George C. Marshall European Center: Proven Model or Irrelevant Prototype

摘要

Reinvented on the remains of the disbanded U.S. Army Russian Institute in the beautiful Bavarian resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, the Marshall Center's original raison d'etre was to help the postcommunist states of Eastern Europe and Eurasia grapple with civil-military relations, democracy, and human rights. The Marshall Center was initially envisioned as a single, stand-alone institution answering to the Secretary of Defense through U.S. European Command. Of the five DOD regional centers, it has several unique characteristics: it is a bilateral organization located on foreign soil, it supports three combatant commands as well as the German ministry of defense, it assumes Army Title 10 responsibilities to train foreign area officers, and it operates in parallel with adjacent North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) educational institutions. These distinguishing features, along with the geopolitical evolutions and revolutions of the past decade, have created a complex regional security landscape in the Marshall Center footprint. However, because its strategic objectives have not been rigorously evaluated over the last decade, the Center cannot clearly articulate them. It has achieved notoriety over the years and has frequently been the focus of scandal. Critics have accused it of being a waste of money, where no serious academic work occurs for either students or faculty. With its practical autonomy, minimal oversight, and the absence of functional rivals, this DOD regional center has never had its survival seriously challenged. Certainly, the Marshall Center has a broad supportive constituency--after all, who is actually against promoting democracy, human rights, and enduring partnerships. Therefore, 10 years later, in the face of glaring gaps and overlaps, a hard look at the overall mission and objectives of the Marshall Center is essential and urgent, given the changes in the political-strategic environment in the post-Soviet space.