Agricultural Component of the Afghanistan Surge?

[Ken White]

...am interested in references if you are willing to share. The DOS/USAID splits are of particular interest as well as the Goldwater Nichols history.

There's no share to it, I have no file on the topic. It's all out there and Google works.

Not at all hard to find LINK. Note that Democratic foibles in 1971 and 1978 lead to emasculation which was completed by the Peace, Prosperity and Democracy Act (heh. How pathetic is that name...) of 1994.

That set the stage for the Administration to jawbone the Congress:

Arguing that the Secretary of State should have more direct control over all tools of U.S. foreign policy, a number of analysts and members of Congress proposed in the mid-1990s to abolish the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) and USAID, and consolidate their operations within the State Department. After three years of debate, Congress enacted legislation in 1998 (Division G of P.L.105-277), transferring USIA and ACDA into State, but retaining USAID as an independent agency. The legislation, however, further required that the USAID Administrator report to and serve under the foreign policy guidance of the Secretary of State. This remains the current relationship between USAID and the Department of State.

The 'analysts' above cited were mostly from DoD and the Congroids were those Bill got to push his vision -- and State's -- to consolidate their power and get hold of the AID budget to an extent. Bill pushed ececutive power like all Presidents have (and will...), he was just a shrewder politician in the way he went about it than many.

The above quote is from a CRS study LINK and is on Page CRS 9 . Note (Pages CRS 3 and 4) that for 2006, State managed $10.6B, USAID managed $4.37B and the two jointly managed $2.6B. It's all about money...

Addressing part of the flaky article's point, note on Page CRS 10 that the funding lines are still opaque -- that's the way Congress likes it -- that way they get to allocate $$$ and don't have to answer questions about it.

Going back to the article, if we keep doing the same things I predict that we can except the same perceptions and outcomes.

Foolish and pointless article -- his 'solutions' are aimed at a symptom, not the problem; as I said above (to and for State) "Physician, heal thyself."

In order for change to be made, State will have to correct it's ideological bias (unlikely) AND Congress will have to put the good of the nation above partisan politics (even more unlikely) and our system of budgetary allocation will need to be changed (still more unlikely). That sounds bad -- and it is -- yet, incremental change, always the American way, can and does occur. Unfortunately, it's usually one step forward and two back but every now and then, with a charismatic President (I see none in the near future, including the next), a good Congress (those do occur with moderate frequency) or a significant event (hopefully not... ) we get three steps forward and only one back.

As for Goldwater Nichols, I'm not sure what you're asking for. The Act itself is out there, plenty of discussion about it is also easily found. What I said about it was: ""Goldwater Nichols which placed the geographic CinCs in a position to dominate regions of the world while State did and said nothing..."" I'm unsure why that needs amplification as I thought it was pretty much common knowledge.

The point is that was an unintended consequence; the Act was designed to strengthen the power of combatant commanders versus the DC DoD and Service Chief bureaucracies. It did that but it also inadvertently created a series of regional bureaucracies which provided Pro Consuls or Satraps in the form of the Cincs who were and are located in (mostly) and looking at large multinational regions on a consolidated and daily basis. At the same time, State had only individual Ambassadors in each country, the regional focus was effective only within the State bureaucracy in DC and those folks did not have the clout that the individual Ambassadors had or have. Nor did they have the clout that more money and visibility gave the Cincs. Congress frequently outsmarts itself like that...