On paper, the concept of 3D — integrating US defense, diplomacy, and development efforts — promises to elevate the latter two “D’s” into real policy alternatives to military force. However, it seems clear now that despite the hype, 3D is failing to strengthen the role of development and diplomacy in US foreign policy.
In recent months both the US State Department and USAID have faced serious threats to their budgets, while the Defense Department has been spared. US foreign policy is (and will likely be in the foreseeable future) highly military-centric. In this environment, the reality of 3D is that it is less about putting diplomacy and development in their proper place in foreign policy discussions and more about making both of them underfunded auxiliaries of the US military (something many in the DoD oppose). If 3D is to be a viable foreign policy strategy, the budgets of USAID and State must be expanded, not cut.
Christopher R. Albon is a political science Ph.D. specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.
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{ 6 comments }
I wonder what the purpose of it all is. The term you used is a common one, “foreign policy strategy,” but the question remains, “to do what?” Although defense is often (not always) an imprecise bludgeon, it seems to be a pretty good back-up plan for the failure of diplomacy. One could argue that military power was not a good option for getting inspectors into Iraq, but was diplomacy or development useful? To remove the Taliban? To stop the “Zenga, Zenga” pogrom of Qaddhafi? To quell Somali piracy, or to feed Somalis straving under Al Shabaab? In summary, of course there’s an important role for diplomacy and development, but what’s the evidence base that proportionately greater spending will proportionately improve national or global security? We should be careful where we spend our money, on any of the 3Ds. “Caveat emptor.”
I gave this much thought, because you are correct to point out that the causal connection between military action and political outcomes is more observable than that of diplomacy or development. However, less observable does not mean less effective. Fifty phone calls by an ambassador might not make the headlines, but it can definitely sway political events in a crisis. Indeed the vast majority of US foreign policy is conducted by the lanyard-wearing diplomats in hotel conference rooms. More importantly, when we are talking about budgets, we are talking about zero sum choices. Thus the question we have to ask ourselves is this: would US national interests be better served with thirty percent more diplomatic capacity (~$9 billion) or 32 more F-35s (~$9 billion)? Given this choice, I believe diplomats offer the most “bang for the buck”.
Chris: Hmmm. Here’s the rub — your statement “would US national interests be better served with thirty percent more diplomatic capacity (~$9 billion) or 32 more F-35s (~$9 billion)? Given this choice, I believe diplomats offer the most “bang for the buck”.”
What is this opinion based on? Measured how? For example, what is it that the five Ambassadors in Afghanistan are doing, and how do we measure “bang for the buck?” If we cut back 4 of them and their staffs and added, say, another 250 soldiers, would that help the war in Afghanistan? And, how are you envisioning the world in the short-, mid-, and long-term? So, if you think (which I take it you don’t) that the U.S. is growing vulnerable to military attack by ‘guerrilla’ style attackers a la 9/11, then the airplanes might make more sense. So, what is the world context and how do you see the U.S.’s role playing out?
Finally, let me toss out another idea (unfortunately not my original idea, but one I think is quite brilliant)– are our government structures adequate to respond to today’s and tomorrow’s contexts? So, perhaps the REAL question is not one of zero sum trade offs, but a better structuring of our government structures to contend with the foreign policy approaches we wish to take. Perhaps a better construct (off the top of my head) would be a bureaucracy for the middle east (new acronym– the “BOME”) where you would place a military HQ of sorts, a diplomatic cell and development people (along with Treasury, Trade, USDA and others), and they all would sit in the same building and answer to the same master who reported up to the NSC. The NSC, by the way, probably needs to be restructured, and some power invested in it so a coherent set of policies can actually be implemented across functional areas.
In other words, maybe we need a more flexible apparatus so that we can more easily shift attention from diplomacy to military tactics and so forth depending upon the regional context, and the current self-protecting bureaucracies are not really serving us anymore.
It’s a bit aggravating that the policy debates are always US against THEM, when in fact there are many many more options that we are just not considering.
Finally, the DoD is facing significant budget cuts, even while decisvely engaged in a war in Afghanistan (as opposed to being indecisively engaged, of course) and operations in Libya, clean up from Iraq, activities in the Horn of Africa…. Unprecendented.
Cheers! Thanks for the post.
Of course it’s not just “more diplomatic capacity (~$9 billion) or 32 more F-35s (~$9 billion)”, but everything from Coast Guard Cutters to refurbished military hospitals to RQ-11 hand-launched drones to. . . . you get the idea. It’s always easy to say ‘well if they had one fewer bomber we could do x, y, and z’. We continually play this game in USPHS as we have none of the big ticket items DoD has. GHI might be a big bottom line, but really it’s a thousand severable items. The flipside being that when budgets tighten something like GHI can get trimmed, while something like FCS gets cancelled.
In the end we can short diplomacy and development for two reasons:
1. Soldiers can stand in for deplomats but diplomats but the reverse is not true.
2. We can outsource diplomacy and development to NATO, EU, China, but events in Libya demonstrate again that if we don’t send in the cavalry nobody else can.
If you want development & diplomacy done by USAID instead of green suiters how do you incentivize DoD to pass it on? Right now it’s a bit of chicken & egg – it stays in DoD because USAID’s not big enough to take it because all the money runs through DoD which chokes off USAID’s growth . . . .
As an aside, Gail’s BOME sounds like what I thought AFRICOM would look like. That hasn’t really turned out like I’d hoped. Is there a big differerence I’m overlooking?
Great comments, I need to think about this more before I reply. Let’s all get coffee, or Olive Garden, sometime soon to discuss this more.
I’m in for meeting and chatting. I’m fresh off the USNS COMFORT hospital ship and back in D.C…. wow. The question of how to measure “bang for buck” and to consider world context in the short- mid- and longterm is critical and yet underutilized, developed, or considered in many of DoD’s “development” efforts. The ship was a great example of a flexible apparatus although I’d argue it was a bit too flexible, tried to be something for everyone and every mission we encountered, and the best things that happened this summer were relatively accidental.
So, then, who is in D.C.? Chris, looking forward to your thoughts…
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