Dear Congress: A Big Foreign Affairs Budget Does Not Guarantee Better Diplomacy
By: Ryan Dukeman and Dan Spokojny, August 13, 2021
In 2011, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft wrote about the “urgent need to prepare and sustain a corps of American diplomatic professionals” to confront an “unparalleled” set of international challenges. Since then, the complexity of international challenges has only deepened while our civilian capabilities have eroded.
To confront this challenge, President Biden’s FY22 International Affairs budget proposes the largest increase in non-emergency funding for diplomacy and development in a decade. Biden’s plan would boost America’s capacity on the international stage, increasing State and USAID funding by 12%. House and Senate Democrats have proposed going even bigger, offering a 20% boost to civilian foreign affairs spending.
Biden’s plan, fueled by support from congressional allies, represents potentially the most serious commitment to diplomacy in a generation. Biden said that “revitalization of our national security and foreign policy institutions is essential to advancing America’s security, prosperity, and values, accelerating our domestic renewal, and delivering results for all Americans.” Sen. Chris Murphy, author of the 20% budget boost proposal and a related Truman Center report on State Department reform, has similarly called rebalancing our military and civilian foreign policy capacities a national security imperative.
But while Biden and his Congressional allies propose important investments in diplomatic capacity, they risk doubling down on existing under-performing organizational structures and processes rather than enabling new ones. What we need now is better diplomacy, not just more diplomacy.
More money and more people alone will not make Biden’s proclamation that “Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy” a reality and put State back in the driver’s seat of foreign policymaking. For instance, a report from the Quincy Institute found that while funding and headcounts for civilian foreign affairs agencies have doubled in recent decades, this has failed to reverse the militarization of foreign policy because new resources doubled down on dysfunctional decision-making processes and policymaking structures. The preeminent American diplomat (and now director of the CIA) William Burns, said “Reaffirming the foundations of American diplomacy is necessary but not sufficient to make it effective for a new and demanding era.” National-security expert Kori Schake warned of this nearly a decade ago, finding in her research that State’s erosion is due to deeper structural shortcomings including on training, monitoring & evaluation, and human resources. Similarly, the American Academy of Diplomacy has pushed for major new investments in foreign policy education and training, finding that the civilian agencies of the US government have often “failed to play their part in US engagement overseas.”
Years of study and serious reform proposals have offered plenty of ideas for reversing the “institutional imbalance” that has long militarized American foreign policy. As the budget works its way through Congress, appropriators would be wise to invest in the quality, not just the quantity, of American diplomacy. Failing to do so would be like pumping millions into Blockbuster instead of investing in Netflix.
There is so much to do, it is hard to know where to start. We propose focusing first on these 12 challenges scholars and experts suggest are diminishing the effectiveness of American diplomacy. Tackling these obstacles would be a significant step forward to solving today’s international challenges.
Civilian instruments of foreign policy have weak mechanisms for strategic planning.
Outdated decision-making procedures lead to a policy process too-often driven by anecdote and intuition rather than good evidence.
Bureaucratic layering in the clearance process prioritizes consensus over effectiveness, often leading to watered-down policy recommendations.
Unprecedented rates of political appointments in Foggy Bottom and embassies abroad risk the de-professionalization of diplomacy.
An aging and outdated information technology infrastructure creates inefficiencies and gaping cyber security vulnerabilities.
The absence of modern knowledge management tools makes it hard to capture the signal from the noise.
Disempowered employees with declining morale.
Weak training and continuing education programs for diplomats.
A lack of monitoring and evaluation procedures for policy undermines learning, accountability, and oversight.
Structural discrimination in the personnel system has harmed diversity, equity, and inclusion, undermining the idea of merit.
Expeditionary diplomacy is disincentivized by security procedures that reward risk-aversion.
For State to regain the international and interagency leadership role boosters of diplomacy (like us) want, it can’t simply do more of the same. Instead, to best meet the current “make-or-break” moment for American diplomacy, Congress should fund bold investments that reconceptualize what it means to be a diplomat in the 21st century. By emphasizing a better policymaking and analytic process that values data, evidence, evaluation, and strategic planning, the Administration and its partners can right the balance between civilian and military tools, and put America’s national security on a better track for meeting future challenges.