomatic capabilities is criminal. By slashing them, we are less able to avoid disasters such as Somalia or Kosovo and therefore we will be obliged to use military force still more often.”

While we acknowledge and are heartened by the fact that the President has asked for an increase of 8.5 percent in the International Affairs Budget, we agree with Secretary of Defense Gates that these times call for a “dramatic increase” in funding for our “civilian instruments of national security”: that is, programs and departments under this committee’s jurisdiction. We support his call for a “new benchmark” for how much we invest in diplomacy and development.

This is striking enough to reiterate: the head of our Defense department has called for an increase in funding for the State department and development agencies. As Secretary Gates said, “We must focus our energies beyond the guns and steel of the military, beyond our brave soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen. We must also focus our energies on the other elements of national power that will be so crucial in the coming years.”

That means rethinking the current balance between defense, diplomacy and development. The International Affairs Budget represents only 6.6% of the overall National Security Budget, which includes defense and homeland security. The entire current International Affairs Budget is roughly equal to the requested INCREASE in the Defense Department budget. Particularly worrisome is that despite this request and recent increases, our funding is still 11% less in real terms.

Mr. Chairman, it is time, past time, for a new strategic triad – diplomacy and development, as well as defense – to prepare us for the challenges ahead. We note that the President’s budget calls for significant investments in USAID personnel, and the creation of a Civilian Response Corps, which you and Senator Lugar have championed. These are important first steps.

And they dovetail with a number of broader efforts underway to address a new national security architecture. There is much discussion these days about using the ideas of the Goldwater-Nichols Act for the interagency process, a “whole of
government” approach to policy formation and implementation, a new National Security Act. (pp. 5-7)

…

Recent reports from RAND, the 9-11 Commission, the HELP Commission, the CSIS Smart Power Commission study and the Center for U.S. Global Engagement’s own “Smart Power” policy framework – all very bipartisan efforts – all point in the same direction. Across these documents, a range of options on both funding and modernizing our foreign assistance and national security apparatus have been placed on the table that Congress – and our candidates for President – should be considering now. A new President has a remarkable opportunity, and a security imperative, to make this a priority early in the first term. (p. 8)

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(Note 12)

“Planning Framework” cont. (excerpt)

“Planning involves elements of both art and science, combining analysis and calculation with intuition, inspiration and creativity. Effective planning demonstrates imagination rather than over-reliance on mechanistic processes. The fundamental challenge of planning is to reconcile the tension between the desire for preparation and the need for flexibility . . . .”

-Army Stability Operations Field Manual

Introduction

The success of the U.S. Government (USG) in complex reconstruction and stabilization (R&S) environments will require an integrated, interagency approach that allows both civilians and the military to plan for and respond quickly to rapidly evolving conditions on the ground. To address this challenge, National Security Presidential Directive 44 designated the Secretary of State to coordinate and lead integrated USG efforts to prepare for, plan, conduct, and assess R&S activities in coordination with international, other governmental and nongovernmental partners.

Purpose

R&S planning is undertaken in support of achieving transformation in the specified country or region undergoing or projected to undergo violent conflict or civil strife. The goal of this approach, referred to as “conflict transformation,” is to reach the point where the country or region is on a sustainable positive trajectory, where it is able to address on its own the dynamics causing civil strife and/or violent conflict. This requires simultaneously supporting sources of social and institutional resilience as well as other factors that mitigate civil strife and violent conflict while reducing the drivers of conflict and other factors that continue or escalate violent conflict or civil strife.1 One fundamental principle of conflict transformation is that, over the longer term, the host nation must develop its own capacity to ensure stability and conditions for economic growth – those conditions cannot be imposed from outside.

The USG Planning Framework for R&S and Conflict Transformation (“Planning Framework”) is designed to address two related but distinct activities: crisis response planning and long-term scenario-based planning. A major crisis response would require significant and complex humanitarian, security, reconstruction, governance, and economic efforts utilizing all the elements of U.S. national power. R&S operations are not limited to situations where the U.S. military will or is conducting combat operations. Long-term scenario-based planning would be a more limited planning effort for the purposes of preparing for a potential event. Both employ the same planning framework but to differing levels of detail and with different time demands and personnel constraints. This Principles of the USG Planning Framework lays out for senior policymakers the key principles, decision points, and processes to be used in planning for such operations, and will be supplemented by a comprehensive planning guide for practitioners. This Planning Framework does not alter existing Department or Agency authorities prescribed by law.2

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(Note 13)

ICAF cont. (excerpt)

What is the ICAF?

A conflict assessment tool for the USG

Addressing the causes and consequences of weak and failed states has become an urgent priority for the U.S. Government (USG). Conflict both contributes to and results from state fragility. To effectively prevent or resolve violent conflict, the USG needs tools and approaches that enable coordination of U.S. diplomatic, development and military efforts in support of local institutions and actors seeking to resolve their disputes peacefully.

A first step toward a more effective and coordinated response to help states prevent, mitigate and recover from violent conflict is the development of shared understanding among USG agencies about the sources of violent conflict or civil strife. Achieving this shared understanding of the dynamics of a particular crisis requires both a joint interagency process for conducting the assessment and a common conceptual framework to guide the collection and analysis of information. The Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework (ICAF) is a tool that enables a team comprised of a variety of USG agency representatives (“interagency”) to assess conflict situations systematically and collaboratively and prepare for interagency planning for conflict prevention, mitigation and stabilization.

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(Note 14)

Mission

To lead, coordinate and institutionalize U.S. Government civilian capacity to prevent or prepare for post-conflict situations, and to help stabilize and reconstruct societies in transition from conflict or civil strife, so they can reach a sustainable path toward peace, democracy and a market economy.

A consensus has developed within the Executive Branch, in Congress and among independent experts that the U.S. Government needs a more robust capability to prevent conflict when possible, and if necessary manage stabilization and reconstruction operations in countries emerging from conflict or civil strife.

Responding to New Foreign Policy and National Security Interests

Failing and post-conflict states pose one of the greatest national and international security challenges of our day, threatening vulnerable populations, their neighbors, our allies, and ourselves. Struggling states can provide breeding grounds for terrorism, crime, trafficking, and humanitarian catastrophes, and can destabilize an entire region. Experience shows that managing conflict, particularly internal conflict, is not a passing phenomenon. It has become a mainstream part of our foreign policy.

Until now, the international community has undertaken stabilization and reconstruction operations in an ad hoc fashion, recreating the tools and relationships each time a crisis arises. If we are going to ensure that countries are set on a sustainable path towards peace, democracy and a market economy, we need new, institutionalized foreign policy tools – tools that can influence the choices countries and people make about the nature of their economies, their political systems, their security, indeed, in some cases about the very social fabric of a nation.

Core Objectives

S/CRS works across the U.S. Government and with the world community to anticipate state failure, avert it when possible, and help post-conflict states lay a foundation for lasting peace, good governance and sustainable development.

Monitor and Plan: Develop clear policy options concerning states and regions of greatest risk and importance, and lead U.S. planning focused on these priorities to avert crises, when possible, to prepare for them as necessary.

Mobilize and Deploy: Coordinate the deployment of U.S. resources and implementation of programs in cooperation with international and local partners to accelerate transitions from conflict to peace.

Prepare Skills and Resources: Establish and manage an interagency capability to deploy personnel and resources in an immediate surge response and the capacity to sustain assistance until traditional support mechanisms can operate effectively.

Learn From Experience: Incorporate best practices and lessons learned into functional changes in training, planning, exercises, and operational capabilities that support improved performance.

Coordinate With International Partners: Work with international and multilateral organizations, individual states, and NGOs to plan, accelerate deployment, and increase interoperability of personnel and equipment in multilateral operations.

Core Organizational Functions

Conflict Prevention
The Conflict Prevention Office oversees a broad-based global monitoring program to identify states at risk of instability, coordinates conflict prevention and mitigation efforts within the U.S. Government, and actively consults with NGOs and international partners on best practices and new policy tools to help define policies to strengthen fragile states.

Planning
The Planning Office works with U.S. Government civilian and military agencies, non-governmental, and multilateral partners to refine and implement the whole-of-government approach to the reconstruction, stabilization, and conflict transformation of fragile and failed states.

