Set Clear Long-Term Goals

After 15 years in government, both working at State and conducting oversight on State and USAID, I can attest to the immense skill, ability, and dedication of U.S. Foreign Service personnel. You are inheriting a workforce that can tackle the most complex and complicated problems in the world. However, I can also attest to the many ways that this skilled workforce has been squandered over time, to the detriment of our national interests and delight of our adversaries.

If we define strategy as the alignment of ends (goals), ways (methods/plans), and means (resources), the issue that most often undercuts the State Department’s performance is overly expansive goals—being asked to do everything, everywhere, all at once.

This is not mission creep. It is having goals and objectives so ill-defined or broad that any activity can be seen as advancing them. Without clear end-states, the very proactive Foreign Service will fill the strategic void with activity and plans—as well as ask for more resources to pursue these ever-proliferating activities. Sometimes decried as bureaucracy “doing its thing,” it is more aptly described as the absence of policy leadership.

Similarly, without clear long-term goals, Foreign Service personnel often find themselves pushed to respond to urgent crises rather than more important but longer-term dilemmas. Unfortunately, this careening from crisis to crisis, and a performance system that rewards focus on crisis, has led to the atrophy of strategic planning culture in the Foreign Service, which could theoretically be expected to mitigate some lack of direction at the top.

The resulting lack of coherent strategy does not just waste resources. It also leads the bureaus to work at cross-purposes with each other because they lack an overriding framework to prioritize between conflicting efforts. There is a school of thought that believes cutting resources to State and USAID will somehow result in improved effectiveness. But if we are given the same ambiguous goals that many previous administrations have provided us, it will only make us have to do everything, everywhere, all at once—with even less.

Defining goals and prioritizing them, i.e., deciding which efforts trump others and ultimately deserve more resources, is essential to making State and USAID more effective. Ultimately, even if you do not provide this direction, the workforce is so talented that it will muddle through and rack up some good successes.

However, for the Foreign Service to truly shine and accomplish great things, it needs clear long-term goals that can be strategically implemented across all the bilateral and multilateral relationships we need to advance those goals.

Greg Bauer
State Department FSO
Arlington, Virginia

Get Outside the Embassy Walls

When I served in the Middle East (Dubai, Damascus, Casablanca), many of the kudos I received for my reporting came from my interactions with people “on the street.” While the threat of terrorism and security upgrades have limited how much Foreign Service officers can venture out into the cities and countryside in recent years, I want to encourage the new administration to put the focus back on diplomats having contact with ordinary people.

Talking to the elites may provide some window into how a government ministry functions, but the economy’s heartbeat lies in the workers and how they carve out a living. Diplomats belong outside the walls of the embassy or consulate, having exchanges with students, union leaders, activists, and the full range of a society’s social strata.

Michael Varga
State Department FSO, retired
Wilton Manors, Florida

Support Global Health Assistance

Our global health programs and assistance play a vital role in not only protecting U.S. borders and improving the lives of millions across the planet, but also in serving as a valuable tool in our diplomacy and the projection of U.S. influence.

On any given day, health professionals from U.S. government agencies including State, USAID, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Defense, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) work overseas with host government officials to improve the capacity of their countries’ health systems to ensure that disease outbreaks such as Ebola and mpox are identified and contained at the source. This both benefits the host country and protects the health and welfare of U.S. citizens.

Our health assistance is also one of the most tangible and effective tools in our diplomatic efforts to project U.S. power and counter the malign influence of our geopolitical competitors. The President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) is by far the largest investment of any country to combat a single disease and continues to save millions of lives; and its impact on improving our diplomatic relations even with countries not inclined to support U.S. interests is immeasurable.

Our adversaries have noticed: In Africa, for example, China and Russia have increased their development activities in the health sectors of various countries and would be eager to fill any gaps should we lose focus and reduce our health assistance.

The COVID-19 pandemic clearly demonstrated the need for a comprehensive strategy to ensure global security and the vital leadership role that the United States plays in this fight. The previous Trump administration demonstrated its commitment to the health security of our nation via its support for Operation Warp Speed.

Supporting our global health assistance activities again will be vital in protecting our people and projecting U.S. power and influence. Failure to do so would weaken U.S. border security as well as provide inroads for our strategic competitors such as China and Russia to fill the void.

State Department FSO

Build a Professional Culture

Project 2025 asserts that State Department employees incorporate significant political bias into their work. I am not qualified to scientifically comment on the veracity of that claim. What I can say, however, is that State as an organization is susceptible to all forms of political influence because we do not have a strong organizational culture.

