re: "Abu Muqawama: State, USAID Must Learn From Afghanistan Errors"

Andrew Exum wrote an article for WPR ("World Politics Review") that anyone in a position of leadership at State Dept. really ought to read.

Money quote(s):

"No one escapes criticism in Chandrasekaran's narrative, this columnist included, but the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Marine Corps come under especially heavy fire.

The reaction from the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. military as a whole has been to add the book and its criticisms to the list of lessons that need to be learned from the disastrous U.S. experience in Afghanistan. The State Department and USAID, by contrast, have reacted angrily to Chandrasekaran's account, blaming the messenger rather than looking into what they might learn from the message."

&

"Since at least the First Gulf War, American society has raised the U.S. military onto a pedestal, constantly praising the military, even when its performance has been, by objective standards, not terribly great. Is it any wonder U.S. military leaders feel they have room for introspection and self-criticism?

The State Department rarely garners similar praise from the American people or its elected leaders. Republican congressmen on Capitol Hill talk a big game on national security and vow never to cut the military's budget, while at the same time threatening to slash the International Affairs budget by 20 percent. U.S. military officers and troops are held up as the best of what America has to offer, while diplomats . . . well, few Americans are quite sure of what diplomats even do.

That's a pity because, despite bungling the admittedly challenging Afghanistan mission, the State Department has a pretty good story to tell about itself." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

It's one of those perennial delusion of the American body politic: that foreign aid and diplomacy (State and USAID) are where all the money goes, when quite the reverse is true.

(This is not to say that the dollar amounts aren't large, from any individual citizen's perspective. It's certainly more than I'll ever have in my wallet or bank account. Even my Swiss and Caymen accounts. But they amount to rounding errors in the context of the federal budget as a whole.)

"One of the illicit delights of reading the WikiLeaks cables has been to discover what wonderful diplomats the United States has in its service. The reports written by U.S. ambassadors and their subordinates are knowledgeable, literate, pithy and often amusing. They confirm, in a larger sample size, my anecdotal experiences visiting embassies around the globe. I remember, for example, spending an afternoon with the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh in 2010 and being blown away by the competence and professionalism of the staff. Many foreign service officers were on their third tours in the country, and even the newest officer -- charged with running the motor pool, of all things -- spoke fluent classical Arabic as well as several dialects."

CAA has not, of course, actually read anything at the Wikileaks site. That's still a no-no.

But CAA did read a few of the articles which were written about those State cables which were leaked, and they tended to echo Mr. Exum's impression: well-written, insightful, and honest; telling "truth to power" as it were.

And as for the motor pool officer.... it's helpful, in foreign countries, if the guy in charge of the motor pool's drivers and mechanics can actually speak their language. That tends to help with little things like telling them what you want them to do.

"Unfortunately, the State Department is not very good at telling its story to either the U.S. Congress or the American people. When people effectively stand up for the budget of the State Department and make the case for a larger International Affairs budget, it is too often either U.S. military officers or conservative, "pro-military" defense intellectuals. The State Department and its foreign service officers deserve some of the blame here. I recently finished John Lewis Gaddis’ biography of George F. Kennan, and Kennan’s life is a reminder that those Americans who are most knowledgeable about other cultures can often be the most contemptuous and ignorant of U.S. domestic political culture. Foreign service officers who do not hesitate to spend endless afternoons drinking chai with Central Asian warlords somehow can't, by and large, stomach the occasional coffee with a junior congressman from Nebraska." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

State has gotten better, having taken a leaf from the DoD and individual uniformed services books and established a permanent liaison presence on Capitol Hill itself, for both houses of Congress. Those folks work daily to increase Congresional awareness of what State (and the Foreign Service) have to offer them in terms that they understand, such as helping members of Congress in providing constituent services (to use a consular example).

So I'm not sure what Mr. Exum means in terms of avoiding coffee with congressmen. For FSOs abroad, generally the last thing visiting CODELs want to do is talk with U.S. diplomats so when they're abroad finding facts. They can talk to State Dept. people when they're in Washington, by gum!