Civilian Response Operations
The Office of Civilian Readiness and Response is responsible for the logistical and operational support, deployment, readiness, and after-action coordination for the Civilian Response Corps.

Strategic Communication
The Office of Strategic Communication is responsible for public affairs and public diplomacy, legislative affairs, diplomatic engagement, and outreach to the academic and NGO communities on behalf of S/CRS.

Resource Management
The Resource Management Office is responsible for programming, budgeting and financial management for all S/CRS resources and directs all administrative management and support activities within the Office of the Coordinator, including program planning, administrative policy development, personnel management and services, information systems management, general office services, property management, security, management analysis and evaluation, procurement and contracting.
———————-

Frequently Asked Questions

Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization
July 15, 2008

Q: Why was S/CRS created?

The mission of S/CRS is to lead, coordinate and institutionalize U.S. Government civilian capacity to prevent or prepare for post-conflict situations, and to help stabilize and reconstruct societies in transition from conflict or civil strife so they can reach a sustainable path towards peace, democracy and a market economy. The office, created in July 2004, is composed of an 88 member interagency staff, including 11 Active members of the Civilian Response Corps. S/CRS uses the Interagency Management System to organize the USG civilian response. This whole-of-government planning framework utilizes the Essential Task Matrix and compiles best practices for Reconstruction and Stabilization (R&S), developing common R&S training for civilians and the military.

Q: What is NSPD 44?

The President issued National Security Presidential Directive 44: Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Stabilization and Reconstruction, on December 7, 2005, in response to the recognized need for whole-of-government planning and response to crises abroad. The goal of NSPD 44 is to promote the security of the United States through improved coordination, planning and implementation of stabilization and reconstruction assistance. NSPD 44 empowers the Secretary of State to lead and coordinate the U.S. government response across all involved agencies, and to work with the Secretary of Defense to harmonize civilian and military activities. The Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) in the Department of State facilitates this.

Q: What is the Interagency Management System?

The Interagency Management System for Reconstruction and Stabilization (IMS) is designed to provide policymakers in Washington, Chiefs of Mission (COMs), and military commanders with flexible tools to achieve:

Integrated planning processes for unified USG strategic and implementation plans, including funding requests;

Joint interagency field deployments; and

A joint civilian operations capability including shared communications and information management.

The IMS is composed of the Country Reconstruction & Stabilization Group (CRSG), the Integration Planning Cell (IPC), and the Advance Civilian Team (ACT).

CRSG Policy formulation is led by the Country Reconstruction & Stabilization Group. The CRSG consists of a Washington-based interagency decision-making body, supported by a full-time interagency Secretariat that performs planning and operations functions and mobilizes resources. The CRSG is co-chaired by the Regional Assistant Secretary of State for the country in question, the S/CRS Coordinator, and the appropriate National Security Council Senior Director.

IPC The Integration Planning Cell consists of interagency planners and regional and sectoral experts who deploy to the relevant Geographic Combatant Command or multinational headquarters to assist in harmonizing ongoing planning and operations between civilian and military agencies and/or the USG and multinational HQ.

ACT The Advance Civilian Team supports the Chief of Mission (Ambassador) in the field to develop, execute, and monitor plans. The ACT provides interagency field management, deployment, and logistics capabilities, developing and implementing activities through regional field teams.

Q: What is the Civilian Stabilization Initiative?

The Civilian Stabilization Initiative is a $248.6 million request in the FY2009 budget submitted to Congress by the Administration, with the objective of strengthening civilian capacity to manage and implement R&S activities. The Initiative includes funds for the Civilian Response Corps (Active, Standby and Reserve components) across eight civilian agencies.

Active The Active component of the Civilian Response Corps is composed of USG staff trained and ready to deploy to the field in 48-72 hours. It provides rapid response capacity to assess the situation, design the USG response, and begin R&S implementation.

Standby The Standby component is composed of current USG employees who have ongoing job responsibilities but volunteer to be trained and available for deployments in case of need. Standby members are deployable within 30 days for up to 180 days.

Reserve Members of the Reserve component would be volunteers from outside the federal government, but would become USG employees when mobilized. They would be fully trained and deployable in 45-90 days to provide sector-specific expertise.

In the 2008 Supplemental Appropriations Act, Congress provided initial funding for the Active and Standby components of the Corps. If fully funded in FY2009, the Civilian Stabilization Initiative would create an Active component of 250 members, a Standby component of 2000, and a 2000-member Reserve.

Q: What is the purpose of Whole-of-Government planning for Reconstruction and Stabilization?

Whole-of-Government Reconstruction and Stabilization planning is undertaken in support of achieving “conflict transformation” in the specified country or region. The goal of conflict transformation is to reach the point where the country or region is on a sustainable positive trajectory and where it is able to address, on its own, the dynamics causing instability and conflict. This requires simultaneously building local institutional capacity while reducing the sources of instability and conflict, all during the two to three year window of opportunity when resources and political will are most available. One fundamental principle of conflict transformation is that, over the longer term, the host nation must develop its own capacity to ensure stability and conditions for economic growth – those conditions cannot be imposed from outside.

Q: Why does the Planning Process focus on a 2-3 year timeframe?

We have designed the planning process to focus on identifying the maximum that can be achieved in the first 2-3 years – the period during which there is typically intense international attention and a heavy flow of resources. This does not mean that the international community should depart at the end of three years. However, our planning process must strive to create conditions as quickly as possible where the host country can take the lead in overseeing its political, economic, and security institutions, supported by the international community. Two to three years is not sufficient to address every problem, nor to build the local ownership that is key to long-term sustainability. However, by forcing ourselves to respond better throughout those initial 2-3 years, we improve our chances a country will be able to take the lead in their transition.

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(Note 15)

Forging a New Shield (cont.):

In our view, national security must be conceived as the capacity of the United States to define, defend, and advance its interests and principles in the world. The objectives of national security policy, in the world as it now is, therefore are:

• To maintain security from aggression against the nation by means of a national capacity to shape the strategic environment; to anticipate and prevent threats; to respond to attacks by defeating enemies; to recover from the effects of attack; and to sustain the costs of defense

• To maintain security against massive societal disruption as a result of natural forces, including pandemics, natural disasters, and climate change

• To maintain security against the failure of major national infrastructure systems by means of building up and defending robust and resilient capacities and investing in the ability to recover from damage done to them

It follows from these objectives that success in national security—genuine success over generations— depends on integrated planning and action, and on the sustained stewardship of the foundations of national power. Sound economic policy, energy security, robust physical and human infrastructures including our health and education systems, especially in the sciences and engineering, are no less important in the longer run than our weapons and our wealth. Genuine success also depends on the example the United States sets for the rest of the world through its actions at home and abroad.

(Forging a New Shield excerpts)

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Obama admin.

(Note 16)

The organization that SAGE formed, would be launched in 2012 as the Center for Global Engagement. The State Department would establish the Global Engagement Center in 2016.

Since 9/11, over a dozen major studies have recommended, in one form or another, the creation of an independent, nonpartisan support organization to help strengthen America’s public diplomacy and strategic communication efforts. Advocates argue that such an organization can serve as a nexus between the public and private sectors and complement and enhance government public diplomacy.

In September 2010, the Woodrow Wilson Center convened a bipartisan working group of distinguished public diplomacy experts and practitioners from across the nation, business sectors and political ideologies to draft a business plan for such an organization and launched what has become known as the Wilson Center’s “SAGE” (Strengthening America’s Global Engagement) public diplomacy initiative. The working group grew to more than 80 members including business leaders, entrepreneurs, journalists, academics, NGO leaders, government officials and congressional staffers.

Former Cabinet Secretaries William Perry and Condoleezza Rice agreed to serve as honorary chairs of the initiative with funding provided by the MacArthur Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
…

The visionary behind the initiative was former Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Goli Ameri, who spent a year securing the funding and recruiting the majority of working group members. Brad Minnick, a seasoned public diplomacy practitioner was recruited to manage the project.

