Obstacles to a Whole of Government Approach: DoD versus State AOR's

[Cavguy]

Posted in another forum today. Interesting laydown of how State and DoD organize and view the world. Interestingly, some major hotspots are divided between COCOMs in DoD's laydown (Israel/Arabs, India/Pakistan). I think in general State's boundaries make more sense.

Is there any wonder why our government approach to foreign/mil policy is disjointed?

[Schmedlap]

I don't see the difference as a problem. I think it is actually a good thing.

[reed11b]

The organization I work for has intentional differences in our geographic regions to keep us from being absorbed by our larger counterparts w/i the VHA. This does work to a degree but also has some challenges when the borders do not make sense with regional connections (i.e. WA and OR belong to different regions even though there is a great deal of cross-traffic and shared identity). The specific DOD divide that drew my attention was that Pakistan and India are in different COMs. I have to wonder if that creates a barrier in coming up with a concise and effective roadmap for dealing with these two countries.
Reed

[Steve Blair]

You could also make the same divide comment about Mexico and the rest of Latin America. I do find State's more logical, but that may just be me.

[John T. Fishel]

and correct observation. In general, the US National Security Council institutions ought to divide the world into the same regions. While there may be exceptions (Northcom and Southcom are a possibility) they should be rare and for very good reasons. Not putting Mexico in and AOR (until the creation of Northcom) because the Mexicans wouldn't like it is not a very good reason IMO.

But I think the problem is not the regional differences so much as the fact that international relations are bilateral for the most part. The Assistant SECSTATE for WHA is not over the Ambassador to Chile who, BTW, reports to the President, not the SECSTATE (I know I exaggerate a bit for effect ) Best way to look at Bureau of WHA (or whatever) is "in support of" the Ambassadors to the countries of the region. In some senses, the GCCs are also operating in support of those same ambassadors. For that reason, it would probably be useful to rationalize the regional structures of the NSC institutions. At least, that way, one could have easier coordination of the supporting institutions with the supported Ambassador.

Cheers

JohnT

[120mm]

Personally, lumping N. Africa in with AFRICOM makes no sense to me, and lumping India into the rest of Asia makes less than no sense.

[Tom Odom]

Personally, lumping N. Africa in with AFRICOM makes no sense to me, and lumping India into the rest of Asia makes less than no sense.

Well as an Africanist and a Middle East guy I would disagree. Egypt is perhaps the sole exception in that most of Egypt's international efforts are regionallty focused on the Middle East as we define it. But even Egypt spends a great deal of effort looking south toward Sudan.

The remainder from Libya west to Morocco spend their greatest efforts dealing with issues that are Africa-centric. Exceptions do emerge as no division is clear cut; Muammar Qadaffi's pan-Arab posturing offer a great example. At the same time, he did play the African regional gadfly in Sudan and Chad.

In contrast I would say that you are on the mark on India--State, like DoD, treats it as a sub-region even though the boundaries show it as Asia.

Best

Tom