BOEING C-40C EN ROUTE TO EUROPE - Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley, chief of the National Guard Bureau, gestures a man in a suit over as National Guard, DoD and State Department leaders cross the Atlantic aboard this District of Columbia Air National Guard passenger jet.
The two huddle in the distinguished visitor compartment, discussing this visit to U.S. Africa Command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.
Michael Fitzpatrick, the man in the suit, updates the general on leaders he will meet with, potential talking points and current conditions in partner countries.
Fitzpatrick is the general’s foreign policy advisor. He is a senior foreign service officer – equivalent to a major general – drawing a State Department salary, but he reports to work at the National Guard Bureau, a 15-minute walk from the Pentagon in Arlington, Va.
In virtually every aspect of operations, the nation’s oldest military organization is dual-tasked: Troops are citizens with civilian employers and also Soldiers or Airmen. Domestically, the Guard answers to governors, conducting homeland defense and responding to natural and manmade disasters. Overseas, it answers to the president, executing full-spectrum missions ranging from peacekeeping to contingency operations.
With 62 foreign partnerships under the National Guard’s expanding State Partnership Program and ongoing operations in Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, Iraq, Kosovo, the Sinai and other foreign lands, National Guard leaders from state joint force headquarters to the Pentagon need as keen a grasp of foreign policy as of domestic affairs.
With that many foreign relationships, McKinley can expect to meet with a foreign military or civilian leader on almost a daily basis.
“Having Mike Fitzpatrick means we’ve got a current, serving, knowledgeable professional who understands that side of the street,” McKinley said. “It really completes the team. Along with our International Affairs division, having a foreign policy advisor just makes it a lot easier for us to operate.”
Fitzpatrick’s job is the living embodiment of the whole-of-government approach to U.S. domestic and foreign policy.
“They’re State Department employees embedded within the commands,” said Jonita Whitaker, coordinator for foreign policy advisors in State’s Bureau for Political-Military Affairs. “They may be embedded, seconded – but they remain State Department employees.”
Foreign policy advisors – also known as political advisors or POLADs – have existed since World War II and the subsequent unprecedented staging of U.S. forces en masse overseas, but they reached a peak of activity during the past two years, their numbers mushrooming from 23 in 2008 to 110 this year. They serve in combatant and functional commands, military components and agencies and geographic conflict zones.
Seen more than heard in public, they are often at senior military leaders’ sides and always within easy contact.
“I’m not … a State Department mole inside his operation: I’m there to work for him, to give him context, to help him and his organization,” Fitzpatrick said.
With Defense Secretary Robert Gates advocating the whole-of-government approach and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton preaching smart power – a deliberate combination of hard and soft power – the foreign policy advisor program has been a growth industry.
Considered a career-enhancing assignment, the program is staffed with seasoned foreign service officers, who typically already have Washington, interagency and overseas experience.
“You need to know how Washington works in order to advise … senior military officers,” said Fitzpatrick, whose experience includes working with combatant commands, covering North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Asian, South American and African issues.
“I’ve seen everybody from senior enlisted to four-stars and everyone in between [executing a wide variety of Defense Department operations],” he said, which gave him insight into the range of Defense Department tools the State Department can call on.
The foreign policy advisors also take an intense orientation course.
“The POLADs are not just considered [liaison officers],” Whitaker said. “They are part of the command group. [Fitzpatrick] reports to the chief. He has the confidence and the loyalty of the chief.
“He advises the chief on … State Department priorities and policies. They’re … a valuable force multiplier or stability multiplier in Afghanistan … and they may not just be performing the traditional role of advising, but may participate in exercises [or] humanitarian and peacekeeping operations.”
The mere fact Fitzpatrick’s uniform is a suit rather than a battle dress uniform helps him help the Guard think outside the box, particularly in the challenging area of anticipating twists and turns in foreign relations.
“It’s almost like I’m standing on the hill beside the Army walking through the valley, and I’m able to look ahead and see what the contours are ahead of them that the ground forces … might not recognize immediately,” he said. “It’s the ability to give that little strategic warning sometimes to the chief.