The working group encouraged participation from the Obama Administration and Congress. DoD was very supportive with Captain Wayne Porter (from National Dialogue fame) and DASD William Lietzau among the official observers and public support from Rosa Brooks. The State Department was less enthusiastic during the tenure of U/S Judith McHale, primarily out of fear that SAGE would seek congressional funding and become a competitor. U/S designate Tara Sonenshine is more open to the idea and is planning to attend the event on Monday.

There was bipartisan participation from both houses of Congress with Congressman Jeff Foretenberry (R-NE) and Senator Ben Cardin reviewing the plan as Executive Board members and several staffers serving in advisory roles representing Senate Foreign Relations, Houses Foreign Affairs as well as individual members’ offices.

Among the key working group members: Jim Dobbins (chair of the governance subcommittee), Bill Galston from Brookings, Kristin Lord from Center for New American Security, Joe Nye, Matt Speilman (Veep MTV Networks), Jim Zogby, Juan Zarate, John Marks (President of Search for Common Ground and chair of the development subcommittee), Cindy Williams from MIT (chair, budget subcommittee), Scott Carpenter (Google Ideas), Susan Gigli (COO, InterMedia, chair of targeting subcommittee), David Kramer, Tim Hassett from KIVA and Christy Carpenter (CEO of the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute and chair of the programs subcommittee.)

http://www.thecgeinc.org/Press_Release_1.html

December 9, 2010

On Monday, December 13, the Wilson Center will convene a large, bipartisan coalition that is drafting a business plan for a new independent organization for public diplomacy and strategic communications. The effort is part of the Center’s Strengthening America’s Global Engagement (SAGE) Initiative, launched in September to act on the recommendation of more than a dozen major studies conducted since 9/11 to form such an organization. The business plan will determine in detail the mission, structure, programs, target markets, and budget of the organization.

“How best to enhance and strengthen America’s public diplomacy and strategic communications are critical issues and nine years after 9/11, it is finally time to take this significant step in support of more engagement between Americans and foreign publics,” said Project Director Brad Minnick. “The Wilson Center is proud to be the convener of this important initiative.”

As envisioned, the organization will:

be nonpartisan and transcend Administrations

serve as an essential vehicle for public diplomacy and strategic communications by tapping the creativity and innovation of the private sector but not duplicate what already exists in government

facilitate better coordination and implementation around public-private partnerships on issues related to global engagement

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of Defense William Perry are honorary co-chairs, and the bipartisan Working Group includes more than 80 experts and practitioners from across the political and ideological spectrums, drawn from the private sector, government, Congress, think tanks, media, academe, foundations and NGOs.

The Working Group is divided into five independent subcommittees with responsibility to build one of the following components of the business plan during a six-month period:

Mission and governance

Operating budget

Target markets, networks & countries

Types and nature of programs & activities

Development & identification of corporate, foundation, and public sector partners

“The purpose of this exercise is to tap the best thinking of a broad, diverse and bipartisan set of experts and practitioners from across sectors to actually implement the recommendations of so many studies to create such an organization,” Minnick said.

The working group is meeting on Monday to present and discuss the initial ideas and recommendations of each subcommittee.

Event Documents:
CGE Expanded Mission Statement >
Budget Subcommittee Issues & Questions >
Development Subcommittee Issues & Questions >
Governance Subcommittee Issues & Questions >
Programs & Activities Subcommittee Issues & Questions >
Governance Subcommittee Presentation >
Programs and Activities Subcommittee Presentation >
Target Markets Subcommittee Presentation >

http://www.thecgeinc.org/AboutCGE.html

About The Center for Global Engagement

Mission

To foster engagement between U.S. society and the rest of the world with a view to promoting shared values and common interests and increasing mutual understanding and respect.

The Center for Global Engagement is a Los Angeles-based social entrepreneurship organization established by an all-star team of 80 public and private sector leaders. By leveraging the two most effective mediums to engage large groups of people around the world –entertainment and internet/mobile technologies– CGE develops projects that create large-scale transformational benefit to society at large, and increase mutual understanding and respect.

CGE is grateful for the support for the MacArthur Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Smith Richardson Foundation, as well as the probono counsel of the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Governance

CGE is a tax-exempt, nonprofit, non-political, private corporation as defined in section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. It is perpetual, has no voting members and governed by a nonpartisan board of directors.

Advisory Council

CGE is supported by an Advisory Council of leaders drawn from the public, private and nonprofit sectors. The council will meet at least twice annually to advise the CGE Board of Directors and President on strategy and priorities for global engagement.

Metrics

CGE’s business plan mandates the development of baseline goals and metrics to aid in programmatic quality assessments, and we will leverage both qualitative and quantitative measurements to determine our impact. Though we are a non-profit, charitable organization, we are run as a start-up: lean, cost-effective, cost-conscious, and driven by metrics.

http://www.thecgeinc.org/CGE_Advisory_Council.html

CGE Advisory Council

Joanne Ashe
Joanne Ashe is the founder and Executive Director of Journeys in Film: Educating for Global Understanding, a project of the Norman Lear Center of the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. She was co-producer of a short documentary film entitled, “The Waiting Children,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and addresses issues of international adoption.

Jeffrey Benson
Jeffrey Benson started his career as a TV development executive running the creative areas at both Paramount TV and Lorimar TV. At Paramount, he was involved in such shows as Laverne & Shirley, Taxi, Mork & Mindy, Happy Days, and at Lorimar, he developed Full House, Family Matters, and was involved in Dallas, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest. In 2004 he served as Co-Head of the TV Department at Paradigm Agency as well as being a member of the management committee. Paradigm has packed such series as Dexter, Desperate Housewives, NCISLA, 24, Under the Dome, King & Maxwell, Devious Maids, Secret Life of the American Teenager among others.

Bob Boorstin
Robert O. Boorstin is the former Director of Corporate and Policy Communications in the Washington, D.C. office of Google, Inc. Prior to Google, he helped found and served as Senior Vice President for National Security at the Center for American Progress. He is also the former national security speechwriter to President Bill Clinton and foreign policy adviser to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, as well as a former adviser on the developing world to Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

Lucia Cottone
Lucia Cottone was most recently the Senior Vice President of Original Programming for Sony Pictures Television Networks, in charge of both the creative and business aspects of developing a television show and maintaining best practices across the Sony Channels portfolio. Prior to Sony, Cottone was the Vice President of Series Development and Current Programming at Lifetime Television, where she oversaw the development and current programming slate for both dramas and comedies. Prior to Lifetime, she served as director of cable programming for NBC Universal Television Studio, where, she oversaw the scripted development for series, movies and miniseries for sister networks USA and SYFY.

Patrick Dent
Patrick Dent is a Senior Lecturer in the USC Engineering School. For more than than 15 years he has taught courses ranging from Web development, database and programming to New Media. His background includes graphic and web design, programming, and newspaper and magazine writing. Patrick evangelizes Web development technologies to students of all backgrounds, from business to computer science to music.

Linda Gottlieb
Linda Gottlieb has worked in almost every type of television: network, cable, children’s, educational, daytime, movies-of-the-week, miniseries, and series. Among her many credits is Soldier’s Girl for Showtime (Peabody Award, Golden Globe nominee). In feature films, Ms. Gottlieb developed and produced Dirty Dancing, starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. In 1991 she became executive producer of ABC’s daytime drama, One Life to Live, where she modernized the show’s production and post-production and increased the show’s ratings. Linda currently teaches a master class in Advanced Screenwriting in the Department of Dramatic Writing at the Tisch School at NYU. She is the recipient of the 1992 Muse Award from New York Women in Film and Television.

Ambassador Richard LeBaron
Richard LeBaron is the former U.S. Ambassador to the State of Kuwait and the former Chief of Mission at the American Embassy in London. He is a visiting senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, dedicated to promoting economic and political liberalization, sustainable conflict resolution, and greater regional and international integration in the Middle East. While there, he organized a non-official policy dialogue with private sector, academic and media personalities from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United States, focusing on perceptions about and support for the Arab Spring.

Gary Marenzi
Gary Marenzi is the President & Founder of Marenzi & Associates providing CEO-level advice and implementation to global entertainment, sports and digital media companies. He was the President, Worldwide Television Group of Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, Inc. overseeing the distribution of MGM’s films and television programs to television and digital media outlets, the production of new television programs and the management of MGM’s television channels worldwide.

