One Step Forward, Two Steps Back Posted by Michael Cohen

It's Josh Rogin day here at DA, because today over at the Cable he has two interesting stories about the internal workings of the State Department that unintentionally complement and contradict each other.

First, Secretary of State Clinton is delivering a speech today at the Newseum on the interplay between the internet and foreign policy. She is going to argue that freedom on cyberspace is a basic human right and must be protected - and the US is going to set up a $15 million fund to promote Internet freedom. This will include measures to:

Expand access to the Internet for women and other groups; train and support civil society groups and NGOs in the use of new media technologies; and support a series of new media pilot projects starting to expand civic society in the Middle East and North Africa.

In addition, Clinton plans to make US diplomacy a more robust presence on the web:

Clinton also plans to integrate the internet into all of the other tools of diplomacy, a mission she calls 21st Century Statecraft, another shift that could change the way the U.S. government approaches the Internet.

When I left the State Department in 1999 I was just beginning to transition away from a Wang computer to a PC, so this is all very exciting. And in general, I think anything that promotes civil society empowerment and encourages Internet freedom is exceptionally important, particularly as a tool for democracy promotion.

But here’s the thing; when you scroll down the page you read this:

The Pentagon has won a major internal battle over control of foreign assistance funding

One big chunk of funding at issue is in foreign security assistance, known as the "1206" account, which could total about $500 million next year. This is money used to do things like military training and joint operations with countries outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, such as Indonesia and Somalia. Since the military doesn't have the lead in those countries, the funding should flow through State, right? Well, not in 2011. The president's budget will keep those funds in the Pentagon's purse in its Feb. 1 budget release, following a pitched internal battle in which the State Department eventually conceded.

And why did State lose this inter-agency battle:

"Eventually State backed off," the source said. "They're not sure they have the capacity to actually run the 1206 programs."

The capacity issue has hampered State's ability to take over many of the programs it professes to want to own. In a related case, top senators wanted to give State control over another fund, called the Pakistani Counterinsurgency Capabilities Fund, but couldn't do so last year because State wasn't prepared to take on the mission. 

Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, D-MI, told The Cable. "There's probably an effort being made to build their capacity so that they are better positioned the next time this comes around," he said, referring to the State Department.

So State is going to establish a robust online presence and protect Internet freedom around the world . . . but they lack the basic capacity to administer security assistance programs that are at the heart of is diplomatic capabilities. And if you want to know what happens when the military drives decision-making on military assistance (and doesn't act in concert with State) read this book,particularly the chapter on Indonesia. To sum up, when the military makes decisions on military assistance and training, larger issues about human rights, respect for the rule of law and larger political imperatives occasionally take a back seat to "security" concerns.

And there is something almost sad about Hillary Clinton talking about a $15 million initiative to increase Internet freedom at the same time that security assistance programs are being ripped out of her hands because her own department lacks the ability to run them effectively. The bottom line is that we have a State Department that is increasingly incapable to doing its job as a diplomatic agency and a Pentagon that is taking on more of these core responsibilities. And once these responsibilities migrate over to the Pentagon it will be next to impossible to get them back - especially when State's long-term capabilities (or lack thereof) are not being addressed.

And as Rogin's piece makes clear; there is little reason for optimism on that front either:

Overall, State is expected to receive a hefty increase in its top-line budget request for fiscal 2011, but much of that money will be for Iraq and Afghanistan, allowing little growth in the rest of the State-USAID accounts.

 And the beat goes on . . 

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It's odd for a president who puts so much weight in diplomacy and multilateralism--provinces of State--to have put an incompetent like Clinton in charge there simply for political reasons. If she isn't the worst, or at least most irrelevant, Secretary of State in modern times, I don't know who is...

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