“The idiot in the basement”
Both Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have spoken about their desire to demilitarize foreign policy and return to the State Department many of the functions that the Pentagon has assumed over the past eight years. But much of that authority comes in the way of money and that ...
Both Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have spoken about their desire to demilitarize foreign policy and return to the State Department many of the functions that the Pentagon has assumed over the past eight years.
Both Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have spoken about their desire to demilitarize foreign policy and return to the State Department many of the functions that the Pentagon has assumed over the past eight years.
But much of that authority comes in the way of money and that money goes through Congress, where the State Department and its interests are woefully underrepresented, especially when compared to the extensive network of relationships that Congress maintains with the military.
And the Pentagon’s massive lobbying effort is only growing. The Department of Defense plans to quadruple the number of military fellow serving in Congress to 100 by the end of the year, compared with the 10-12 Pearson fellows the Foreign Service has there, according to a new paper by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
There is a culture clash underlying what the paper identifies as a "crisis" in communications between Foggy Bottom and Capitol Hill. Congress is unruly, disorganized, and desperate for media attention. The State Department is bureaucratically stuffy, skeptical of the press, and has little respect for the throngs of young congressional staffers who they feel only complicate their jobs with little added value, according to the report:
"[Congress] is really the only place where some kid making 30,000 a year, two years out of college, can kick the crap out of an assistant secretary who’s been in the diplomatic corps for fifty years, and he can do it quite easily any day he wants to, at any briefing he wants to," said one mid-level Republican Senate aide.
The paper also criticizes State heavily for discouraging staff from joining the department’s legislative affairs team, known as the "H" bureau. Those staffers suffer from a lack of prestige and promotions, the paper explains, further displaying State’s contempt for seriously engaging Congress:
One senior Republican Senate committee staffer who previously worked in the Foreign Service analyzed the problem this way: "When I was in the Foreign Service, ‘H’ was like the idiot in the basement. A dead end. It was not a career enhancing move to go there. In fact, it is where substandard people go to die bureaucratically. It is part of the received wisdom of the Foreign Service that you hold ‘H’ in contempt."
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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