USIP President Richard H. Solomon submitted the following written testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs on March 30. Solomon explains how USIP's peacebuilding and conflict management work minimizes the need for costly military interventions.

USIP President Testifies on the Value of Peacebuilding

March 30, 2012

USIP President Richard H. Solomon submitted the following written testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs on March 30. Solomon explains how USIP’s peacebuilding and conflict management work minimizes the need for costly military interventions.

 

Chairwoman Granger, Ranking Member Lowey and other members of the Subcommittee, I am Richard Solomon, President of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).  I appreciate this opportunity to submit testimony in support of the Administration's request for $37.4 million for USIP in Fiscal year 2013 to further efforts to professionalize the field of international conflict management and peacebuilding, implement conflict management programs abroad, and generate and train practioners in new techniques of conflict management and prevention. 

Created by Congress in 1984, USIP is the government's only national security and foreign affairs institution chartered to develop and promote non-violent approaches to international conflict management and peacebuilding.  We also understand the importance for our national viability of reducing the federal budget deficit.   In FY 2011, USIP's appropriation was reduced by 20 percent, leading to a consolidation of USIP's efforts -- including a 16 percent reduction in personnel.  In light of the current budget environment, USIP concurs with the Administration's proposal to reduce USIP's FY 2013 appropriation by an addition 4 percent to $37.4 million.

The greatest contribution USIP makes to reduce the federal budget deficit is its work.  Peacebuilding and conflict management is cost effective.  Our work helps minimize the need for costly military interventions and our programs save lives.  In the last quarter century, USIP has paid for itself by many multiples through its programs—not just by our field activities in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, but in other conflict areas, including Sudan, the Balkans, Philippines, Northeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.  USIP's budget is equivalent to less than four hours of the cost of operations in Afghanistan.  It is less than one-tenth of one percent of the budget of the Department of State, and one one-hundredth of the one percent of the defense budget.  Funding USIP adequately pays regular national security dividends that far exceed the costs.

The Institute's programs encompass a wide range of activities and operations that contribute directly and uniquely to the national security of the United States.  I would like to highlight a few areas in which we are currently engaged.

Preventing Conflict:  Since 9/11, USIP's role in advancing American international interests has grown through working in partnership with the U.S. military, the State Department, other civilian agencies, nongovernmental and international organizations, and institutions of higher education and research.  USIP enhances America's capability for peace and security promotion in conflict zones around the world by training localsin the skills of conflict management.  USIP's operations in Libya demonstrate the capabilities that make the Institute so effective. USIP deployed its peacebuilders to Libya, shortly after the NATO decision to intervene to protect civilians.  Working behind the scenes, USIP served as one of the bridges between the rebels and both the State Department and USAID, helping to assure that coordination between the U.S. government and the rebels was not perceived as U.S. meddling.  The day Tripoli fell, the Institute was on the ground training over one hundred Libyans to work as post-conflict mediators and facilitators.  They were able to rapidly respond throughout the country to help prevent community level violence.  USIP remains engaged there today, helping address post-conflict challenges, such as transitional justice and constitution-making.  USIP was the only foreign actor asked by Libya's ruling National Transitional Council's stabilization team to advise them on the role of civil society and women in the post-conflict environment.  It was for undertakings such as this that former CENTCOM commander GEN Anthony Zinni praised USIP as "the Marine Corp or special forces for foreign affairs and peacebuilding."

Training in Conflict Management Skills:  As is confirmed by those who serve in complex international operations, friction and uncertainty among the various actors—including the military and civilian agencies, NGOs, international organizations, foreign militaries and governments, etc.—can lead to failure, the loss of life, and wasted resources.  To be effective in today's world, military and civilian personnel need to design and implement operations across institutional and national boundaries and to work together in rapidly changing, insecure environments.  USIP's Academy for Conflict Management and Peacebuilding employs the Institute's unique capabilities to conduct professional training in best practices and lessons learned for both civilian and military professionals.  The Academy's mission targets capacity building; its training activities are professionalizing the field of peacebuilding.  Training focuses on innovative thinking and applied learning that draws on experience, anticipates future conflict management challenges, develops and assesses strategic concepts and skills, and provides analytical products that inform leaders and help shape key decisions.  The Academy gives the U.S. government the ability to prepare interagency and whole-of-community participation for today's conflicts and tomorrow's conflict management challenges.

