Defense Secretary Gate's Landon Lecture at K-State

Argghhh!!! The Home of two of Jonah's Military Guys ^ | November 27, 2007 | John Donovan

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Secretary Gates was in Kansas yesterday, giving the latest installment of the Landon Lectures at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.

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I find the Washington Post's headline interesting... Gates Urges Increased Funding for Diplomacy, with the tagline of Secretary Calls for Use of 'Soft Power'.

I watched the address live. My take, like my notes, are a little different.

This speech is potentially a historic address, if Secretary Gates can put in motion a plan that the next administration will be able to carry forward. He's couching it in terms that a Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton could take this concept and move with it, embrace it, and make it their own.

The SecDef is actually calling for a huge reorientation of the Federal Government to blend that Canadian concept of "soft power" with the "hard power" of military power. Not as two separate concepts, but as a unifying theme and construct.

He's calling to take the concept embodied in Provincial Reconstruction Teams and Human Terrain Teams and greatly expand their scope and ability - to include a deployability matching that of combat forces and essentially the institutionalization of the skill set in the US Gov, and not necessarily in the State Department, but perhaps in a different organization - making American foreign policy "joint" in the ways that the US military is becoming (cuz' it's an on-going process) Joint.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

The press coverage on Gate's speech doesn't get 10% of what he said. Go to http://ome.ksu.edu/lectures/landon/past.html and down load the Real Player video. If you have an interest in Defense, this video is worth an hour of your time.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Information War: The Best Defense is an Information Offense

[Cannoneer No. 4]

SECDEF Strategically Communicates His Embarrassment

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ping

[Deut28]

God Bless Kanas State University for providing this forum.

Since 2006 KSU has brought in President Bush, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary Gates and Senator Brownback into the forum, among others, including President Clinton.

In fact, every President back to Nixon has appeared in the Lecture series, which is a wonderful offering for the students of KSU.

[ghost of nixon]

I was there for Reagan in 1982 - pretty cool.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Here is the transcript: DefenseLink Speech

[Cannoneer No. 4]

But, my message today is not about the defense budget or military power. My message is that if we are to meet the myriad challenges around the world in the coming decades, this country must strengthen other important elements of national power both institutionally and financially, and create the capability to integrate and apply all of the elements of national power to problems and challenges abroad. In short, based on my experience serving seven presidents, as a former Director of CIA and now as Secretary of Defense, I am here to make the case for strengthening our capacity to use “soft” power and for better integrating it with “hard” power.

One of the most important lessons of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that military success is not sufficient to win: economic development, institution-building and the rule of law, promoting internal reconciliation, good governance, providing basic services to the people, training and equipping indigenous military and police forces, strategic communications, and more – these, along with security, are essential ingredients for long-term success. Accomplishing all of these tasks will be necessary to meet the diverse challenges I have described.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

However, during the 1990s, with the complicity of both the Congress and the White House, key instruments of America’s national power once again were allowed to wither or were abandoned. Most people are familiar with cutbacks in the military and intelligence – including sweeping reductions in manpower, nearly 40 percent in the active army, 30 percent in CIA’s clandestine services.

What is not as well-known, and arguably even more shortsighted, was the gutting of America’s ability to engage, assist, and communicate with other parts of the world – the “soft power,” which had been so important throughout the Cold War. The State Department froze the hiring of new Foreign Service officers for a period of time. The United States Agency for International Development saw deep staff cuts – its permanent staff dropping from a high of 15,000 during Vietnam to about 3,000 in the 1990s. And the U.S. Information Agency was abolished as an independent entity, split into pieces, and many of its capabilities folded into a small corner of the State Department.

Even as we throttled back, the world became more unstable, turbulent, and unpredictable than during the Cold War years. And then came the attacks of September 11, 2001, one of those rare life-changing dates, a shock so great that it appears to have shifted the tectonic plates of history. That day abruptly ended the false peace of the 1990s as well as our “holiday from history.”

[roses of sharon]

Thanks for the info!

[StarCMC]

You are too modest, my friend!

Cannoneer No 4 Issued a request for thoughts on reconstituting the USIA (United States Information Agency) and received several responses. My own response revolved around the major stumbling block to the establishment and effective use of this agency: the great divide over the position of terrorism and non-state actors (ie, terrorists) on the scale of national security imperatives. Until we can come to a consensus as to its status and degree of threat, reconstituting the USIA would be an act of futility.

Somebody high up must read the Cannoneer's site because Gates quotes the Cannoneer in the Landon Lecture yesterday at Kansas State University regarding beefing up spending on diplomatic efforts. He laments the demise of the USIA due to the "peace dividend" and suggests that it be reconstituted, obviously ignoring the problem of the great divide I outlined.

[Tainan]

Its starting to work.