Preface
Everyone agrees that diplomacy and international affairs have changed dramatically in the past half-century, and the changes are continuing.  One aspect of that change is the divergence between diplomacy and international affairs, terms, which were once close to synonyms.  But they are no longer so as two major systemic changes have occurred. First, international relations used to concern essentially relations between governments, largely conducted by ministries of foreign affairs (except for occasionally breaks where ministries of war took over) by a process usually referred to as diplomacy.  Increasingly, however, government-to-government relations involve the whole spectrum of government activities —now including inter alia education, environmental questions, human rights, the internet  — and ministries of foreign affairs have great difficulty in holding on to even a minimal gatekeeper role.  (They are more successful in some countries and less so in others, notably the U. S.).

The second big change has been the expansion of the players’ list, as international organizations, global companies, NGOs, global criminal organizations, transnational terrorist organizations, and individuals have come into the international affairs arena.  National governments may remain the biggest gorillas on the scene, but no longer are they alone. 

This situation poses a major challenge to traditionally organized governments, in general, and to the United States in particular given its role in world. How to deal with this changed situation is a major topic of think tank activity these days, and reform proposals are abundant.  This paper discusses one approach, proposing the creation of a “Next Generation Department of State”. 

First, however, there is a need to note an important caveat.  The usual reaction to the proposal outlined below is immediate rejection on one of two grounds:  it is nothing more than an imperial expansion of the State Department, and who in his right mind could believe that the Department of State could manage the challenge and tasks proposed. 

But this proposal is not about folding a range of existing organizations and tasks into the present Department of State, a la the integration of USIA into State in the 1990s.  Instead its purpose is to disassemble State and create a new department, organized on different principals.  We may keep the name Department of State, for sentimental and historical reasons, but the Next Generation Department of State proposed here is a very different creature.  The analogy is removing the hood ornament from an automobile and moving a whole new vehicle in under it. Think of the original Volkswagen Beetle – and the current VW Passant!

The Next Generation Department of State
In the very early days of the Obama Administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enunciated her mantra of the Three Ds — Diplomacy, Development and Defense.  In doing so she, pinpointed USAID’s future role in and the future of development assistance writ large in the broader context of the conduct of American foreign affairs. To emphasize the importance of this approach and her – and presumably the Administration’s — intention to move on this approach, Secretary of State Clinton announced on July 10, 2009 that “to get ahead of emerging threats and opportunities and to make the case effectively for OMB, the Congress, and the people of our country for the resources we need, today” the Department and USAID will,” for the first time ever, conduct a Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review”. 

“The QDDR accomplishes two goals," a State Department official told The Cable on background. It "moves our present planning from [a] year-to-year, annual appropriations-driven process. And it lashes up our two pillars, diplomacy and development," which are currently "separated by two appropriations processes and separate bureaucracies."

Still unclear, however, is Secretary Clinton’s vision of how wide a net she and the Administration intend to throw.  After all, no matter how you define it, departments and agencies other than the Department of State practice much American diplomacy, and departments and agencies other than USAID pursue much economic development.  In fact, at the moment twenty-seven or so agencies — in addition to those of the Department of Defense — have formal representation overseas: a veritable diaspora of bureaucracies.

In this situation there is no way to ensure that our message and actions are unified and consistent with overall foreign policy priorities and objectives.²   Only in the White House and in the individual Country Teams of American Embassies are these diverse programs considered as a total package.  Even then, limitations on presidential span of control and attention make any oversight sporadic and incomplete, and the de facto authority of the Chief of Mission within US Embassies is too limited to always ensure even tactical integration.

As a result, programs — from economic relations to development assistance, humanitarian relief, diplomatic presence, public broadcasting, migration, human rights, political-military engagement, arms control, and educational exchanges, science and technology and many others — are fractured and spread across many agencies and bureaus.

In addition, today’s turbulent world confronts us with two contrasting categories of foreign affairs activities that present different management requirements: steady state and crisis response.  Steady state operations are oriented toward conducting normal foreign relations activities not currently affected by crisis or serious conflict.  Crisis response situations are episodic and require special attention during their occurrence.  Both require close and even integrated management systems in the contemporary world but in both cases providing integrated management has been sporadic and ad hoc. The continuing occurrence of crises over the past two decades has led to an increased interest in the development of new institutional solutions, such as State’s Coordinator for Stabilization and Reconstruction (S/CRS).

