The Foreign Service Journal, December 2003

eign cultures. It is now 20 years since 3/3 competency in at least one foreign language was made a requirement for entry into the Senior Foreign Service. More recently, we have devoted more resources to helping employees achieve and maintain competency at the 4/4 level. With this knowledge we become far more than messengers who translate and deliver talking points crafted by our colleagues in Washington. We interpret as well as translate the message we are deliver- ing, and the response to it. In the Absence of Diplomatic Relations … The absence of diplomatic rela- tions makes it difficult for the Foreign Service to maintain its primacy of knowledge concerning political and social issues and attitudes in another country. Evaluating proposed initia- tives toward another government is harder because of the lack of daily reports coming in from our officers in the field. Those who do possess knowledge of the country become dis- persed throughout the Service and may now be working half a world away on totally unrelated issues. Intelligence analysts who may have spent little time in the country con- cerned tend to gain disproportionate influence. All too often the resulting vacuum can foster a dangerous reliance on intelligence that is purchased from other, sometimes clandestine, sources. A colleague taught me early in my career that informants who are paid to report will always find — or create — something to report. During the last decade of my career I read serious reports telling me that two different heads of state were suffering from ter- minal diseases. Both are still very active politically today, six or seven years later. Similarly, intelligence reports that originate in circles in opposition to a government, whether internal or in exile, need to be regarded with a great deal of skepticism. Our military forces in particular need to be extremely cautious about acting on reports that could come from sources with their own political axes to grind. Accepting such reports at face value and acting on them quickly in a poten- tially hostile environment could well explain grievous errors in Afghanistan and Iraq that resulted in the loss of innocent lives. Naturally the exigencies of combat do not allow military commanders to check with Foreign Service regional experts before responding to tactical threats they encounter on the battle- field. However, some of the incidents reported after our invasion of Afghanistan did not occur in the midst of battle but were discretionary in nature — seizing on a “target of opportunity” — and in retrospect should have been passed up. Perhaps a better appreciation of the vested interests of the reporting source might have helped avoid such errors. So what can we do to ensure that an informed framework exists for understanding what is going on in a country such as Iran, Iraq, Libya or Somalia — especially when we con- template actions affecting such coun- tries? • Usually there will be a number of officers who have served in the coun- try in the past, though the number clearly declines when the break in relations begins to exceed 20 years. Convening these officers periodically to discuss new initiatives or trends in U.S. policy may be useful and could prevent unwise initiatives from pro- ceeding in a vacuum of cultural igno- rance. • Immigrant communities in the U.S. sometimes exist. These are not frequently the object of contacts by State officers, but they could be, though in the aftermath of 9/11 con- 16 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 3 S P E A K I N G O U T Web access to major advertisers. Go to w ww.afsa.org Click on Marketplace tab on the marquee Bukkehave w ww.bukkehave.com Charles Smith Corp. Living w ww.SmithLiving.com Clements International w ww.clements.com Diplomatic Auto. Sales w ww.diplosales.com Executive Club Suites w ww.execlubdc.com Georgetown Suites w ww.georgetownsuites.com Intelsat w ww.intelsat.com Harry Jannette International w ww.jannetteintl.com Hawthorn Suites w ww.hawthorn.com Hirshorn Company, The w ww.hirshorn.com J. Kirby Simon Trust w ww.kirbysimontrust.org Laughlin Management w ww.century21laughlin.com Long & Foster w ww.simunek.com Marriott w ww.marriott.com Oakwood w ww.oakwood.com Pennsylvania House w ww. dcsuites.com Prudential Carruthers w ww.prudentialcarruthers.com Remington w ww.remington-dc.com SDFCU w ww.sdfcu.org State Plaza w ww.stateplaza.com University of North Carolina w wwhttp://www.uncpress.unc Vulcan Power Company w ww.vulcanpower.com WJDManagement w ww. wjdpm.com For more information about advertisers in the Journal go to: w ww.afsa.org/marketplace MARKETPLACE