Expanding the U.S. Military’s Smart-Power Toolbox

http://www.wsj.com/articles/expanding-the-u-s-militarys-smart-power-toolbox [login to see]
Great editorial in the WSJ from retired Admiral Stavridis, now Dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts.

"Africom had noticed that civilian programs led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Agadez, Niger, were clearly reducing support for violent extremism there. Specifically, a combination of youth-development and conflict-mitigation programs were helping promote tolerance and reducing the allure of extremist violence among young people. So commanders asked to invest up to $5 million of the Pentagon’s $1.3 billion 2015 Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund to scale up these USAID programs, which would cost a fraction of military operations.

But when Pentagon lawyers reviewed Africom’s request, they determined that current law prevents the Defense Department from sharing the Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund with USAID. The lawyers effectively said that the military didn’t have the authority to deploy taxpayer dollars, already appropriated by Congress, in ways it assessed would reduce the risk to U.S. troops and make America safer."