On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called for a “dramatic increase” in funding for diplomacy and foreign aid in the U.S. budget.

From Tuesday’s Washington Post piece:

“In a speech that emphasized the importance of “soft power” to prevent and end conflicts, Gates suggested beefing up the State Department’s foreign affairs budget of $36 billion, even as he acknowledged that Pentagon observers might consider it “blasphemy” for a sitting defense secretary to make such an appeal for another agency…

“We are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and culture,” Gates said. “It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America.”

Read the full article here.

The idea that development assistance is a key component to smart foreign policy is not a new one. It has, in fact, garnered increasing attention among high profile Washington foreign policy experts. Earlier this month, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (a bipartisan, nonprofit focused on global security and prosperity) released “the CSIS Commission on Smart Power,” which argues that investment in the global good is integral to America’s ability to tackle global challenges. You can read the full report here.

-Virginia Simmons