SPEAKING OUT
Regaining Relevance: Five Steps to Strengthen State
BY WILLIAM I. BACCHUS
The strength and capability of the State Department as an in- stitution usually receive less attention than the more visible power
game among the key players in foreign
policy — the secretaries of State and
Defense, the national security adviser
in the White House, and sometimes
the vice president and other department heads. These figures constantly
vie for the ear of the president, a contest that often makes for high drama.
Although the Secretary of State is
limited in defining this equation, which
is heavily dependent on personalities
and relationships, he or she has a great
deal of control over the department’s
institutional effectiveness. State’s people and overseas establishment should
be a major source of strength, not — as
too often happens — a dead weight
dragging down its leaders’ efforts.
Here are five steps Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton should
take to improve State’s capabilities as an
organization, and an assessment of
progress to date on each.
1. Rebuild State’s Competence
There is widespread agreement that
State is currently badly understaffed
and underfunded for its traditional responsibilities, and in even worse shape
for new ones required by the broader
emphasis on diplomacy and development that is the stated goal of the
Obama administration. One compre-
Secretary Clinton
must not let pressing
policy matters limit
her personal efforts
to obtain needed
resources.
;
hensive recent study, “A Foreign Affairs
Budget for the Future: Fixing the Crisis in Diplomatic Readiness,” issued by
the American Academy of Diplomacy
and the Stimson Center in October
2008, concluded (conservatively) that
by Fiscal Year 2014, 4,735 additional
people and an extra $3.3 billion will be
needed just to carry out core diplomatic
functions, training, public diplomacy,
foreign assistance (for USAID) and the
reconstruction/stabilization of failed or
failing states. Not included in that figure are administrative and management needs, which State believes can
be met through increased efficiency
and internal reprogramming, and the
work of the Bureau of Consular Affairs,
almost entirely funded from fees rather
than appropriations and thus excluded
from the study.
These figures represent a 46-per-
cent increase in U.S. direct-hire personnel in the included categories, and
about a 21-percent increase in funding,
including both program costs and per-
sonnel, compared to the FY 2008 Congressional Budget Office Baseline.
This is not the best time to obtain additional funding for foreign affairs, but
the needs are modest compared to
other expenditures, and would provide
important improvements out of proportion to the cost.
As Defense Secretary Robert Gates
noted in testimony before the Senate
Appropriations Committee on April 30,
2009: “I believe that the challenges
confronting our nation cannot be dealt
with by military means alone. They instead require whole-of-government approaches — but that can only be done
if the State Department is given resources befitting the scope of its mission across the globe.”
Initial executive branch and congressional reactions allow for cautious
optimism. For FY 2009, State and
USAID sources conclude that the recently passed Omnibus Appropriations
Act provides for up to 1,267 new positions for State, up to 487 of them Foreign Service officers, and around 300
new FSOs for USAID.
Moreover, the Obama administration’s initial budget document (“A New
Era of Responsibility,” Feb. 26) states
that “The 2010 budget includes funding for the first year of a multiyear effort to significantly increase the size of
the Foreign Service at both the Department of State and the U.S. Agency
for International Development.”