Our weakness, at least at the working level, isn’t that we’re too political; our failing is that we lack a professional culture. Addressing this more fundamental problem would greatly improve operational effectiveness and, at the same time, go a long way toward assuaging any worries, whether Democratic or Republican, about the focus of State’s employees.

At present, we are incentivized to self-promote while pleasing our principal at any cost. We undergo relatively little training beyond language classes, and we treat the backbone of our workforce, locally employed (LE) staff, as an afterthought.

Instituting a culture of leadership at State, through which we grow leaders in the profession of diplomacy, involves three changes:

Recognize, value, and empower locally employed staff. They are 70 percent of the organization. Create offices dedicated and responsive to their issues. It will pay massive dividends.

Make FSOs earn their commissions. Foreign Service officers are commissioned after a lengthy application process, followed by five weeks of orientation. Having been previously commissioned an Air Force officer, I believe it is a profound understatement to say that State falls well short of the commissioning requirements of other services. Crib from more stringent services, and make us earn it.

Build a leadership culture with a significant training float. The leaders who tell you that they cannot spare people for training are products of a lack of training themselves. The Foreign Service Institute now has a core curriculum, but it’s optional.

The truth is that a significant portion of our work is generated at the whims of chiefs of mission and Washington, D.C., principals, who themselves never received much leadership training on their way to the top. Create a training float and incentives to develop professionally, and you will see the whimsical work diminish and the workforce thrive.

John Fer
State Department FSO
U.S. Embassy Moscow

Better Articulate Why the U.S. Is the Partner of Choice

As China builds roads, bridges, and soccer stadiums around the world, the United States needs to have a clear answer for why foreign governments should partner with us. Partnering with the U.S. has lots of advantages including access to the largest market in the world, military and development assistance, and so on. However, sometimes these benefits are diffuse and can get lost in the shuffle.

One institution needs to take the lead on articulating these benefits to partner countries, and the logical institution to do so is the State Department. The following steps are required:

• Equip embassies with true communications teams that can articulate the value that the United States brings. Communication teams at multinational corporations are focused on defining and formulating important corporate messages and not on running their own programs. Embassy public diplomacy sections should follow this model and focus more on conveying the broad benefits that the U.S. brings to a country.

Everyone working at an embassy should be able to recite off the top of their head the three main ways the U.S. contributes to the host country. These could be economic (the U.S. buys X millions of Y product), security (the U.S. supplies X military product), or development (the U.S. has trained X number of nationals in Y), but they need to be simple and repeatable.

• Require every U.S. government-funded project to prominently display the American flag. Encourage private sector and nonprofit actors to make clear that they are a U.S. company or nonprofit.

• Task every embassy with documenting the breadth of U.S. contributions to the host country. This would cut across the 27 federal agencies working abroad, international financial institutions, the private sector, and nonprofits. Establish a standard, easily understandable methodology. Prioritize clarity. A foreign official should be able to easily repeat the top lines to a colleague. Don’t forget about international financial institutions. For example, the U.S. is the largest contributor to the International Monetary Fund, which gives loans to many countries that allow their governments to function.

The State Department should prioritize understanding and communicating the broad benefits that the United States brings to a country even if it means deprioritizing some of its own programs and reporting.

In the past, countries had limited choices of potential partners. Now they have more options. If we want them to continue partnering with the United States, we need to give them some clear reasons why.

Seth Luxenberg
State Department FS Family Member
U.S. Embassy Abidjan

Appoint a Devil’s Advocate

Please appoint a devil’s advocate to review whatever policy proposals or nominations you want to make. It may just prevent echo-chamber decisions that turn out badly.

If the Catholic Church could do it for candidates for sainthood, it might not be a bad idea for the U.S. Foreign Service to play that role for ambassadorships and such.

Teresa Chin Jones
State Department Senior FSO, retired
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Practice Tough Love Diplomacy

Practice tough love diplomacy. Reduce to a minimum or end diplomatic representation in countries where elected governments are overturned by the military.

Top U.S. diplomats assigned to a least developed country (LDC) fight energetically against corrupt activities and the flow of illicit funds—often involving the pillaging of natural resources—out of the host country.

Development aid should be conditional on the satisfactory performance of the host government, and this conditionality should be applied assiduously. The links between U.S. foreign policy and development assistance need to be made clear.

All U.S. missions should communicate forcefully that their major concern is enhancing social justice in the LDC host country and reducing poverty. And make clear that any assistance from the U.S. government can be terminated if there is evidence that it is not achieving its objectives.