Brad Minnick
Brad Minnick is Director of Communications and Community Affairs at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. He previously served as Project Director for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Public Diplomacy Initiative. He is also a management and communications advisor and principal at HKS Global, a Washington, D.C.-based public affairs firm. Brad is a former Director of the Office of International Visitors at the U.S. Department of State and served five years as Chief Executive Officer of the American Council of Young Political Leaders, a non-partisan international exchange organization. He is also a former managing director for Weber Shandwick Worldwide, a public relations firm, and a former advisor to the United Nations Development Program and to the parliament and government of Romania.

Robert O’Brien
Robert O’Brien is the managing partner of the Los Angeles office of Arent Fox LLP, a diversified law firm. His practice focuses on commercial litigation and domestic and international arbitration, including intellectual property, entertainment, complex business disputes, and election law matters. O’Brien served as co-chairman of the United States Department of State’s Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan from 2007-2011 and remains a member of the Executive Committee. He was also the U.S. Alternate Representative to the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Tolga Ornek
Tolga Ornek is a Turkish film director, writer and producer who, in recognition of his 2005 documentary, Gallipoli, was awarded an honorary medal in the general division of the Order of Australia. He studied at the Robert College, and later at the Istanbul Technical University, University of Floria and American University earning a MS in Materials Science and MA in Film and Video Production. Since his “Gallipoli” documentary he’s moved into feature films, producing, directing, and writing four feature films in a variety of genres.

Pradeep Ramamurthy
Pradeep Ramamurthy is a Vice President with the Abraaj Group, a leading private equity firm focused on global growth markets across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Ramamurthy is the former Deputy Counselor for Innovation at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where he helped establish the new Office of Innovation and Development Alliances, and oversaw USAID’s portfolio of public-private partnerships with the private sector. He was also the first Senior Director for Global Engagement at the White House, a position established by President Barack Obama.

Teresa Rivera
Teresa Rivera is Vice President for FOX News Channel in charge of affiliate sales for the West and Midwest regions of the United States. Over the 10 years at FNC, Teresa has developed distribution platforms, successful branding strategies and new revenue streams that contribute to making FOX News Channel the number one cable news network. She helped launch Fox Business Network and negotiated distribution deals to bring the channel to almost 70 million households. Teresa also serves on the Board of Directors of the California Cable Telecommunications Association.

Azhar Rizvi
Azhar Rizvi is a serial entrepreneur who has established several startups and mentored and coached a number of companies. He is a member of the Global Advisory Board of MIT Enterprise Forum and the founding Vice Chairman of the Pakistan chapter, engaged in developing the entrepreneurial eco-system in Pakistan. He is currently working as the CEO and Director of TAN America Fund, the first Angel fund established in the US with the primary objective of investing in the Pakistani IT firms. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Cambridge Advisers Network, and also serves as the Chairman, Standing Committee on Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries.

Karim Sarkis
Karim Sarkis is the CEO of Sync Media, bringing together the various elements needed to create and monetize great content: Creativity, Financing and Distribution. Prior to founding Sync Media, Karim managed the television and radio business of the Abu Dhabi Media Company growing the firm to a ten-channel HD sports and general entertainment pay-tv business, nine pan-Arab free-to-air channels and five UAE radio stations as well as online properties.

Edward Schiappa
Edward Schiappa is Professor in the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Schiappa has published over 60 academic articles appearing in leading journals of five disciplines: Psychology, Philosophy, English, Classics, and Communication. Schiappa also has published 10 academic books. His research falls into three categories—classical rhetoric, contemporary rhetorical theory and argumentation, and the rhetoric of popular culture.

David Snyder
For over 10 years, David Snyder was the head creative content executive for Walt Disney Television international and a key creative force in the development, production and programming of hundreds of hours of animation, live-action programming and documentaries. David also led the launch of numerous international Disney Channels, as well as Disney-branded programming blocks on major terrestrial broadcasts. After Disney, he joined Gullane Entertainment where he produced three seasons (78 episodes) of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends among other shows. His programs have won numerous international awards.

Donald Spear
Donald Spear is President and CEO of OpenSesame, a marketplace for e-learning business training courses. Previously, Don was the president of Banfield, The Pet Hospital during its early rapid expansion to 250 locations, and Senior Vice President of Retail Operations, Strategy and Logistics at PetSmart from two stores through IPO. He is a former submarine officer in the United States Navy, having served aboard the USS Tunny.

Marguerite Sullivan
Marguerite Sullivan is the Senior Director of the Center for International Media Assistance, which is dedicated to improving U.S. efforts to promote independent media in developing countries around the world. She has done extensive communications training worldwide and wrote “A Responsible Press Office: An Insider’s Guide,” an award-winning book that has been translated into more than two dozen languages. Previously she was executive director of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO and before that served as a vice president of an institute at the National Endowment for Democracy.

Paula Woodley
Paula Woodley is President of Woodley Communications and an adjunct Professor at USC Annenberg School of Communications. She has taught undergraduate and graduate programs in Business & Professional Communication, Marketing Communication for the Entrepreneur, Social Marketing & Entertainment-Education and Public Speaking. Paula has been nominated for the Steven B. Sample Teaching and Mentoring Award three times. In combining her academic background with marketing experience, she has completed consumer research studies for Clear Channel Communications and Katz Media, assessing how the relationships between the on-air personalities and their listeners impact consumer behavior.

Sibel Yuruten
Sibel Yuruten is the Director, Digital Marketing and Business Development at the Dogus Media Group in Turkey. She is responsible for the execution of effective marketing strategies for 14 Dogus Media Group brands including mobile marketing, social media, digital promotions, and creative Previously she was the Director of Marketing leading the marketing department of Turkey’s best rated entertainment channel, Star TV, including all corporate online and offline communications, special events and marketing campaigns.

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(Note 17)

The first official QDDR of 2010 titled “Leading Through Civilian Power” would gain a subtitle in Hillary Clinton’s CFR Foreign Affairs article titled, “Leading Through Civilian Power: Redefining American Diplomacy and Development.” The Engaging Beyond the State section of the QDDR Executive Summary from 2010 reads in part: “Embrace 21st Century Statecraft to connect the private and civic sectors with our foreign policy work by bringing new resources and partners to the table; better using connection technologies and expanding, facilitating, and streamlining our public-private partnership process.”
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(Note 18)

Civilian Stabilization Initiative cont. (excerpt)

Program Description

The FY 2010 request includes $323.3 million to build and sustain a coordinated capacity across the United States Government (USG) for a “Whole of Government” response to emergent Reconstruction and Stabilization (R&S) crises. This will provide the ability to further American interests abroad by providing new soft power tools and increased capabilities. CSI will enable the President and Secretary to react to unanticipated conflict in foreign countries through the Interagency Management System (IMS), which produces interagency analysis and planning and puts civilian experts on the ground as they are needed, improving assistance, effectiveness, and increasing options available to support countries in crisis. Experience in Iraq and Afghanistan has underscored the need for quick engagement in reconstruction and stabilization activities. Populations need to have essential services restored, including restoration of confidence in local institutions. The resources requested for CSI enable the USG to rapidly respond to these situations. It puts experts on the ground quickly to provide the initial planning and prioritization of activities and provides the institutional structure to coordinate the many actors who need to integrate their individual plans into cohesive national, provincial, and sub-provincial plans. Having a Civilian Response Corps ready to respond will reduce the threat of failed states and will reduce or eliminate the need for large military deployments in such crises. Increasing the USG‘s options for assistance will mitigate the dangers of conflict and state failure that threaten American interests around the world. This request supports the recruitment, development, and training of a Civilian Response Corps (CRC), which includes a 250-member interagency Active component (CRC-A) and a 2,000- member Standby component (CRC-S). The Civilian Response Corps Active and Standby components will be situated in, and drawn from, the Departments of State, Justice, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The request also supports a Reserve component (CRC-R) of 2,000 new Civilian Reservists in FY 2010. This interagency initiative is extensively coordinated within the USG and receives regular input from major partners with similar capabilities including the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Interagency Management System has the flexibility to integrate partners, build on coalition support, and otherwise operate as part of a broader international mission.