"The result is that the State Department as an organization constantly feels that it is under pressure and underappreciated by its appropriators. We should not wonder, then, why such an organization fails to be introspective or critical of itself. That shortchanges both America and the State Department"

&

"A military can defend -- or learn from -- its performance during a war, but diplomats and aid workers can rarely demonstrate how their efforts toward conflict-prevention preclude a need for the military to get involved in the first place. And the efforts of diplomats and aid workers rarely benefit the economies of congressional districts in the same way military bases or the arms industry does.

Nonetheless, if the State Department and USAID are ever going to have the confidence to be as self-critical as the U.S. military, they have to better sell their efforts to the American people and its representatives in Washington."

It's like Al Pacino said in The Recruit: "Our failures are known. Our successes...are not." When a country doesn't fall apart, collapse into civil war, or things don't otherwise get worse; was that because the U.S. was effective in that country or would it have happened anyways. It's always hard to prove a negative.

That being said, as a consular manager, CAA likes to take whatever opportunities he can to garner a little American good will for the State Department, for the Foreign Service, and of course for the dedicated and wonderful people who make up what used to be called the Consular Service.

How to do that? Well, in terms of Congress itself and congress members specifically, be timely and appropriately respectful in responding to congressional inquiries. This should be a given, of course, but it should at least be mentioned.

Some parts of the federal government think that stonewalling or otherwise blowing off questions or requests from the people who vote on their agency's budgets is a good idea. I've never gotten that impression about State, but let's not slack off on this.

Have an office SOP (standard operating procedure) for responding to congressional inquiries which includes things like setting a suspense date when they're received, some simple process for recording and tracking each inquiry's progress, an easily understood scheme for assigning individual responsibility for researching and then drafting a response, and some form of review process by a manager.

CAA likes for the staff under his supervision to have as much "ownership" of their caseload as is practical. So if an inquiry has to do with a particular employees caseload or portfolio, such as a visa case that they handled themselves, then CAA would always have that FSO research and draft the response.

For one thing, every FSO should know how to correctly write an official letter to a congressmen using the correct protocol and forms of address. This is pretty basic stuff, but there's nothing like doing it to gain familiarity and a level of professional comfort.

For another thing, CAA believes in empowering subordinates. This goes along with owning your portfolio or caseload. Supervisors and leaders should set goals, set standards, and then get the Hell out of the way and not micro-manage if they can avoid it. Sometimes being a leader means butting back into a particular case, but if your staff is properly trained (and HR didn't send you an idiot), this shouldn't happen all that often.

Proper formats for responses, including standard language (i.e., boilerplate) should be standardized and readily available for FSO (or local staff) to consult or plagiarize.

And CAA's FSO staff could put their own signature block on their responses if they wanted, or CAA would put his; however the FSO was most comfortable. In some cases, it will be wiser to put a more senior person's name on it, but when that happens it's best to explain to your FSOs why you made that decision.

An example is when an inquiry may be controversial and you want to divert any lightning bolts from Mount Olympus away from your junior officers.

(If you're the leader, providing top cover to your followers is just part of why they pay you the big bucks, after all.)

CAA also likes to respond to congressional inquiries in the medium by which they are received. If an inquiry comes in electronically, then by email shall it be answered; but with a hard copy to follow by mail.

In fact, CAA used to send an electronic copy of his office's responses as email attachments even when the inquiry itself arrived in hard copy, just to let the congressional offices know that a response to their question was on its way, with a sneak preview so they weren't being held in suspense or anything.

CAA once dated a congressional staffer who had as a major part of her responsibilities the logging and tracking of correspondence her congress member's office received, much of which fell under the heading of congressional inquiries that were relayed to individual agencies.

(This was a few years before meeting Mrs. CAA, but that's not really germane.)

The point is that the handling of such matters is a core function of any congressional office. So FSOs would be wise to bear that in mind.

The further point is that good congressmen know how to field requests and questions by their constituents, and like good players of America's pastime, they know how to field the balls that come their way.

So FSOs need to do the same, and with the same understanding of their importance. They really do come from the people who pay our salaries and they are routed to us by the people who set those salaries.

