The Foreign Service Journal, May 2010

22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 1 0 Back at State, the number of po- litical advisers to the various military commands has burgeoned since the 9/11 attacks, yet FSOs assigned to those positions receive little special- ized training to prepare them to work effectively with the military. This is true even though POLADs are increasingly less senior and less experienced in interagency work. Beyond specific technical and professional skills, we need to de- velop our staff’s capabilities over the course of their careers. The military spends liberally, and usefully, on this, providing opportunities for broadening thinking at service schools and outside academic training and advanced degrees. While military entrance require- ments are less rigorous than ours, their development of their personnel over the course of a career is better. Private industry also recognizes the need for careerlong training. We have not. Consequently, as the list of training deficiencies grows, the ratio of senior to lower-ranking For- eign Service officers continues to tilt in the wrong direc- tion. The Opportunity and the Danger Until now, we have lacked the resources to respond to the challenge. That is changing. By the end of the current fiscal year, State will have brought on approximately 1,300 generalists (828 over attrition) and 1,000 specialists. USAID has brought on just over 400 new junior officers over the last three years and plans to hire an additional 100 to 150 more during 2010. These cadres are filling vacant positions, meeting long-deferred critical needs and help- ing to meet the burgeoning workload in Iraq and Afghanistan. In response, there has been a major expansion of lan- guage-training positions, with 300 already added and 700 more to come. This is an appropriate initial response to the influx, but does not meet the equally critical need for ex- perienced mid-level officers. Other types of professional training have seen little expansion beyond area studies and preparation for service on Provincial Reconstruction Teams. I do not mean this as a criticism of badly over- worked personnel in the Bureau of Human Resources and the Foreign Service Institute, but as a call for additional resources to implement essential thinking. State’s current resources are so stretched that the long-promised examination of broader training needs has been deferred. If the flow of personnel at current rates were guaranteed, such a decision might be justifiable, if regrettable. But no such guarantee exists. Concern about growing deficits is striking the Obama administra- tion and Congress. The adminis- tration has proposed a continued, if slower, increase in international af- fairs spending in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget, but con- gressional approval is far from certain. Pressures to economize even further will only grow in FY 2012. The danger is real: We may lose the greatest opportu- nity in years to establish a proper “float” of training posi- tions and the concepts and resources to professionally develop our personnel. If we forfeit the opportunity to in- stitutionalize proper personnel development, we may not recapture it for a long time. Building a Strategy A strategy that prioritizes our real, long-term needs — not just coping with today’s challenges — is essential. Such a strategy should look to the future and draw from the best practices of military and civilian institutions to develop guidelines on how many class hours are re- quired, in what subjects and where taught. Only with such specifics can we calculate and seek the required dol- lars and personnel. Congress is already pressing for strategic responses on how we will meet the challenges documented by recent Government Accountability Office reports to the Sub- committee on Oversight of Government Management of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Gov- ernmental Affairs: “Comprehensive Plan Needed to Ad- dress Persistent Foreign Language Shortfalls” (September 2009) and “Diplomatic Security’s Recent GrowthWarrants Strategic Review” (November 2009). For example, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chair- man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen, and other high-ranking administration officials support transferring to State some of the resources and authorities that DOD has acquired in recent years. Yet this will not happen if we lack the trained personnel to manage the increase in au- F O C U S Specialists, as well as their consular and management- cone colleagues, are still routinely shortchanged in language training and professional development.