SecDef Robert Gates is said that increasing militarization of foreign policy is something that he has to push back against at a speech a week ago at U.S. Global Leadership Council.

I think that this is an explicit refutation of Rumsfeld, and his attempts to make the Pentagon the decision authority on all levels, particularly in Iraq, where the State Department and other civilian agencies were explicitly cut out of any decision making, or even consultation.

I believe that Gates is right, but I do not believe that he will get much traction on this in this administration, particularly given the given the trajectory of U.S. Africa command (Africom):

Africom is slated to begin operations in September. It marks the Pentagon’s first centralized operation for Africa, like the Defense Dept. now has, for example, Eucom for Europe or Centcom for the Middle East. The Pentagon, though, has envisioned using Africom as more than a military command. It is designed to help build U.S. soft power in Africa, through what it calls “active security” missions — like building schools and digging wells.

(Matt Mahurin) To many African political leaders, this sounds a lot like an imperialist enterprise. They say Africom’s “active security” will result in the construction of military bases across the continent in order to interfere with sovereign political systems — and access the region’s oil reserves. Currently, the Pentagon has only one African base, at Dijbouti in the perpetually unstable, resource-poor Horn of Africa.

Which appears to be moving in exactly the opposite direction.