Excerpts from Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Defense Department Challenges

January 28, 2009

Defense Secretary Robert Gates

“In the coming year, I also expect to see more coherence as efforts to improve civil-military coordination gain traction – allowing us to coordinate Provincial Reconstruction Teams in a more holistic fashion, both locally and regionally.”

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Chairman

“Secretary Gates, you have spoken and written with great persuasiveness that ‘military success is not sufficient to win’ and that the ingredients for success in the long-term include economic development, rule of law, good governance, training and equipping internal security forces, and public diplomacy. Yet the chronic under-resourcing of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, has left our military and civilian instruments of U.S. power ‘out of balance.’”

“Earlier this month, Admiral Mullen also spoke about the need for a whole-of-government approach and the limits of the use of military power as a tool of U.S. foreign policy. He stated that our Armed Forces ought to speak out when they believe that the military is not “the best choice to take the lead” in place of the civilian departments and agencies of our government. He also emphasized the need to adequately fund State, USAID, and other civilian departments and agencies so they can take the lead, even if that means transferring DoD resources to those departments or agencies.”

“The challenges in Afghanistan also require that we mobilize the full range of U.S. power, not just our military power but our civilian institutions for diplomacy and development.”

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Ranking Member

“But more troops are just a piece of what is required, as you well know. We need to put into place a comprehensive civil-military plan…”

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT)

“Clearly, one of the lessons we all learned, as your testimony indicates this morning, is that there’s no purely military solution to these kinds of conflicts, Iraq or Afghanistan. And one of the great prefaces to our success in Iraq was the development of a nationwide civil-military plan.”

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)

“Secretary Gates, last July you had something — I never quite understood the positions you were taking relative to increasing the State Department’s authority and perhaps their budget in terms of things that are quasi-military. Do you have any thoughts on that that you’d like to share with us, or clarification?”

Response from Secretary Gates: “I think they should be funded through the Department of Defense. 1206 is basically a dual-key program where nothing goes forward without the support of the Department of State, the secretary of State. We’ve done a lot of good things with that program in Lebanon, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and elsewhere. 1207 is more an initiative for the State Department but where the funding is in the Defense Department and we work cooperatively with the State Department in implementing those programs. And, of course, 1208 has to do with special forces and training. So I think these are all very important programs and I think that the approach that has been taken heretofore in the way they’ve been managed is the way they ought to continue to be managed.”