Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged a transformation of U.S. diplomatic efforts to incorporate broader civilian involvement in tandem with military actions during a Feb. 12 speech in Gaston Hall.

A “civilian response corps” would employ expertise in post-conflict reconstruction and the ability to flag struggling countries, she said.

Rice proposed the civilian response corps as post-conflict first responders, bringing with them the medical, educational, health, security and agricultural resources to help nations recover. The plan will alleviate pressure on the military to shoulder the burden of reconstruction. In times of peace, the corps would use its resources to keep struggling nations from the brink, she added.

The secretary of state came to Georgetown to advocate for transformational diplomacy, something she last spoke about at the university in 2006. She defines this concept as the United States using its diplomatic power to build well-governed states that respond to peoples’ needs.

“We define the success of transformational diplomacy as a new kind of engagement between people,” Rice said to a near-capacity crowd in Gaston Hall. “Diplomacy of the future will increasingly take the form of aligning our people with those of the world.”

Capitalizing on civilian forces is part of modernizing the state department in the face of a more interconnected global society, she said. When civilians become more involved in diplomacy, it harnesses America’s resources, something no government department has truly been able to accomplish, especially in large-scale redevelopment missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, Rice explained.

“Change isn’t easy, especially right now when the international system is reordering itself and when we’re rethinking many of our assumptions about international politics,” Rice said. “There are no precedents or playbooks for the work we’re doing. We are trying to do things that quite literally have never been done before.”

Shifting global politics puts to the forefront countries that never played a significant role in international affairs. Just several years ago, the United States had the same size diplomatic corps in Germany as it did in India – something that is no longer logical.

The emergence of more international players creates both opportunities for trade, growth and development and potential dangers if weak states are unable to govern effectively, Rice said.

“Many of these states are falling behind … and when they do, they create holes in the fabric of the international system where terrorists can arm and train followers [and] where criminal networks can traffic arms, drugs and people,” she said.

Increasing such work means retooling the U.S. diplomatic corps, the secretary said. She said she wants to start by increasing the diplomatic staff and urging Congress to approve more than 1,000 new positions in addition to the 2,000 added in recent years. Disproportionate to land mass and population amounts, the U.S. diplomatic corps currently is roughly the size of the United Kingdom’s.

Foreign service officers also must be trained to face new realities including less cushy assignments in developing nations, Rice said. She would like to see less of the corps based in Washington, D.C., and many more sent overseas to reflect recent shifts in global power.

A final step to modernize foreign diplomacy is rethinking how foreign aid and policy are entwined. Rice called for a shift in diplomacy that recognizes how policy changes occur suddenly and how the effects of aid and development are seen over longer periods. This is important for creating strong governments and civil societies in emerging democracies, she said.

“If [development] goals become subservient to foreign policy goals,” Rice said, “you’re going to have an erosion of the ability of foreign assistance to really make a dent in the long-term problems of poverty.”

-- Lauren Burgoon

(February 14, 2008)