The Foreign Service Journal, February 2007

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 41 he Foreign Service personnel sys- tem at the U.S. Department of State has undergone more far-reaching changes since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took office than it did during the quarter-century since the passage of the Foreign Service Act of 1980. But do these historic changes represent a sus- tainable, long-term vision that will transform U.S. diploma- cy for the better? Or are they primarily short-term impro- visations designed to meet temporary staffing needs in Iraq and other dangerous posts? Upon taking office on Jan. 26, 2005, Secretary Rice inherited a Foreign Service personnel system that was under stress. Her predecessor, Colin Powell, had succeed- ed in hiring over 1,700 new Foreign Service employees above attrition through the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative (designed to fill vacant positions and create a training reserve) and through separate security-related funding to beef up consular, diplomatic security and information man- agement staffing. However, even that robust expansion in staffing fell behind the pace of the creation of new positions in such places as Iraq and Afghanistan and in the new Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. In response, State initiated an “Iraq tax” that, by 2006, had taken 280 mid-level Foreign Service positions from other posts and Washington, D.C., in order to staff posts in that high-priority country. That created staffing gaps world- wide and blocked the creation of the planned training reserve to permit expanded language and functional train- ing. Furthermore, there was a sharp increase in the number of posts that are too dangerous to permit employees to bring their families along. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of unaccompanied and limited-accompanied Foreign Service positions doubled, and then doubled again. The number has surged to nearly 800 at two dozen posts including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. This represents a dramatic change for Foreign Service members, who previously had fewer than 200 unac- companied slots to fill. Many of the new unaccompanied positions are at extreme danger posts that previously would not have been staffed at all under traditional State Department security policies. The Career Development Program Given these staffing needs, State’s Bureau of Human Resources concluded in 2004 that the longstanding “fair share” bidding requirements would not be sufficient to attract volunteers to fill the increased number of dangerous T HE N EW F OREIGN S ERVICE T HE REPORT CARD IS STILL OUT ON WHERE S ECRETARY R ICE ’ S “ EXPEDITIONARY ” F OREIGN S ERVICE IS HEADED . T B Y J OHN K. N ALAND John Naland, a Foreign Service officer since 1986, is cur- rently on detail as a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Before that, he was principal officer in Matamoros and previously spent seven years at hardship posts, including a danger-pay post. He is a 2006 graduate of the U.S. Army War College and was an Army cavalry officer in the early 1980s. He is also a past president and vice president of AFSA. The views in this article are his alone and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. government.