20 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL We require a professional mindset that allows us to operate within our current environment without being sucked into the partisan vortex. This growing divide between the American people and U.S. foreign policy is evident in polling data and voting. No amount of ideological rhetoric will close this gap. The world needs to be explained anew. To our adversaries, this foreign-policy disconnect is puzzling and opens an opportunity they will seek to exploit. To our allies and partners, it is distressing. Both see the United States as an enormously powerful country with a remarkably flexible and responsive political system. Both see our economy as endlessly inventive, something that seems to produce jobs and wealth at will. Both envy our innovation ecosystem and recognize our leadership in science and high technology. Both understand that we are an increasingly diverse and varied society that is not only cosmopolitan but global. In short, they both understand us as the premier global power that will not be easily shuffled off the world’s stage. In such a complicated and dangerous environment, with so many crosscurrents, how is today’s generation of American diplomats and national security professionals to navigate the ship of state? A Professional Mindset Political polarization is like water. It knows no natural limits. Those limits have to be constructed. We have institutional and legal constraints to prevent partisan political activity within the career bureaucracy. But in a polarized society that peddles fear of the adversary, formal constraints are not enough. We require a professional mindset that allows us to operate within our current environment without being sucked into the partisan vortex. In other words, we cannot lose our nerve, and we must never lose our respect for the choice of the American voter. We all swear (or affirm) an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of our republic. It is commonplace to remind all being sworn in that they are making an oath not to a leader, a people, or a bloodline, but to our Constitution and the values that it carries. Implicit in this oath is a recognition that the American people are our ultimate sovereign. Through this oath, we recognize the authority of the elected leaders chosen by the American people as their representatives. It is our purpose to work with these elected leaders to enact their policies and programs. We are a disciplined service. But obedience does not mean obsequiousness. It is our purpose to provide the best analysis and advice that we can to our elected and appointed leaders. But it is also our responsibility to let these leaders know when they are mistaken or have taken decisions that will harm our interests or contravene our values. Constructive dissent is an honored practice within the State Department. There are formal processes and procedures to register such dissent. By its nature, such dissent is a negative process. It represents disagreement with policy decisions, and it is usually expressed at the end of a decision-making process. It is valuable as a reminder of when a decision went wrong or as an opportunity for dissenting officers to speak their mind. But that is not enough. Positive Engagement What our leaders and our institutions need most is the daily willingness to speak with clarity and integrity about the issues facing policymakers. This can be most powerful in moments when decisions are being made, but it is also needed in the analysis and reporting that constitutes much of our work. In a dynamic world defined by complexity, conflict, and contestation, the ability to describe events and issues, place them within a strategic context, and suggest courses of action that will lead to success is what makes our career services valuable to presidents and their governments. Such positive engagement with elected and appointed leaders will help them have the kind of conversation about foreign policy with the American people that is so lacking. In so doing, our career services will have to step away from the shibboleths that have defined American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, and to think about the world in fresh ways. The nature of American leadership, global purpose, and reliability as a partner are all being questioned. The so-called Global South does not accept our narrative of an international struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. Increasingly, our relevance to other countries depends not on ideology but on our ability to help them succeed. As we navigate in this changed world, it will fall to our career services to liberate the future from a past that has run its course. The world’s security challenges are not subject to American elections. These challenges do not change just because there is
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