State Department advisor: Teamwork needed to combat threats

In an ever-changing world in which threats to U.S. national security develop all over the globe, there is only one way to combat those threats: as a team.

That was the message delivered by Marie Harf, Advisor for Strategic Communications for Secretary of State John Kerry, to The American Legion’s National Security Commission Aug. 27 during the 2016 National Convention in Cincinnati. Harf, who previously worked in the CIA and as former Department of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s senior advisor during his confirmation hearings, said multiple U.S. agencies must be involved in national security efforts.

“Even in the three years I’ve been in the State Department it seems the world has changed in some pretty drastic ways,” she said. “It seems like the threats have evolved at a really equally fast pace.

“Our diplomats cannot operate without our military, our intelligence (and) our Homeland Security colleagues. The threats are just too complicated. The opportunities are too complex. Firepower alone, diplomacy alone – none of these things can tackle the challenges we face today.”

Harf said one of the issues that’s changed the most since she began working for the U.S. government is the nature of the terrorist threat.

“When I joined the CIA, Al_Quaeda core … was really the top threat to the homeland,” she said. “Al_Quaeda tended to focus on large, symbolic attacks like 9-11, like the U.S.S. Cole bombing. Those attacks took years to plan. They involved a relatively large amount of money and a cadre of fighters that personally pledged allegiance to (Osama) bin Laden. They had to be vetted. They had to be trained.

“Today … all it takes is one radicalized kid sitting behind a computer to pose a threat. ISIS, in particular, has been content to let extremists around the world commit violence in its name – most of them without ever having traveled to Syria or Iraq. These tend to be smaller attacks. We’ve seen a number of them in Europe recently. But in many ways they’re harder to stop. It’s much easier today for these wannabe jihadis to avoid detection, especially if it’s just them sitting in their basement on their computer watching ISIS videos on YouTube.”

Harf said Syria is the most pressing challenge facing U.S. security. “It’s a security threat to the U.S. and our interests because of ISIS,” she said. “It’s a regional stability issue for our friends and partners in the Middle East. It’s a humanitarian crisis because of the unprecedented number of refugees that are fleeing. And are there no easy answers.”

Harf said Kerry believes the United States can make progress in Yemen and Libya in the coming months and said the nuclear deal with Iran already has been successful.

“We firmly believe … that this deal makes us and our friends in the region, including Israel, safer,” she said. “Now, we have to continue to ensure that Iran lives up to its commitment. And if they don’t, every option we had on the table before negotiations we still have.”

Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, commander of Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, told the National Security Commission that the Air Force – and the entire U.S. military – face much different challenges than before. “The airmen today are very different than the airmen back in 1978 when I was commissioned,” she said. “We had a very different world. Then, we essentially had one enemy: the Soviet Union. That’s what we grew up thinking about.”

Since then, Pawlikowski said, more women have joined the armed forces, more enlisted servicemembers are college graduates and the overall force strength has dropped to 1.3 million – down 700,000 from as recently as 1990.

“We are busier than we ever were,” she said. "(It’s a) different generation of airmen – great young Americans that, to this day, are voluntarily putting themselves in harm’s way for us. That’s the thing about these young men and women that we cannot forget: They are doing it not because they are told to do it, but because they want to.”

Pawlikowski talked about one of the new forms of weaponry, cyber warfare, and identifying military personnel best suited to conduct it. “(It’s) a special skillset, and in some cases you can’t train it,” she said. “It’s like being a professional basketball player. Being a cyber warrior is … something that is part of your genes.”

But a strong force isn’t just about technology. “It’s not all about the weapon systems. It’s not all about the hardware,” she said. “It’s about the human. It’s that airman and what we need to do to ensure that we are taking care of him.

“Remember the saying, ‘We recruit individuals. We retain families.’”

Pawlikowski, a New Jersey Girls State graduate, said finding that balance consists of strong education benefits and family support for airmen. She also discussed the new military retirement system.

“Under the old system, you got nothing if you didn’t stay 20 years,” she said. “Now, after a certain time – I think it’s four to five years – you get something you can take with you. I think the new retirement plan (is good), as long as we make sure that there isn’t a dilution in the health-care benefits that go along with that.”

Lawrence Romo, director of the Selective Service System and a member of Legion Post 2 in San Antonio, said that even though women now are eligible for combat positions in the military, no decision has been made to require women to register for the draft. “There’s no doubt women have shown great capabilities in all aspects of our military,” he said. “But the bottom of line for Selective Service is that we do not create policy. We implement the policy that our president and Congress mandate.”