Secretary Clinton’s commendable intention to manage the two Ds runs into an obvious limitation.  She is the Secretary of State but the current Department of State was not designed and is not currently equipped to manage the increasingly diverse responsibilities of the United States government in a globalized world. Nevertheless, while the Department of State continues to occupy the center of the conduct of foreign affairs community, it is too narrowly focused on traditional diplomacy and does not exercise sufficient authority or possess sufficient resources to manage the full range of global affairs effectively.  Specifically the Department of State, as presently constituted, does not encompass the necessary range of USG programs which, in fact, comprise those elements of inter-governmental concern which commonly referred to as diplomacy.  Secondly, the Secretary of State does not have the use of a robust executive management and personnel structure which would enable him or her to effectively provide strategic leadership, oversight and coordination over the conduct of foreign affairs of the United States Government.

A Next Generation State Department
Obviously Secretary Clinton’s vision fits into the concept of “Whole of Government”, the    current catchphrase for a better integrated, better-coordinated government. In pursuit of that objective, one of the changes proposed for a more effective “Whole of Government” in general and a more effective the U.S. national security system in particular is a Department of State capable of managing “Steady State” operations and of participating in “Crisis Response” situations more effectively.  To achieve these two objectives, this paper proposes the consolidation of the majority of international programs in a ‘Next Generation State Department” (a reinvented Department of State) which would be structured as a comprehensive, mission-oriented organization, have an effective executive management structure and process, and a new institutional culture based on a single system-wide personnel system combined with a comprehensive professional educational system.

This consolidation of civilian foreign affairs programs into a single department would replace the current Department of State and a plethora of other independent bureaucratic organizations. Implementation of this proposal requires either the creation of a wholly new department or the complete transformation of the current Department of State – a transformation so complete that it would be the equivalent of taking the hood ornament off an automobile and moving a new vehicle in under it.

The policy rationale for this proposal is twofold: first, that there is currently in the USG little capacity for making-trade-offs at the strategic or regional levels, and secondly that programs promoting soft power lack integration and coordination.  A through assessment of this problem of the absence of effective cross-department executive authority was made in the report “Forging a New Shield” by the Project on National Security Reform, a congressionally mandated effort that involved a wide coalition of organizations and individuals.³   Effective integration requires that “we must elevate and integrate the unique dimensions of development, diplomacy, and public diplomacy into a unified whole.”⁴

The organizational objective of this unified whole would be to empower a “Secretary of State” authorized to coordinate the entire international relations mechanism abroad and thus be in a position to better implement presidential policy by ensuring that the various programs marched to a single drum.  Such a Secretary would dispose of a broad enough mandate, a rich enough portfolio, and a resource base robust enough to produce an enhanced international status as well as a greater ability to hold his/her leadership position in the upper levels of U.S. governmental competition. Combining these programs into a single department means in essence the consolidation of a number of existing bureaucratic stovepipes, Bundling together related authorities and resources would provide for effective executive authority below the White House and would achieve greater unity of effort and unity of purpose among related programs.  In other words, it would give this community of disparate programs and agencies a corporate headquarters that would produce integrated strategies and drive integrated action to accomplish the USG’s priority missions. This would not in itself resolve the integration problem for the total national security system but would simplify the problem by providing effective delegated presidential authority over a significant segment of that system.

There are numerous precedents for this approach.  The Department of Defense is the oldest and most successful model, although the newer Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence are more recent efforts, although still works in progress. As the concept of “jointness” revolutionized American defense capabilities after the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, the reinvented Department of State would draw upon a combination of directive authority, procedural, human capital and cultural changes.

Creating a Department of State with this new character would not in itself result in an increase in the overall budget for foreign relations activities.  It would, however, provide the means to use whatever resources are available more effectually.  To that end, it would be necessary to coordinate the resources of the agencies and programs brought within the Department.  Giving a single Secretary authority over a comprehensive budget should decrease the ineffectual overspending or under spending that is currently characterizes diverse and autonomous programs executed without respect to broader foreign policy objectives.  In addition, the coordination of programs should enhance the synergism between complimentary programs within the consolidated department and enable it to have an appropriate voice in the international activities of other agencies through the formulation of a strategic foreign affairs policy and supporting budget. 

