The Foreign Service Journal, March 2023

14 MARCH 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Among shortcomings, our office did not do enough to focus on health and environmental matters, Latin America, and Africa. 4. Organization and cost. The Office of Special Programs was established in 1986 with the support of then–Under Sec- retary for Management Ron Spiers and the advice of Lincoln P. Bloomfield from MIT, a recognized proponent of so-called political-military exercises, and Hans Binnendijk, then director of FSI’s Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs. Based at FSI (a wise choice given the support and relative independence it usu- ally received), the office grew from a single individual to a staff of seven over the 20 years of its existence. That growth came from attracting mid- and senior-level FSOs the Secretary of State, but under the Policy Planning Office (S/P), provided S/P has strong leadership focused on planning and looking over the horizon, such as it had under former directors like William Burns and Richard Haass. Also, State bureaus should not have their own “gaming staff”—such positions would not appeal to career-minded FSOs and would be at odds with a bureau’s responsibilities. b Gaming exercises in the “table-top” fashion of the Office of Special Programs Our exercises always included a wide range of officials of various levels from all relevant agencies. who were between assignments, as well as military officers with gaming experience from the Army War College. The office budget covered two or three Civil Service positions; salaries of the FSOs and military officers were paid by their respective institutions. The only other substantive costs were for travel and modest honorariums for nongovern- mental participants. My reservations about Mr. Domain- gue’s argument mainly concern his organizational proposal. I do not think such an office should be placed under