A military orphan faces the ax

A military orphan faces the ax

By Lorelei Kelly, 4/26/2003

I KNEW WE WERE in trouble when I had to ask the Quakers to lobby for the Army. Last spring I discovered that the Peacekeeping Institute, located at the Army War College in Pennsylvania, was scheduled for elimination. A congressional staffer on international security issues, I was desperate for constituents to put pressure on Capitol Hill to reverse this decision, and even my pacifist friends got phone calls: a plea that they register their dismay and disapproval.

However, both my own cajoling and supportive letters from both sides of the aisle proved futile. Come October the Army's Peacekeeping Institute will be eliminated. The rationale from the Pentagon: The institute is a casualty of force realignment and all bodies are needed at the front to fight the G-WOT (global war on terror).

Meanwhile, the institute's military staff is being deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq to help provide civil stability - by far the most urgent need in both countries and precisely the skills taught at the institute. This leaves rational foreign policy observers wondering: How could this have happened?

I consider myself a person of the left. I've demonstrated on two continents, dressed as an MX missile for Earth Day, and smuggled democracy literature across the Wall into East Berlin. Where, I ask, was the loyal opposition when the Peacekeeping Institute was being axed?

The lack of political support for a policy innovation like the institute points to an increasingly obvious disconnect in Washington: The institute - like many necessary creations of the '90s - has no strong political constituency. It is a post-Cold War policy orphan, regarded with suspicion from the left for being a child of the military and scorned by the right for having the word ''peace'' in its name.

During the 1990s, Congress and the American people were not particularly interested in foreign policy. After the end of the Soviet Union, there was no simple framework for international engagement. Conservatives trumpeted a ''spend them into submission'' recipe for victory in foreign affairs, believing that the militarized pattern of the Cold War would keep the United States secure. The nuclear freeze movement dissipated, but liberals clung to arms-control advocacy - often to the exclusion of other issues. As a consequence, during much of the decade there was no compelling international vision on the left or the right - just an echo chamber of the leftovers and the righteous.

The fact that the US military has become our most progressive foreign policy agency is a cause for dismay by many on the left. But it is not by choice that the Defense Department picks up so many foreign policy tasks. A vast reservoir of specialized manpower, the military is called upon not because it is willing, but because it is able.

And Congress doesn't help rectify that imbalance. In 2002 the defense and military construction budgets were the only ones passed within the fiscal year. It is clear that in order to have any sort of progressive dialogue about US security policy, military voices must figure prominently.

Despite the resistance to these ideas in the current administration, a case for progressive change can be made from the military's own doctrine. Among the elementary requirements of all officers is an understanding of the four instruments of power: diplomacy, information, military, and economics.

Our current funding priorities hardly reflect an understanding of that lesson. Many people in uniform are uncomfortable with the current division of labor between state and defense - for example, that regional American commanders have significantly more authority and wherewithal than the local US ambassador. Across the spectrum of foreign policy, the Department of Defense is providing guns and butter.

Perhaps part of the obstacle facing those who support progressive military ideas is the same one faced by documentary television - long-term explications aren't sexy; gray areas don't lend themselves to soundbites. Yet the reality is that today's threats arise from subtle and enervating problems like corruption and a lack of political will. Who wants to carry a sign down Pennsylvania Avenue that says ''More bureaucrats for Afghanistan?''

But the military's own exit strategies - in order to be successful - must have solutions to these very problems. Those looking for pragmatic steps forward should insist that we assist postconflict bureaucracies like police, judges, and jails. And this platform needs support soon.

After claiming that we would not walk away, the president's 2003 budget included little funding for Afghanistan recovery. And most skeptical foreign policy observers don't expect more in future budgets for Iraq than a refurbished oil industry.

Despite stereotypes and Fox News, advocating international cooperation is a keystone in the professional military. The Army Peacekeeping Institute wrote the military doctrine that embodied these ideals. Its death points to a decade of disconnects and denial and it paints our present challenge in stark relief.

Lorelei Kelly is a senior associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington.