I think a large part of this has to do with the fact that because the Bush administration perceives the State Department to be "liberal," they feel they can't trust State to do anything without secretly undermining them. So, they don't let them do anything at all.Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned yesterday against the risk of a "creeping militarization" of U.S. foreign policy, saying the State Department should lead U.S. engagement with other countries, with the military playing a supporting role.
"We cannot kill or capture our way to victory" in the long-term campaign against terrorism, Gates said, arguing that military action should be subordinate to political and economic efforts to undermine extremism.
It should also be noted that this basically goes directly against Gates' bureaucratic interests as Secretary of Defense because any money going to State could be taken from the DOD (although this is unlikely, because DOD's budget is rarely cut).
This kind of thing also makes me more supportive of the idea of having Gates stay on as SecDef under Obama or McCain. Although I think his realist views would frequently clash with those of some of the more liberal members of Obama's team, Obama has been shedding his liberal advisers left and right. See the dropping of Rob Malley for Dennis Ross as an example.
In other good news from Ann Scott Tyson's WaPo piece, H.R. McMaster was promoted to general. McMaster was a poster child for having your military career punished for daring to break from the Army's orthodoxy of thought. Petraus helped select the general promotions this year, and it looks like he made a difference:
The list... includes several officers skilled in the counterinsurgency doctrine that Petraeus helped write -- a doctrine that embraces a broader approach to winning conflicts centered on protecting and providing for local populations.
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