(There are other ways FSOs can implement outreach to congress or the U.S. citizens, but that'll have to wait for another post on another day.)

7/25

re: "Getting to Zero"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama gave a short statement of the long view.

Money quote(s):

"(W)ars, like history, do not stop when America decides it no longer wants to be involved. This is worth remembering, both in terms of what is taking place in Iraq today as well as what might take place in Afghanistan in 2014. So by all means, say U.S. involvement in the war has ended. But think carefully before saying the war has ended."

Conflict in Iraq is multilateral and the co-belligerents are both internal and external. Taking just one side (ours) off the battlefield means only that we no longer have much influence over what occurs there.

10/21

re: "Quote of the Day"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama publicized a good quote but was having trouble allocating shame/blame:

"The enemy of my enemy isn't really a terrorist if his lobbying is really, really good."

&

"Shameful move by the Dept. of State.

Update: Former Obama Administration State official Tamara Cofman Wittes says I should be blaming the Congress, not the Dept. of State."

Oh, they're terrorists right enough, or were (and have never owned up to it).

5/15

re: "On Capability vs. Intent, Part II"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama ("a blog that focuses on small wars and insurgencies in addition to regional issues in the Middle East") examined the significance of uncertainty in intelligence analysis.

Money quote(s):

"(I)n my World Politics Review column this week, I tackle the intelligence problems related to intent, which are normally much more difficult than those related to capability. Specifically, I tackle the (understandable) failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to determine whether or not Israel will attack Iran -- a failure that matches my own inability to do so." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

He fleshed that out a little bit more with reference to reading and conversation.

(It'll only take a moment to read.)

4/18

re: "Your Dumb Government at Work"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muquwama discussed another military absurdity.

Money quote(s):

"(H)e had cancelled a presentation he was scheduled to give at the British International Studies Association conference in Edinburgh, Scotland because EUCOM regulations stipulate he must first ... wait for it ... go through SERE training before traveling to western Europe."

CAA has been to Edinburgh himself, after much personal preparation.

Said preparation did not include any survival, evasion, resistance, or escape components.

"Although the SERE training in question is not the hellish full two-week course but rather the one-day course, this is absurd nonetheless. Just yesterday, I met with a collection of junior U.S. Army officers, and we all agreed that U.S. military personnel -- and officers in particular, because they are often de facto ambassadors for the United States -- were better at their jobs if they had traveled widely or, even better, had lived abroad. But it can be a nightmare for U.S. military personnel to travel internationally, such have we elevated force protection to ridiculous importance."

The purpose, in any organization, of a manager or higher executive functionary is to:

a.) Set policy; and

b.) Make exceptions to policy as needed.

Someone is failing at one, or both, of these functions.

"(I)f we are willing to send young men and women to fight and die in Helmand Province, we should go out of our way to be accomodating when U.S. military personnel want to broaden their experiences by traveling to countries with which we are not at war." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

12/13

re: "A Question for Rick Perry"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama ("a blog that focuses on small wars and insurgencies in addition to regional issues in the Middle East") asked a question regarding our old friends the PMOI.

Money quote(s):

"(O)ne of Perry's informal advisors, Gen. (Ret.) Peter Pace, has been shilling for the terrorist group Mujahedeen Khalq along with a boatload of other people from both sides of the aisle -- including former Obama Administration National Security Advisor Gen. (Ret.) Jim Jones.

What is the appropriate response here? Should Gov. Perry distance himself from those who have associated with and advocated on behalf of Mujahedeen Khalq?"

Given the Generals Pace and Jones' former access to the full stories on the MEK/PMOI, I think we should assume they made an informed decision before advocating on their behalf.

8/14

re: "On Nation Building"

Andrew at Abu Muqawama ("a blog that focuses on small wars and insurgencies in addition to regional issues in the Middle East") considers the do-ability of nation-building.

Money quote(s):

"I firmly believe that when you decide to go to war, you should be prepared to use any and all means at your disposal to effect victory. If that means building institutions of the state, as we have done in both Iraq and Afghanistan, okay. You can't "win" in either place, after all, without at least creating strong police forces to take your place and keep public order so that a peaceful political process and economy can thrive. You have to create a secure environment in any post-conflict state, and unless you plan on staying forever, that means building up competent local security forces. That's a form of nation-building that I can support."

