The Rice Doctrine: A Look at “Transformational Diplomacy”

January 26, 2006

by Robert Nolan

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave back-to-back policy speeches outlining a new set of guiding principles for the direction of U.S. foreign policy. Dubbed “transformational diplomacy,” the emerging Rice Doctrine seeks to work with U.S. partners around the globe “to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that will respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system.” Noting that in today's current world “it is impossible to draw neat, clear lines between our national security interests, our development efforts and our democratic ideals,” Rice offered plans to shake up the way diplomats are dispatched across the globe, and announced a major shift in the structure and delivery of U.S. foreign assistance.

A New Diplomatic Posture

Outlining the core principles of her vision after one year as America's top diplomat, Rice said the State Department would kick start the new policy by reassigning a number of its diplomats from traditional European posts to global hot spots – including China, India and Africa. “We have nearly the same number of State Department personnel in Germany, a country of 82 million people that we have in India, a country of one billion people,” said Rice in the speech, delivered at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. “We will begin this year with a down payment of moving 100 positions from Europe and, yes, from here in Washington D.C., to countries like China and India and Nigeria and Lebanon, where additional staffing will make an essential difference.”

Rice also stressed that her vision of transformational diplomacy “is rooted in partnership; not in paternalism” and that the U.S. would work with “key regional countries like Indonesia, Nigeria, Morocco and Pakistan,” to foster democratic development and enhance global security – especially in the fight against international terrorism. In addition, Rice emphasized the need for American diplomats in the field to play a greater role in strengthening America's image abroad – a task that has largely eluded the Bush administration despite a number of attempts to bolster global attitudes towards the U.S. in recent years.

Secretary Rice, writes Ann McFeatters of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, “has grasped an enormously important issue – the world is soundly rejecting American paternalism.” “Foggy Bottom,” she continues in a recent opinion piece, needs to be shaken up “in order to adapt to a world that no longer responds as U.S. diplomats have long expected.” Rice's policy of transformational diplomacy, she adds, “may be on to something.”

For others, Rice's remarks come at a time when rhetoric on democratic reform has reached its zenith and must be replaced by concrete actions. “The hardening cross-party American attitude [towards democracy promotion] is hard to dispute; the issue is how to advance the cause,” writes commentator Will Hutton in The Guardian.

Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby, however, points out Rice's own “flat-footed” transformation from old-school realist to new-school diplomat, as well as the difficulties inherent in democracy-promotion as foreign policy. Rice, he says, “is not content with the instruments of foreign policy as they exists, and her speeches last week were about fostering new ones – a strengthened office for post-conflict stabilization and a reconfigured foreign aid program,” he writes. Citing the concerns of renowned conservative thinker Francis Fukuyama, Mallaby continues that “this only begins to confront [the idea] that no amount of tinkering with the apparatus of government will make nation-building possible.”

Restructuring USAID

Aside from the redeployment of top American diplomats to rising democratic regions around the world, Rice gave a follow-up speech in Washington last week outlining plans to better “align” the agency charged with dispersing U.S. foreign aid with the State Department. USAID, which handles a budget of roughly $14 billion – or 80 percent of U.S. assistance abroad – will now be governed by a Director of Foreign Assistance whose rank will be the equivalent of a deputy secretary of state, said Rice. “This is going to result in a more influential A.I.D. administrator,” she said.

The new relationship between USAID and the State Department, Rice added, “will enable us to be better stewards of public resources” allotted to “empower developing countries to strengthen security, to consolidate democracy, to increase trade and investment and to improve the lives of their people.”

“America's foreign assistance must promote responsible sovereignty, not permanent dependency.”

The transformation of USAID comes amid reports that the U.S. has largely mishandled funds intended for the reconstruction of Iraq – outlined in a damning report published by U.S.-appointed inspectors this week.

Following the speech, Rice announced her nomination, subject to Congressional approval, of former pharmaceutical executive and current head of the U.S. Emergency Plan for AIDS relief Randall Tobias to fill the new position. “Randy has a long history of success in leading significant organizational challenges, first as the Chairman and CEO of AT&T International and then as the Chairman, President and CEO of Eli Lily and Company,” said Rice. “Throughout all of his previous leadership positions, Randy has guided organizations through immense challenges and I am pleased he will now bring his experience to bear on the organizational challenges of American foreign assistance.”

According to a Washington Post editorial, the challenges are many. “Congress has imposed so many restrictions on the aid's use that officials can't deploy it flexibly, and this problem has been compounded by their sometimes-supine attitude to autocratic governments,” it says. “Mr. Tobias needs to use his authority to persuade Congress to vote more flexible money and to give the aid professionals the courage to support democratic opponents of autocratic clients. And Ms. Rice will need to back him. She has described foreign assistance as central to what she calls ‘transformational diplomacy.' It will take some tough battles to lend substance to those words.”

Some officials, however, fear the plan to bring USAID under State Department control could forsake the organization's long-term development goals for short-term political gains -- a fear Rice sought to assuage at a town-hall style meeting with USAID employees. “If we have a short-term perspective,” she said. “We will fail.”

Others, like former USAID administrator and current professor at Georgetown University Carol Lancaster, argue the reforms don't go far enough. “The problem of organizational chaos is a real one,” she writes in the Financial Times. “But the administration's new approach, of making the head of USAID also a director for development is wrong-headed.” Lancaster argues that to make U.S. foreign aid more effective, a new development agency that groups together USAID and independent development bodies like the Millennium Challenge Account whose missions are “complementary” is needed.

Taken together, Rice's two speeches indicate a significant attempt to better align the current work of the State Department with wider, long-term U.S. foreign policy objectives in the post-9/11, post-Iraq invasion period. While the ideas and goals espoused by Rice may not yet be the substance of doctrine, they are certainly a step in that direction. As Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations and former head of policy planning at the State Department writes in a recent op-ed, “Working out the name and nature for our era is an exercise in strategy, not taxonomy.” Whether or not Rice's push for “transformational diplomacy” ushers in a new era of effective U.S. foreign policy will be the true test of the ever-popular Secretary of State.

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