Out of balance superpower: Bernd Debusmann

Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

By Bernd Debusmann

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When a country employs more military musicians than professional diplomats, it's time to review priorities.

In think tanks and military institutes, such a review is underway in the United States, the country that accounts for almost half the world's military spending. It fields unmatched firepower and superior technology but is ill-prepared to deal with insurgencies and the failed or failing states that breed instability around the globe.

Since President George W. Bush first took office in 2000 after an election campaign in which he and his foreign policy mentor Condoleezza Rice derided "nation-building," the State Department has been playing second fiddle to the Pentagon. In many areas of the world, American foreign policy has been clad in camouflage uniforms.

Now, in the waning days of the Bush administration, both the president and Rice, his foreign secretary, have become converts to the concept that military power alone cannot solve conflicts and needs to be complemented by economic development and reconstruction, nation-building tasks best left to civilians. In Washington parlance: make better use of "soft" power and integrate it with "hard" power.

This will be a job for the next president and there is a long way to go, as the musicians versus diplomats comparison shows. It came up during a strategy conference this month at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the man who cited it, career diplomat John Herbst, raised some skeptical eyebrows.

But his remark was not a mere figure of speech. In fact, the Army alone has 5,129 people in military bands (as of this week). Add the bands of the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines and the Coast Guard, and the number soars past the 6,500 diplomats who make up the core of the 11,500-strong foreign service. "How much sense does that make?" asked Herbst, who heads a little known State Department unit with big ambitions, the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS).

The conference, on "Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power," was part of a debate that has bubbled for several years. It became more open and more urgent after Robert Gates, a former CIA director with a doctorate in history, replaced the inflexible Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense in December 2006.

Gates's favorite example to highlight the need for "rebalancing": the Pentagon spends more on health care for the Armed Forces than the entire $36 billion State Department budget requested for next year. That is dwarfed by the $711 billion the White House wants for fiscal year 2009, which begins in October.

The request includes $174 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which have driven home the message that military prowess is not enough to win wars. In both countries, soldiers have performed roles played by civilian government agencies in the past - from building schools and maintaining power plants to setting up municipal councils and negotiating with tribal leaders.

WINNING BATTLES NOT ENOUGH

"Winning battles and engagements is important but alone is not sufficient," says the Army's new field manual, issued in February. "Shaping the civil situation is just as important to success." According to Gates and senior commanders, success will be elusive unless civilian government agencies pitch in more than they have done so far.

One of the Iraq-inspired initiatives to make that happen is Herbst's S/CRS unit. It aims to assemble a corps of civilians - from engineers and judges to lawyers, agronomists and city planners - who could be dispatched at short notice to areas of conflict. The target is 2,250 people. The corps now has 11.

How far and how fast such plans will go depends on how civilian agencies fare in the perennial Washington fight with Congress over resources.

"There are winners and losers. The Department of Defense is a winner because Congress thinks of State as a talk shop while the DoD is a 'can do' place," said Leif Rosenberger, the U.S. Central Command's economic advisor. "Military dominance of the budget, policy and overseas presence is increasing," he told the Carlisle conference.

Congress has been less than generous with funds for the State Department and the Agency for International Development. "As a result, literally hundreds of Foreign Service positions are now vacant...This endangers U.S. national security in view of the ever-expanding demands being placed on U.S. diplomacy," John Naland, the president of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) said in an April 10 memo to its members. (AFSA is the union for foreign service employees).

A budget request for 2009 provides for 1,076 new positions at the State Department and 300 at AID but there are doubts they will be granted. Which means it would be 2010 before the first additional new hires could complete their initial training.

Don't hold your breath for strategic shifts to happen before 2010. The next U.S. president takes office on January 20, 2009. It usually takes a new administration much of its first year just to come to grips with the day-to-day running of the government.

(You can contact the author at Debusmann@Reuters.com)