The U.S. government should do more of its work independent of contractors and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Multiyear congressional appropriations should be considered for certain assistance projects that are performing well. The U.S. government should strive to be a reliable partner.

U.S. foreign assistance legislation and agencies need reform; and perhaps a selective moratorium on providing any more assistance should be executed until these reforms are enacted.

Mark G. Wentling
USAID Senior FSO, retired
Lubbock, Texas

Invest in Training

To effectively serve and advance America’s foreign policy interests under the new administration, the State Department must be able to meet the increasingly complex challenges of a dynamic global landscape. A critical component of this evolution is a serious investment in professional education and training for diplomats—an area in which the United States has room for substantial improvement.

The Foreign Service lacks a comprehensive, career-long training model focused on leadership development, strategic thinking, and the refinement of essential tradecraft. While many foreign ministries around the world have established robust professional development programs that invest in their diplomats’ education over the course of their careers, the State Department has fallen behind.

The current structure provides minimal training beyond language acquisition and initial onboarding, with only intermittent specialized courses (often virtual) throughout a diplomat’s career. This leaves our diplomats underprepared to navigate the complexity of modern diplomacy and leadership challenges.

To address the gap, I recommend a fundamental rethinking and overhaul of the State Department’s training programs. Specifically, there should be a continuous, structured learning path that spans a diplomat’s entire career. This should include mandatory courses on leadership, strategic analysis, negotiation skills, and crisis management, as well as ongoing opportunities to engage in scenario-based training that reflects the evolving global context.

An investment in career-long professional education is an investment in the future of U.S. diplomacy. It ensures that our diplomats are equipped not only with the technical skills to manage foreign policy issues but also with the leadership and management capabilities required to think strategically, collaborate effectively, and influence outcomes.

By building a more professionalized Foreign Service, the U.S. will be better positioned to confront future global challenges and effectively advocate for its interests on the world stage.

A comprehensive and forward-thinking approach to diplomatic training will strengthen the State Department and enable U.S. diplomacy to remain agile, effective, and influential in an increasingly complex world.

Jessica Kuhn
State Department FSO
U.S. Embassy Buenos Aires

Energize Commercial Diplomacy

Assisting U.S. companies to win business overseas can advance broader foreign policy goals while delivering jobs and opportunity to American workers. Commercial successes also show the American people how their foreign affairs agencies make a tangible impact on their communities.

State can work more closely with Commerce, USDA, U.S. export financing agencies, and others to identify strategic deals and sectors where U.S. solutions can benefit the U.S. economy and advance broader foreign policy goals.

Senior leaders can build on the 2019 Championing American Business through Diplomacy Act (CABDA) by making support for U.S. business a priority not only for economic sections and Foreign Commercial Service teams, but also for consular, public affairs, regional security, management, and other mission sections and agencies with touchpoints in the host-country economy and business circles.

State and Commerce can strengthen tools and resources for small and medium-sized U.S. businesses—and the U.S. states and cities that support them—to expand overseas markets and attract international investment. At overseas posts, chiefs of mission can energize “Deal Teams” to allocate post resources to priority commercial opportunities and create systems to ensure fair, ethical, and accountable support for U.S. companies—both large and small—to win strategic deals and generate American jobs.

Thomas “Toby” Wolf
State Department FSO
Arlington, Virginia

The new administration, or any other, has an alternative. The administration can choose to address diplomats as the national servants, fluent in a nonpartisan American sovereign interest, they are.

Make Creativity the Norm

For the past two years, I have been advising a PhD candidate, Andy Carlson, whose thesis deals with creativity during crisis in government. Carlson frames his work with two events. He points, first, to the Apollo 13 “Houston, we have a problem” challenge as an example where a bureaucracy overrode convention and successfully unleashed creativity to achieve the near impossible. At the other extreme, he cites the Mann Gulch fire, where 13 smoke jumpers perished fighting a fire in Montana, largely because they blindly followed conventional protocols.

Working with Carlson has made me reflect on my 35-year career in public service and the times when creativity was unleashed and when it was suppressed. I have observed that to keep up with a constantly changing global landscape and with a selective hiring process, State Department personnel are naturally proactive and creative. But unleashing that creativity requires giving it a place to land.

Secretary Rubio in his confirmation hearing said “the State Department has to be a source of creative ideas” to take the lead on policy issues.

