The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2011

J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 67 were able to tap into the views of serving U.S. diplomats in the field and in Washington. InMay 2010, the advisory group held its first meeting, and a small drafting group got to work. We also assembled a sep- arate “red team,” whose task was to question the assumptions, conclusions and recommendations in the draft. Two of our colleagues visited a number of embassies in Washington, in- cluding those of Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Mexico and the United Kingdom, to learn how other diplomatic services educate and train their professionals. We also investigated in detail the professional education require- ments of U.S. military officers, which are as systematic as State’s are ad hoc. Although we compared notes with QDDR working group members as the two projects went forward, the two stud- ies complement, but do not duplicate, each other. Perhaps the most important distinction is the fact that the QDDR consistently refers to training, while the AAD project’s stress is on professional education across a diplomat’s career. In other words, we focused on how strong intellectual skills, informed analy- sis, structured thinking, the art of negoti- ation and the ability to manage programs can best be acquired and developed by Foreign Service generalists as they ad- vance through the ranks. Such a focus goes beyond training, to the core qualities of a diplomat’s abil- ities. Early on in the project, there were intense debates in the working group about whether diplomacy is in fact a profession and, if so, what qualifies it as such. Here is one definition, drawn from the Web: “Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between accredited persons … rep- resenting groups or nations. It usually refers to international diplomacy, the conduct of international relations through the intercession of professional diplomats with regard to issues of trade and war. International treaties are usually negotiated by diplomats prior to endorsement by national politicians.” I suspect that many Foreign Service officers these days would say: “How old-fashioned.” They might also cite a more succinct definition: “Diplomacy is the art of being able to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that he looks forward to the trip.” More seriously, if — to quote another definition from the Web — a profession is “a discipline whose activities are car- ried out by a group of specifically prepared and like-minded individuals,” then we need to ensure that the diplomatic pro- fession qualifies as such every bit as much as the military pro- fession. Consequently, two questions arise: What are the activities that today’s and tomorrow’s U.S. diplomats carry out? And are our diplomats being adequately and “specifi- cally prepared” to perform those activities? Investing in Professional Training Those are the core questions that the AAD report ad- dresses. It is direct and to the point: “Since at least 2001, America’s ‘smart power’ equation has been out of balance. Increasingly, underinvestment in diplo- macy and development has led to our military taking on re- sponsibilities traditionally met by diplomats and development experts. Driven by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the need to respond to the global threat of terrorism, resources and influence have flowed, abundantly and too often uncrit- ically, to the Defense Department, which more than anyone has pointed to the lim- itation of bullets in addressing the chal- lenges in this region. “While the root cause of this imbal- ance lies in a lack of broad understand- ing about the value and requirements of diplomacy and development at this point in history, the lack of resources allocated to the State Department and other for- eign affairs agencies, and the inconsistent and uncoordinated response of those agencies to rapidly changing interna- tional priorities and demands have also played a contributing role.” The heart of the report consists of eight specific recom- mendations that focus on the need to redress America’s chronic underinvestment in diplomacy and strengthen and expand the State Department’s professional development process. The first three deal with the broad question of re- sources, for without proper funding and sufficient personnel the specific steps recommended by us — or anyone else — will be fruitless. Thus, we stress the need to: •Redress the chronic underinvestment in American diplo- macy; • Provide and sustain a 15-percent “float,” or personnel overcomplement, which is essential to free up FSOs for pro- fessional education and training (and which already exists at the Defense Department); and • Make a long-term commitment to investing in profes- sional education and training. We are well aware that acquiring and maintaining such re- sources in the current budget climate will be extraordinarily difficult. To succeed will require active, effective lobbying on Capitol Hill and a carefully calibrated public outreach ef- fort, targeting opinion leaders and key audiences throughout the United States. But the alternative—a second-rate diplo- Relying on informal, on-the-job professional education and training for diplomats makes about as much sense as doing so for military officers.