Follow us on social

2021-08-23t000000z_1239283856_mt1ltana000onahcq_rtrmadp_3_afghanistan-america-asia-attack-dead-middle-east-military-refugees-taliban-united-states-scaled

The State Department's a mess — just like its Afghanistan report

The recent review of the 2021 withdrawal from Kabul demonstrates that Foggy Bottom is its own worst enemy.

Analysis | Washington Politics

For decades, the US has continually made the strategic error of over-relying on the sword — military intervention — and systematically discounting diplomacy, weakening diplomats and assistance providers in favor of creating an over-powered and bureaucratically over-powering military. 

The outcome has been a series of self-inflicted wounds – Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan being the most recent in history.

Five years in the Clinton Administration convinced me that the civilian foreign policy institutions of the American government have become scattered and dysfunctional, while the Defense Department has become a national security goiter — an inflated and unhealthy attachment to our foreign policy that, too often, runs the show. I co-edited a book about the imbalance of the American national security toolkit. What’s more, I have spent more than two decades on commissions, writing articles and reports, and consulting with the civilian foreign policy institutions to try to correct the balance.

I have not been alone in suggesting that our civilian diplomatic and assistance institutions are dysfunctional and disrespected. Worse, a good part of their ineffectiveness is self-administered. The State Department has systematically rejected proposals for reform and strengthening, treating them as foreign bodies invading its unhealthy corpus.

I was reminded of all this sad history of failed attempts at reform reading the unclassified version of the latest report.  The one that came out last month about the debacle — chaos in Kabul — in August and September, 2021.

It is welcome news that State, itself, commissioned the report. But, and here we get into the dirty little secrets of supposed self-reform and government reports, they generally don’t reference the reports that came before them — so in this case, the excellent work done over the years by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction — is not referenced at all, including a report on what went wrong as the US left Afghanistan.

Worse, the report compounds one of State’s deepest problems. For decades, State has grafted new offices and bureaus onto the old, while not reforming anything, creating a plethora of baronies that compete with each other, and imposing ad hoc czars and coordinators to try to sort out the chaos. They did this for Korea in the 1990s and for the Balkans when I was in the White House. Neither barony worked very well and nobody knew for sure who was in charge of civilian operations.

Let me bother you with some brain-numbing detail, just to illustrate. 

The report says when it comes to planning a crisis evacuation of a lot of Americans or anyone else from another country, the Department’s Operations Center (basically a central communications office) needs to be in charge. Except that another office —the Undersecretary for Management — has a big equity so they need to be in charge, too. And there needs to be a person at the top level of the Department who is in charge. And the Defense Department needs to be in liaison, too. And the Regional Bureaus at State should “provide overall leadership of a task force.” Along with a suggestion that there needs to be a “single, principal-level [senior] crisis leader and a single crisis communicator.” 

And, of course, Consular Affairs — the part of State that does the visa and citizen services — has an equity here, as well. This tossed salad of a proposal reads like too many State Department reports — every barony got its say in the final draft.

There are a whole bunch of other offices and bureaus that will think they, too, have a stake in who is the boss, and want to keep new bosses out of their knickers. Somehow, they didn’t make it into the report. This includes a senior level official with pieces of the existing portfolio — the Undersecretary of State for Civilian Security Democracy and Human Rights. And under them the vastly underpowered Bureau for Complex Stabilization Operations (CSO) at State.

Pity the poor consumer of all this in a crisis. I can just see the food fight that will erupt when someone tries to make this actually work. 

The problems at the State Department go a lot deeper than this report discusses. Until they are fixed, every report like this will just expand the Rube Goldberg architecture of ineptitude at State. The DoD will expand its role and responsibility even more, as the “can do” institution that has not been able to “do” for more than 40 years.

Fundamentally, the State Department does not respect planning and does not know how to do it. Planning — strategic and resources (people and money) is not what Foreign Service Officers are taught. Nor are they rewarded for it as they move up the hierarchy. DoD is a planning organization; State is not.

More money for diplomacy and more diplomats, both of which have been provided in abundance over the past 20 years, will not make up for this dysfunctionality, and will not prop up this critical element in the toolkit of U.S. statecraft.

Some really talented, wonderful people work in this institution. They are not well-served by this kind of throw-away report. The ad hoc changes the Afghanistan report proposes will not make the next evacuation better organized or more effective. That evacuation will create new lessons learned, and another report. 

The sword will continue to be unsheathed in the absence of a strong civilian alternative. And nobody, least of all this latest review group, will raise the question of why we keep throwing the US military and its civilians into such hopeless quagmires.

This article was republished with permission from Gordon Adams’ The Sheathed Sword. 

Thanks to our readers and supporters, Responsible Statecraft has had a tremendous year. A complete website overhaul made possible in part by generous contributions to RS, along with amazing writing by staff and outside contributors, has helped to increase our monthly page views by 133%! In continuing to provide independent and sharp analysis on the major conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as the tumult of Washington politics, RS has become a go-to for readers looking for alternatives and change in the foreign policy conversation. 

 

We hope you will consider a tax-exempt donation to RS for your end-of-the-year giving, as we plan for new ways to expand our coverage and reach in 2025. Please enjoy your holidays, and here is to a dynamic year ahead!

In photos taken on August 23, 2021, members of the US military help fleeing Afghans at Kabul airport.(Reuters)
Analysis | Washington Politics
Russia Putin
Russia's President Vladimir Putin speaks during a session of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia October 19, 2017. REUTERS/Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool

Peace denied? Russian budget jacks up wartime economy

Europe

On December 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the budget law for 2025-2027. The Duma had earlier approved the law on November 21, and the Federation Council rubber stamped it on November 27.

The main takeaway from the budget is that Russia is planning for the long haul in its war with NATO-backed Ukraine and makes clear that Russia intends to double down on defense spending no matter what the cost. While the increased budget does not shed light on expectations for a speedy resolution to the war, it is indicative that Moscow continues to prepare for conflict with both Ukraine and NATO.

keep readingShow less
Committee Hearing: The Imperative to Strengthen America's Defense Industrial Base and Workforce
Top Image Credit: Senate Committee Hearing: The Imperative to Strengthen America's Defense Industrial Base and Workforce (YouTube/Screenshot)

Industry: War with China may be imminent, but we're not ready

Military Industrial Complex

Military industry mainstays and lawmakers alike are warning of imminent conflict with China in an effort to push support for controversial deep tech, especially controversial autonomous and AI-backed systems.

The conversation, which presupposed a war with Beijing sometime in the near future, took place Wednesday on Capitol Hill at a hearing of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entitled, “The Imperative to Strengthen America's Defense Industrial Base and Workforce.”

keep readingShow less
Diplomacy Watch: Still tap dancing around NATO for Kyiv

Diplomacy Watch: Still tap dancing around NATO for Kyiv

QiOSK

Kyiv and Moscow both hinted this week at their shifting expectations and preparations for a potentially approaching conclusion to the Ukraine War, amid a frantic push from the Biden administration to “put Ukraine in the strongest possible position” ahead of President-elect Trump’s inauguration in January.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan reiterated this goal as part of a Dec. 2 White House announcement of $725 million in additional security assistance for Ukraine, which will include substantial artillery, rockets, drones, and land mines and will be delivered “rapidly” to Ukraine’s front lines. The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the new package shows that the Biden administration aims to “throw oil on the fire” of the war before exiting office.

keep readingShow less

Election 2024

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.