Ambassador John Herbst Introduces the Civilian Response Corps
T
he problem of failed states is not new. But the response to them is about to change. In the past, international actors have scrambled to mitigate chaos and disaster when responding to failed states. The result is often incoherent policy, redundant programs, and even conflicting missions. Ambassador John Herbst, Fletcher Class of 1978, is the Coordinator for the State Department’s Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization. He spoke to the Fletcher community about the recently funded Civilian Response Corps (CRC), which is jointly managed by the State Department and USAID, and how it hopes to systematize the response to failed states.
The make-up of the current international system gives failed states a new national and global security dimension. First of all, modern communication technology has enabled non-state actors to organize in a way they never could before. Sixty or seventy years ago, it was hard to imagine that an ungoverned country thousands of miles away could become a threat to the US. Second, national security is not just a question of terrorism: cross-border crimes include narcotic and human trafficking. Also, loose weapons of mass destruction “pose the single greatest threat” to global stability, according to Ambassador Herbst. These threats are magnified when state mechanisms are weak or non-existent.
A list of failed states is published every year by several US government agencies and international organizations, documenting 40-50 states. Certainly, not all of them pose a security threat to the US. The US must choose wisely where to intervene, and have a civilian team ready to move in when a crisis erupts. The muddled efforts of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan highlighted this need. In response, the Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization was created over four years ago with two goals: to organize the civilian effort in reconstruction and stabilization and to ensure that the deployed civilians have the right skill sets.
The Civilian Response Corps is composed of professionals in many fields that are essential to sustaining a new government. They include public administrators, agronomists, police officers, corrections experts, and lawyers among many others. These members are then coupled with staff who have foreign policy experience in both hostile and non-hostile environments. It is hoped that the combination of subject expertise and international perspective will enable the CRC to hit the ground running.
The CRC has two major components. The first is the Active Response Corps which can deploy members to a crisis zone within 48 hours. The second component is the Standby Response Corps which can deploy within 30 days. All staff are housed within eight US government agencies where they will be full-time employees. Once fully operational, the CRC hopes to deploy 10-25% of each component. Had the CRC existed when the US invaded Iraq, 900 trained staff would have been available to step in at the outset.
The US cannot accomplish the rescue of failed states alone. And it does not have to—many other developed nations have already set up agencies similar to the CRC to handle this problem. Canada has a $200 million budget for its civilian corps. Australia has a 700-member international police force that it has already deployed to East Timor, among other missions. The ultimate vision for the CRC is to become an organization that can not only be deployed alongside the American military, but also with UN and coalition forces. Ambassador Herbst expressed his commitment to coordinating with other countries to face the challenges posed by failed states, and to realize the imposing goals that have been set before the CRC.
Cybčle Cochran MALD ‘09