Obama Administration Reform in United States

The Obama Administration and Interagency Reform in relation to Building Civilian Interagency Capacity for Missions Abroad

This section discusses generally the subject of The Obama Administration and Interagency Reform in the above context, offering the key elements of the topic.In his January 25, 2011, State of the Union address, President Barack H. Obama signaled his intent to make the U.S. government more competent and more efficient through a major reorganization, stating that his Administration would “develop a proposal to merge, consolidate, and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America [19].” The Obama Administration initially embraced key Bush Administration civilian capacity-building initiatives. In the early months of the Obama Administration, Administration officials signaled their support for civilian Stabilization and Reconstruction capabilities. In her January 2009 confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asserted that the State Department needed to secure funding to carry out Stabilization and Reconstruction missions and to demonstrate competence in conducting them. Then Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates reiterated his support for increasing civilian capabilities, which he first expressed while serving in that position under former President George W. Bush [20]. Subsequently, the Obama Administration scaled back Bush Administration plans for the Civilian Response Corps and the implementation of the National Security Professional Development program, perhaps because of the cost or difficulty of fully implementing them. However, it also announced a number of its own modest steps in line with the recommendations of the many studies to enhance civilian leadership, capabilities, collaboration, and coordination, and to reduce ad hoc measures.

In May 2010, the White House set forth a statement of its intent to strengthen national security through a whole-of-government approach. In its 2010 National Security Strategy, the Obama Administration stated that to foster national security the United States “must update, balance, and integrate all of the tools of American power and work with our allies and partners to do the same [21].” It called for maintaining the military’s superiority in conventional welfare and enhancing other military capabilities, as well as investing “in diplomacy and development capabilities and institutions in a way that complements and reinforces our global partners [22].” It outlined three pages of steps to take to improve defense, diplomacy, development, intelligence, homeland security, economic institutions, strategic communication, and partnerships with the for-profit private sector and non-profit nongovernmental organizations.

More Details about The Obama Administration and Interagency Reform

In December 2010, the State Department and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) jointly issued a “Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review” or QDDR (modeled after the statutorily required Department of Defense Quadrennial Defense Review Report or Quadrennial Defense Review [23]), assessing U.S. diplomacy and development capabilities and proposing reforms to make them more efficient and achieve “whole-of-government” cohesion [24]. The 2010 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, undertaken by the Obama Administration without a statutory requirement, embraced a number of the proposals (or variations of those proposals) for national security reform that have been advocated over the past decade. These include efforts to integrate national security budgets, elevate the status of key State Department offices tasked with coordinating interagency efforts, create new regional structures, enhance the ability of Ambassadors to lead embassies and influence policy-making, and promote personnel reforms. (These are further discussed in Appendices B through E, below.)

Note: Based on the Building Civilian Interagency Capacity for Missions Abroad: Key Proposals and Issues for Congress Report.

Resources

Notes and References

1. 19 President Obama’s January 25, 2011 State of the Union Speech can be accessed through the White House website at /the-press-office/2011/01/25/remarks-president-state-union-address.

   20 See, U.S. Department of Defense. Speech by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, delivered at Kansas State University, Manhattan, KA (the “Landon Lecture”), November 26, 2007 http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1199, hereinafter cited as Gates’ Landon Lecture, 2007; U.S. Department of Defense, Speech by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates at the U.S. Africa Command Activation Ceremony, Washington, DC, October 1, 2008 http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid= 1281; and U.S. Department of Defense, Speech by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, delivered at the Nixon Center, Washington, D.C, February 24, 2010 http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1425.

   21 The White House, National Security Strategy, May 2010, p. 14.

   22 Ibid.

2. 23 Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, February 2010, p. 2. Hereinafter referred to as Quadrennial Defense Review. For a discussion of the Quadrennial Defense Review, see CRS Report R41250, Quadrennial Defense Review 2010: Overview and Implications for National Security Planning, by Stephen Daggett. Also see CRS Report RL34505, National Security Strategy: Legislative Mandates, Execution to Date, and Considerations for Congress, by Catherine Dale.

   24 U.S. U.S. Department of State and United States Agency for International Development, The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, Washington, DC, December 15, 2010. Henceforth referred to as Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. (For more information on the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, see CRS Report R41173, Foreign Aid Reform, National Strategy, and the Quadrennial Review, by Susan B. Epstein.) The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review document further points to relations with other agencies, private contractors, and state and local governments: “More specifically, State will enter into interagency agreements, consistent with existing law, to draw on the skills, expertise and personnel of other federal agencies before turning to private contractors where State determines that building in-house government capability or promoting bilateral working relationships furthers our foreign policy priorities. For certain core functions, State will also establish a presumption to enter into agreements to draw on other agencies and state and local government, where appropriate, to implement State programs overseas…. State will use private contractors for non-governmental functions when other agencies lack appropriate skills or are otherwise unwilling or unable to provide the services needed in an effective manner.” Pp. 33-34.

