Program Planning: the Missing Element

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IT is now generally accepted that in the last 15 years the conduct of our foreign affairs has undergone a fundamental revolution. The United States has progressed from an era in which foreign policy was executed only through negotiations between an ambassador and a foreign minister to an era in which the broadest and most active contacts are maintained at all levels within a foreign country. In many areas of the world, we are actually helping to build new nations from the ground up.

Before World War II, our concern with foreign affairs was much more limited. The active issues of policy requiring foresighted planning were confined almost entirely to tariff and disarmament negotiations and these occasional activities could be handled by a small corps of professional diplomats, aided by a few professional soldiers. All that was required was: first, broad policy decisions on the positions to be taken; second, diplomatic negotiations with other interested powers; and possibly third, treaty ratifications if negotiations were successful. This was the totality of foreign affairs. Even Sir Harold Nicolson, in his classic book "Diplomacy," written in 1939, treated diplomacy as the sole means available to a nation for the peacetime execution of foreign policy.

In today's world, the tools for carrying out policy have multiplied. In addition to diplomacy, they include information and propaganda; economic aid; technical assistance; scientific discovery and development; educational and cultural activities; monetary, trade and tariff controls; foreign military assistance and the maintenance of military power in being. Under these circumstances, the conduct of foreign policy becomes incredibly more complex. Today 16 separate departments and agencies of government have a major concern with foreign affairs and 20 more have a somewhat lesser concern. Each of these organizations conducts its own programs, either directly or indirectly in contact with foreign governments and peoples. Each competes for limited resources of money, facilities and skilled manpower...