In the field this could come from routinizing creative ideas through front channel reporting. When one officer I worked with wanted to send a Dissent Channel message about a controversial issue, our ambassador at the time insisted he send it through the front channel instead, ensuring it would get much wider distribution. The ambassador personally forwarded it to key personnel.

And in Washington, white boarding new ideas could replace some of the conventional round-the-room staff meetings. When I worked on Venezuela, the then special envoy gave wide latitude to a very committed staff to develop a broad range of options, often sitting in on brainstorming sessions to take full stock of their ideas.

Follow-on measures from the new Secretary showing that creativity is not only welcomed but required, and will be protected at all levels, would unleash the very best the department has to offer while raising morale and engendering trust.

Keith Mines
State Department FSO, retired
Vice President for Latin America, U.S. Institute of Peace
Alexandria, Virginia

Embrace an Alternative to Political Appointees

America’s polarized politics deepen a perpetual challenge for career diplomats: to represent changing administrations credibly. Many practitioners today are uncomfortable with the incoming administration.

A normal response might be to expand the ranks of political appointees. Any administration might feel better with politically appointed diplomats across the board. But if electoral change comes to mean complete turnover of diplomatic personnel, any leadership’s initiatives and intent can get erased without explanation. Any administration can look like a lame duck, and political discontinuity already shadows our national credibility.

This is not in the interest of any political leader, let alone the nation.

The new administration, or any other, has an alternative. The administration can choose to address diplomats as the national servants, fluent in a nonpartisan American sovereign interest, they are. A career diplomatic service must faithfully execute the policies of elected authority. It also adds long-term value for the nation when it carries institutional memory, and a durable, well-grounded sense of “we,” the sovereign people, who choose our varying administrations.

Such a diplomatic service requires a common sense of America’s suprapolitical core identity and an institutional culture—namely, an intra-service language built on common reference points, confidence that colleagues have reflected deeply on this construct, and a shared commitment to serving elected authority faithfully.

Full realization of such a diplomatic identity would, of course, reflect extended study and deliberation, but the new administration might usefully plant a seed germ with current diplomats in the form of the following exercise. Task every State Department FSO and foreign affairs officer to:

• Read Walter Russell Mead’s Special Providence, and answer, as anonymous but publicly available data (APAD), what percentage they consider themselves Jacksonian, Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, and Jeffersonian.

• Read These Truths by Jill Lepore and We Still Hold These Truths by Mathew Spalding, and state, APAD, what six words best capture their definition of America as a nation.

• Read Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy Bad Strategy, Part I, and draft, privately, their own “kernel” of the diplomatic service’s mission.

• In assigned groups of 10, mixed by rank/seniority but otherwise randomly selected, write and submit, APAD, the group’s definition of that mission.

These introductory steps will, provisionally: (1) offer career diplomats a common body of reading; (2) set the stage for discussion of mission; (3) give policy leaders and the public a profile of current diplomats; (4) give practitioners a chance to paint that picture; and (5) provide a data point for any institutional redesign process.

George F. Paik
State Department FSO, retired
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Tackle Inefficiencies in Foreign Assistance

USAID and other U.S. foreign assistance agencies have programs that directly support U.S. business, trade, and investment interests that are easily justified to Congress and American citizens. They complement, but are not substitutes for, programs that address human resource strengthening, building infrastructure, improving regulation, promoting democracy that allows potentially disruptive minorities to have a voice, and strengthening institutions such as those that promote and enforce the rule of law. These programs attack the root causes of civil unrest, international terrorism, and mass immigration.

Are there possibilities for greater efficiency and effectiveness in these programs? You bet. They generally don’t get their budgets on time from the Hill, causing some contracts to be issued in the fourth quarter in a rushed fashion. Also, too many scopes of work for contractors and grantees have weak performance targets and benchmarks that are easily met. This is the result of multiple factors, including:

1. Understaffing in these foreign affairs agencies. Contracting out work, instead of doing it with government employees, is actually more expensive to the U.S. taxpayer. Contractors and grantees tack on overheads, and the U.S. government must hire more people to oversee these contracts/grants.

2. Congressional annual reporting requirements. These favor reporting on annual outputs (such as delivery of inputs) rather than on results and impacts (such as immigration lessened, poverty lessened, health improved, and businesses started).

3. Political appointees. Reliance on employees with only a two- to four-year horizon to show impact has the effect of downgrading efforts on more sustainable but longer-term effects.

4. “Co-creation” of programs with contractors and grantees. This practice often improves the scopes of work but waters down measures of performance that are used to appropriately compensate contractors and grantees.