According to USAID– in addition to Haiti and Kenya-“In fiscal year 2012, the Civilian Response Corps undertook 44 deployments to 19 countries including Yemen, Burma, Libya.” (The page linked above has since been edited.)

THE OFFICE OF CRISIS SURGE SUPPORT STAFF

The Office of Crisis Surge Support Staff (CS3) rapidly deploys highly qualified technical experts providing critical development skill sets in support of USAID operations worldwide. CS3 aims to meet Mission-specific staffing needs by deploying personnel knowledgeable about USAID systems and processes, helping Missions to better adjust to the rapidly changing conditions in which USAID regularly finds itself.

To this end, CS3 recruits, hires, and trains staff with an array of skills and experiences to immediately deploy when needed. CS3 fills Mission requests using a streamlined, online system, and handles travel arrangements and other administrative tasks associated with deployment. Each requesting Mission pays for its deployed staff member’s salary, benefits, travel, and support costs, while contributing funds to CS3 to sustain operations and expand the roster of deployable staff. This pay-as-you-go model is a cost-effective, sustainable way to ensure the availability of surge staff support to Missions when needed.

The Firehouse

CS3’s cadre of deployable staff is called the “Firehouse”. Firehouse staff bring a range of technical expertise, are familiar with USAID processes and funding mechanisms, and are ready to deploy immediately, for two to 10 months.

The Firehouse includes Senior Development Advisors, General Development Officers, Democracy and Governance Officers, Elections Specialists, Program Officers, Strategic Communication Officers, Contracting Officers, and Executive Officers.

History of Our Work

CS3 was formerly known as the Office of Civilian Response (OCR), which oversaw the USAID component of the interagency Civilian Response Corps (CRC). Following the dissolution of the CRC, USAID built upon its OCR experience to create CS3 to meet USAID-specific needs that cannot always be fully addressed using traditional USAID staffing methods.

Since its establishment in 2009, CS3 has deployed to approximately 40 countries and provided more than 23,000 person-days to new USAID Missions and non-presence posts, expand USAID’s presence outside of capital cities, support crisis-specific programming, fill voids left by evacuated staff, and augment Mission staff to meet new needs.

For example, deployed staff have supported elections in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Sudan; provided urban planning and infrastructure expertise in Haiti and Mexico; replaced evacuated staff in Yemen; supported conflict-specific programming in the Central African Republic, Jordan, Libya, and Nepal; provided business development and economic expertise in Pakistan; worked on rule of law in Tunisia; and temporarily staffed newly created Foreign Service positions in Burma and Burundi, among many other assignments.

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(Note 19)

One of PNSR’s self-identified “Achievements” is:

23. Influenced the Obama administration’s National Security Strategy – May 2010, which gave prominent attention to transformation of the national security system with twelve organizational goals that parallel PNSR’s major recommendations. Assisted Congress in the formulation of a provision (section 1072 – “Implementation plan for whole-of-government vision prescribed in the National Security Strategy”) in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 mandating that the president submit to Congress an implementation plan for the National Security Strategy’s organizational goals (See pages 12-15 of the National Security Strategy).

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(Note 20)

USGLC Report on Reports (cont.):

The strong consensus to strengthen our smart power tools of development and diplomacy since 9/11 is best illustrated by an impressive series of bipartisan actions undertaken over the past decade by two Presidents, and their Secretaries of State, USAID Administrators, and heads of other foreign policy agencies.

2001
DIPLOMATIC READINESS INITIATIVE
After years of decimated capacity, Secretary Powell’s Diplomatic Readiness Initiative led to increasing our foreign service officers by 1,000 to strengthen America’s engagement in the world.

2002
NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY
The White House National Security Strategy under President George W. Bush for the first time articulated a new framework calling all “three Ds” – Defense, Diplomacy, and Development – critical to keeping America safe.

2003
PRESIDENT’S EMERGENCY PLAN FOR AIDS RELIEF
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) launched during the Bush Administration was the most significant global health response ever, saving millions of lives and ushering in the possibility of an AIDS-free generation.

2004
MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORPORATION
The creation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) changed the face of assistance with a focus on results alongside requirements for recipients’ sound governance, economic, and social policies.

2005
MALARIA INITIATIVE
The President’s Malaria Initiative prioritized reducing the risks of one of the developing world’s most prevalent and preventable diseases.

2006
TRANSFORMATIONAL DIPLOMACY
The Transformational Diplomacy Initiative moved American diplomats from traditional posts to regions and countries of emerging importance.

NATIONAL SECURITY FUNDING
The International Affairs Budget was included for the first time as part of national security funding in a President’s Budget Request to Congress.

2007
DEVELOPMENT LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE
The Development Leadership Initiative (DLI) made rebuilding capacity at USAID a priority by aiming to double the size of its Foreign Service.

2009
FEED THE FUTURE
Feed the Future launched as an innovative way to help countries address the root causes of hunger and poverty with local ownership, private sector partnerships, and real accountability.

2010
PRESIDENTIAL POLICY DIRECTIVE ON U.S. GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT
The first-ever Presidential Policy Directive on U.S. Global Development under President Obama established development as a core pillar of American power, prioritizing economic growth.

USAID FORWARD
USAID Forward initiated ambitious reforms to ensure accountability and transparency, promote local capacity building innovation, and achieve improved outcomes.

2011 [sic]
QUADRENNIAL DIPLOMACY AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW
Secretary Clinton led the first ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) to strengthen the organization and effectiveness of America’s civilian capacity.

INTERNATIONAL AID TRANSPARENCY INITIATIVE
The United States joined the International Aid Transparency Initiative, making foreign aid transparency and accountability a major policy priority

ECONOMIC STATECRAFT
The Economic Statecraft initiative capitalized on the intersection of foreign policy and the U.S. economy, increasing the importance for our diplomats to assist American businesses abroad.

2013
OFFICE OF GLOBAL WOMEN’S ISSUES
A Presidential Memorandum made Women and Girls a priority across U.S. foreign policy strategies and made permanent the Office of Global Women’s Issues.

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U.S. Government Assistance to Syria

Fact Sheet

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

September 7, 2013

The United States supports the Syrian people’s aspirations for a democratic, inclusive, and unified post-Asad Syria. The Asad regime, reinforced by Hezbollah and Iranian fighters, has turned the full force of its firepower, including chemical weapons, against its own people in an effort to perpetuate its rule. The ensuing conflict has enflamed tensions in Syria and elsewhere in the region, and fueled extremism. The United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 Syrians have been killed since the unrest and violence began over two years ago. The number of Syrians seeking refuge in neighboring countries has increased sharply as violence has escalated. More than 2 million people affected by the conflict are now refugees in neighboring countries while, inside Syria, an additional 5 million people are displaced and 6.8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance.

The United States is providing more than $1 billion in humanitarian assistance, more than any other nation, to help those affected by the conflict inside Syria and across the region. Aside from humanitarian assistance, the United States has committed $250 million in non-lethal transition support to the Syrian opposition. This assistance is helping the Syrian Coalition, local opposition councils and civil society groups provide essential services to their communities, extend the rule of law, and enhance stability inside liberated areas of Syria. These funds also provide nonlethal assistance to support the Supreme Military Council (SMC) of the Free Syrian Army.

International Diplomatic Support

Efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the Syria crisis are based on the Final Communiqué of the 30 June 2012 Action Group meeting. The Communiqué, which is supported vigorously by the United States, outlines the establishment of a transitional governing body formed by mutual consent of the regime and the opposition, with full executive control over all government institutions.

The transitional governing body will also be charged with establishing a national dialogue, reviewing the constitutional order and legal system, and preparing for and conducting free and fair elections.

U.S. diplomatic efforts are helping coordinate the provision of assistance with other partners and allies and supporting the Syrian opposition. U.S. diplomatic efforts also seek to further isolate the regime, both politically and through comprehensive sanctions; support the Syrian people’s calls for the end of Asad’s rule; and reinforce the Syrian opposition’s vision of a democratic post-Asad Syria – a unified nation that rejects extremism and guarantees the rights, interests, and participation of all Syrians regardless of their gender, religion, or ethnicity.