Research and Innovation:  USIP's status as a quasi-independent agency linked to Congress enables agility, flexibility and the ability to take risks.  Inspired by Congress's vision of a service that could  independently collate, analyze and apply data and information relevant  to conflict management and peacebuilding from open sources and all departments of the federal government, USIP's applied research capacity provides the government a formidable resource.  Staffed with professionals from many disciplines—economists, political scientists, anthropologists, lawyers, national security specialists, peace operations experts, historians, military, and diplomats—USIP's roster includes a Who's Who of this generation's innovators in international  conflict management and peacebuilding.  As but one example, two USIP-Army fellows went on to earn their general's stars and apply their skills in conflict management for the nation through service in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Over the past quarter century, USIP's analytical studies, developed in close collaboration with the government and nongovernment  peace and security communities, substantially rewrote the academic and training  literature  for understanding contemporary conflicts and approaches to their resolution.  One of USIP's most important national security contributions has been its joint collaboration with the Army on the first strategic "doctrine" ever produced for civilian actors involved in peace operations.   Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction captures the hard-won lessons of whole-of-government interventions in a practical guidebook for adaptive, creative conflict leadership at a critical time in our history.  Through this analysis, the Institute recently supported the planning framework for Libya's post-conflict stabilization activities.  The Institute facilitates the interagency and "whole of community" Working Group on Civil-Military Relations in Non-Permissive Environments, the nation's only regular working group of the major U.S. humanitarian assistance NGOs, the Defense and State Departments, and USAID.   This group negotiated and oversees guidelines approved by SECDEF and CJCS to coordinate the relations and combined efforts of the military, civilian agencies and humanitarian NGOs in peace and stability operations.

Service:  There is no question that the military and Defense and State Departments consider USIP an essential tool in the nation's capacity for international conflict management and peacebuilding.  In testimony before the Congress, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton affirmed that USIP "fills a real place in our whole arsenal" of institutional capability for non-military engagement abroad.  Sustained high levels of peacebuilding operations over the past decade, in partnership with the military and diplomatic communities, is indicative of the Institute's can-do, "selfless service" attitude.  Senior U.S. officials and military leaders frequently speak of their support for, and appreciation of, the superb work of USIP's skilled peacebuilders, trainers, analysts, and support specialists.  The unique capabilities they apply on the nation's behalf are extraordinary, surmounting challenging operational and security conditions with rare skill, ingenuity and determination.  These American peacebuilding professionals work quietly behind the scenes, not looking for headlines but striving for practical results.  With the highest standards of personal courage, they have brought an impressive pride to our federal mission.  On the ground in Iraq since 2003—in fact, since three weeks after the invasion phase of the war—USIP specialists have enabled and supported critical peace and stability operations at great personal risk.  During these nearly nine years in Iraq, the USIP compound suffered severe damage from six mortar and rocket strikes.  One barrage destroyed an Institute vehicle.  We sustained our greatest loss when two USIP staff were killed in the line of service.

Our nation is slowly emerging from a very challenging decade of war—more than 53,000 Americans killed or wounded, countless Afghan and Iraqi civilians killed, and trillion and a half U.S. dollars spent.  We have learned the hard way that the old approach of going to war, conquering an enemy, and then coming home is not viable in a much more complex and interdependent world.  We work to develop better ways of preventing conflict in the first place, and promoting stabilization when a conflict is over.  And we train citizens of other countries to manage their own conflicts, thus reducing the need for American intervention.

Current and threatening international conflicts shape the Institute's FY 2013 request.  No other federal national security institution is designed to accomplish USIP's mission. The Institute's unique training, operations, and analytical work save lives and money. USIP enhances national security, and increases the government's operational efficiency with innovation and full spectrum analysis-to-action solutions. 

I strongly urge full funding of this important federal institution, which is so essential to our national security in today's world.

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