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 29 F O C U S O N T H E F U T U R E O F T H E F O R E I G N S E R V I C E T HE N EXT -G ENERATION D EPARTMENT OF S TATE P ROJECT veryone agrees that diplomacy and international affairs have changed dra- matically in the past half-century, and the changes are con- tinuing to unfold. Increasingly, government-to-government relations affect education, the environment, human rights and the Internet, to name but a few areas of concern. As a result, ministries of foreign affairs have great difficulty in holding on to even a minimal gatekeeper role. The second big change has been the expansion of the players’ roster, as international organizations, multina- tional companies, nongovernmental organizations, crimi- nal syndicates, transnational terrorist groups and many others have become more active. National governments may remain the biggest gorillas on the scene, but no longer are they alone. This situation poses a major challenge to traditionally organized governments, and certainly to the United States. How to deal with it is a popular think-tank topic these days, and reform proposals are abundant. This paper proposes replacing the present State Department with a new agency organized on different principles and consolidating a large share of the various civilian foreign affairs activities. We may keep the name “Department of State” for sen- timental and historical reasons, but the “Next-Generation Department of State” I propose is a very different crea- ture. The analogy is removing the hood ornament from an automobile and moving a whole new vehicle in under it. Think of the original Volkswagen Beetle — and the current VW Passat. In Search of Unity Early in the Obama administration, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton articulated her mantra of the “Three Ds”: diplomacy, development and defense. To emphasize the importance of this approach, she an- nounced that State and USAID would conduct the first- ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, “to get ahead of emerging threats and opportunities and to make the case effectively for the Office of Management W E MUST EMPOWER THE S ECRETARY OF S TATE TO COORDINATE THE ENTIRE U.S. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS MECHANISM . B Y E DWARD M ARKS E Edward Marks spent 40 years in the Foreign Service, in- cluding an assignment as ambassador to Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. After retiring in 1995, he did consulting work with the United Nations, private companies and the Department of Defense, and continues as a senior mentor at various military institutions. Ambassador Marks is a member of the American Diplomacy board and a Distin- guished Senior Fellow at George Mason University. This article is adapted from a paper published at Amer- ican Diplomacy . For the full text, visit www.unc.edu/ depts/diplomat/item/2010/0103/oped/op_marks.html.