As history shows, military force can remove bad governments, but it is not a guarantee that a better one will take its place. Consider Gaza, Ukraine, and Syria.

The new Trump administration can again place excellent leadership in place for foreign assistance, as it did in its first administration, and refocus on getting at the root causes of unrest abroad that washes up all too often on U.S. and European shores to our collective peril. Strengthening ties with Asian partners is crucial to countering China’s aggressive locking in access to raw materials, trade routes, and markets.

Robert Navin
USAID FSO, retired
Vienna, Virginia

Know We’re Qualified

Americans understand what it means to be called a “DEI hire.” Typically reserved for women and people of color, the term implies incompetence and unworthiness for the position or promotion. It negates one’s ability, dedication, and success.

Although many of us joined the Civil and Foreign Service through the same hiring process as our colleagues, many have also joined through competitive recruitment initiatives and fellowships promoting diversity. Collectively, we are competent, committed individuals, qualified to serve the American people.

Though I have not heard the term “DEI hire” used at the State Department, colleagues have approached me and other women and people of color doubting our proficiencies and with an expectation of failure. When we succeed, I have also witnessed an inability to look beyond our “differences” to fully appreciate our work.

Despite our skills and desire to promote U.S. policy across the world, we are often treated as “DEI hires.” This negatively affects our ability to thrive in our profession and contribute to the mission. Some of us persevere and excel. Others succumb to the belief that our efforts are only to be critiqued, rather than seen as supporting diplomacy. Many of us disengage, grow tired, and give up on proving people wrong. Feeling defeated, we stagnate or leave.

We do not want to be the focal point of the State Department. When we are made an “issue,” our presence and our work become a distraction to the overall mission. We want to be judged by the content of our performance, not by historical stereotypes or how we gained employment. If we seek any handout, it’s to be given the benefit of the doubt.

As the new leadership enters the corridors of the State Department, we will remain resolute, alongside our peers, in carrying out the work that has traditionally been reserved for Ivy League–educated white men. The new administration should know that we identify not as DEI hires but as qualified Americans committed to serve our country.

Foreign Service Specialist

Implement Humane Deportation Solutions

Based on my experience developing policy options for Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s policy and resources staff in response to the Haitian refugee crisis of the 1990s, I offer the following ideas for the new administration on how to structure and implement deportation of undocumented migrants in a humane and effective manner.

1. Set the objective clearly. Deport criminal illegal immigrants, and others who already are under deportation orders, through law enforcement solutions. Offer voluntary incentives initially for other undocumented migrants to return home.

2. Design deportation programs to be implemented within the boundaries of legal statutes and reinstated executive orders; they are far less expensive than deportation schemes that rely on nonvoluntary solutions only.

Note: The cost of a one-time mass deportation program would be astronomical—on the order of $315 billion, at a minimum. The expense of detaining such immigrants is estimated by the American Immigration Council to be $167.8 billion. While up to 20 percent of undocumented aliens could “self-deport,” many more could be enticed to leave if some sort of family stipend is offered. Austria, for example, has offered to pay Syrian refugees a stipend of up to 1,000 Euros to return home.

3. Carefully assess critical U.S. workforce requirements filled by undocumented laborers that likely would not be filled by U.S. citizens before targeting illegal workers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) workplace sweeps. For example, the all-important construction industry could be decimated by targeting those workers for deportation. Overall, it is estimated that as many as 8.3 million undocumented migrants are employed in the U.S., or 5.2 percent of the workforce.

4. Emphasize the voluntary nature of the program/incentives for illegal immigrants who are not criminals or already under deportation orders. Stress early on that vulnerable migrants are being offered financial incentives/stipends to leave voluntarily.

5. Offer additional financial incentives to prospective deportees, including criminals/gang members, as a reward for their help in identifying and arresting human traffickers. Collaborate with the Mexican government to identify and imprison such traffickers within Mexican borders.

6. Work behind the scenes with Mexican authorities to offer both carrots (e.g., enhanced trade benefits) and sticks (e.g., 25 percent or higher tariffs) for their cooperation in facilitating deportations, preventing new illegal migrant entries into the U.S., and tracking down human traffickers and fentanyl/drug smugglers.

7. Similarly, work confidentially with Chinese authorities to offer incentives to facilitate the return of military-age male deportees and others.

8. Replicate Clinton administration agreements with Latin American governments to house expelled migrants on their territory. Repurpose Gitmo, the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, to house migrants (as the Clinton administration did with huge numbers of Haitian migrants who fled the country during a previous time of upheaval in the 1990s).

