PEACE & SECURITY | Creating a more stable world
15 April 2008
U.S. Committed to Building New Security Partnerships
Today’s security challenges require more than military solutions
Washington -- America’s diplomats and military personnel are coming together in new ways to help friends and allies better safeguard their countries, improve area livelihoods and build regional security.
“It's building partner capacity, not only with military forces but, for instance, building partner capacity to deliver health care, AIDS programs, to deliver education to the population,” says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “If a democratic government doesn't deliver that, pretty soon it's going to be out of power.”
Rice joined Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at an April 15 hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. They agreed that solutions to today’s emerging security challenges require much more than military action.
“In the past, there was a reasonable degree of certainty about where U.S. forces could be called to meet threats,” Gates said. “What the last 25 years have shown is that threats can emerge almost anywhere in the world.”
In Iraq and Afghanistan, Rice said, provincial reconstruction teams have brought together American civilian experts from the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Agriculture Department and other agencies with military personnel to help area residents undertake reconstruction projects, rebuild local governments and re-establish local economies.
In the Philippines, U.S. diplomats have teamed with the U.S. Pacific Command to help authorities confront Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida. Similarly, U.S. civilian and military experts from across the government also have come together to help authorities in Colombia make progress against drug trafficking and extremism.
The United States needs to expand further its nonmilitary capability to support stabilization and reconstruction, Rice said, calling for the creation of a Civilian Response Corps comprising government experts and private citizens willing to be deployed as needed to help countries in transition.
“It is never going to be possible to keep within the environs of the State Department or really even government agencies the full range of expertise that one needs in state building; for instance, city planners or justice experts or police training experts,” Rice said.
In recent years, Gates said, the military also has responded with Global Train and Equip, a program it manages jointly with the State Department to help countries build effective and capable military forces.
“The program focuses on places where we are not at war, but where there are both emerging threats and opportunities,” Gates said. “It decreases the likelihood that our troops will be used in the future.”
Global Train and Equip helped Lebanese security forces defeat an al-Qaida linked terrorist group, said Gates; it gave Pakistani special forces the tools needed to conduct operations along their border with Afghanistan and it is supporting efforts by Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines to reduce the risks of terrorism and piracy along their coasts.
The new U.S. military command for Africa, AFRICOM, represents a continuation of this trend toward bringing together a diverse array of military and civilian experts from across the U.S. government to formulate and exchange new policy ideas with foreign partners.
“Building partner capacity is about helping solve problems before they become crises and helping contain crises before they become conflicts,” said Mullen.
See the transcript of Rice’s opening remarks.
