Obama's Foreign Policy Shift

James Joyner | December 01, 2008

We're about to see a great shift in resources from the military to other actors, David Sanger argues.

Yet all three of his choices — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as the rival turned secretary of state; Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander, as national security adviser, and Robert M. Gates, the current and future defense secretary — have embraced a sweeping shift of priorities and resources in the national security arena.

The shift would create a greatly expanded corps of diplomats and aid workers that, in the vision of the incoming Obama administration, would be engaged in projects around the world aimed at preventing conflicts and rebuilding failed states. However, it is unclear whether the financing would be shifted from the Pentagon; Mr. Obama has also committed to increasing the number of American combat troops.Whether they can make the change — one that Mr. Obama started talking about in the summer of 2007, when his candidacy was a long shot at best — “will be the great foreign policy experiment of the Obama presidency,” one of his senior advisers said recently.

The adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the three have all embraced “a rebalancing of America’s national security portfolio” after a huge investment in new combat capabilities during the Bush years.

We've spent a vast amount of money on the military, although it's not clear to what extent we've acquired "new combat capabilities" for our money. But I join Matt Yglesias in proclaiming the described shift as "a really good idea."

I've been arguing since the 1993 Somalia mess that we need to shift resources from traditional combat power to softer power capabilities necessary to be successful at stability operations. While I generally oppose those missions, we've had nearly two decades of proof of a bipartisan inability to resist entering into them.

In the early days, my concern was with realigning resources within the military from tanks and bombers and fighter jets to military police, engineers, civil affairs, and linguists. Frankly, we still need to do much, much more in that regard. Now, though, it's abundantly clear that we need to reconfigure State to make it more able to deploy officers to dangerous areas and otherwise create a large corps of deployable people skilled in these types of missions.

Having a former CIA director and Republican-appointed SECDEF and a former Marine Commandant on board will insulate Obama from criticism from the right and Clinton will do the same from the left.

James Joyner is managing editor of the Atlantic Council. Photo: Getty Images.

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Comments

Submitted by Brett (not verified) on Mon, 12/01/2008 - 12:14.

I'm in favor of creating an expanded State Department, too, and investing it with some greater capabilities (presumably Obama's "teams of diplomats" and the like). I have three concerns, though.

First, we're still in the middle of a military modernization. The old F-16s and F-15s are going to be falling to pieces very soon, so we need a large order of F-22s to replace them and get the Air Force set for the next 20 years. We also need to replace the aging nuclear stockpile we have (Gates is strongly in favor of this, as well as ABM - which is why I support him for staying on). This all costs a lot of money, and it can cost quite a bit more if Obama's Team calls for and gets some ill-advised cuts (especially cutting the order quantity on the F-22s, again, which raises the per-unit cost and requires even more time to retool).

Second, how long is it going to take to create this Expanded Diplomatic Corps? It's one thing to call for lots of new State people for diplomatic teams, but that takes time and expertise, unless you want to dilute their training and effectiveness.

Third, we need to be careful not to shift too heavily towards things like peacekeeping and counter-insurgency. Right now, the reason why we see largely these types of conflicts bubble is precisely because the US has such an overwhelming conventional military superiority - dilute that, and you'll change that situation rapidly. Moreover, while you can train conventional troops to do counter-insurgency and peacekeeping (witness the Surge in Iraq), can you do the reverse as easily, training peacekeepers to fight conventional wars?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 12/03/2008 - 11:33.

I don't think these picks, good as they are, innoculate Obama from criticism from the right. They're still going to be watching and waiting. This "shift in resources" (defense cuts) is a perilous undertaking, and the past tells a cautionary tale. In the '90's, eager to exploit the peace dividend, the Clinton Administration cut the military down to the bare bones, until it's ability to perform and react to a broad spectrum of possible exigencies was dangerously compromised.

It's just not the best area to be getting your budget cuts.

Once programs and people are out of the pipeline, and the pipeline is shut down, you have a doubly expensive effort to ramp them up should unforeseen events arise. Moreover, you will pay for politically-driven defense cuts in lives, both military and civilian, and reduce your odds of success in future operations.

Obama and the Dems should honestly appraise the entire government budget for areas of cost-cutting, and not fall into the ideologically knee-jerk impulse to target the military first for budget cuts. I notice none of the other departments of government are being sized up for major cuts. This is unusual, in this time of unpredictable terror threats, and two ongoing wars. Also, soft power only exists insofar as you have hard power. You have no soft diplomatic power without the knowledge that certain hard power backs it up. You need both, not one or the other. Without a sword in your sheath, why should anyone listen to you? Sheer moral authority and charisma won't be enough.

In our present euphoria, we need to remain grounded about risks and the real world, and not shortchange the one most important and legitimate function government has: defending this country.