Special criteria for special envoys

By Michael Singh

President-elect Obama’s apparent intentions to appoint a number of special envoys has figured prominently in the news lately.

While envoys can be effective, an abundance of special envoys is unlikely to produce good policy. If everyone is empowered, no one is. Too often the issue of whether to appoint a special envoy is treated as a question of policy rather than one of good management. While appointing a special envoy has political implications — it is often used to signal a special focus on an issue — it also has major management implications. In the right circumstances, an envoy can catalyze our diplomacy; in the wrong circumstances, an envoy can have the opposite effect.

It makes sense to appoint an envoy for situations that, 1) are discrete; 2) require relatively few resources or interagency coordination; and 3) can benefit from the intense focus of a high-level individual. The classic example of this would be the mediation of a negotiation or conflict. In such cases, it’s vital that the person in question command respect and, usually, that he or she enjoy personal attention from the president. In these cases, appointing an envoy is doubly beneficial: it brings to bear the level of diplomatic focus and effort required to resolve the issue, while sparing the agency or bureau that would otherwise be responsible for an outsized diplomatic task.

Conversely, however, issues that, 1) are broadly defined; or 2) require significant resources and coordination between several agencies are ill-suited to special envoys. In such cases, an envoy is unlikely to be effective and, what’s more, is likely to undermine the effectiveness of the established bureaucracy. Floating without much of a staff or recurring budget to draw upon, and without a mission that is clearly defined and differentiated from others’, such a person is likely to spin his wheels trying to get things done in Washington and fighting turf wars.

Taking into account the above criteria, an issue such as the Six-Party Talks on North Korea seems ripe for an envoy. On the other hand, an envoy to South Asia, for example, does not seem useful. While there is significant overlap between India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, this is precisely why there is an Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia at the State Department, and a counterpart Senior Director at the NSC. An envoy would risk being redundant.

In the cases of Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there arises the danger that an envoy would focus on the negotiating process to the exclusion of other critical facets of the issue (e.g. Palestinian institution-building in the latter case), and would approach his or her issue without regard to the regional context.

Too often in Washington organizational changes are made as a political signal. As they form their views on the national security architecture, I hope that the Obama team will exercise good management, not just good politics.