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Continued problems in US foreign policy
byFrank Kaufmann| December 31, 2011Robert Gatesserved as United States Secretary of Defense from November, 2006(replacingDonald Rumsfeld) until April, 2011 (replaced byLeon Panetta). At his retirement ceremony Gates was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, thenation's highest civilian award.David L. Boren, Chairman of the US Senate SelectCommittee on Intelligence said of Gates, “He’ll be remembered for making usaware of the danger of over-reliance on military intervention as an instrument of American foreign policy.” Josh Rogin in his December 27, 2011Foreign Policyarticlewrites, “Gates, famously warned of the "creeping militarization" of U.S.foreign policy.” Rogin refers to Gates’ 2009memo to Secretary of State HillaryRodham Clinton, in which Gates noted that the huge increase in Pentagon fundingfor stabilization efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has prompted complaints about themilitarization of U.S. foreign policy. That’s like writing toLady Gagato help a campaign to urge young ladies to dressmore modestly. This is the same Hillary Clinton who showed up mysteriously inLibya two days before US drones enabled the gruesome mob execution of Qaddafi, after which Ms. Clintongleefully declared in a CBS interview, “we came,we saw, he died.” This is the same Ms. Clinton who published in November, 2011
Foreign Policy 
,the treatise “America’s Pacific Century,”anticipating andchampioningPresident Obama’s U.S.-Australia security pactcreating marine, airand ground task force using Australian facilities to act as a "force multiplier" in theregion. Obama’s stated reason for increased US militarization of the region was“Beijing's growing aggressiveness.” TheUS cannot manage an apologyfor killingPakistani soldiers inside Pakistan.Gates’ hope was to see greater balance in US foreign policy. He recommended amajor overhaul of the way the Pentagon and State Department do nation-building,seeking to end friction between the bureaucracies by putting them jointly incharge of addressing problems in U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan --particularly, disputes over whether civilians or the better-funded military shouldbe in charge of stabilization. Gates’ proposal was far ranging with implications forUS policy worldwide. But the behavior of this administration and this Secretary of State suggest that State Department does not necessarily mean lessmilitarization? This is a worry.But what if it were the case that greater cooperation between State and Defensereally could portend a more sophisticated, more enlightened US engagementinternationally? Gates’ 2009 proposal called for creating three long-term fundstotaling as much as $2 billion to be dedicated to training security forces,1
 
preventing conflicts, and stabilizing violence-torn societies around the world. JoshRogin's December 27, 2011
Foreign Policy 
piece is about the decision of theObama administration for “State Department and Pentagon to create a joint officefor funding emergency security response.” Is this good news? Let’s take a lookand see. Rogin writes: The Obama administration acted on that idea this year by proposing astarter fund in its fiscal 2012 budget request which it called theGlobalSecurity Contingency Fund(GSCF), meant for responding to "urgent andemergent challenges." The idea is that approval to spend the moneywould require the approval of both secretaries.Can we hope then to see US foreign policy return to something more moreelevated than the policies of fear and war that have dominated US behavior since9-11? Will State and the DOD cooperation yield a more subtle and betterintegrated approach to issues of security?Fairly big hints towards answering this question can be seen in the numbers. Thebudget request by Obama was for 50 million dollars! Presently the Department of Defense Budget is $663.84 billion. The State Department budget is $50.9 billion.US military spending is 13 TIMES that of the State Department. The combinedbudgets of these two departments is 14,013 TIMES greater than the GSCFrequest!Both the President of the United States and its Secretary of State are military-minded in their concept for US foreign policy. Two years after Gate’s proposal, theObama administration requests 50 million dollars to advance a collaborative andintegrated approach to US foreign policy related to urgent matters of security. 40times less than Gates proposed. Yet senior State Department official excitedly gurgles in an interview with TheCable. "This is really an example of how State and DOD, rather than engage inbureaucratic gamesmanship, have decided to work together to solve theseproblems... For us, GSCF is the new model," the official said. "This is the model wethink makes the most sense, particularly in budget-constrained times." He istalking about a fund to harmonize two famously fractious centers of US foreignpolicy that is fourteen thousand times smaller than the budgets of thedepartments involved!And how will this great vision work? “The State Department would be more or lessin charge. The new GSCF office will have a State Department official as a director,a Pentagon official as a deputy director, and will be located at the StateDepartment, the official said. Nobody has been selected for the positions yet.”Did Congress approve this piddling budget request? Not exactly. In the fiscal 2012budget bill passed by Congress last week and signed by President Barack Obama,2
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