Two other major “macro” results are envisaged for a consolidated “Next Generation State Department”. The Secretary of a “Next Generation State Department” authorized to coordinate the entire international relations mechanism abroad to implement presidential policy would have enhanced this international status and ability to exert global influence. Secondly, creating a ‘Next Generation State Department’ that consolidates related programs would also help correct the imbalance between the military and civilian elements of national power.  This imbalance is due as much to a disparity in authority as a disparity in resources.

The proposed consolidation or re-invention of the Department of State is discussed below in greater detail, focusing on four primary elements:

Guidelines for Consolidation
In essence, we are proposing to deconstruct State and join its component parts with bureaucratic units from across government with related missions and who also operate externally.  These activities are sometimes referred to collectively as “soft power”.⁵

Each of these new bureaucratic operating units — functional bureaus on steroids —  would be organized around a major foreign relations theme such as economic and trade relations, economic development, crisis response, public diplomacy and information, political-military engagement, migration and immigration, the nexus of transnational threats (terrorism, narcotics, international crime. Consolidating related substantive bureaucratic entities now spread around distinct departments and agencies would form each. These units would be headed at an appropriate level, probably Assistant Secretary although some such as economic development might be at the Under or even Deputy Secretary level, and would function as substantive mission focused “agencies” responsible for policy development in their areas of competence as well as capability providers to the operational chain of command.

The objective is an omnibus or big tent type of department; one with a greater range of substantive programs than, for instance, the Department of Defense but less than the Department of Homeland Security.  Constructing this department will require thoughtful analysis and lengthy negotiations about who to include and who to leave out.  The following general guidelines for the selection of existing bureaucratic entities and programs to be moved are proposed:

The most obvious and pressing area for consolidation, currently under active consideration in Washington, is that of economic development.  At the moment, five institutions—the Department of Defense, State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, or MCC, and the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, manage the bulk of foreign assistance, but without the benefit of a clear division of labor based on comparative advantage. A number recent studies and reports have concluded that consolidation is desirable.

For example the HELP Commission Report⁶ core conclusion is the need to obtain a more integrated approach to our government’s development assistance. As this study points out, for decades America has applied piecemeal fixes to complex development challenges, often through multiple U.S. Government agencies. However for real effectiveness, trade, investment, political engagement, and public diplomacy must complement our assistance. Authority and accountability should not be scattered across the government. Therefore it is necessary to reorganize all U.S. international affairs functions. The HELP Commission strongly argued that development should be elevated to equal status with defense and diplomacy, requiring dramatic changes to the existing structure.  Although the Commission took varying views on what form that structure should take, including that of a new stand-alone Department of Development, the majority of Commissioners opted for the merger of all development agencies into the Department of State so that the Secretary of State manages all aspects of U.S foreign policy and foreign assistance. However that merger would be predicated on the assumption that in this new consolidated Department of State development should be elevated to equal status with defense and diplomacy and those dramatic changes to the existing structure would make that equivalence clear. Annex A provides some guidelines to the proposed consolidation.

Another aspect of this question is the need for a more effective structure for State to partner effectively with DoD in managing crisis response, given the relationship between economic development and crisis response or post-conflict reconstruction. There is an obvious operational continuum ranging from class aid projects to contemporary crisis response and post conflict reconstruction.  The skill sets are the same to a remarkable degree as are the personnel involved as USAID’s offices of Civilian Response, Democracy and Governance, Foreign Disaster Assistance, Food for Peace, and OFDA and their recent roles in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the East Asia tsunami amply demonstrate. 
Therefore it is proposed that the present USAID and Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) recently created and located in the Department of State, be consolidated with programs and organizations such as Millennium Challenge into a “Development and Crisis Response Organization” headed by a Deputy or Under Secretary of State for Development and Crisis Response.

A number of recent studies and reports support this approach. For instance, a December 20008 by the National Defense University “suggests that USAID should be the operational agency charged with training and equipping civilians for complex missions. This will require doubling its personnel strength and endowing it with new authorities akin to those associated in the past with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and new funding to reimburse other agencies that provide personnel for overseas deployment. USAID also will need to undergo a significant cultural change. To promote that change, and to reflect its new mission, USAID might be renamed the Agency for Development and Reconstruction (USADR). The reconstituted USAID/USADR might have two basic divisions, one for each major function.”⁷

Another notional example of the operating units being proposed might be an “Agency for Trans-National Security”, composed of (currently organizational location in parentheses):

Other departments and agencies would participate in the new Department in both the operating units and the operational management or chain of command system by a number of means.  A formal and extensive personnel exchange system, modeled on the present State-DOD exchange agreement should be concluded with a wide range of departments. Recruitment for positions, including the most senior, would be government wide. In particular, strong on-site representation from the US Special Operations Command and the Director of National Intelligence will be desired. Staff positions at all levels should be open to recruiting from across the national security system (and visa versa).  Extensive formal networking and greater us of team organization are major themes of the PNSR program and will contribute to a more collegial relationship between ‘DIR” and other departments.

