America's soft power military

Or, maybe the military is the only organization with the leadership, planning, and ability to bring these missions off. The US Dept. of State? Get real. The UN? Same.

Caveat, however--this redfined mission did not work out so well in Somalia in the nineties.

Ah yes - I seem to recall a candidate who proposed a Department of Peace, which was intended to carry out precisely these sorts of functions and would have very nicely accommodated these concerns, e.g. allowing Congress to vote resources for affirmative foreign policy efforts rather than something that looks like bad old foreign aid.

Of course, that candidate was Dennis Kucinich, and he was roundly mocked for it.

Does Dan Drezner dare say some kind words about Dennis Kucinich? (I know, I know, blustery Internet 'dares' are pretty tiresome - that was written in the spirit of humor rather than of provocation. The thought of 'Drezner for Kucinich!' amuses me.)

Austin Bay has been blogging about this for years. Part of the reason that DoD has stepped up in this area is that the State Department has refused to do the job. Iraq is a very concrete example of this, and Col. Bay has pointed this out repeatedly.

Part of the problem has been that in the State Department you don't get promoted for this kind of work out in the field. You get promoted for sitting around the capital cities hobnobbing with you counterparts at their Foreign Ministry. In some cases, you need DoD to be the first responders since they have the equipment and vehicles to be first on the scene. They also have the guns needed to provide security. State is well known for not wanting DoD to provide security for their operations, hence the use of Blackwater, et.al.

So we have the agency that ought to be taking the lead not doing so because it doesn't punch the promotion ticket of the career staff, and because they don't play well with others.

The military faces some of the same issues here also. Advising and these kind of humanitarian missions do not advance you either. It is partially budget and partially the fact that so many are opposed to anything like Foreign aid.

Steve

Thomas Barnett (http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/index.htm) has been talking about this for a while also. While I'm here, a shameless plug for my modest blog, Politics et al (http://roarkmj.blogspot.com/)

It seems we need to field organizations that can bring new areas of expertise to bear on the problem and they still need to be able to survive in dangerous situations and protect themselves. The old Green Beret teams come to mind but the problem is much larger than that. Go read Tom's stuff.

There's nothing at all ironic about DoD not wanting to take the lead on these missions. They have a finite amount of manpower and if they have to spend time training people for "soft power" missions, then they're not training them for the "hard power" ones (i.e. killing the bad guys). It's the same reason DoD has always resisted drug interdiction missions - they degrade combat readiness. You do what you have to do in a pinch, and there's not a more resourceful soul in the planet than company first sergeant, but when warfighters have to also become hospital and postal administrators, they become less effective warfighters.

For places where there are armed belligerents who are fighting against stabilization and connectivity, you need enough firepower to keep them under control. For the nation building I envision using people like the Navy SEABEES, the Army Corps of Engineers, and mobile military medical teams that can work with the trigger pullers and do the soft power projection. The major drawback: It costs big bucks. Can we get other G-8 countries to buy into providing money while we do the heavy lifting? Worth a try, but so few people understand that bringing failed states into the civilized core is worth it that probably a very hard sell.