USAID - An Orphan of State Power

From Tom Barnett's blog, with a statement that is almost a universal truth that is only contradicted by politically motivated folks often without a resume to back the opinion. At just about every conference I have been to this year, whether Joint Warfighter in Virginia or Current Strategy Forum in Rhode Island, this theme always won out.

Like many people who've worked in developmental aid over the years (several years consulting with business-process reengineering efforts at USAID under Veep Gore's initiative), I think the decision to move USAID into State was a disaster, and that complete merger will be that much worse.

As former USAID administration Andrew Natsios notes, USAID and State are like oil and water.

I continue to see USAID as the logical core of a Department of Everything Else.

But I believe Clinton will want a complete merger as part of consolidating her control--again, short-term political desires trumping long-term strategic thinking.

USAID is broken. I have no idea what the solution is, but I appreciate the Dr. Barnett's idea of the Department of Everything Else because there are a lot of functions of national power that are badly matched to agencies. How many times has the question been asked if Medical Diplomacy should be a core mission capability for the US Navy? It is a valid question, and even as I recognize Medical Diplomacy through hospital ships as a valuable tool in US policy, I don't think I can make the case it is a core Navy role.

Provisional Reconstruction Teams represent another example of a necessary capability that may not be well matched to the DoD, although by necessity the DoD does it because no one else can, or even will. One of the great foreign policy challenges for the US in the 21st century is to get soft power capabilities organized, funded, and supported in a way that aligns itself to the requirements of both the Department of State and Department of Defense, and unfortunately that probably means some agency other than either State or the DoD built on the idea of cooperating through both, but under the control of both, and neither.

Just thinking out loud, but from an organizational model perspective the Coast Guard may be a good model to build upon. As part of both Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense, the two hat approach the Coast Guard takes is quite effective. Perhaps that is an option for the approach needed for these orphan activities of foreign policy that really don't fit in either State or DoD, even as they are necessary for both.