Neumann speaks on interagency process

Ambassador (Ret.) Ronald E. Neumann, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and current president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, recently spoke to students at the Maneuver Captains Career Course at Ft. Benning, Ga., about the interagency process. His remarks were part of the combat leader speaker program.

Neumann, who also served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, informed the students that, more and more, they will encounter “this mysterious beast of the interagency,” and warned that there are often uncertainties about agencies’ involvement in the interagency process. According to Neumann, “There are multiple players and all think they should play and all have a hand on the wheel… It’s also important to remember that you are part of this. It’s not the military over here and the interagency over there. It includes you.”

Neumann went on to explain that the phrase “the interagency” is a misnomer, saying “It used to be the ‘interagency process.’ It was a verb and an adverb to describe the process. We turned it into a noun, and now people think there’s a thing called the interagency. There isn’t. There is a process … but it is not a thing. It doesn’t have structure.”

Amb. (Ret.) Neumann is a friend of the Simons Center. He has been interviewed for the Center’s InterAgency Journal and moderated the Center’s Conference on the Role of the Foreign Policy Advisor, which was co-sponsored by the American Academy of Diplomacy.

For more information about Amb. (Ret.) Neumann’s remarks, please follow the link below.
Former ambassador visits MCoE, discusses interagency process, Bayonet & Saber