Linking Development And National Security Will Soon Become U.S. Policy

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates (right), Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and moderator Frank Sesno director School of Media and Public Affairs George Washington University take part in the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition roundtable discussion along with USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Millennium Challenge Corporation CEO Daniel Yohannes in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 28, 2010. DoD photo by Cherie Cullen.

U.S. Considering Combining Military, International Affairs Budgets -- Stars And Stripes

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Obama administration is considering creating a unified national security budget that would combine elements of the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development with the Pentagon, according to a draft copy of a long-awaited foreign policy strategy review shared with Congress this week.

Citing the joint planning required between U.S. military and civilian agencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the proposal is one of several that would put the U.S. diplomatic corps and its lead global humanitarian agency on a stronger national security footing, according to a draft of the State Department’s first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, or QDDR.

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My Comment: This makes sense .... U.S. troops are not in the business of building societies .... unfortunately .... building societies has become the unspoken (and in some cases spoken) goal of U.S. military strategy and policy in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

But even if the push to amalgamate these departments and their budgets is successful (which I doubt), upcoming budget cuts and deficit reduction will end up gutting the budgets of this new unified national security department.