Senator Lugar Warns of Military Mission Creep, Suggests Strengthening Civilian Agencies

Today's Washington Times features an op-ed by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), who argues the need for a more robust civilian presence overseas and suggests clamping down on the military's ever-growing role in non-combat areas (where their numbers have soared post-9/11). The piece, entitled "Strengthen civilian forces, too," follows the completion of a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee report that indicates heightened concern by several Ambassadors and foreign officials over the impact of the growing U.S. military presence overseas.

"[The military has] won new authority outside the traditional foreign aid framework to provide military training to foreign countries. Increasingly, the military is taking on roles once reserved for civilian agencies, such as building schools and clinics, drilling wells and conducting public information campaigns," Lugar states.

Lugar also highlights the great disparity between military and diplomatic / foreign aid spending, citing that the former outshadows the latter by a ratio of 14:1. As a further example of how military assistance has grown to exceed traditional diplomatic spending, the op-ed notes that the Pentagon receives $7.5 million to offer the Dominican Republic (a non-combat zone) in the form of military education and training, while the Lilliputian public diplomacy budget for that country weighs in at 10.66% of that amount -- a mere $800,000. Lugar observes that this growing disparity may only serve to "skew the balance between civilian and military programs."

Lugar's three well-reasoned proposals would serve to re-establish the primacy of the Secretary of State in coordinating the planning and execution of America's foreign policy, in addition to offering a mechanism stronger than State concurrence to ensure proper coordination and appropriate use of military aid to achieve U.S. goals.

These include:
--Recognizing (and respecting) Chief of Mission authority, which requires the informed consent of an Ambassador prior to conducting activities in the field and providing him/her with the political weight to overrule the Pentagon as necessary.

--"One voice in foreign policy," which would require coordination among defense and diplomatic agencies to ensure that all U.S. assistance provided to foreign countries aligns properly with U.S. foreign policy goals.

--Appropriating funds in a responsible way that will allow the proper U.S. Government agency to address current challenges, instead of passing the buck to the "best-resourced" agencies.

Despite the straight-forward, thoughtful proposals that Lugar has advanced, the real question remains whether he and his Congressional colleagues will take action and adopt them. Passing a foreign affairs appropriations bill for FY2007 would be a good start; ensuring that such a bill takes into consideration the growing demand for a more robust diplomatic effort overseas and a reduction in our reliance on military elements of national power to implement U.S. foreign policy would be even better.