THE PROBLEM WITH THINKING IN DIME
Matthew O'Connor April 10, 2025
Diplomacy is, in its most basic form, the official means by which one state relates to other states or international organizations.
The acronym DIME is one of the most commonly used mental models across the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). A shorthand for the four purported “instruments of national power”—diplomatic, informational, military, and economic—the construct presents a distorted view of diplomacy and perpetuates a bottom-up, checklist view of policymaking. “Thinking in DIME,” so to speak, conflates diplomacy with other policy instruments that link more naturally to tangible sources of national power, thereby obscuring the unceasing political role of the diplomatist to coordinate and marshal all kinds of national power to achieve goals abroad. This approach also encourages policymakers to think of diplomacy as akin to military instruments of power, as something to start and stop—or even combine and portion out with other swappable units of power—rather than as a fundamentally different, fundamentally political process that is never abandoned. In addition, and more dangerously, conceptualizing using DIME reinforces a natural bureaucratic tendency to subordinate strategy to resourcing by building foreign policy up from present capabilities rather than identifying the mix of capabilities needed to achieve established policy ends.
DIME Distorts the Character and Role of Diplomacy
Diplomacy is, in its most basic form, the official means by which one state relates to other states or international organizations. Relating to another state or organization, however, has two broad aspects: the instruments or practices of diplomacy and the overall management of a bilateral or multilateral relationship. “Diplomacy” can refer to either or both of these, depending on the speaker and context. Under the DIME construct, however, the “D” largely refers to the first definition of diplomacy: discrete diplomatic practices or implements that reside largely in the Department of State toolbox, such as breaking diplomatic relations, declaring a foreign diplomat persona non grata, withdrawing an ambassador in protest, démarching foreign officials, approving foreign arms sales, or placing visa bans on corrupt foreign officials.
These mechanisms of diplomacy may be effective in achieving policy goals, but they differ from military, economic, or informational tools. For starters, those three instruments encompass latent powers that the instruments can potentially transmit into real results. The United States has, using David Jablonsky’s “gauge for national power,” tremendous latent military power built on factors like personnel, equipment, weaponry, leadership, discipline, and relationships with allies. Similarly, the U.S. economy is the largest and one of the most productive in the world, fueled by natural resources, a large and growing population, international faith in dollar-denominated assets, advanced technology, an attractive market for investment, and factories that make things (including things to support the M). Dynamic ideas, cultural reach, attractive ideals, and dominance of social media and other communications platforms represent massive U.S. informational and ideological power, what E.H. Carr, one of the twentieth century’s most influential international relations authors, called the “power of persuasion.”
https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/problem-with-dime/