USAID FSO, retired

Support Exchanges to Rural America

The first Trump administration considered public diplomacy critical to U.S. foreign policy, with an emphasis on people-focused and pro-freedom messaging. Continuing to engage foreign audiences to build trust, strengthen ties, and promote cooperation is essential to advancing U.S. interests. Considering the benefits of exchanges with rural America offers a unique perspective on why such initiatives are an essential foreign policy tool.

Exchanges through the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) are indispensable to prosperity and national security. Programs that thrived under the first Trump administration include those that engage targeted audiences in such critical areas as economic development, natural resources, and civic engagement. These programs have an equally important effect on host communities that are not usually accorded the opportunities of international exchange, such as those across rural Montana, Arizona, Kansas, and Nebraska.

While foreign policy practitioners may primarily think of Montana through the lens of Yellowstone (either the show or the park), consider the importance of our state to national and economic security. Montana is home to Malmstrom Air Force Base, one of just three U.S. bases that maintains and operates the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Our state has critical minerals including arsenic, antimony, bismuth, gallium, tellurium, tin, and tungsten. We are central to the nation’s food supply as agriculture is Montana’s top industry.

And yet, Montana is just 49th in the nation for international student engagement (per Open Doors 2024). Exchanges make an outsized impact in such an underserved area, providing rare opportunities for Montanans to develop cross-cultural competence and a global perspective to better engage in an increasingly globalized society.

In addition, the investment of grant funding in our state supports jobs, new international trade opportunities, and revenue through spending on housing, food, and services. At the same time, international exchange participants better understand America’s strength and values through the different perspectives provided by our citizens.

In short, effective public diplomacy through exchanges is essential to foreign policy interests: both to influence global audiences and to bolster communities here at home.

Deena Mansour
Former Public Diplomacy Officer
Executive Director, Mansfield Center, University of Montana
Missoula, Montana

Establish a Global Mega Events Unit

The United States has a once-in-a-generation moment to seize the world’s attention with its hosting of the 2026 men’s soccer World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics. To fully leverage these political, cultural, and commercial diplomacy opportunities, the State Department needs to create a “Global Mega Events” unit to coordinate the department’s support for these U.S.-hosted sporting events.

Such a unit would bring together those working on the essentials of the events—protocol, visas, and security—as well as those coordinating political engagement, cultural promotion, and business attraction. Such coordination is especially necessary for the World Cup, which the United States, Mexico, and Canada are hosting across 16 different cities. This unit could also leverage insights gained from U.S. participation in upcoming world’s fairs by bringing these global mega events together under one roof.

To do this successfully, the department should also revisit its domestic organization and public diplomacy footprint. As described in my April 2024 FSJ feature, “The Department of State’s Reception Centers: Back to the Future,” the State Department should consider creating domestic geographic districts aligned with the 10 federal regions.

A “diplomatic engagement center” in each district would bring together existing offices and personnel to better implement exchange programs; coordinate public outreach and media engagement; create public-private partnerships; liaise with regionally based city, state, and federal officials; and support foreign embassies and consulates.

In advance of the 1984 Summer Olympics, President Ronald Reagan opened a foreign press center in Los Angeles. It helped tell America’s story for almost 25 years until it was closed due to a reorganization and reduction in force.

With the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics on the horizon, now is the perfect time to invest in the nation’s domestic diplomatic capacity. We should build out our domestic public diplomacy footprint with diplomatic engagement centers in all 10 federal regions, beginning with Los Angeles. L.A. is the nation’s second-largest city, home to the country’s largest concentration of foreign diplomats and domestic personnel outside Washington and New York, and host to the world in 2028.

Matthew Asada
State Department FSO
U.S. Embassy Accra

We need a system that better matches talents and experience to the needs of the Service and our country.

Retrofit for Great Power Competition

The next Trump administration has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to retrofit our Foreign Service for 21st-century great power competition. While the bipartisan Congressional Commission on Reform and Modernization of the Department of State raises possibilities for long-term legislative reform, President Donald Trump and Secretary-designate Marco Rubio can make improvements starting on Jan. 20, such as:

• Establish a laser-like focus on outcompeting China across emerging domains (e.g., space, cyberspace, undersea, polar regions) and issue areas, especially artificial intelligence.

• “Upskill” Foreign Service officers to attain the greater technical and cultural fluency required for this competition (the partnership between the Foreign Service Institute and the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy is an example).

