America's Civilian Operations Abroad: Understanding Past and Future Requirements

Using data analysis provided by Caerus Associates, Bensahel and Cronin demonstrate in the report that U.S. civilian agencies have conducted dozens of operations every year, that the total number has increased over time and that there are good reasons to expect that pace will continue. Yet the costs of these operations have also grown substantially, and pressures to cut U.S. government spending will almost certainly reduce the resources available for these missions.

The authors conclude that civilian agencies will need to address this growing mismatch, arguing that finding “new and innovative ways to distribute foreign assistance and conduct contingency operations may be necessary in the current fiscally constrained environment, but there is no guarantee that this will be sufficient to ensure that civilian agencies will be able to meet future requirements. Indeed, the greater the future budget cuts, the greater the chance that no amount of innovation will enable the State Department and USAID to effectively conduct routine foreign assistance and the contingency operations requested by U.S. policymakers. If and when that occurs, the ability of the United States to achieve its foreign policy objectives will be severely limited.”