Commissioner Q and A
Commissioners Dr. Patrick Cronin, Brian Atwood, Ellen Laipson, Dr. Chester A. Crocker, Dr. Susan Rice, and Jennifer Windsor answer questions regarding the research and report by the commission.
Dr. Patrick Cronin
Dr. Patrick Cronin , Senior Vice President and Director of Studies, Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), discusses how development assistance can be used effectively in states with weak governance.Prior to joining CSIS, Cronin served as assistant administrator for policy and program coordination at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), where he chaired an interagency task force charged with designing the Millennium Challenge Corporation.
Q: In 2004, President Bush launched a new foreign aid initiative, the Millennium Challenge Account, which will provide increased assistance to well-governed, low-income countries.In what ways can foreign assistance be used effectively in countries with poorly performing governments?
A: The Millennium Challenge Account offers a promising new approach to achieving sustainable economic growth in poor countries committed to sound political and economic policies.But many countries in the developing world fall far short of these commitments, and yet we must find a way to engage them effectively.In some cases, the United States can work with elements within a government, perhaps at a local level, to meet immediate basic needs or help strengthen political, economic and social institutions.In other cases, the United States will be reduced to pure humanitarian assistance, helping vulnerable men, women and children with their immediate basic survival needs.In these cases, aid may not be building sustainable development. However, with the right mixture of diplomacy and aid, it may be possible to set the stage for future development.
Brian Atwood
J. Brian Atwood , Dean of the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, explains why the Commission recommends that the US government re-organize itself to face the development challenges of the 21st century. Atwood served for six years as administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) during the Clinton Administration.
Q: The Commission advocates the creation of a new Cabinet-level development agency as a way of putting an end the fragmentation of US development assistance.Why is it important to elevate development to Cabinet-level status?How would this new agency differ from USAID (US Agency for International Development)?
A: The Commission believes that weak and failed states constitute a major threat to US security and that this threat can only be mitigated by placing renewed emphasis on the development and post-conflict reconstruction missions. It was felt that current efforts to undertake these objectives are hampered by an absence of coordination within the US Government and the relative weakness of USAID over development policy matters. In addition, no current department of government considers its primary mission to be post-conflict reconstruction. The situation in Iraq underscores the need for a permanent institutional capacity in government to undertake this vital mission.
The Commission was impressed by a presentation made by a representative of the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom Government. This Department coordinates all development assistance programs within the UK. The Secretary of State for DFID works very closely with the British Foreign Secretary and has a strong policy voice within the UK government. The Commission believes that both enhanced coordination and a more coherent approach to the challenges of weak and failing states could result from a system similar to the British model.
The US foreign policy architecture was created for a world in which development was a long-term, low-level challenge, one in which development might serve diverse strategic purposes but was not in itself a strategic imperative. This recommendation elevates the development mission and gives the US Government an enhanced capacity to conduct preventive development initiatives as well as respond to dangerous deteriorating conditions in the developing world. The Commission recognizes the connection between debilitating poverty and violent conflict, state failure and terrorism and believes that a cabinet department can provide important institutional capacity not now available to address this urgent challenge.
Ellen Laipson
Ellen Laipson , president and CEO of the Henry L. Stimson Center – a Washington-based think tank, discusses the role of the intelligence community in identifying weak states and preventing state failure.During her 25 years of government service, Laipson served as Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC), the Acting Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, and the National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asia.
Q: The intelligence community has limited resources and a number of important priorities including weapons of mass destruction, rogue states and state sponsors of terrorism. Given these competing priorities, what more can the intelligence community do to ensure that US decision-makersare better informed about weak and failed states?
A: The Intelligence Community can contribute to policymakers' understanding of the phenomenon of weak states through analysis of specific cases of clear interest to the United States and through development of useful warning indicators that could be developed generically and then applied to particular situations. Considerable expertise and sophisticated methodologies are already available; the level of effort by the Intelligence Community will be driven in part by the demand, the level of interest expressed by policymakers, and by the quality of the data available.It is unrealistic to expect the Intelligence Community to have robust capability on every failed or failing state, but effective use of unclassified information on those places where there may not be an official American presence can partially compensate for these constraints. The challenge of monitoring and understanding failed states lends itself to enhanced collaboration between government analysts and non-government experts.
Dr. Chester A. Crocker
Dr. Chester A. Crocker is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and holds the James R. Schlesinger Chair in Strategic Studies at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.From 1981 to 1989, Crocker served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.He articulates why US leadership is essential in addressing weak and failed states and offers some tangible recommendations for policymakers.
Q: In September 2003, you authored an article in Foreign Affairs entitled “Engaging Failing States.”In it, you call for greater US leadership to address the threats posed by weak and failing states, which you describe as “arguably the leading menace on the globe.”What are some tangible ways the US can exercise such leadership?
