The Foreign Service Journal, May 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2020 23 impression that anyone can do foreign policy, while according to Huntington, military officership is seen as “an extraor- dinarily complex intellectual skill requir- ing comprehensive study and training.” Novices need not apply. Simultaneously recognizing and contributing to this per- ception, the military requests from Con- gress a tremendous amount of resources to educate and train its officers. Military officers also apply significant time, energy and rigor in defining the tenets and application of their craft to themselves and key external audiences. This is an area where the Foreign Service could replicate the military’s approach to great effect, first and foremost by dedicat- ing greater research and scholarship by FSOs to the study of diplomacy as a profession. Some steps have been taken, includ- ing the 2017 establishment of the State Department’s Center for the Study of the Conduct of Diplomacy. This new office’s mission to analyze recent diplomatic ini- tiatives and events to create case studies for tradecraft training is a good start. To reach its full potential, however, we must move beyond case studies into the realm of professional education and profes- sional doctrine to guide and instruct our officers in the conduct of their missions. Expanding Training and Research The liberal education of the profes- sional is normally handled by the general educational institutions of society devoted to this purpose. The technical or second phase of profes- sional education is given in special institutions operated by or affiliated with the profession itself. —Samuel Huntington abroad. By comparison, the U.S. Army’s basic infantry officer training course at Fort Benning lasts 17 weeks. FSI offers a range of other optional courses on political and other issues, but given demands on their schedules, most officers canmanage only the three weeks of required training before heading off to their assignments. FSI should be transformed into a College of Diplomacy with the in-house expertise to study (and teach) the profes- sion of diplomacy, while examining current and future foreign policy chal- lenges through a “war game” center. This unit could be directed by the Secretary, the policy planning staff (S/P) and other senior department figures to game out strategies and events, with a particular focus on great-power competition with Russia and China. This approach will not only greatly improve the opportunities for FSOs and visiting academics to study the history and modern conduct of diplomacy; it will also uncover options for the resolution of existing and future diplomatic challenges, in order to develop long-term strategies to meet them. Creating Standardized Doctrine To move from training to professional education, we need a system for creating standardized doctrine in the essential areas of focus for FSOs. What functional training FSOs do receive at FSI, which more senior officers impart, lacks this key component. Political officers, for example, have no official handbook on conducting multilateral diplomacy, or operating effec- tively in conflict and transition countries, or even carrying out the basics of contact work and drafting reports. In complement to the departmentwide “Professional Ethos,” the Foreign Service officer corps should begin developing Expanding professional education and research opportunities at the Foreign Ser- vice Institute goes hand-in-hand with the need to develop official doctrine regarding the conduct of diplomacy. The U.S. military model boasts a formalized system of professional military education (PME) encompassing multiple service academies and officer candidate programs to train incoming officers, as well as the Command and Staff Colleges and War Colleges that train intermediate and senior officers, conduct research on military campaigns and study the profes- sion of military officership. In sharp contrast, the State Depart- ment has only the Foreign Service Institute. While FSI devotes considerable resources to language training, offering courses lasting up to two years for certain hard languages, and has been working on expanding leadership training, tradecraft training is limited; and, overall, profes- sional education is limited by comparison to the PME system. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell mandated leadership training for FSOs at all ranks, an important first step that has improved leadership competency in the ranks. Still, newly promoted FSOs at the FS-3 level receive just a week’s train- ing at FSI to prepare them for this new level of leadership, typically in classes taught by contractors with no experience in the Foreign Service. Their military equivalents can expect to spend a year in training for their new position in an equivalent rank (major), where they are instructed by active-duty, subject matter experts from their service. Functional skill training also needs to be expanded. Political officers, for example, receive just three weeks of required training (split between political and economic tradecraft) before deploying