Lines on a Map: Regional Orientations and United States Interagency Cooperation

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to examine one narrowly-focused aspect of United States government interagency cooperation. Many of the departments agencies and bureaus that contribute to our national security divide the globe into regions so that they can better manage their activities around the world. As two prime examples the Department of State has six regions each assigned to an Assistant Secretary of State while the Defense Department has five each under the responsibility of a regional Combatant Commander. It seems obvious that the way each department or agency organizes its global affairs impacts not only how it sees the world and applies programs and policies thereto but also that these divergent regional orientations impact the interactions of the organizations with one other. The paper's thesis is that aligning the regional orientations of our departments agencies and bureaus-beginning with the National Security Council staff State and Defense Departments-would provide a cross-agency synergy that could dramatically outweigh the costs associated with denying each the parochial ability to draw its own lines and boundaries on the map.