Featured at the Atlantic Council
My post below, with minor alterations, has just been re-published at the Atlantic Council on their blog, courtesy of managing editor, Dr. James Joyner.
State Department Must Reform or Die
Much appreciated, Dr. Joyner!
ADDENDUM:
Karaka Pend ties related posts on the inadequacy of the State Department together:
The State Department has a mission, if they choose to accept it.
Karaka also points to this TNR op-ed by Dr. Steve Metz of SSI:
….No one welcomes this more than the military. In the absence of civilian capacity, soldiers end up managing public services like trash collection, or trying to teach democracy and good governance. At a major conference on irregular conflicts last month, I listened as a decorated Marine colonel heading for command in Afghanistan talked of how that conflict would unfold when the civilian surge was in place. As a Pentagon official heard this, he told me, “The military is looking to off-load nation building; they are so desperate to do that–and so eager to enshrine the lessons from the Iraq counterinsurgency–that they have convinced themselves of the necessity and plausibility of a civilian surge.”
ADDENDUM II. – COURTESY OF SCHMEDLAP:
October 16th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Oh, hey, thanks for the link. I just saw that this morning. Appreciated!
October 16th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
"“The military is looking to off-load nation building; they are so desperate to do that–and so eager to enshrine the lessons from the Iraq counterinsurgency–that they have convinced themselves of the necessity and plausibility of a civilian surge.”"
It would be interesting to know what "lessons" Rice learned. Any info?
October 16th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
"Any info?"
I guess I should have said any opensource intellegence (OI or perhaps OpIntel?)
October 16th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Here’s a graph of our "whole of government" approach in Afghanistan.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Hi gents,
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Karaka – will be adding you to the blogroll.
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Larry – I have no info on that, open or backchannel.
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Schmedlap – My, that’s worth a thousand words, isn’t it? Damn.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:53 am
Not to pimp my blog, but the background info (with links to sources) is here.