Resource Type:

Report-Paper

Posted On: Aug 06, 2008

Posted By: Hillary Eschenburg

URL:

http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/071106_csissmartpowerreport.pdf

Description:

Organization: The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Authors: Richard L. Armitage and Joseph S. Nye Jr. (co-chairs)

The CSIS Commission on Smart Power: A Smarter, More Secure America offers several recommendations for the next president based on using smart power as a primary tool in engaging with the global community.  Outlining several recommendations that cover multiple issue areas this report provides policy proposals on matters of human rights, development, and national security, to name a few.  Their recommendations begin with five principles the next administration should follow in implementing reform. 

1. A smart power strategy requires that we make strategic trade-offs among competing priorities.
2. We must elevate and integrate the unique dimensions of development, diplomacy, and public diplomacy into a unified whole.
3. Congress must act as a partner and develop proper authorizing and appropriating structures to support a smart power strategy.
4. We must move more discretionary authority and resources into field organizations and hold them accountable for results.
5. The government must learn to tap into and harness the vast soft power resources in the private sector and civil society.

Specific recommendations include the following:

• Add greater coordination capacity to the executive secretariat. The next administration should consider creating a standing coordination center as an adjunct organization attached to the executive secretary. This option would provide the infrastructure for coordination without having the baggage of bureaucratic turf disputes over departmental roles and missions. This standing coordination organization would be available for use by whichever policy leader is selected by the president to coordinate the federal government’s response to a crisis.
• Create a cabinet-level voice for global development. The next president should task the deputy for smart power to work with the cabinet secretaries to develop a coherent management structure and an institutional plan within the first three months of office.
• Establish a Quadrennial Smart Power Review.  The Congress established a requirement in 1996 (H.R.3230) that the Department of Defense conduct a systematic and comprehensive assessment of its goals, strategies, and plans once every four years. The next administration should undertake a parallel process for the civilian tools of national power and issue an executive order shortly upon taking office that would establish a process and a timeline for this smart power review to parallel the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review. 
• Resource a “float” for civilian agencies.  The next president should increase the number of Foreign Service personnel serving in the Department of State by more than 1,000 and consider further expansions in other relevant civilian agencies.
• Strengthen civilian agency coordination on a regional basis. The next president should give the senior State Department ambassadors known as “political advisers” assigned to advise regional military commanders a dual authority to head a regional interagency consultation council comprising representatives from all other federal agencies that have field operations in those regions.
• Establish a new institution for international knowledge and communication. This new organization would have an independent board comprising notable American opinion leaders with careers inside and outside of government who could provide a “heat shield” from near-term political pressures and would liaise with the numerous federal and private institutions that monitor and evaluate international developments and make recommendations for government action.
• Take the necessary steps to close Guantanamo Bay. Amercan leaders ought to eliminate the symbols that have come to represent the image of an intolerant, abusive, unjust America. Closing Guantanamo Bay is a positive step in the right direction.

Note: See pages 65-68, for details on closing Guantanamo Bay see page 11.