Good job for State Department: recruiting CEOs as diplomats working the military-market nexus
Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 9:42AM ARTICLE: "Trying to Turn Its Image Around, U.S. Puts Top CEOs Out Front: State Department's Ms. Hughes Rallies Companies to Play Bigger Role in Diplomacy," by Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 17 February 2006, p. A1.
Ms. Hughes is recruiting for the Department of Everything Else, trying to bolster the State Department's rather thin ranks on the subject with private sector CEOs.
Read this article and you'll see what I mean. Despite the title suggestion, this isn't about diplomacy anywhere but inside the Gap, and we're always talking postconflict/postdisaster/post-whatever situations, as in, serious SysAdmin territory.
This article suggests that our best diplomacy will involve efforts like the notion Steve DeAngelis and I are working on right now--that notion of Development in a Box, the ultimate push-package that recognizes peace as the ultimate aftermarket.
I mean, see my previous post about emerging markets becoming the driver for the global economy and then realize that shrinking the Gap is in everyone's best interests--and profit motives.
The danger here, is, of course, more flash than substance, which is a continuing problem of leaving these sorts of efforts to State, which is in the process of ruining the U.S. Agency for International Development, so why would they be any better with Development in a Box?
State is good to run the Core, and Defense is getting better (despite the continuing recalcitrance of the Big War crowd) at running the security issues of the Gap. In the end, though, we need that department that works the transition from Gap to Core.
So great idea, just wrong DC address.
Reader Comments (1)
Great idea to recruit the generals and admirals of industry to run the Department of Everything Else. It will take time to adapt State & DoD leaders to run DoEE. Wow what a good acronym for the future.