• Articulate a body of professional knowledge (“doctrine” or “tradecraft”) for U.S. diplomats and ensconce it in training. The new FSI provost position and the proposal for a State-funded research and development center are opportunities to support this work.

• Consider closing FSO billets to create a training float “out of hide.” Reprioritize workload at posts, and fill critical gaps with Civil Service excursions, interagency detailees, and limited noncareer appointments (LNAs), all of which bring new talent and perspectives into missions.

• Reinstate and lengthen A-100 orientation (up to four months) so that it imparts critical skills to all officers rather than serving as a barely adequate bureaucratic orientation.

• Expand pathways for critical language-trained recruits, especially in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Farsi, and Arabic.

• Normalize entry-level officer (ELO) rotational assignments to ensure generalists receive maximum exposure to work in all cones in two posts and/or Washington during the first five years of their careers.

• Extend most non-ELO tours by one year.

• Strengthen merit principles in recruitment, promotion, and assignments.

• Return the Foreign Service Officer Assessment (FSOA) to an in-person exercise.

• Consolidate fellowships into a single ROTC-style program for recruiting top talent directly from universities.

• Expand opportunities for both paid and unpaid internships.

• Institute an under secretary for consular affairs, border security, and migration who would oversee the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA); the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM); the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP); and the special envoy for hostage affairs (SPEHA), along with any other current or future offices that fit within this remit.

These measures would represent good, practical first steps toward a more effective, leaner, more flexible, strategic, and representative Foreign Service capable of advancing core U.S. interests in an era of intensifying great power competition and accelerating technological complexity. The imperatives of our current global moment, and the results of November’s election, demand nothing less.

Drew Peterson
Former State Department FSO
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Promote Based on Skill

My suggestion for the new administration is as follows: DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility) was added as a precept to the employee evaluation report (EER) process. End it! The results were ineffective and just used as a talking point, but it was never a real initiative. It just took up more time during a time of year when real projects need attention.

If the Department of State wants real inclusion, stop leaning toward the promotion of women to the exclusion of men. The stats show that all across the board, women are promoted at a higher rate than men. This, in my opinion, is the fault of the DEIA effort.

Promote people based on their skill, not their race or gender.

Darrin K. Brown
State Department Information Systems Officer
U.S. Embassy Manama

Prioritize Religious Accommodations

Over the past few years, the State Department has made great strides in the field of religious accommodations at the workplace. I encourage you to support this important work with institutionalized resources.

The three faith-based employee organizations (EOs) at the department have made significant contributions in this space. The Muslim, Jewish, and Christian affinity groups pushed to codify the first-ever policy on how to request religious accommodations, including a new addition to the FAM (3 FAM 1530) and an ALDAC. We have hosted events to raise awareness and published guides for navigating major religious observances. We have built alliances with other EOs and collaborated with offices across the department to bring attention to the issue.

Our work led to the establishment of a dedicated reflection space for employees to use for meditation or prayer at the Harry S Truman Building. The Muslim EO took further initiative to document the first-ever repository of department-wide reflection spaces, which is now available on the Bureau of Medical Services’ wellness site. These efforts have greatly improved the morale of employees and fostered an inclusive work environment.

The burden of prioritizing religious accommodations often falls on passionate employees who raise their voices and demand change. But volunteers cannot do it alone; we need institutional support. For example, reflection spaces must be established at every mission abroad and in every domestic office. Supervisors need to be aware of, and implement, protections and accommodations for employees expressing their faith, and training needs to be implemented for all department personnel that highlights the importance of religious expression as an important initiative.

The landmark Groff v. DeJoy (2023) ruling demonstrates the U.S. Supreme Court’s recognition of the importance of religious accommodations in the workplace and places the burden on employers to prove “undue hardship” when denying religious accommodations.

Your leadership in ensuring employee rights are respected will not only benefit our employees but also set a powerful example for the global community, which looks to our nation as an exemplar of freedom and equality.

Mariya Ilyas
State Department FSO
U.S. Mission to the United Nations, New York

Support Family Member Employment

Previous administrations have made strides in Foreign Service and military spousal employment. Resources such as the Expanded Professional Associates Program (EPAP) and the Foreign Service Family Reserve Corps (FSFRC) give more eligible family members (EFMs) access to employment, but the EFM unemployment rate is still high. A LVL-Up Strategies survey found that 25 percent of EFMs report being unemployed. They cite inadequate job availability and salary misalignment as top challenges at post and when returning to Washington, D.C. (Download the full report here.)

