The Foreign Service Journal, January 2009

J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 5 BarackObamawon the pres- idency pledging to renewAmer- ican diplomacy. In so doing, he not only called for changes in substantive foreign policy posi- tions, but also looked beneath the policy superstructure and identified the need to strengthen the platform upon which diplomacy is conducted. For example, he called for increasing Foreign Service staffing at State and USAID. AFSA, of course, completely agrees on the need to fix the staffing deficits that have hobbled our foreign affairs agen- cies. Toward that end, we look forward to working with President-elect Obama, Secretary of State-designateHillaryClin- ton and other incoming officials to obtain the needed resources fromCongress. But as candidate Obama and his campaign policy papers made clear, the mere application of more resources will not be sufficient to strengthen America’s international engagement. Instead, our diplomats and development profession- als also need increased capabilities. As I have written (www.afsa.org/fsj/ oct07/training.pdf), testified to Con- gress, and told every journalist who would listen, chronic underinvestment in training has long shortchanged For- eign Service members on career-long professional education. Colin Powell is said to have remarked that Foreign Service officers start their careers better educated than U.S. Army officers, but that Army officers end their ca- reers better educated than FSOs. As a result of this underin- vestment, today’s Foreign Serv- ice does not have to a sufficient degree the knowledge, skills and abilities needed for 21st- century diplomacy. There is an urgent need to strengthen the skills that — taken together as a package—uniquely equip career diplomats to conduct for- eign policy. Those include: foreign-lan- guage fluency, advanced area knowl- edge, leadership and management abil- ity, negotiating skills, public diplomacy know-how, program management skills and job-specific functional expertise. In AFSA’s November-December 2008 survey of State Department For- eign Servicemembers, 50 percent of re- spondents said that training shortfalls made it more difficult for them to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. I suspect that the true percentage ismuch higher and that many of thosewho could benefit the most from additional train- ing do not realize it. Youmay know such people. Just as the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 began a period of reform that has produced today’s generation of well-ed- ucated, interoperable military officers, the Foreign Service today needs reform. The first step would be to significantly increase our staffing, including creating more positions for training and intera- gency details. However, as was the case for the uniformed military after Gold- water-Nichols, many observers believe the Foreign Service not only needs to be offered more training but also needs to be required to actually take it. Toward that end, an October 2008 report by the American Academy of Diplomacy called for setting new career- long training requirements that Foreign Servicemembers would have to fulfill as a condition for promotion to the senior ranks. Such requirements could include an academic year of knowledge-expand- ing formal training (for example, at a military war college, a private university, or a mid-level or senior seminar at the Foreign Service Institute) and a hori- zons-broadening developmental detail (for example, at another Cabinet agency, an NGO or in private industry). State could re-establish its yearlong Senior Seminar and its mid-level course — both of which succumbed to budget cuts years ago. I am confident that Foreign Service members would welcome a “grand bar- gain” that coupled a significant expan- sion of staffing with a re-engineering of our personnel system to set new, career- long training requirements. But whether or not such a reform would be universally welcomed, I am convinced that it is necessary. Unless the Foreign Service raises the level of its game by sharpening knowledge, skills and abili- ties needed to meet the challenges of 21st-century diplomacy and develop- ment assistance, the president andCon- gress may increasingly look elsewhere — including to our already over- stretchedmilitary— to conduct our na- tion’s engagement with the world. P RESIDENT ’ S V IEWS Renewing American Diplomacy B Y J OHN K. N ALAND John K. Naland is the president of the American Foreign Service Association.