The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

18 JULY-AUGUST 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL America Needs A Professional Foreign Service BY CHARL ES A . RAY SPEAKING OUT W ith the broad array of problems facing the United States and the world today, we need a strong, profes- sional diplomatic service to look after our nation’s global interests. This has not always been the case. For more than a hundred years after independence, America’s foreign and diplomatic affairs were in the hands of amateurs. There were two principal reasons for the lack of a professional diplomatic corps. First, during the colonial period, foreign affairs were handled out of London. Second, and perhaps most important, early American political leaders equated diplomacy and ambassadors with European monarchies and didn’t trust either. Thomas Jefferson, America’s first Secretary of State, believed that an independent America had no need for diplomats other than commercial consuls. The senior American diplomatic representatives were ministers extraordinary and plenipotentiary, ranking below ambassadors, which was considered appropriate for a second-rate power. Embassy and consulate staffs, and commercial consuls, were individuals who had connections with the American ruling political elite. After elections, there were Charles A. Ray retired from the Foreign Service in 2012 after a 30-year career that included ambassadorships to Cambodia and Zimbabwe. Ambassador Ray also served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for prisoners of war/missing personnel affairs, deputy chief of mission in Freetown and consul general in Ho Chi Minh City, among many other assignments. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Amb. Ray spent 20 years in the U.S. Army. He was the first chair of AFSA’s Committee on the Foreign Service Profession and Ethics, and does freelance writing and speaking. often wholesale changes in diplomatic and consular representation abroad. This patronage system reached a peak during the administration of Andrew Jackson, when the mantra in Washington was “to the victor belong the spoils.” Late to the Dance In the late 1800s, as a global economic power, the U.S. need for elevated representation led to sending ambassadors to the main European capitals. The first American ambassador wasThomas Bayard, appointed to the Court of St. James’s in 1893. Embassy secretaries, however, continued to come from the wealthy classes—individuals who could afford to live abroad on the meager salary paid to diplomatic secretaries. It wasn’t until the Rogers Act of 1924, which consolidated the diplomatic and consular services, that career personnel were assigned to staff embassies and consulates. Some career people were also posted as ambassadors to some of the smaller countries. Prior to World War II, American foreign policy was essentially passive, and concerned primarily with protecting commercial interests. But the United States emerged from the war as a superpower—economically, militarily and politically—and adopted a more activist, forward-leaning policy. Both the Foreign Service Act of 1946, which created the U.S. Foreign Service, and the Foreign Service Act of 1980 recognized the need for a professional career Foreign Service to assist the president and the Secretary of State in conducting foreign affairs. Do we have one? A Profession or a Collection of Experts? Let’s begin with an understanding of what constitutes a profession. Don Snider, a professor in the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College and a senior fellow in the Center for the Army Profession and Ethic at West Point, offers the following criteria. Professionals are those who: • Provide a vital service to society that it cannot provide for itself but must have to flourish. • Work with expert (abstract) knowl- edge developed into human expertise (i.e., not routine or repetitive work) that takes years of study and experiential learning. • Earn and maintain the trust of their society by the effective and ethical appli- cation of their expertise. • Enjoy relative autonomy in the application of their work’s art and expertise. Missing from Snider’s list is an additional element that I believe is essential to any profession: a formalized code of ethical behavior that is easily accessible and understood by members of