I don't think there will be many volunteers for this duty
Full-time deployable specialists wise in the ways of managing faroff states in need (whether they requested it or not) of our administration. Hmmmm. Sounds alot like we're talking about creating our own version of the British Foreign Colonial Office.
As for American civilians' reluctance to sign up for this kind of duty, I am reminded of Captain Blackadder's lament:
“I did like it [soldiering] in the old days, back when the prerequisite of a British campaign was that the enemy should under no circumstances carry guns. Even spears made us think twice.... The kind of people we liked to fight were two feet tall and armed with dried grass.... No, when I joined up, I never imagined anything as awful as this war. I had 15 years of military experience, perfecting the art of ordering a pink gin and mastering the intricacies of propositioning local women in their native tongue, and then, suddenly, a half million Germans hove into view....”
-- Captain Edmund Blackadder MC, mired in a dugout on the Belgian Front during WWI, describing his days with the 19th/45th East African Rifles, while preparing to die pointlessly in a futile “Big Push” against the entrenched Germans.
Administering the natives just isn't much fun when they are shooting back. People don't want to sign up for this kind of thing, even when promised it'll only be for a few months, at most. They just don't believe that.
Americans, at heart, just aren't interested in shipping out to some remote dangerous hellhole to teach the natives democracy, or whatever. They want to live in America. They don't want to ship out to India, Afghanistan, Malaysia, or wherever for 20 years as a civil servant. Or at least not many do in Iraq- style conditions. We are a provincial people, for better or worse.
A telling fact is how few Americans actually have a passport. We aren't much interested in even visiting other countries, let alone living out the rest of our lives there in service of the U.S. government. Those that do are attracted to work like the State Dept.
All true, unfortunately. Penalty of being
big enough and rich enough to offer a comfortable life -- and a really poor K-12 education system...
Not to mention a lack of leadership for over 100 years (and most certainly for the last 60) by our national government who could have easily fixed the latter problem.
Not to nitpick but I think this statement is a significant error:
Quote:
"...that USAID's mandate is not post-conflict (or nearly post-conflict) zones, but humanitarian aid."
Certainly didn't jibe with my recollection of what I'd seen them doing in a number of countries over the years. I knew that they'd been chopped to State a few years ago -- a bad mistake, I thought -- so I went to their web site and checked. They still have all their old missions. (LINK) and I'd be willing to bet they're in the priority listed:
* economic growth, agriculture and trade;
* global health; and,
* democracy, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance.
Nation building and post conflict work are related and every one of those tasks is a fit.
That's not to say that some in the agency would rather not do that mission...:D .
Hardly. The guvmint is wondrous but they don't
do things like that 'accidentally'...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MountainRunner
Ken,
Are you suggesting they accidently left off "post-conflict"? Just forgot to mention a focus on transitioning societies from conflict? Also, USAID is developmental long-term, and not contigency dependent. S/CRS is a "Coordinating" office to bring the ground skills to bear.
Not at all. My point was that 'humanitarian aid' NOT the US Aid mandate, it is merely one of them. Yes, it is a developmental long term operation -- with the goal of aiding US Foreign Policy (conditions not applied). Aid was quite busy in Viet Nam and supplied a lot of folks to the PRTs. It has done the same elsewhere both during and post conflict. that is part of its job.
I understand what S/CRS is, just wanted to clarify that the US Aid mandate is a great deal more far reaching than was stated.
A potentially helpful analog to the S/CRS role...
These comments represent ~ONLY~ the personal opinion of the author - a long-time fan of SWJ - and do not in any way reflect the actual policy of anyone. In fact, if you ask around, most people will tell you that the author has difficulty discerning fact from fiction and policy from pizza sauce. He's not all that bright, but he's certainly happy!
Among the USG agencies that are or might be drawn into S&R missions, the capabilities and anticipated responsibilities overlap considerably. The Venn diagram would have circles with more overlap than not (and would depend on who was doing the drawing, and for which S&R mission). This won't change unless/until funding streams change. When there's serious money, for example, to support the Ministry of Health in Pineland because it's a critical-priority-country, there are going to be multiple agencies competing for the work.
The role of coordination - as highlighted by MountainRunner - is truly fundamental to the office. Think about the interagency as an orchestra, and the Coordinator as the Conductor. The conductor doesn't select the music to be performed; that's done by the Board of Directors. S/he doesn't recruit the musicians, direct what brand of trumpet or violin is to be used. S/he doesn't even get to decide who plays in a particular performance. S/he doesn’t print programmes, market the performance, or collect the money.
The conductor works from a musical score that articulates all the various elements of the piece being performed, and assures that each section contributes their part at the proper time, at the appropriate pace and volume, and makes sure that the overall performance of the orchestra truly is greater than the sum of its parts.
If, in rehearsals, the conductor feels there needs to be a stronger presence of bassoons (analogous to DDR, perhaps), then the conductor doesn't hire bassoonists; s/he merely calls for more bassoons. The Board approves (ornot) and section leads sort out who they'll be, where they'll sit, etc.
I don't mean to over-simplify S&R missions by this analogy. But it's been helpful among the interagency in assuaging fears that S/CRS is going to pull an “Al Haig” the next time a true S&R crisis rolls around.
S/CRS is only relevant when the Secretary of State – as empowered in NSPD-44 – calls upon them to take a particular role in planning and/or coordinating the whole-of-government approach to a specific S&R engagement. In the meantime, work proceeds apace on the interagency management system that would support such an engagement, and the structures (as alluded to by other posts above) to provide a robust and capable civilian corps to execute such engagements.
De Opresso Library!