The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2012

J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 2 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 23 State remains hampered by the ab- sence of a training reserve (often called a float), seriously limiting the numbers of personnel who can be detached from regular duties for longer-term instruction. The department has made gen- uine progress on defining the skills officers must achieve through the establishment of the Career Devel- opment Program for generalists. However, the success of this largely self-monitored ap- proach remains difficult to assess. Assignments continue to be made on the basis of the immediate needs of the Service and staff preferences, without systemic reference to long-term personnel development. While Secretary of StateHillary RodhamClinton’sDiplo- macy 3.0 initiative has achieved noticeable progress, adding more than 4,000 positions to State andUSAIDover the past three years, fewer than half of these have been in the func- tions our study highlighted as in ur- gent need of strengthening: crisis re- sponse, public diplomacy and train- ing. Moreover, while Diplomacy 3.0 set a commendable goal of a 25- percent increase in staffing and as- sociated budget levels, State’s pre- sentations to Congress have been confined to listing detailed goals on a yearly basis. The fact that the de- partment has never articulated, much less defended, longer-term staffing goals in the budget may well reflect strictures from the Office of Management and Budget, particularly in the current fiscal climate. Whatever the reason, our Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future is still the only document that has taken a long-term approach to these issues, using specific benchmarks to jus- tify the requested budget increases. Even so, in some respects the FAB has been overtaken F OCUS Our old models of mentoring cannot stretch far enough to provide the necessary training and education for the many new FSOs.