I remain unconvinced that victory is unattainable unless some sort of nation-buiding is implemented by the military victor. Of course, if you make that part of your definition of victory, then the prophecy becomes self-fulfilling. Or self-defeating.

Clearly, if our invasion of Iraq was actually tied to GWOT-related goals, then "draining the swamp" so that whatever replaced Saddam is no longer a supporter and enabler of terrorism has to be part of your war aims. And at least a limited reconstruction is then required. This goes double for Afghanistan but is complicated by Pakistan's role as both a sanctuary and a supporter for the Taliban. Similarly, our efforts in Iraq are complicated by Iran's operations against us there and, to a lesser extent, by Syria's.

"(E)mploying whatever means you need after the United States enters a conflict and deciding to intervene in the first place are two different things. I, for one, in large part because I am all too familiar with what a "resource suck" wars can become, am reluctant to intervene in places like Libya in the first place. And, had anyone asked me about Iraq in 2002 or 2003, I would have offered the same opinion there. But I whole-heartedly endorse the U.S. decision to rebuild and train Iraqi military and polices forces after the invasion."

This is why the differences between a punitive raid or expedition and an invasion are so critical. U.S. (and Coalition) forces immediately develop a "footprint" that becomes a magnet for those who would do us harm, either as a local resistance or as transnational actors.

" In Afghanistan, at least, our aid and development projects have arguably exacerbated the drivers of conflict. We have created a rentier state on steroids, and as we begin to withdraw the majority of our aid and development funds, it will take a minor miracle to avoid Afghanistan's economic collapse. The only area in which we are reasonably competent is in building military organizations, which we have a lot of experience doing, but even there, we are better at building military organizations in our own image rather than the kinds of police/gendarme forces countries like Afghanistan really need.

Why do we suck at nation-building? A lot of reasons. Here are just a few: (1) We are ignorant. We do not know enough about the cultural, political and social contexts of foreign environments to fully appreciate how our interventions will affect those environments. Thus our aid and development spending (and military operations, to be fair), meant to ameliorate drivers of conflict, often exacerbate them. (2) We do not provide enough oversight and accountability for the projects we initiate. This is boring but important. We have spent ungodly sums of money in both Iraq and Afghanistan and have not provided enough contracting officers to effectively oversee the money we have spent. How do we just give tens of millions of dollars to agencies and departments in the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan without any oversight? Lack of contracting officers. How are contracts in Afghanistan divided up between shady sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors, with tax-payer money falling into the hands of the Taliban and warlords? Lack of contracting officers. (3) We do not have any patience -- and we have limited resources. Nation-building takes time. Where we can nation-build at relatively low-cost over an extended period of time, as in Colombia, we can be successful. But asking Americans to spend massive amounts of money for an extended period of time in Iraq or Afghanistan is a recipe for ... turning your average U.S. tax-payer into an isolationist. " (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Disclosure: CAA is not a contracting officer. Not anymore, at least.

re: "Campaign Design and Strategy in Libya"

Andrew at Abu Muqawama ("a blog that focuses on small wars and insurgencies in addition to regional issues in the Middle East") reviews U.S. strategy for Libya.

Money quote(s):

"The U.S. and allied military campaign in Libya is an embarassment. From the very beginning, U.S. and allied political and strategic objectives have been unclear, and thus U.S. and allied military forces have been asked to carry out military operations without a clear commander's intent or end state. Out of all the operations orders that have been issued by the U.S. military for operations in Libya, in fact, only one -- the order to carry out the evacuation of non-combatants -- included an end state. None of the other orders issued to and by the U.S. military included an end state, in large part because senior military and civilian leaders either could not or chose not to explicitly articulate what the end state might be. The U.S. and allied military intervention is thus the very definition of an open-ended military intervention -- the kind in which most U.S. decision-makers swore we would never again engage after Iraq and Afghanistan." (Empasis in original text. - CAA.)

