Whither State? The Institutional Politics of American Nation-building Policy
This article discusses the difficulties associated with military-led stability and nationbuilding operations and argues that the United States’ current policy negatively affects defence capabilities, unduly influences how stability operations are prioritized and conducted, limits State Department capacities, and allows the military to be seen as the ‘face’ of American foreign policy. Several options exist for the United States to adequately address this issue to include the working within the established system, a reassignment of leadership responsibilities, or restraining the American tendency to intervene. The United States’ military has proven that it is capable of conducting nation-building operations, but at the cost of global misperception, painful inefficiency, significant risks to United States’ overall defence capabilities, and the issues of civilian control that follow from reliance on warriors in the role of diplomats.
Powell's Leadership Principles -- Time for State Department to Revisit
Abstract : Since the end of the Cold War, study after study has described the Department of State as an institution improperly staffed, trained, and resourced to sufficiently and adequately address the national security challenges of the 21st century. What all these external reports lack, however, is a review of the internal cultural change needed within the Department of State. Under Secretary of State Colin Powell's tenure this cultural change process was started, but it has yet to be inculcated. The principles he espoused must be reinstated to bring about the institutional change that the Department of State requires to meet its future challenges. This paper identifies the measures taken under Secretary Powell's leadership to effect cultural change, and examines the aspects of the Department of State's internal culture that need to be changed now as part of its transformation.
The Tsetse Problem on the Eastern Cattle Route in the Gold Coast
1. Primary fly-belts round Makongo consisted of three different vegetational communities: a Cynometra-Vitex association along the main length of the Makongo river, on a clay soil; a Ficus congensis association along the river close to the town, on a sandy soil; and Isoberlinia doka woodland on moist sandy soil north-west and south of Makongo. 2. Secondary fly-belts of less dense vegetation occur in the orchard bush savannah round Makongo, and these are not colonised until the commencement of the rainy season. 3. Glossina tachinoides and G. palpalis both occurred in the riverside communities, and G. palpalis alone in the Isoberlinia woodland. 4. Along the river G. palpalis outnumbered G. tachinoides by 3:1 in the dry season. At the commencement of the rains G. tachinoides increased more quickly than G. palpalis , bringing their numbers very nearly equal, but at the end of the rains there was a decrease in G. tachinoides which restored the original proportion. 5. G. morsitans had been found at Makongo formerly but was not met with at the time of this investigation, its absence being due to the disappearance of the larger antelope from the neighbourhood. 6. Smaller game animals, small mammals and reptiles afforded an adequate food supply for tsetse in the fly-belts, and also passing herds of cattle, as well as natives from the village and travellers. 7. The distribution of G. palpalis within the fly-belts was markedly influenced by the proximity of a cattle road along which herds of cattle passed almost daily, and by village water-holes. 8. During the dry season the primary foci were always found to be the places of greatest relative humidity, and the fly does not tend to move out of these until the general atmospheric humidity has reached a certain fairly high degree. 9. In clearing the fly-belts the removal of all primary foci within a quarter of a mile of the town and of thick bush within 100 yards of water-holes was undertaken. The work lasted from the beginning of February to the end of March 1931. 10. The effect of clearing the Isoberlinia doka woodland was to banish G. palpalis completely, and it never returned to these clearings. 11. On clearing the riverside Ficus congensis fly-belt, G. tachinoides was practically eliminated for the first three months, but reappeared in the clearings in June when there was a general increase and up-stream migration of this fly. G. palpalis remained in this clearing in fluctuating numbers up to June, when observations were suspended. 12. 565 marked tsetse were liberated in the fly-belts immediately previous to clearing. Of G. palpalis 12·7% were recaptured in the clearings and 11% outside the clearings. Of G. tachinoides 5·5% were recaptured in the clearings and 6·8% outside.