F OCUS - American Foreign Service Association

foreign affairs agencies. The CRS
report cites the claim of many that
DOD is doing too much while State is
doing too little, noting that often the
latter has the authority while the former
has the resources.
The process by which executive
branch agencies and presidential
advisers present and prioritize issues
for presidential decision has also come
under criticism.
Proposed reforms include creation
of a body specifically devoted to interagency
coordination of national security
operations, one that includes a new
position of “presidential adviser;” creation
of a national security budget;
reorganization of congressional oversight;
and strengthening of the guidance
of national security. One recommendation
calls for the White House
to coordinate missions, instructing the
appropriate agencies with clear direction
on roles, resources and responsibilities.
There seems little question that a
change is in store, whether significant
or slight. For as the CRS report notes,
C YBERNOTES
Ithink that a big problem the State Department has had both with respect
to training and to planning is that the [Foreign] Service is too small to
have a sizable enough float of people ... We have thousands of people
involved in planning in DOD. And tens of thousands of people in training
at any given time, in advanced training, not just basic training.
— Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, addressing the
American Academy of Diplomacy, May 14, www.defenselink.mil/
transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4230.
50 Years Ago...
There never seems to be much trouble about getting
appropriations for our military forces ... [Yet] when it
comes to getting money to promote peace … there is always
a tough argument.
“Almost entirely missing from the
debates, to this point, are counterarguments
about the strengths of the
status quo.”
— Ariana Austin, Editorial Intern
Terrorism in Decline,
Says New Study
A report issued in May challenges
the expert consensus that the threat
of global terrorism is increasing. The
Human Security Brief 2007, produced
by a research team at Simon
Fraser University’s School for International
Studies in Vancouver, documents
a sharp net decline in the incidence
of terrorist violence around the
world (www.humansecuritybrief.
info/).
According to the report, fatalities
from terrorism have declined by 40
percent, while the loose-knit terror
network associated with Osama bin
Laden’s al-Qaida has suffered a dramatic
collapse in popular support in
the Muslim world.
Further, there has been a positive,
but largely unnoticed, change in sub-
— U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge,
quoted in the July 1958 FSJ.
JULY-AUGUST 2008/FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 11