This has been, in turn, alternately and simultaneously an aggravation, an infuriation, and an embarrassment. WTF, over?

If I have to say this again; I will shed no tears on the day Col. Qadhafy is confirmed dead. None. He's been a long-time resident on my better-off-dead roster for decades now.

That being said, I'm clueless as to how going after Col. Qadhafy is intended, in a foreign policy objective sense, to disincentivize rogue statesmen from pursuing their own WMD proliferation.

"The U.S. Army, in response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (in which the military was asked to operate in a complex environment with often unclear policy guidance), developed commander's appreciation and campaign design (.pdf) to help officers properly frame and understand the problems in front of them."

That's an interesting TRADOC product linked therein.

"Campaign design is a great tool for commanders, but it is also the reflection of a bigger problem -- one identified and described most eloquently by Hew Strachan in this essay in Survival. It is what happens when you leave military commanders to figure out strategy and policy for themselves."

Mr. Strachan's essay is well worth reading.

"(T)he United States has now been applying force in Libya for over two months without explaining why. What is the political end we are trying to achieve? The United States needs to be honest with both its allies and its military. Because we should expect the U.S. military to go to great lengths to understand the environment and the enemy, but what makes the military intervention in Libya so embarassing is that the U.S. military is once again in the position of laboring to divine the intent of its own elected and appointed leaders." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Somewhere out there, not even in uniform yet, is a young man or woman who will write, for the Libyan intervention, what H.R. McMasters wrote for the Vietnam war.

re: "It's War!"

Andrew at Abu Muqawama ("following issues related to comtemprary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactis and strategy") has a definite opinion.

Money quote(s):

"I'm no lawyer, I'll admit, but I do know thing or two about shooting wars, having been in a few and having studied others, and the conflict in which we have intervened in Libya is most certainly a war. The reason why the Obama Administration's legalistic determination that it is not a war is ridiculous is not because we've gotten to the point where we care most about which lawyers were smarter than other lawyers but because it does not pass the "common sense test" or "laugh test" of most Americans."

&

"(T)his latest episode, which to most Americans I suspect looks like a bunch of eggheads arguing about how many bombs you have to drop for it to be "hostilities" and, while they're at it, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, is simply one of the stupidest things I've read in some time. It does not pass the laugh test, and the administration has handed an empty net to anyone looking to score points off of this."

re: "Quote of the Day"

Andrew at Abu Muqawama ("dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") liked what SecDef Gates said recently.

Money quote(s):

"From the perspective of many U.S. legislators and tax-payers, one of the reasons the states of Europe enjoy such nice social welfare programs is because the United States has effectively subsidized the continent's defense spending since 1989. A few weeks back, I was in a meeting with some representatives from one of our NATO allies, who warned me that if the United States moved troops out of Europe, European states would respond by only developing military organizations capable of operating in Europe and North Africa.

I responded that would be a real improvement!

Currently, the European states seem unable to carry out mid-sized military operations independently."

One of the, at the time, touted advantages of the NATO military alliances was sort of an economy of scale. With all these different nations pooling their military resources, each didn't have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, and were thus able to specialize somewhat, rather than suffer multiple duplications of effort so that each country had their own full range of military capabilities.

Unfortunately, what we have today is, rather than national specializations, is something more akin to a collection of boutique militaries, each expecting Big Sam to provide all those over-arching (and expensive) capabilities like reconnaissance, logistics, aircraft carrier battle groups, and the like.

"This kind of reckoning between the United States and the states of Europe has been long overdue. Some European states have proven themselves serious about both the alliance and their own national defense. (I'm looking at you, Denmark.) Others have not. If Germans complain with justification that their workers subsidize Greek hair-dressers taking early retirements, it's perfectly fair for the United States to complain German workers enjoy comfy state benefits in part because U.S. tax-payers underwrite their national defense."

re: "The Greatest U.S. Army Jokes Ever"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama exhibits some rather dark humor with his list.

re: "Random Bits"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama ("dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") has his head screwed the right way on and his priorities in order.