A: The real problem is that it is hard to think strategically about contemporary challenges to global security. Today's enemies are often generic, rather than specific. It is so much easier to get Washington pundits energized about Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Il.But it is harder to get people focused on generic, abstract adversaries like the threat of state failure in transitional societies, the menace of criminal mafias and illegal enterprises which subvert legitimate order and "Colombia-nize" their societies, and the threat posed by bad leaders who exploit fear and ethnicity to wage war on neighbors while lining their own pockets.We have been aggressively focused on containing the threat of terrorism and WMD proliferation, but have typically failed to engage in addressing the underlying geopolitical factors and systemic changes which create opportunities for these horrible possibilities to occur. The basic problem in many cases is not terrorists or weapons technologies; it is unresolved regional conflicts, the lost credibility of external security guarantees by distracted and over-burdened external actors, and a sense of drift concerning the crises of governance and state weakness.
Effective strategic action includes: backing winners by strengthening trade and investment linkages, providing access to developed country markets, assisting the process of financial sector liberalization and regional integration, and focused training and exchange programs. But it also means containing the zone of failure and instability, engaging in peacemaking where appropriate (the use of force may be a central ingredient), and bolstering local capabilities for concerted action. We need the means to engage with societies in turmoil and help them engage with their neighbors, build linkages offering hope to their civil society institutions, break the monopoly of media power in the hands of oppressive regimes, attack the iron grip of the siege economy, and target the conflicts themselves which sustain the “bad guys.”
These ideas all point toward the cardinal importance of conflict management, mediation, and creative interventions. Conflict management itself has become a strategic issue for the US.Viewed strategically—seizing the initiative in order to shape the situation—conflict management can become a primary tool for building regional security in troubled zones. In addition, we need to understand better the process by which effective and legitimate states can emerge in transitional societies, and to engage concretely in creating incentives so that local state institutions acquire sovereign capability in the fields of security, border control, financial sector oversight and liberalization, criminal justice and the rule of law, health and education. Weak states are a threat to US interests. This report offers a credible and serious approach for developing a strategic response.
Dr. Susan Rice
Dr. Susan Rice is a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution.In the Clinton Administration, Dr. Rice held several senior posts including Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs (1997-2001) and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs, National Security Council (1995-1997).She offers some concrete ideas about what the US can do help improve peacekeeping capacities in the developing world.
Q: The US military is often called on to put out fires around the globe.What steps can the United States take to ensure that other militaries help share the burden of peacekeeping and peace enforcement?
A: Ten years after the Rwandan genocide, it is still only the United States, United Kingdom and France that have the capacity for rapid, large-scale military response to humanitarian crises.Yet, as in 1994, these three countries may not have the will or perhaps even the available forces to intervene.To begin to repair this unacceptable situation, it is necessary to build additional international military capacity, particularly in African states, to respond swiftly and effectively to crises.
In 1996, the Clinton administration launched a program called the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI). The goal was to train and equip seven to 10 interoperable battalions, which with airlift provided by others, could undertake complex humanitarian interventions effectively.More than 10,000 troops have now been trained under this program and its successor, though so far preparation has focused mostly on easier peacekeeping missions than on forcible operations. The Clinton administration also conducted a temporary but major program to prepare West African units for service in Sierra Leone. But so far all these programs have been too modest in scale.
Fortunately, additional initiatives may be underway. During a February summit of the African Union, the European Union pledged $300 million towards the creation, training, and equipping of five regional, multinational stand-by brigades. The goal is that they should be able to handle traditional peacekeeping by 2005 and more complex peace enforcement or intervention missions by 2010.More recently, President Bush announced an American counterpart to this effort, the Global Peace Operations Initiative.This program, if funded by Congress (which unfortunately appears unlikely) would provide $660 million over five years, much of it to Africa.
The idea of five rapidly deployable stand-by brigades, built from battalions of individual countries but each led by a multinational headquarters with adequate support elements, is precisely the right one. One such brigade, with about 3,000 troops, could protect a threatened city or refugee camp or patrol a cease-fire line. Acting together, several of the brigades could even help forcibly to quell mass killing as in Rwanda a decade ago. Five brigades is not enough for the long term, but is a good start.
Jennifer Windsor
Jennifer Windsor is Executive Director of Freedom House and has held several senior positions at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), including Deputy Assistant Administrator. Ms. Windsor speaks about the link between democracy and state weakness, and evaluates US democracy promotion efforts.
Q: Why is democracy so central to US efforts to promote development in weak and failed states? How can the United States better organize itself to promote democracy and expand political freedom in the developing world?
A: The lack of democratic governance lies at the heart of the problem of state failure. An accountable and representative system of government which abides by the rule of law and respects basic rights – in other words, a democracy – is able to more successfully cope with the range of both development and security challenges that countries around the world now face. The U.S. needs to ensure it has adequate resources to address this important goal, and to make sure that those resources are strategically allocated to meet global needs and opportunities. In addition, the U.S. should more systematically evaluate the potential impact of policy decisions on the prospects for democracy within particular countries.