The Foreign Service Journal, January 2008

J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 5 When the dust settled last November, the Foreign Service had, once again, stepped up to the plate to staff the U.S. mission in Iraq entirely with volunteers. That assignment process, however, left many outsiders asking why the State Department had difficulty filling those 252 positions. Here is how AFSA answered that question. With 11,500 members, the State Department’s Foreign Service is less than one half of 1 percent the size of the U.S. military. The entire Foreign Service is smaller than a typical U.S. Army division. The military has more musicians than the State Department has diplomats. Moreover, in contrast to the military, which maintains 79 percent of its personnel inside the United States, a full 68 percent of the Foreign Service is forward-deployed overseas. Two-thirds are at posts categorized as “hardship” due to dif- ficult living conditions including vio- lent crime, extreme health risks or ter- rorist threats. Over the last few years, staffing demands on the Foreign Service have soared — for example, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the State Department’s new office to coordinate reconstruc- tion efforts, in training positions to meet the need for more Arabic- speakers, and in 280 new positions in countries of emerging importance, such as China and India. These new demands have far outpaced hiring, leaving the typical U.S. embassy to- day at only 79 percent of its authorized staffing. Iraq is the exception. It has been consistently staffed at near 100 percent. Since 2003, over 1,500 Foreign Ser- vice members have stepped forward to serve in what is now the world’s largest embassy. All have been volunteers. But last fall, with the Foreign Service facing a fifth rotation into Iraq, the addition of 80 new positions to fill in summer 2008 at Embassy Baghdad and in 25 Provincial Reconstruction Teams around the country pushed the staffing strain to near breaking point. The problemwas a lack of sufficient reserves with which to fill the in- creasing number of positions in Iraq. Imagine if a coach turned to the team bench during a tough game only to find it empty. That is the situation the State Department faces today. For example, the June 2007 “Man- aging Secretary Rice’s State Depart- ment” report by the Foreign Affairs Council, a nonpartisan umbrella group, pointed to a 1,100-position staffing deficit in the Foreign Service. The October 2007 “Embassy of the Future” report by the Center for Stra- tegic & International Studies cited up- dated State Department data showing a 1,015-position shortfall — plus an additional 1,079-position deficit in training and related staffing needs. And the November 2007 “Smart Power” CSIS report documented the need for “more than 1,000” additional State Department Foreign Service positions to permit expanded training, details to other agencies, and to meet unforeseen contingencies. Despite these unmet needs, for the past three years, the administration’s budget requests to narrow the staffing gaps (which were quite modest com- pared to actual needs) were not fund- ed by Congress. This poor support for diplomacy stands in stark contrast to the situation at the Department of Defense, which is expanding the armed forces’ rolls by 92,000 by 2011. Note that the State Department’s deficits are little more than a rounding error when compared to the resources being dedicated to the Pentagon. The administration and Congress must act decisively to strengthen the diplomatic element of national power. Failing to fund a strong diplomatic capability will limit our nation’s ability to build and sustain a more demo- cratic, secure and prosperous world. Thus, AFSA continues to press for additional resources for diplomacy. Although this is an issue that we hope the next administration will focus on come 2009, the staffing needs are so urgent that we cannot afford just to mark time hoping for a better recep- tion in the future. AFSA and allied groups will continue to make the case for Congress to fund at least some reinforcements this year. P RESIDENT ’ S V IEWS Bench Strength B Y J OHN K. N ALAND John K. Naland is the president of the American Foreign Service Association.