Commanders saw a promising way to combat extremism—too bad current law won’t allow it.
Image from article, with caption: U.S. Gen. David Rodriguez in Saint-Louis, Senegal, after a joint military exercise between African, U.S. and European troops, Feb. 29.
Last year the United States Africa Command, known as Africom, spotted an opportunity and took unusual action. It asked the Pentagon for approval to support a civilian government initiative that it believed would help counter the spread of violent extremist groups and keep American soldiers safer.
Africom had noticed that civilian programs led by the U.S. Agency for International Development 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.
So instead of strategically investing in a smart-power program showing promise toward reducing violent extremism, Africom purchased more military hardware for its African partners.
This needs to change. Combatant commanders need the requisite legal authority to reasonably allocate their resources so as to leverage the full capabilities of military, diplomatic and development tools in line with their mission.
To give combatant commanders this authority, Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) on Monday introduced an amendment to the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. The concise amendment would create a pilot program granting the Pentagon the authority to share funds appropriated for Pentagon security cooperation activities with USAID. The funds could then be invested in community-led programming to reduce violent extremism.
This is an idea whose time has come. The rise of these violent extremist groups is one of the greatest security threats facing the U.S. and the international community. While it is essential to continue focused military campaigns against these groups, their existence is a symptom of a greater problem: violent radicalization of thousands upon thousands of men and women living with little or no hope under corrupt regimes or in conflict-ridden states.
In the past year alone, terrorists have hit France, Belgium, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kenya and Nigeria, with deadly results. Violent extremist organizations like Islamic State, or ISIS, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram and the Taliban planned and carried out those attacks. They have also inspired attacks and attempts in the U.S.
While the U.S. and its allies have made progress against ISIS, even if it were wiped out tomorrow countless others share its radical and fatalistic ideology and are prepared to rise up and kill peaceful people across the globe. Along with numerous other current and former military officials, we have said that military force alone cannot defeat these groups and eliminate the threat of violent extremism.
That is why the U.S. military needs the flexibility to use everything in the national-security toolbox—including those tools that are rightfully in the hands of other government agencies.
To be clear, the Kaine amendment will not take money away from military readiness. It does not force the Pentagon to transfer funds. It does not tie the hands of combatant commanders. On the contrary, the amendment grants commanders freedom and flexibility to deploy taxpayer dollars already appropriated for combating violent extremism toward programs working to tackle its root causes. Execution of this authority would require concurrence from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and approval from Congress.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 8, Gen.David Rodriguez, commander of Africom, argued that development programs that complement security force operations are essential to countering violent extremism and radicalism. “If efforts are to be successful,” he explained, the Defense Department “must have the flexibility to transfer funds between agencies and collaborate on holistic responses to counter current and emerging threats.”
We couldn’t agree more. As former senior commanders who have seen, designed and budgeted for the fight against extremism, we urge Congress to adopt this common sense amendment when it takes up debate on the National Defense Authorization Act.
Our troops cannot win this battle on their own—and we should not be asking them to. Americans face greater risks and a deadlier fight if Congress does not adopt the Kaine amendment.
Mr. Stavridis, a retired U.S. Navy four-star admiral and former NATO supreme allied commander, is the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Mr. Allen is a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general and former commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
