ARTICLE: Foreign Affairs Panel Calls For Overhaul of State Dept., By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, December 9, 2007; Page A29
If this is so, then a big disappointment to this expert who was consulted. "Super-sizing" State is--to me--not likely to work. You'd still have the good cop-bad cop routine with Defense instead of an honest third-way broker on the reconstructions (postwar and post disaster and failed states). State will always be unable to play both good cop to the Core and submit itself to the necessary logic of sometimes playing bad cop, or its accomplice, in the Gap.
Count me among the dissenters. This is not the "bold move" portrayed but a bit of a cop out.
But I guess it's the next step up in cop-outs compared to the wee office on stabilization ops that the Pentagon forced upon State, so some progress in the scope of futility.
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Comments (3)
State seems to be coming up with a civilian-gov-side COIN manual, or least be starting the process of preparing one. Looks like they are defending their franchise against actual and potential peer competitors within the bureaucracy.
Posted by Lexington Green | December 9, 2007 5:09 PM
Let's hope that more visionary minds inhabit the White House after 2008. The self-serving mentality of super-sizing everything has to end sometime. This is just another small sign of our decline in being an innovative nation.
Posted by historyguy99
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December 9, 2007 6:09 PM
Lex,
You capture the preservation dynamic well. State doesn't feel up to it but can't stand the concept of losing it, so the commission makes promises the Dept. cannot keep.
Posted by Tom Barnett | December 10, 2007 11:23 AM