Safe, Demilitarized Diplomacy

Dipnote, the State Department's official blog, and Josh Rogin, over at Foreign Policy, have posts up this morning that don't directly engage with each other, but that I think illustrate different elements of a common problem: how to demilitarize American diplomacy. Dipnote's post illustrates the challenges of staffing and equipping the Civilian Response Corps, who need to be prepared to parachute into reconstruction efforts in dangerous situations without unduly burdening embassies already in place, and while keeping members of the Corps safe. That means transporting and equipping Corps members with things that the military has already has, including armored vehicles and vests. Given those kinds of requirement, it's not surprising that the military has slipped into diplomatic roles that State can't perform because its teams aren't prepared to go in safely. And once members of the military are doing a job, it's hard for State to reclaim those tasks.

Rogin makes the case that State is having an even harder time with clawback because the Pentagon is much, much better at fighting Congressional battles than the State Department is. Defense has more Congressional fellows, and attaches more prestige to working in legislative affairs, Rogin argues. It's an illustration that the value of a policy proposal really is only one of very many factors determining whether that proposal is adopted, and that it's much, much easier to let things go than to get them back.