At the G-8 summit in June 2013, President Obama and other world leaders called for an end to the conflict through the implementation of the Geneva Communiqué; the rejection of terrorism and extremism; and access for aid agencies to provide humanitarian assistance to all people in need.

Humanitarian Assistance

The United States is working tirelessly along with the international community to provide humanitarian assistance to those affected by the brutal conflict in Syria. On the occasion of Eid-al-Fitr, President Obama announced more than $195 million in additional humanitarian assistance for those affected by the ongoing conflict in Syria, bringing total U.S. humanitarian assistance to more than $1 billion.

The United States is providing emergency medical care and supplies, shelter, food, clean water, relief supplies and protection to those affected by the crisis inside Syria and in neighboring countries. In response to growing incidents of gender-based violence during the conflict, the U.S. is also supporting women’s health centers, mobile clinics, and psycho-social support for Syrian women and children.

Within Syria, U.S. humanitarian assistance is reaching more than 3.5 million people in all 14 of the country’s governorates on the basis of need and regardless of political affiliation. U.S. assistance is provided through the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, and community-based partners, as well as in coordination with the opposition Syrian Coalition’s Assistance Coordination Unit (ACU). To ensure the safety of recipients and humanitarian workers and to guard against assistance being blocked while en route to beneficiaries, U.S. humanitarian assistance is often not branded or marked.

The United States continues to work closely with governments in the region hosting refugees fleeing Syria. For more details on the U.S. humanitarian response to the Syria crisis and what U.S. humanitarian assistance is being provided, visit www.usaid.gov/crisis/syria.

Nonlethal Transition Assistance to the Syrian Opposition

The United States is working in partnership with the international community to assist the Syrian opposition in building a post-Asad Syria. Toward this end, the United States has committed to providing $250 million in non-lethal transition assistance for the Syrian opposition.

Assistance is being provided to the Syrian Coalition and leading organizations to bolster their institutional capacity and create linkages to local opposition groups. These efforts enable the Syrian opposition to deliver basic goods and essential services to liberated communities. For example, in close collaboration with the ACU, U.S. assistance is being used to procure equipment and supplies for prompt disbursement to newly liberated communities inside Syria. This equipment includes generators to power water pumps and bakeries; ambulances to reinstate emergency medical services; crane and dump trucks for urban sanitation; and water bladders to provide access to potable water. These efforts help the national-level opposition groups provide for the needs of local communities.

Through a series of small grants, the U.S. is helping to strengthen grassroots organizations and local administrative bodies– a foundation of democratic governance – as they step in to fill the void left by the regime and provide basic services, including emergency power, sanitation, water, and educational services to their communities. Some of this assistance is being directed to maintain public safety, extend the rule of law, and enhance the provision of justice to improve local stability and prevent sectarian violence.

U.S. non-lethal assistance includes training and equipment to build the capacity of a network of nearly 1,500 grassroots activists, including women and youth, from over 100 opposition councils and organizations from around the country to link Syrian citizens with the Syrian opposition and local councils. This support enhances the linkages between Syrian activists, human rights organizations, and independent media outlets and empowers women leaders to play a more active role in transition planning.

Support to independent media includes assistance to community radio stations providing news, including information for refugees about available services; training for networks of citizen journalists, bloggers, and cyber-activists to support their documentation and dissemination of information on developments in Syria; and technical assistance and equipment to enhance the information and communications security of Syrian activists within Syria. U.S. technical and financial assistance to the ACU’s Media Unit is supporting the Coalition’s outreach to Syrians through the internet; local, independent radio stations; and satellite television.

The United States continues to assist in laying the groundwork for accountability for violations and abuses of international law by supporting the Syrian Justice and Accountability Center’s efforts to document violations committed by all sides of the conflict, and bolstering the capacity of civil society organizations to build the foundations for lasting peace. The United States also works at the grassroots levels with groups and individuals across a broad spectrum of Syria’s diverse religious and ethnic communities to empower women, religious leaders, youth, and civil society to advocate for their communities, build trust, tolerance, and mitigate conflict.

The U.S. has been ramping up its direct non-lethal assistance to the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army (SMC). The United States has delivered over 350,000 halal food rations and over three tons of medical supplies to the SMC. Plans are also underway to provide additional non-lethal combat support equipment in the form of communications gear and vehicles.

Additional Support for the Syrian People

To help Syrians begin to rebuild, the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a Statement of Licensing Policy inviting U.S. persons to apply for specific licenses to participate in certain economic activities in Syria. The OFAC Statement focused on applications to engage in oil-related transactions that benefit the Syrian Coalition, or its supporters, and transactions involving Syria’s agricultural and telecommunications sectors. OFAC also amended Syria General License 11 to authorize the exportation of services and funds transfers in support of not-for-profit activities to preserve and protect cultural heritage sites in Syria.

Pursuant to a new limited waiver of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security is authorized to process license applications for the export and re-export of certain commodities, software, and technology for the benefit of the Syrian people, including but not limited to: water supply and sanitation; agricultural production and food processing; power generation; oil and gas production; construction and engineering; transportation; and educational infrastructure.

The United States continues to engage Syrians directly, offering academic advising to young people hoping to study in the United States and opportunities to participate in exchanges and other outreach programs. The State Department is also working with a range of Syrian, American, and international partners to protect Syria’s rich cultural heritage – including archaeological sites, historic buildings, monuments, and collections of objects – and to halt the trade of looted Syrian cultural property in international antiquities markets.

The State Department maintains an active dialogue to coordinate policy and assistance for Syria with a broad cross-section of Syrian opposition groups, including with the Syrian Coalition offices in Egypt, Turkey, and Washington. We are also in close contact with many Americans, including Syrian-Americans, who have contributed generously and organized to provide assistance to Syrians in need. Those wishing to contribute to help Syrians in crisis may wish to review options listed at www.reliefweb.int/country/syr.

PRN: 2013/1095

(U.S. Government Assistance to Syria, Fact Sheet, Washington, DC, May 9, 2013)

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(Misc. Notes)

[Domestically, Bush established the bipartisan Council of Governors in his last year of office, and his National Response Framework (NRF) would be formally operationalized by Obama in 2010 by executive order, and would enter into a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with Operation HOPE Inc. (est. 1992) the following year.

This National Response Framework (NRF) is a guide to how the Nation conducts all-hazards response. It is built upon scalable, flexible, and adaptable coordinating structures to align key roles and responsibilities across the Nation, linking all levels of government, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. It is intended to capture specific authorities and best practices for managing incidents that range from the serious but purely local, to large-scale terrorist attacks or catastrophic natural disasters.]

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Nina M. Serafino, Specialist in International Security Affairs, Department of Defense “Section 1207” Security and Stabilization Assistance: Background and Congressional Concerns, FY2006-FY2010, March 3, 2011.
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22871.pdf

Nina M. Serafino, Specialist in International Security Affairs, Catherine Dale, Specialist in International Security, Pat Towell, Specialist in U.S. Defense Policy and Budget, Building Civilian Interagency Capacity for Missions Abroad: Key Proposals and Issues for Congress, January 23, 2012.
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/183725.pdf

Nina M. Serafino, Specialist in International Security Affairs, Peacekeeping/Stabilization and Conflict Transitions: Background and Congressional Action on the Civilian Response/Reserve Corps and other Civilian Stabilization and Reconstruction Capabilities, October 2, 2012.
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32862.pdf
——
CCO LEADERSHIP Dr. Joseph J. Collins was appointed Director of the Center for Complex Operations, INSS in July 2014. He joined the National War College faculty in 2004 as Professor of National Security Strategy. Prior to that assignment, Dr. Collins served for three years as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations, the Pentagon’s senior civilian official for peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and stabilization and reconstruction operations. His team led the stability operations effort in Afghanistan. From 1998-2001, he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he did research on economic sanctions, military culture, and national security policy. In 1998, Dr. Collins retired from the U. S. Army as a Colonel after nearly 28 years of military service.
http://cco.ndu.edu/About.aspx
——
[Obama established the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation (SICP) under the Domestic Policy Council, signed the bipartisan Serve America Act and celebrated John Dewey’s “service-learning” with George H. W. Bush at the Points of Light Institute in 2009, and would issue Executive Order 13560: White House Council for Community Solutions in 2010. Obama’s Domestic Policy Council would launch the Strong Cities, Strong Communities Initiative (SC2) the following year, expanding the White House facilitation of local government “comprehensive plans” in six pilot cities, and followed in 2012 with Executive Order 13602: Establishing a White House Council on Strong Cities, Strong Communities.]
——
[Obama’s Presidential Policy Directive 8 establishing the National Preparedness Goal in March, 2011 called for an “all-of-Nation, capabilities-based approach to preparedness” (i.e. the public-private, PNSR-inspired “Whole of Government Approach” of the National Security Strategy). This would be given yet another name, the “Whole Community Approach,” by the Department of Homeland Security and used in White House coordination before and after the Boston Marathon in 2013. Obama issued Executive Order 13603 in 2012: National Defense Resources Preparedness, days after the launch of the FEMA Corps.]
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Hillary Clinton would later refer to the CRC as “an army of peacebuilders,” at its (3rd?) anniversary.