“That strategic warning can take the shape of advice or assistance on an opponent, on an ally, not just internationally, but even domestically and sometimes organizationally.
“I bring a different perspective and a different vantage point.”
Under the Constitution, states do not exercise foreign policy. But, in federal status, Guard states pursue foreign partnerships at the military-to-military, military-to-civilian and civilian-to-civilian level. In today’s increasingly codependent world, state affairs often have a foreign nexus.
“It’s being able to help provide to the ‘board of 54’ – as [McKinley] calls the adjutants general – that context for their own activities and operations,” Fitzpatrick said.
He avoids Stockholm Syndrome – the risk of becoming purely an advocate for the Guard because of the amount of time he spends embedded in it – by maintaining his State Department network, tracking State websites and crossing the Potomac to visit his C Street colleagues.
“I continue to wear a tie in an environment, where everyone wears a [military] uniform,” he said.
In Sderot, Israel, earlier this year, that got Fitzpatrick picked out of a crowd by a third-grader and became a teaching point.
“What is he doing here?” a boy asked, pointing at Fitzpatrick during a school visit by McKinley and about 20 uniformed U.S. and foreign military officers.
“I’m in my uniform,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s just not their uniform.”
Among a raft of advisors to the chief, Fitzpatrick knows his advice is not always going to be acted on.
“I know I’ve been heard, and it’s been considered, and it’s been analyzed and put to full use – and that’s all I could ever ask for,” he said.
Though demanding – he can be working a half-dozen issues any given day – Fitzpatrick said the job he has held at Guard Bureau since October 2009 is fun. Almost halfway through a two-year term, he values meeting a huge variety of people, in and out of the Guard.
“How many State Department officers would you trust to fly the plane we’re on?” he quipped to Whitaker during flight, before answering his own question: “None.”
But several passengers on this flight could take control of the C-40C, were it necessary.
“I look around at some of the Guardsmen, who not only bring a wealth of skills as Guardsmen, but in their private sector capacities,” he said. “Who are airline pilots, who are lawyers, doctors, you name it.”
The National Guard is “an organization that has been tested and is coming out stronger, more flexible and more capable than I think the Guard even gave itself credit for 10 years ago,” Fitzpatrick said.
“It’s not the Guard I thought I knew from years gone by, but it’s also not the Guard that I think many Guardsmen thought they knew from years gone by, either.
“It’s that self-awareness that I think is slowly coming over the Guard, that renewed sense of real appreciation for what the Guard has been able to contribute to national security in ways that Guardsmen kind of knew that they always could do … but the fact that it has been stretched, been engaged in so many ways that were never expected previously, I think that Guardsmen and women have a lot to be proud of today, and they should be. They should not shy from being proud.”
The National Guard’s State Partnership Program makes a huge contribution to the nation, he said. “Enduring relationships that are perhaps centered around the military, that’s the core of the SPP, but … it has evolved far beyond that, it has become truly people-to-people relationships,” he said.
Of the 62 partner nations, 10 are now formal NATO treaty allies. “These are all countries who at one point were official enemies, if you will, of the United States, and they in part through the [SPP] as well as other U.S. government activities [are now allies].
“It’s the [SPP] that has really put a human face on what it means to be able to work with the United States – not just the United States government, but the United States people.
“And that ability over the years to have that enduring relationship between the Guard of a certain locality in the United States – a state or territory or the District – to be able to indicate to that foreign country, ‘Not only is the United States your partner, but this community at a local level, at a human level,’ that has provided a gateway to them to the United States.”
As a state adjutant general recently entered a high-level meeting, a foreign defense minister spontaneously burst out to those assembled, “And here is the most concrete, visible example of the United States’ commitment to my nation’s independence and security, right here, and I want to thank you, general, for all you and your state have done for my nation.’ ”
If most people understood what the Guard was doing, “they would be very proud,” said Fitzpatrick, who believes most Americans understand the Guard’s domestic contribution, but are not aware of the extent of its overseas contributions.