The Organizational Structure
Building on these basic concepts, the organizational structure would consist of five basic bureaucratic building blocks:

1) An empowered, executive Secretary of State directly supervising a defined      number of operating units and their programs.
2) An empowered Secretary of State with specifically defined authority to coordinate foreign affairs operations for related foreign affairs activities of agencies and departments not consolidated with the new State, e.g. Treasury, Justice, Agriculture, Commerce.
3) A coherent chain of operational command from the Secretary, through Regional Under/Assistant Secretaries, and one Under/Assistant Secretary for Multilateral Relations, to Chiefs of Mission. 
4) A “community” of substantive units or bureaus, including some sub-Cabinet level agencies, each mission oriented towards a specific aspect of foreign relations, including an institutional crisis response capability.
5) A revamped, expanded, and unitary “foreign affairs” or “diplomatic” personnel system designed to foster an expansive, holistic foreign affairs culture.

A. The Office of the Secretary
The Office of the Secretary is the center of the new Department of State and would span all of the U.S. Government’s international affairs functions. The Secretary would be the primary executive official responsible for managing the full range of programs assigned to the department.  This is in fact a traditional responsibility of Secretaries of State, the “CEO” function, but one often shortchanged or ignored by a preoccupation with the roles of presidential advisor and chief diplomat. The proposed consolidated department, because of the range and complexity of responsibilities will, however, require active management
To cope with this expanded executive role, the Secretary would be supported by a principal Deputy Secretary but both will need a greatly expanded, formalized, and adequately staffed “Office of the Secretary” to provide overall policy supervision, oversight and coordination of implementation programs and budgets of the substantive units, and integration with national policy.

This formally established staff would include at a minimum system wide functions such as:

Most of these functions already exist in the current Department of State but in the proposed Next Generation Department would obviously have to expand in scope and probably staff. Hopefully the Policy Planning Staff could be reconstituted as a true in-house think tank. However a strategic budget staff would be an innovation.

The Budget Office located in the Office of the Secretary would be responsible for a unified planning, budgeting, and evaluation system that would allow for integrated, long-range planning. Assigning these responsibilities implies a robust office. The head of this office would have to be formally established as the Department’s Chief Financial Officer, delegated to exercise full Department-wide authority of the Secretary’s authorities and the responsibilities delineated in the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990.  This office would responsible for the formulation, analysis, and presentation of the consolidated State submitted to OMB and the Congress. It would also:

At the top of this structure will be the Secretary fulfilling the traditional role of the manager – ‘CEO” – of the nation’s diplomatic system.  The Secretary’s management responsibility will be delegated as appropriate down to a group of “Regional Directors”, and thence in turn down to “Chiefs of Mission” for country and problem specific management. 

B. Chiefs of Mission/Special:  In addition to the standing executive structure of Regional Assistant Secretaries and country specific Chiefs of Mission, the authority to appoint COMs should be extended to include subject specific appointments in the case of emergencies (such as a tsunami), crises (a genocide or a post conflict reconstruction project), a “special situation” (such as the Afghanistan-Pakistan situation), or in countries where no U. S.  Mission exists.

At this point it might be useful to refer to the existing COM authority as outlined in presidential letters and in (22 USC 3927, Title 22, Chapter 52, Subchapter II, Section 3927):

      (a) “Under the direction of the President, the chief of mission to a foreign country –

(1) shall have full responsibility for the direction, coordination, and supervision of all Government executive branch employees in that country (except for Voice of America correspondents on official assignment and employees under the command of a United States area military commander); and

(2) shall keep fully and currently informed with respect to all activities and operations of the Government within that country, and shall insure that all Government executive branch employees in that country (except for Voice of America correspondents on official assignment and employees under the command of a United States area military commander) comply fully with all applicable directives of the chief of mission.