March 7, 2011

There are times when America wages battles that only lead to war. Take last week’s action in Congress. The House of Representatives voted to defund the U.S. Institute of Peace. A small target ($46 million in the current fiscal year) caught up in the ongoing partisan battle, USIP ironically is one of the best bargains in the federal budget. A unique federal institution created by Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, USIP now needs to be protected by the Senate for four big reasons.

First, it is perhaps the world’s leading center on international conflict management and resolution, and it is the only Federal institution in this space. USIP has literally shaped the modern field of conflict management studies and practice.

Second, the Institute is an autonomous federal agency. Its independence from the executive branch comes from its Congressional statute; funding from Congress assures that it is also free from the constraints and dictates that may accompany private funding. Despite the allegations of Hill attacks, its work cannot be undertaken by the State or Defense departments which are not equipped or staffed with practitioners and scholars in these fields.

Third, the Institute is a uniquely bipartisan outfit, governed by a presidentially appointed and Congressionally-confirmed bipartisan board. In its 26 years, USIP has been called upon by administrations and Congressional leaders of both parties to convene leading experts and senior veterans to wrestle with our toughest foreign policy challenges in zones of conflict. It hosted and staffed up the Iraq Study Group and offers a bipartisan home for exploring basic choices on the Korean Peninsula, Arab-Israeli peace process, and strategic nuclear force posture. There is nothing else like it in Washington.

Fourth, the Institute is not a think tank – of which there are many. The best analogy is to an applied research facility: it supports and develops the best thinking about conflict management, it deploys practitioners steeped in conflict best practices into the field in overseas war zones, and it educates and trains current and future professionals working to leash the dogs of war. Not bad for $46 million. And if its conflict prevention work keeps the U.S. from having to clean up after just one grisly civil war or failed state, American taxpayers will celebrate the investment.

Zeroing out USIP’s funding, will dramatically reduce the nation’s capacity to support America’s security interests, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq where the Institute is training defense personnel from the Pentagon heading to Kabul, and training civilians in Iraq for the withdrawal of U.S. forces in July. A funding cut also jeopardizes the Institute’s work on countering extremism in Pakistan. As Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has warned, in today’s world, "we cannot kill or capture our way to victory" and military action should be subordinate to political and economic efforts to undermine extremism. Now is not the time to weaken the nation's premier institution for international conflict management when it is even more important to national security.

In both Afghanistan and Iraq, USIP has been on the ground since the beginning of these conflicts, actively bringing together parties to the conflict and helping to resolve these conflicts, paving the way for withdrawal of American troops. For example, in Iraq, the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division called in USIP to convene tribal factions and create dialogue and reconciliation in the “Triangle of Death,” quelling the violence that had taken the lives of many American troops. General David Petraeus called it “a striking success story.”

Just in the past year, a joint program with the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, Ft. Leavenworth helped to convene multiple U.S. agencies and extract key lessons from the U.S. military to civilian transition in Iraq to help those confronting another massive hand-off in Afghanistan. And there is ongoing work between USIP, the State Department and the Pentagon on development and dissemination of the first whole-of-government doctrine for stabilization, produced in partnership with the U.S. Army.

Beyond the wars in which we are directly engaged, the Institute works globally to support the U.S. interest in a more peaceful world. In the Philippines, it injected fresh ideas for resolving the civil war in Mindanao. In Sudan, USIP has worked to limit the forces of ethnic polarization in the north-south border areas. In the strife-torn Democratic Republic of Congo it works to bolster anti-corruption efforts so that private sector-led development is possible. Ten years ago in Kosovo, the Institute facilitated dialogue between Albanians and Serbs about the future of their land.

Looking for a few “cents” by cutting the United States Institute of Peace makes no economic or national security “sense.” These are battles that only lead to war.

Chester A. Crocker is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is a member of the Board of the United States Institute of Peace.