Money quote(s):

"I was not too angry about the fact that the United States is conducting clandestine operations in Libya. Frankly, I support liaising with the rebels (though not arming them), and I also support observing air strikes. Air strikes are generally more effective at doing what you want them to do -- and not doing what you do not want them to do, like kill civilians -- when they are observed. What makes me mad is the inability of officials to understand that clandestine operations are no longer clandestine after you blab about them to Mark Mazetti and Eric Schmitt. Now, if officials in the administration leaked this information as part of a carefully planned, tightly coordinated information operation designed to hasten Gadhafi's departure from Libya, I take back all my criticism and indeed salute the administration. If, by contrast, this information was leaked because of domestic political pressure and in response to complaints the administration was not doing enough to support the rebels, then I know of a circle of hell Dante forgot in which the leakers will someday find themselves residing. These kinds of leaks -- which involve disclosing the presence and activities of men in harm's way -- are the kind that make me want to run around Washington, DC kicking "officials" in their sensitive parts."

re: "Static, One-Dimensional Analysis 1; Dynamic, Multi-Dimensional Analysis 0"

Andrew at Abu Muqawama ("dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") gives credit where it's due.

Money quote(s):

"Since the intelligence community is so rarely congratulated when they get something right, it's worth pointing out that had they been wrong, we would not be conducting combat operations in Libya right now. But their order-of-battle analysis, sadly, proved all too accurate. Readers, if you will, join me in a quiet golf clap for the men and women at Langley, Fort Meade and Bolling AFB."

re: "Understanding State's Budget Woes"

Matt Armstrong at Mountain Runner ("Discourse on America's Discourse") shared a detailed critique of State's flawed relations with Congress.

Money quote(s):

"Andrew Exum at CNAS blames - only somewhat tongue in cheek - the absence of federal money creating jobs in Congressional districts for the State Department's budget woes. His point, of course, is that Congress sees little direct benefit from State's activities."

He's not really kidding. Well, even if he was, it's still true.

The State Department has no (or little, which amounts to the same thing) domestic political constituency. We don't create jobs in anybody's district (aside from the various domestic passport centers, which is another subject). And most of the time nobody writes, emails, or calls their congressional representative unless they're seeking help with a problem they're having with the State Department.

Fortunately, most of the legislative staff who deal with State Department on behalf of their constituents quickly learn that we don't capriciously create problems and obstacles for their constituents. Most of the time the problems are actually the creation of the constituent themselves, and State Department folks (usually consular officers) are either simply following the laws that Congress itself passed or are limited in what they can do by either budgetary constraints (also an artifact of Congress) or reality itself (i.e., foreign courts and police forces don't actually work for the United States, so I can't order them to release someone just because they're American).

This is why I take every opportunity I can to help create at least a shadow of a glimmer of a domestic constituency whenever I get the chance. You're a college professor or church leader bringing a gaggle of your students or parishioners to my consular district and you'd like a quick tour of the embassy or consulate while you're in country? If I can spare someone for even an hour, I can make it happen. I've got a relatively brief Powerpoint presentation kept up-to-date, can reserve a meeting room, and if you'll get me everyone's passport information ahead of time then embassy security can pre-clear your group.

And then I get an hour to tell some congressman's constituents what the State Department does for them and for the country.

I've also learned to not be shy about telling people who are thanking me about something I or my staff has done for them that, yes, I appreciate their thanks but if they're really grateful it'd be even better if they dropped their congressman or senator an email or postcard. I generally add that other people are never slow to send complaints about the things they don't like, so it's just good citizenship to ensure their representative is getting the whole picture.

It's constituency building at the micro level, in the field, which is not the aim of Matt's post, but you have to start somewhere.

&

"If Congress is to fund (and stop defunding) State, it requires greater awareness of State's purpose, requirements, and limitations, especially those that must be overcome. State cannot continue to rely on the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other members of the uniformed community to ask Congress for money and authorities to build capacity and capabilities to fulfill current and future requirements.

State has a role in making sure the discourse over its purpose and activities become more public, and thus a higher profile, and more informed. The President and the American people require it. Guns and bombs do not create or sustain peace."