The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2006

comings. These offices appear to be the equivalent of an Internet café- cum-chatroom, with a safely-distanced U.S. government representative on the other end of the fiber-optic con- nection. Leaving aside the obvious question of how effective such com- munications are in advancing policy objectives, just who secures this equip- ment from local thieves or from the random attacker who figures out that a liter of accelerant in a Molotov cock- tail can cause a million-dollars-plus of expense to Washington? If either of these proposals had come from former Secretary Powell, at least we could be confident that he had counted the costs. He has been in harm’s way, has sent others in that direction, and has absorbed the conse- quences of them not coming back. Being “point man” in even the noblest cause can have bloody consequences; not always is the blood that of your enemy. For all of her intelligence and charisma, Secretary Rice has not walked this walk. An Old Road We have gone down this road before, of course. Those with longer memories will recall “GLOP” — Henry Kissinger’s infamous Global Outlook and Programming shakeup of the mid-1970s. GLOP was supposed to move all of those infected with “localitis” (others might prefer the term “expertise”) into new regions and stimulate fresh thinking. But all the exercise managed to do was eliminate a good part of the department’s institu- tional wisdom on the Middle East, as many “Arabists” walked away into more lucrative pursuits rather than spend a couple of tours elsewhere. Obviously, we need to place our limited resources where they will have the greatest effect, but instantly inter- changeable parts we are not. I recall the observation of an Army chief of staff who asked his audience rhetori- cally, “What is my longest lead-time item?” The answer was not the fol- low-on to the Abrams tank or the next helicopter gunship. The answer was a senior officer. “It takes me 20 years to grow a general officer.” With that objective in mind, the military thinks, plans and prepares in generation-long terms, sorting through a vast intake of young officers to obtain its senior leaders. To be sure, this is the Army way, not a State Department career track. You can “make” an ambassador in 20 sec- onds with a presidential phone call. But to produce a qualified U.S. diplo- mat at the FS-1 level, let alone a Senior Foreign Service officer, takes a long time, a great deal of training and many hard choices — by both the Foreign Service and the individual FSO. If we want to cultivate Arabists, China hands, a Republic of Korea group, or Amazon area experts, we will have to make a generation-long invest- ment in officers who are essentially tagged for such regions. More than that, we will have to protect and reward them for their commitment, even when it eventuates that we “guessed wrong” about how important the area will be in 2030. After all, there are those who say that “Brazil is the country of the future—and always will be.” 16 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 6 S P E A K I N G O U T Doing diplomacy differently doesn’t mean acting without appropriate reflection and analysis.