Rebuilding America's Civilian Capacity Posted by Michael Cohen

So in recent weeks, I've been writing a lot about the need to rebuild America's civilian agencies (AID, State etc) and shift the national security balance away from the military.  Two recent pieces in the New York Times do a nice job of making my argument. First, there was this gem from Paul Kane on his idea for a new national service program:

Last, Mr. Gates should urge President Obama to confer with Congress and introduce national service at age 18 for all Americans. Under such a system, young people from all classes and backgrounds would either serve in the military or do other essential work like intelligence assessment, conservation, antipoverty projects, educational tutoring, firefighting, policing, border security, disaster relief or care for the elderly. The best qualified would be assigned to the military.

This of course makes perfect sense. It's not like the modern military has all kinds of ways of attracting the best and brightest. It's not as if political leaders from both sides of the aisle are calling for $110 billion to be spent to increase the military by 90,000 troops; and it's not as if the military doesn't have the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy and West Point (not to mention the ROTC system) to already attract top tier talent. And it's not as if AID has a mere 1000 officers and State Department is scrambling to get the money to bring in more FSOs.

Over the last decade or so we've seen our civilian agencies, particularly AID, almost completely degraded; to the point where AID (a development agency mind you) has about a dozen economists on staff and less than 10 engineers. Meanwhile, Washington is hemming and hawing over Secretary Gates cutting a few long hanging fruit out of the defense budget, all the while that he is increasing the overall amount spent on the military. But really what we need is another way for the military to soak up the best and brightest young talent in America.

Excuse me while I bang my head against a wall. Here's a crazy suggestion for Paul Kane: how about assigning the best qualified to the civilian agencies and maybe we won't have to send our young men and women into harm's way in the first place?

Just to further make my point, here's a piece from today's New York Times indicating that our civilian agencies are so short-staffed, we re going to use the military to make up President Obama's civilian surge in Afghanistan.

In announcing a new strategy last month, President Obama promised “a dramatic increase in our civilian effort” in Afghanistan, including “agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers” to augment the additional troops he is sending.

But senior Pentagon and administration officials now acknowledge that many of those new positions will be filled by military personnel — in particular by reservists, whose civilian jobs give them the required expertise — and by contractors.

The shortfall offers more evidence that the government’s civilian departments have not received enough money to hire and train people ready to take up assignments in combat zones

Senior officials said Wednesday that the president’s national security team had not determined exactly how many people would be required to carry out the reconstruction portion of the strategy, nor which departments and agencies would be required to supply the people. . .

But not enough of those civilians are readily available inside the government, officials said, forcing the administration to turn to the military, Pentagon civilians and private contractors, at least for the initial deployments.

If the article doesn't serve as a wake-up call about the desperate need to rebuild our civilian agencies I don't know what else will.  And it's not just in kinetic environments in Iraq and Afghanistan; AID is so short-staffed they have become almost completely dependent on contractors and NGOs to carry out America's development agenda.

Paul Kane argues that "now may be our best chance for decades to truly modernize America’s defense." I couldn't agree more. But what I might add is that America's best defense will not necessarily be found down the barrel of a gun.

Comments

[Don Bacon]

I think there's a parallel situation with US engineers and scientists, many of the the best of whom are working, directly or indirectly, for the Pentagon instead of in more useful pursuits in the energy and transportation fields, for two examples.

But so long as it is acknowledged that the US is at war -- a generational war, we're told -- then that's the way it will be. Blame the guy in the cave.

[Don Bacon]

Clinton's testimony today: "In Afghanistan, the casualty rate for USAID employees, contract employees, locally engaged employees, and other international aid workers, is 1 in 10 have been killed in the last eight years. Our comparable percentage for military casualties in Afghanistan is 1 in 57."

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[Dan Kervick]

Voluntary national service. Fine. Involuntary national servitude, whether military or non-military? Hell no!

[Peace]

What the American civilian aid agencies really need is anthropologists, and those who have studied the history and literature of Afghanistan in order to make sure that any modernization program can somehow fit with local customs and mores. I doubt any drafted teenager can fill these qualifications and this why any draft for either civilian or miliary work is basically useless.

[Zathras]

I appreciate the thought about rebuilding civilian foreign assistance and development capabilities, but let's note the context here.

Kane's national service suggestion was a throwaway paragraph at the end of a column about reforming the military, beginning by abolishing the Air Force (how do I know it was a throwaway? Because it didn't mention the math problem -- there are way more Americans of national service age than we could possibly find worthwhile service jobs for). The Times piece dwelt on civilian agencies unable to compel employees to serve in combat zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. These agencies may be short of employees qualified to do development work, but they are not that short.

People who share Sec. Gates's view of how important it is to have a robust set of foreign policy tools outside the military need to be as realistic as he is. The capability of USAID, the State Department and other agencies had already been severely degraded by the time George Bush took office. Ditto for the tools of American public diplomacy. Flattering though it might be to one's self-esteem to think that this is a simple problem with a solution so obvious that it can only be bungled by people less bright, progressive and academically credentialed than oneself, the fact is that American foreign assistance and development programs outside the military were decimated beginning in the Clinton administration because there was little political support for them -- not in the Democratic Party any more than in the Republican.

Fix this, and you can fix our overreliance on the uniformed military. Ignore it, and you're just talking.

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