In 2012, Hillary Clinton led the founding of the successor to Bush’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS): the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO). The State Department website lists 2012 CSO deployments to 30 countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, African countries of the “Kony 2012” global campaign, Central American countries, Mexico, and “more urgent engagements such as work in Turkey with the Syrian civilian opposition.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuy5CfTDUcE

3D Planning Guide

Click to access 3D%20Planning%20Guide_Update_FINAL%20(31%20Jul%2012).pdf

USAID issued the 2012‐2016 Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) for Ukraine, leveraged by the Center for U.S Ukrainian Relations (CUSUR), USGLC, and other special interests.
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The FY 2013 request of $50 million for the Complex Crises Fund (CCF) will be used to support activities to prevent or respond to emerging or unforeseen crises. The CCF was created in FY 2010 to regularize contingency funding previously received through transfers from the Department of Defense under Section 1207 authority that has since expired. Managed by USAID, funds are targeted to countries or regions that demonstrate a high or escalating risk of conflict, instability, or an unanticipated opportunity for progress in a newly emerging or fragile democracy. Projects will aim to address and prevent root causes of conflict and instability through a whole-of-government approach and will include host government participation, as well as other partner resources, where possible and appropriate. The CCF has provided critical support for programs in Tunisia, Somalia, Kyrgyz Republic, Yemen, Sri Lanka, and Cote d’Ivoire. Up to $10 million may be transferred to the Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations.

p. 94

Tunisia ($10 million): The FY 2013 request continues critical assistance mobilized to assist the Tunisians in laying the foundation for a stable and prosperous democratic Tunisia. Contributing to Tunisia’s democratic and economic evolution advances U.S. interests in a number of ways by helping to build a locally legitimate example of responsive and accountable governance, economic prosperity, and regional stability. The FY 2013 request expands and regularizes funding for continued support for governance, civil society, youth political and socio-economic engagement; academic linkages; and financial regulation reform activities that the U.S. Government initiated shortly after the revolution.

p.99

MENA IF is a new initiative that provides $770 million to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the Arab Spring, supporting those countries that are moving to undertake the democratic and economic reforms necessary to address citizens’ demands and provide lasting stability in the region. The approach of an incentive-based fund will ensure that additional assistance is tied to reforms. This fund puts into practice the President’s strategy in the region, provides support to citizen demands for change, improves the ability to respond adroitly to contingencies and new opportunities, and begins to address the imbalance between security and economic assistance in the region. The fund will also provide the United States with additional tools to work with international partners to support changes in the MENA region, allowing the United States to use its investment to leverage international resources. The MENA IF also allows for a significant increase in the resources available to the region for non-military assistance.

p. 53

Click to access 185014.pdf

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The Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund:

Text embargoed until release of President’s budget

Fact Sheet

State and USAID – FY 2012 Budget Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)

This funding supports diplomats and development experts who are working every day to protect our national security, promote our economic growth, and project our values in virtually every country on Earth. They are carrying out a robust foreign policy that is leading the world in solving the most complex challenges of our time, from thwarting international terrorism to stopping the spread of catastrophic weapons, fixing the global economy, and advancing human rights and universal values. They are helping identify and prevent conflicts before they start. They are helping to secure nuclear materials, fight international crime, assist human rights defenders, restore our alliances, promote the rights of women and girls, and ensure global economic stability.

Secretary Clinton

Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)

As we shift from military responsibility to civilian responsibility in frontline states, the combined OCO request will present considerable overall savings for the American people. The U.S. government-wide OCO budget is decreasing by $41 billion from the estimated FY 2010 to FY 2012.

In addition to the $5.3 billion in operations and assistance provided in the core State/USAID budget, funding for the extraordinary costs of joint State/USAID and Department of Defense efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is included in the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) request; State/USAID’s portion of the $126 billion U.S. government OCO budget is $8.7 billion.

[Another self-identified PNSR achievement pertained to steering the congressional authorization of the “whole of government” goals of Obama’s 2010 National Security Strategy, through sec. 1072 of the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Obama signed the NDAA provision legalizing “indefinite detention” the same day.]

The Project on Forward Engagement published Anticipatory Governance Practical Upgrades: Equipping the Executive Branch to Cope With Increasing Speed and Complexity of Major Challenges by Leon Fuerth and Evan M.H. Faber, in October, 2012. Robert Kagan, of the pre-9/11 Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution, and some of the main crafters of Smart Power and Homeland Security across multiple presidential administrations are listed supporters. [One part in the Annex is called “Leveraging the GPRA Modernization Act to Implement Anticipatory Governance.” Bill Clinton signed the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, and Obama’s GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 and PNSR-influenced Presidential Management Council (PMC) Interagency Rotation Program further facilitated the strategic role of “goals.”]

The BUR presents a narrative on what would come to be termed in military doctrine, “Unified Action”… Range of Military Operations (ROMO) overall, and shifting relatively from “hard power” to “soft power” via Military Operations Other than War (MOOTW). [“civil affairs,” “psychological,” “peacekeeping,” “special” and the rise of post-Cold War “effects-based,” “civil-military,” and “stability” operations.]
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According to the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR), the Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning (DSOP) was becoming the primary “whole of government planning” entity under the National Security Council for integrating “counterterrorism” (CT), “reconstruction and stabilization” (R&S), and other “complex national missions” of the U.S. Government. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq had served as the primary organizational model at the tactical-level, fusing military and civilian resources and personnel, for pursuing these “complex national missions.”
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattvanetten

Matt Van Etten

Foreign Affairs Officer at U.S. Department of State

Washington D.C. Metro Area

International Affairs

Current	U.S. Department of State
Previous	U.S. Consulate Lagos, Nigeria, U.S. Embassy Tripoli, Libya, U.S. Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan

Summary

Ten years of diplomatic, programmatic and analytical experience across a range conflict and stabilization environments. Specialized experience in U.S. diplomatic engagement, analysis and evaluation, security sector assistance design and implementation, and community-level conflict programming. Extensive field-based management experience at both the national and sub-national levels through long-term deployments to U.S. Embassies Kabul, Tripoli and U.S. Consulate General Lagos as well as management of NGO operations in Afghanistan. Strength in conveying analysis on political and security dynamics to U.S. principals, including recommendations for diplomatic and programmatic action. Experience with multi-stakeholder coordination among U.S. civilian, military, host government and local civil society actors in a range of contexts.

Innovative Solutions to Violent Conflict
BUREAU OF CONFLICT AND STABILIZATION OPERATIONS
January 9, 2014
http://www.state.gov/j/cso/releases/other/2014/219517.htm

Central Africa: Weakening Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) by working closely with the four LRA-affected nations, the U.S. military, UN, AU, and NGOs to increase defections among LRA fighters, improve civilian protection, and streamline the disarmament and reintegration process.

Elry Falkenstein

-William N. Grigg, “All the Reich Moves,” Pro Libertate, January 14, 2010.

National Security Act of 1947

-Murray Rothbard,“Revisionism and Libertarianism,” The Libertarian Forum, 1976.

