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Colin Powell: The lonely
diplomat
By John Gershman
As
Secretary of State Colin Powell continues an extended
trip through Asia, he is no doubt reflecting upon the
difficulties he faces in an administration that has
granted the Pentagon pride of place in defining and
shaping US policy in the region. Awash with funds and a
global mandate to combat terrorism, the Pentagon has
marginalized Powell and the State Department,
entrenching itself as the dominant player in Asia after
September 11. A reflection of this weakness is that
Powell's trip is being met with more enthusiasm in the
region than in Washington, where his trip is largely
being greeted with a yawn.
Powell left on Friday
for a trip that eventually will have taken him to India
and Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand,
Malaysia and Singapore. Along the way he will go to
Brunei to participate in the multilateral meetings held
after the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations: the ASEAN Regional Forum and ASEAN
Post-Ministerial Conference.
As Powell has
leapfrogged westward across Asia from Pakistan to the
Philippines, his focus has been on shoring up the
coalition for the war on terrorism. With India and
Pakistan, his main objective was to maintain the tense
peace in Kashmir that has existed since both countries
massed troops at their border last December and nearly
expanded to an all-out war in May. Recent attacks by
violent jihadi groups with ties to Pakistani
intelligence and military agencies have placed the de
facto agreement reached in late May in jeopardy. In
Southeast Asia, Powell is meeting with the key US allies
in the war on terrorism, signing a US-ASEAN agreement on
combating terrorism, and bringing some technical
assistance along as a gift.
The irony is that as
currently designed, Powell's efforts to strengthen the
coalition against terrorism reinforce the very forces
that have undermined his power and influence within the
administration of President George W Bush. Prior to the
September 11 attacks, Powell's influence - albeit uneven
- appeared to be significant within the administration.
His more traditional realpolitik approach - particularly
regarding policy toward China - seemed to be winning
some intra-administration battles, to the chagrin of the
more militaristic and unilateralist of the Bush
administration foreign-policy team and their hallelujah
chorus in conservative think-tanks.
Since
September 11, however, the momentum has clearly swung in
favor of the Pentagon and the unilateralists. An
invasion of Iraq appears to be simply a matter of time
and, in its most recent snub, the Bush administration
overruled Powell's stance on funding for the United
Nations Population Fund. While the Pentagon is awash in
new funds to combat terrorism, the State Department is
suffering from a lack of trained personnel in key posts
abroad (especially in Asia) and has had to beg for
increases to its foreign-aid budget. Both civilian and
uniformed Pentagon officials have had a higher profile
in Southeast Asia than any State Department personnel.
Congress is considering lifting bans on aid to
the Indonesian military and has already increased aid to
the Philippine military - both of which have been
complicit in serious human-rights abuses and are largely
unaccountable to civilian authority. The Bush
administration's policy toward Pakistan has been to
sacrifice democracy in the name of protecting President
General Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani military's
role as deputies in the war against al-Qaeda. Finally,
many political leaders in Southeast Asia feel that this
administration is interested solely in cooperative
efforts that narrowly advance the war on terror, without
addressing other concerns, as would occur in a more
cooperative relationship.
This is particularly
troubling because while the Pentagon is expanding a web
of military aid and alliances under the guise of
fighting the war on terrorism, the security challenges
facing the United States in Asia are not primarily
military in nature. A more appropriate strategy would
require reversing US policies that strengthen
unaccountable militaries, thereby undermining fragile
democratic institutions and weak economies. What is
needed are resources for strengthening civilian
governmental institutions, fighting poverty, and
expanding genuine cooperation. What is needed, in short,
is diplomacy.
The stakes of this trip are high
for Secretary Powell: demonstrate the State Department's
continued relevance in the region amid its declining
influence in policy-making and insufficient financial
and human resources. Powell's predicament is how to
bring diplomacy back into US foreign policy with an
administration apparently committed to excising
diplomacy from US policy in Asia.
John Gershman (john@irc-online.org)
is a senior analyst at the Interhemispheric Resource
Center and Asia/Pacific editor for Foreign Policy in Focus. Used
with permission.
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