The Foreign Service Journal, May 2010

M A Y 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 19 changed by mandates that each deputy chief of mission find time to mentor all entry-level officers at his or her post —an approach that increasingly resembles King Can- ute’s orders that the sea withdraw. Three recent studies, all fund- ed by the Una Chapman Cox Foundation, document the skills we lack as a Service. CSIS’s “The Embassy of the Future” paid par- ticular attention to missing skills. And the “Foreign Service Gener- alist Competency Modeling” project, conducted in 2008 by State’s Human Resources Bureau using a U.S. Army model, projected the skills that FSOs should attain by 2017. The findings identified a 30-percent change in the categories of skills the Foreign Service would need to have mastered by the end of that period, primarily in program direction, economics and transnational issues. Finally, “A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future,” put to- gether in 2008 by AAD, docu- mented training gaps in many functions, including multilateral diplomacy and work with NGOs. Devoting greater resources to training the huge influx of new of- ficers is critically important, but does not address the need for ex- perience at the middle and senior ranks, where many of the gaps are most acute. No comprehensive plan now exists to train those being rapidly promoted so that they can learn the skills they need other than by trial and error, although those involved in the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review now under way reportedly recognize the problem. Some of the needed expertise might be hired from outside — the strongly debated mid-level entry approach. Yet when F O C U S With the Department of State’s cooperation, the American Academy of Diplomacy is conducting a study to help meet the need for new strategic planning.