Access needs to expand, but these job opportunities also need more flexible processes and policies that allow EFMs to accompany their family from one assignment to the next. Partnering with organizations that can teach employers in government, private, and nonprofit sectors how to build flexible career roles and programs will help our Foreign Service family members be productive, efficient, and engaged.

In addition, almost a third of overseas EFMs reported working in the embassy or consulate. To remain competitive with other career opportunities, jobs in the mission need to build a holistic review process for candidates that takes into account how transferable skills and experience qualify candidates for higher-paying grades and ranks. Currently, the ranking system is too rigid, and EFMs do not get an opportunity to show how they have grown professionally from post to post.

We look forward to working with the next administration to continue building solutions that provide EFMs with more flexible career pathways to leverage their talent and improve quality of life for the Foreign Service families who serve our country.

Rona Jobe
State Department FS Family Member
CEO, LVL-Up Strategies
Frankfurt, Germany

Four Steps to Boost Public Diplomacy

As the new administration begins to shape its foreign policy, U.S. leadership and economic interests are being globally challenged with new tools and strategies. Adversaries are massively outspending us, employing widespread disinformation to undermine America’s standing in their own countries and around the globe. They are creating new anti-American narratives to persuade the world that the United States is unenviable and unreliable. Their clear goal is to generate public pressure on America’s global partners to reconsider their support for our shared values.

Today’s challenges are consequential. They require dramatically enhanced diplomatic engagement and networks of cooperation around our principal interests and values. To be effective, the United States must engage audiences beyond governments in sustained public diplomacy campaigns requiring flexibility, rapid action, and new public communication tools.

In telling America’s story to the world, as we did during the Cold War, we can again supercharge our diplomacy in partnership with the American people, our country’s most powerful resource.

I write on behalf of the Public Diplomacy Council of America to encourage the new administration to take the following steps:

• As an early priority, appoint a State Department under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs who enjoys the confidence of both the president and the Secretary of State. The nominee should have the experience and talent to design and move administration initiatives forward across the executive branch and Congress and be able to seriously engage foreign leaders.

• Ask Congress to ensure that the State Department has needed staffing, facilities, and programmatic resources. The department urgently needs more staff and program funding to build flexibility and capacity for rapid action and to launch the new public communication tools it needs to compete effectively.

• Support State Department initiatives to engage all U.S. foreign affairs agencies and America’s extraordinary experts and talents in a focused campaign to expose and vigorously challenge foreign government–funded distortions and disinformation initiatives promoting dangerous anti-American narratives in global media.

• Expand and leverage our international exchange programs, which give current and future world leaders in-person perspectives of the U.S., engage the American public in our diplomacy, and bring huge dividends to the American economy.

Joel Fischman
FSO, retired
President, Public Diplomacy Council of America
Washington, D.C.

Help Us Fix What’s Broken

Forty-five years after the passage of the Foreign Service Act of 1980, the fundamentals of our system are desperately in need of updating. Successive administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have tinkered around the edges, but all have failed to make the important changes that would guarantee the health and future success of our nation’s diplomatic corps.

To get started, our nation’s new leaders should launch a serious conversation with members of the U.S. Foreign Service across all six foreign affairs agencies and departments. The conversation should seek to inform the new administration of what is working and what needs fixing.

The fundamental building blocks of our Service are sound, but multiple aspects of the current system call out urgently for change.

First and foremost is our so-called Open Assignments system. There is no aspect of the Foreign Service career that causes more unhappiness, cynicism, and attrition than our assignments system. All efforts to reform it have crashed and burned repeatedly in recent decades.

I do not believe that we need to return to a system in which tenured members of the Foreign Service are forced to take assignments they don’t want. We avoided that choice during our surges in Iraq and Afghanistan; we can and should avoid it now.

But we need a system that better matches talents and experience to the needs of the Service and our country. That means individual mentoring, career counseling, and assignment support of the kind that is completely absent today. No one is currently trying to match members of the Foreign Service to assignments that best meet their career goals and our country’s national interest.

We also urgently need to reform our system of performance assessment, which is almost entirely based on grade inflation and favoritism. We have tried over the years to come up with good alternatives, and we have failed. I would suggest implementing a system based on the U.S. military’s performance ratings, including numerical grades as well as narrative assessments.

The more than 20,000 members of the U.S. Foreign Service stand ready to help the new administration succeed. They need help from the new administration to reform and strengthen our Foreign Service for the challenges that lie ahead.

Eric Rubin
State Department FSO/Ambassador, retired
AFSA President (2019-2023)
Boulder, Colorado