The Foreign Service Journal, March 2021

18 MARCH 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL again be no shortage of applicants. State will again be faced with picking a few hundred good candidates from tens of thousands of applicants, making an ROTC program unnecessary. If the goal is diversity, that can be better accom- plished by expanding programs already in place than by trying to create a new one that won’t be cheap or effective. Midlevel Entry? Abolish Cones? Another solution in search of a prob- lem is the idea of establishing a midlevel entry program, as suggested in the Belfer report. That can only result in current entry-level officers waiting years longer before they can expect a promotion. And since these midlevel entrants would have so little experience at State, they would be at a major disadvantage in competing to enter the senior ranks. The justification is to enable the recruitment of people with expertise in the cyber world, artificial intelligence, data analytics and financial technologies. Does the State Department really need 500 people with résumés laden with hi-tech buzz words? Howmany posts are there where those skills are needed? Would any- one with such talents want to work in a job where their specialized skills could not be used? It would also not be a good way to attempt to achieve a shortcut to diversity. The department already has several fel- lowship programs for scientists and engi- neers. It would make far more sense to expand them, and provide a path through them to midlevel entry into a career Civil Service position in a job in Washington where those skills can be used. Another bad idea is the proposal to abolish the cones, which divide FSOs into five career tracks (political, economic, public diplomacy, management, con- sular). This would supposedly end the caste system in which roughly 50 percent of career ambassador slots go to politi- cal officers and 20 percent to economic officers, with the remaining three cones getting about 10 percent each. The justifi- cation for eliminating cones is the asser- tion that one shouldn’t be an ambassador “unless you can run and understand every part of your mission.” But how is an officer going to effec- tively spend a tour in a consular job, then one in a general services slot followed by an economic reporting position? FSOs are skilled and adaptable, but the experience obtained in one cone does not mean one is ready to take on all the others. And a multiconed ambassador would still lack experience in all the other agencies in the embassy, so that is not the key to good management of a mission. To end the caste system, it would be bet- ter to createmore interfunctional positions, bemore flexible about out-of-cone assign- ments and task the committee that selects deputy chiefs of missionwithmore carefully considering officers fromother cones. One Missing Proposal Finally, here is a suggestion that I did not see in any of the reform plans. One of the perennial observations about the Foreign Service is that neither Congress nor the public understand the impor- tance of what it does. To expand that understanding and support, how about vastly increasing the Pearson program to get more FSOs on Capitol Hill and out into the heartland? Serving in a Pearson assignment, or taking a tour as diplomat in residence recruiting people for State, should be a requirement for promotion to the senior ranks. That would help achieve more diversity, and it would put the State Department much more in touch with the country it represents. n