Further Reading

• Heritage 2005—Heritage Foundation, Winning the Peace: Principles for Post-Conflict Operations, by James Carafano and Dana Dillon, June 13, 2005.
• Heritage 2008—Heritage Foundation, Managing Mayhem: The Future of Interagency, by James Carafano, March 1, 2008.
• Lamb/Marks 2009—Lamb, Christopher J. and Edward Marks,), Chief of Mission Authority as a Model for National Security Integration, Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), October 2009.
• SIGIR 2010—Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. Applying Iraq’s Hard Lessons to the Reform of Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations, Arlington, VA, February 2010.
• Smith 2010—Dane F. Smith, Jr., Organizing American Peace-Building Operations, Praeger (in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies), Santa Barbara, CA, 2010.
• ACTD 2007—U.S. State Department Advisory Committee on Transformatio
  nal Diplomacy, Final Report of the State Department in 2025 Working Group, 2007.
• Brookings/Center for Strategic and International Studies 2010—Brookings Institution and Center for Strategic and International Studies. Capacity for Change: Reforming U.S. Assistance Efforts in Poor and Fragile Countries, by Norm Unger and Margaret L. Taylor, with Frederick Barton, April 2010.
• Buchanan/Davis/Wight 2009—Buchanan, Jeffrey, Maxie Y. Davis, and Lee T. Wight, “Death of the Combatant Command? Toward a Joint Interagency Approach,” Joint Force Quarterly, no. 52 (1st quarter 2009).
• PNSR 2010—Project on National Security Reform, The Power of People, 2010.
• QDR 2006—U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, February 6, 2006.
• CGD 2004—Center for Global Development Commission on Weak States and U.S. National Security. On the Brink: Weak States and U.S. National Security, May 2004.
• CGD 2007—Center for Global Development. The Pentagon and Global Development: Making Sense of the DoD’s Expanding Role, November 2007.
• Center for Strategic and International Studies/Association of the U.S. Army 2003—Center for Strategic and International Studies and Association of the U.S. Army, Play to Win: Final Report of the bi-partisan Commission on Post-Conflict Reconstruction, January 2003.
• QDRIP 2010—Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel, The Quadrennial Defense Review in Perspective: Meeting America’s National Security Needs in the 21st Century, The Final Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review Panel (Report mandated by Section 1031(f) P.L. 109-364, the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for FY2007, as amended by Section 1061, P.L. 111-84, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2010), 2010.
• RAND 2009—RAND, Improving Capacity for Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations, by Nora Bensahel, Olga Oliker, Heather Peterson, Sponsored by the Department of Defense, Santa Monica CA, 2009.
• CWC 2011—Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Transforming Wartime Contracting: Controlling costs, reducing risks, Final Report to Congress, August 2011.
• DSB 2004—Defense Science Board, Summer Study on Transition to and from Hostilities, December 2004.
• Flournoy/Brimley 2006—Flournoy, Michele A. and Shawn W. Brimley, Strategic Planning for National Security: A New Project Solarium, Joint Forces Quarterly, Issue 41, 2nd quarter, 2006.
• Schnake/Berkowitz 2005—Schnake, Kori and Bruce Berkowitz, National Security: A Better Approach, Hoover Digest, No. 4, 2005.
• SFRC 2007—U.S. Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Embassies Grapple to Guide Foreign Aid, 2007.
• NDU 2004—National Defense University, Transforming for Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations, 2004.

  Pope 2010—Pope, Robert S., Lt. Col., USAF, “U.S. Interagency Regional Foreign Policy Implementation: A Survey of Current Practice and an Analysis of Options for Improvement”, (A Research Report Submitted to the Air Force Fellows Program, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, April 2010), belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/Files/Pope_10_AFF_Reearch_Paper_FINAL-2022.pdf.

• PNSR 2008—Project on National Security Reform, Forging a New Shield (Report mandated by Section 1049, P.L. 110-181, National Defense Authorization Act for FY2009), November 2008.
• PNSR 2009—Project on National Security Reform, Turning Ideas Into Action, September 2009.
• Stimson/American Academy of Diplomacy 2011—The Henry L. Stimson Center and The American Academy of Diplomacy, Forging a 21st-Century Diplomatic Service for the United States though Professional Education and Training, February 2011.

  U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (known as the Hart/Rudman Commission), Phase III Report, Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change, February 15, 2001.

• Williams/Adams 2008—Williams, Cindy and Gordon Adams, Strengthening Statecraft and Security: Reforming U.S. Planning and Resource Allocation, MIT Security Studies Program, Occasional Paper, June 2008.
• Cerami 2007—Cerami, Joseph R. “What is to be Done? Aligning and Integrating the Interagency Process in Support and Stability Operations, in The Interagency and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Roles, edited by Joseph R. Cerami and Jay W. Boggs, U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA, December 2007.

  Council on Foreign Relations 2005—Council on Foreign Relations, In the Wake of War: Improving U.S. Post-Conflict Capabilities, Report of an Independent Task Force, Task Force Report No. 55, September 2005.

• Council on Foreign Relations 2009—Council on Foreign Relations, Enhancing U.S. Preventive Action, Council Special Report No. 48, October 2009.
• QDR 2010—U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, February 1, 2010.
• QDDR 2010—U.S. State Department and United States Agency for International Development, The Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, Washington, DC, December 2010.
• Center for Strategic and International Studies 2004—Center for Strategic and International Studies, Beyond Goldwater-Nichols Phase I, 2004.
• Center for Strategic and International Studies 2005—Center for Strategic and International Studies, Beyond Goldwater-Nichols Phase II, 2005.
• Center for Strategic and International Studies 2007—Center for Strategic and International Studies, Integrating 21st Century Development and Security Assistance, 2007.
• RAND/American Academy of Diplomacy 2008—RAND and the American Academy of Diplomacy, Integrating Instruments of Power and Influence: Lessons Learned and Best Practices, Report of a Panel of Senior Practitioners, 2008.
• RAND/American Academy of Diplomacy 2006—RAND and the American Academy of Diplomacy, Integrating Instruments of Power and Influence in National Security: Starting the Dialogue, Conference Proceedings, 2006.