-Murray Rothbard, Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, 1984, p. 34.

-Joseph S. Nye, “Soft Power,” Foreign Policy, No. 80, Twentieth Anniversary (Autumn 1990), 153-171.

William N. Grigg, “Rubicon in the Rear-View, Part III: En Route to Military Rule,” Pro Libertate, December 24, 2008.

In the Gulf crisis it was important to get the hard power of the military to Saudi Arabia quickly, but it was equally important to have the soft power to shape the UN resolutions that defined Iraq’s entry into Kuwait as a violation calling for sanctions.

-Joseph S. Nye, “Why the Gulf War Served the National Interest,” The Atlantic Monthly, July, 1991, Volume 268, No. 1; pages 56 – 64.

Our predictions and conclusions about the nature and characteristics of these dangers will help mold our strategy and size and shape our future military forces. (p. 2)

There are some forces and capabilities that are particularly well suited for intervention operations – for example, special operations forces, including psychological operations and civil affairs units. (p. 9)

The National Security Strategy, Foreign Policy, and the IASP

United States Strategic Plan for International Affairs, First Revision-February 1999, pp. 3-4.

Ron Paul, Swords into Plowshares, 2015, p. 89.

Unity of Effort

Unity of effort requires coordination among government departments and agencies within the executive branch, between the executive and legislative branches, with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), international organizations (IOs), and among nations in any alliance or coalition.

The President of the United States, advised by the National Security Council, is responsible to the American people for national strategic unity of effort. …

Unified Action

Joint Publication 0-2, Unified Action Armed Forces (UAAF), 10 July 2001.

The Military “Hard Power” Emphasis of the Bush Administration

–George W. Bush, September 20, 2001

Government has one tool, and that’s violence.

It has one method of operation, and that’s aggression.

It has one strategy, and that’s escalation.

-William N. Grigg, 2015

(William Flavin, Civil Military Operations: Afghanistan, Observations on Civil-Military Operations During the First Year of Operation Enduring Freedom, U.S. Army War College, Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI), March 2004.)

(Michael J. Dziedzic and Colonel Michael K. Seidl, Provincial Reconstruction Teams and Military Relations with International and Nongovernmental Organizations in Afghanistan,United States Institute for Peace, Special Report 147, September 2005.)

(Robert M. Perito, The U.S. Experience With Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, United States Institute for Peace, Special Report 152, October 2005.)

provides a starting point for considering what needs to be done in most cases. It does not suggest how it should be done, or who should do it. p. 2

…

The framework is organized into three conceptual phases, defined as initial response, transformation, and fostering sustainability. p. 2

…

The framework tasks are organized around four distinct issue areas, or “pillars”: security; justice/reconciliation; social/economic well-being; and governance/participation. p. 3

In World War II we fought to make the world safer, then worked to rebuild it. As we wage war today to keep the world safe from terror, we must also work to make the world a better place for all its citizens.

President Bush, Washington, D.C. (Inter-American Development Bank), March 14, 2002; reprinted in The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, vii. Expand the Circle of Development by Opening Societies and Building the Infrastructure of Democracy, September, 2002.

Ron Paul, “Making the World Safe for Christianity” (Congressional speech), March 28, 2006; reprinted in A Foreign Policy of Freedom, 2007, p. 343

Ron Paul, Swords into Plowshares, 2015, p.89

Robert M. Perito, Coordinator of the Afghanistan Experience Project at the U.S. Institute of Peace, prepared this report. The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training conducted the interviews under a contract with the Institute.

Summary

• In June 2005, the United States led thirteen PRTs and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) directed nine. This multinational program was characterized by an emphasis on flexibility, a proliferation of national models, and an ad hoc approach to security and development.

• The U.S. model featured a complement of seventy-nine American military and three civilian government representatives. The U.S. PRTs stressed governance, force protection, and quick impact development projects to “win hearts and minds.”

• The PRT emphasis on governance translated into supporting the respective provincial governors.

The U.S. PRT Model

In actuality, most U.S. PRTs did not have all of these representatives. Many had less than two CA teams; military police and other special units often were also missing. Lack of skilled personnel was a significant constraint on PRT effectiveness.

(Robert M. Perito, The U.S. Experience With Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, United States Institute for Peace, Special Report 152, October 2005.)

…

…

…

Ron Paul, Why We Fight (Congressional speech), September 8, 2005; reprinted in A Foreign Policy of Freedom, 2007, pp. 328-329

-Joseph Nye, Opening Address, Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Conference, Compendium 2003, pp. 25- 29.

-Joseph Nye, “Get Smart: Combining Hard and Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs, 2009

…9/11 has taught us that terrorism against American interests “over there” should be regarded just as we regard terrorism against America “over here.” In this same sense, the American homeland is the planet.

But the enemy is not just “terrorism,” some generic evil.2 This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism—-especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology.3

(9/11 Commission Report, What to Do? A Global Strategy, ch. 12, pp. 361-362)

More Than a War on Terrorism Terrorism is a tactic used by individuals and organizations to kill and destroy. Our efforts should be directed at those individuals and organizations.

Calling this struggle a war accurately describes the use of American and allied armed forces to find and destroy terrorist groups and their allies in the field, notably in Afghanistan. The language of war also evokes the mobilization for a national effort. Yet the strategy should be balanced.

The United States has the resources and the people. The government should combine them more effectively, achieving unity of effort. We offer five major recommendations to do that:

unifying strategic intelligence and operational planning against Islamist terrorists across the foreign-domestic divide with a National Counterterrorism Center;

unifying the intelligence community with a new National Intelligence Director;

unifying the many participants in the counterterrorism effort and their knowledge in a network-based information-sharing system that transcends traditional governmental boundaries;

unifying and strengthening congressional oversight to improve quality and accountability; and

strengthening the FBI and homeland defenders.

We therefore propose a new institution: a civilian-led unified joint com­mand for counterterrorism. It should combine strategic intelligence and joint operational planning.

Policy

Responsibilities of the Department of State Need for Coordinated U.S. Efforts.

(Sheila R. Ronis ed., “Vision Working Group Report and Scenarios,” PNSR, 2010.)

Nye, Joseph Jr. “Smart Power: In Search of the Balance between Hard and Soft Power (Book Review of Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security By Kurt M. Campbell and Michael E. O’Hanlon).” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas no. 2 (Fall 2006).

(“Toward Integrating Complex National Missions: Lessons from the National Counterterrorism Center’s Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning,” PNSR, February, 2010.)

America will change our approach to help the Iraqi government as it works to meet these benchmarks. In keeping with the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, we will increase the embedding of American advisers in Iraqi Army units and partner a coalition brigade with every Iraqi Army division.

We will help the Iraqis build a larger and better-equipped Army, and we will accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, which remains the essential U.S. security mission in Iraq.

We will give our commanders and civilians greater flexibility to spend funds for economic assistance.

We will double the number of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. These teams bring together military and civilian experts to help local Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strengthen moderates and speed the transition to Iraqi self-reliance.

Barack Obama speech, August 1, 2007, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today to address the Department of State’s efforts to build civilian capacity for reconstruction and stabilization crises.

The end of the Cold War, and the attacks of September 11, marked the dawn of another new era in international relations – an era whose challenges may be unprecedented in complexity and scope.

Our presence here today may surprise some. Why would a Marine and a former Navy attack pilot come to this committee to support the budget for the State Department, for USAID, and the civilian activities of our government that impact the lives of people around the world?

We are here because from our time on the front line of America’s presence in the world, we know that the U.S. cannot rely on military power alone to keep us safe from terrorism, infectious disease and other global threats that recognize no borders.

We are here representing a group of over 50 retired flag and general officers who share a concern about the future of our country and our ability to lead effectively. (p. 1)

…

The President of the United States, advised by the National Security Council, is responsible to the American people for national strategic unity of effort.
…

The Military “Hard Power” Emphasis of the
Bush Administration

More Than a War on Terrorism
Terrorism is a tactic used by individuals and organizations to kill and destroy. Our efforts should be directed at those individuals and organizations.

We therefore propose a new institution: a civilian-led unified joint command for counterterrorism. It should combine strategic intelligence and joint operational planning.