Into the Breach Dear Friends

It seems the US government is beginning to make changes representing the reality of the world we live in and not the world we still want (i.e. with a near peer competitor). First up:

Diplomats Will Be Shifted to Hot Spots

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that she will shift hundreds of Foreign Service positions from Europe and Washington to difficult assignments in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere as part of a broad restructuring of the diplomatic corps that she has dubbed “transformational diplomacy.”

The State Department’s culture of deployment and ideas about career advancement must alter now that the Cold War is over and the United States is battling transnational threats of terrorism, drug smuggling and disease, Rice said in a speech at Georgetown University. “The greatest threats now emerge more within states than between them,” she said. “The fundamental character of regimes now matters more than the international distribution of power.”

It’s time to finally move State to the places they’re needed. WaPo notes that in order to advance, diplomats will need to have been posted to hot stops and speak at least two foreign languages. State and USAID are also being pushed closer together and so-called one-person diplomatic outposts are planned to be opened in major cities across the globe.

The State Deptartment’s website has more information with Rice’s remarks at Georgetown as well as a fact sheet on State’s transformation. The major plans for overhauling State include:

• Moving diplomats into the countries relevant to the post Cold War/9-11 environment.
• Creating more diplomatic representation around the world
• More and new training for diplomats
• More cooperation with other agencies like DoD

For all the details, check out State’s website on Transformational Diplomacy.

Officials Look To Put Africa Under One Watchful Eye: Continent now split between two commands

As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld considers how to reorganize the military to address global threats in coming years, defense officials are exploring the possibility of putting Africa, long split between the U.S. European Command and U.S. Central Command, under one unified command. Such a move has been discussed for years, but as U.S. operations evolve in the Horn of Africa, officials say the time has arrived to do something.

Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, said the area of responsibility for the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, could be expanded to include all of Africa. Whelan, respected in and outside the Pentagon for her experience of more than a dozen years working African issues, said the joint task force in the Horn of Africa has evolved many times since it was created and, given the situation on the ground in the region, it may be time for it to evolve some more.

As Barnett and others have predicted, Africa is finally getting the attention it’s due. CENTCOM opened Operation Enduring Freedom in Djibouti in 2002 and not only are US troops stationed there, but French and Germans as well.

Our Cold War fantasies are slowling crumbling and making way for the War on Terror.