Militarization of US Foreign Policy:
Necessary Trend or a Counterproductive Strategy?

10-11am
Thursday May 29
Washington DC
Rayburn House Office Building (Capitol Hill)

U.S. military leaders, including Secretary Defense Gates, have urged Congress to increase funding for civilian agencies like the State Department and US Agency for International Development (USAID) so that civilian agencies can 'stand-up' and implement vital national strategic goals of diplomacy and development.

Yet there remains a dramatic gap between the stated rhetorical requirements of a successful national security apparatus versus the actual resources and authorities provided to civilian federal agencies.  For example, from 1998 to 2005, the Pentagon's control over Official Development Assistance (ODA) grew from 3.5% to nearly 22%, while the US Agency for International Development's percentage of ODA reduced from 65% to 40%.  In many countries around the world, the main U.S. presence on the ground is the military, not diplomats or development workers.  

Does the increased military role in foreign policy and assistance undermine U.S. foreign policy goals?  What steps - if any - should Congress take to reverse this trend?  What are the effects on the ground of this shift in policy?  Does it matter?  To discuss these matters, Gordon Adams, former OMB Associate Director for National Security, and Joy Olson, of the Washington Office on Latin America, will discuss the growth of military involvement in foreign assistance as well as the on the ground implications of this trend.  


Speakers:

Dr. Gordon Adams
Professor, American University and Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center

For the previous seven years, Dr. Adams was a Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University and Director of the Schools Security Policy Studies Program. He was previously Deputy Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and served for five years as the Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, the senior White House budget official for national security.  He has been an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and received the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.

Joy Olson
Executive Director of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)

Joy is a Latin America human rights expert who has directed non-governmental human rights organizations for more than a decade. Ms Olson has co-authored three books on US military policy in Latin America.

Moderated by
Mark Malan
Director, Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping

Mark was formerly the head of the research department of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre in Ghana, and a senior researcher and head of the Peace Missions Program at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). He also has 20 years of service with the South African military. Mr. Malan has developed a number of regional peacekeeping training courses and manuals and has published extensively on issues relating to regional security and peacekeeping in Africa. He has been an active participant in the African and global policy debate on peace operations and was a contributing author to the supplementary volume of The Responsibility to Protect.

 

 


 

 

UNITED NATIONS EMERGENCY PEACE SERVICE:
ONE STEP TOWARD EFFECTIVE GENOCIDE PREVENTION

Date: Tuesday May 27, 2008
Time: 3:30 pm to 5:30pm
    Location: CSIS, 4th Floor Conference Room
United Nations Emergency Peace Service (3:30 pm - 4:30 pm)

From Darfur to Burma, the international community has been hamstrung by its inability to rapidly respond to genocide and other humanitarian emergencies.  The proposed United Nations Emergency Peace Service could fill the gap from the moment at which a peace operation is first authorized by the Security Council until such time as a conventional peacekeeping mission is deployed. This Service would help the U.S. to meet its dual goals of averting genocide and preventing loss of American life in dangerous environments.  

Don Kraus of Citizens for Global Solutions will make the case presented in CGS's new whitepaper United Nations Emergency Peace Service: One Step Toward Effective Genocide Prevention, that it is in the interests of the United States to support - both financially and diplomatically - the creation of a permanent integrated mission capacity within the U.N.   

Dr. Robert Zuber, UNEPS Secretariat and Mark Malan, Refugees International/PEP will serve as discussants, leading in a broader debate on the way forward for PEP participants.

                            Advocacy Updates/ Recent Missions (4:30 pm - 5:30 pm)
Mary Votava, Better World Campaign: Update on Peacekeeping and UN appropriations

Ann Vaughan, FCNL: DOD authorization bill - status of DOD requests for humanitarian/development/train and equip programs

Bill Durch, Henry L. Stimson Center - Policy analysis of the review of the UN Standing Police Capacity

Erin Weir, PEP/RI: Somalia mission - prospects for a UN peace operation

 

 

 

 

CSIS cordially invites you to a
Smart Power Speaker Series Event:

 

"The Future of UN Peacekeeping"

 

Jean-Marie Guéhenno
UN Under- Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations

Introduction by
Johanna Mendelson Forman
Senior Associate, CSIS

Thursday, March 27, 2008
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

 

UN peacekeeping is today the flagship enterprise of the United Nations and has become a central element of the international community's response to complex emergencies. During his eight year tenure as chief of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Mr. Guéhenno has seen the number of deployed UN troops double to over 100,000 with an annual budget of around $7.5 billion in order to protect vulnerable populations and help local communities transition from a post-conflict to a development environment.

The Smart Power Speaker Series features policymakers, practitioners and opinion leaders from around the world and across the political spectrum to engage in a discussion on U.S. Smart Power. The series is a spin-off of the CSIS Commission on Smart Power.

The Commission on Smart Power, chaired by Harvard's Joseph Nye and former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, issued a report on November 6, 2007 on how to revitalize America's image and influence in the world. To read the report or obtain further information, go to
www.csissmartpower.org.

 

Coffee, tea, and soda will be served.