The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

26 JULY-AUGUST 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The Foreign Service Act of 1980, still the law that the State Department should be enforcing and implementing, has very specific provisions and requirements. Section 101 of the act states: “The Congress finds that (1) a career Foreign Service, characterized by excellence and professionalism, is essential in the national interest to assist the President and the Secretary of State in conducting the foreign affairs.” It further specifies that “the members of the Foreign Service should be representative of the American people… knowledgeable of the affairs, cultures and languages of other countries, and available to serve in assignments throughout the world” and that it “should be operated on the basis of merit principles.” Section 105 states: “All personnel actions with respect to career members and career candidates in the Service (including applicants for career candidate appointments) shall be made in accordance with merit principles.” The guiding statute identi- fies only the Foreign Service to perform these functions in this manner. This law is the basis on which Foreign Service officers take an oath similar to the one their military colleagues take. They agree to serve where required, including under conditions of danger and hardship, accept up-or-out promotion, selection out and frequent rotations. Yet it is our contention that the basis for a high-quality, well-trained and professionally educated Foreign Service able to carry out the national purpose abroad and play a key policy advisory role at home is being undermined. This stems from numerous factors, some deliberate and some the accretion of diverse, ad hoc and nontransparent man- agement practices. In total, the practices and the declarations of the State Department constitute a deliberate effort at nullifica- tion of the Foreign Service Act. This weakening and de-professionalizing of the Foreign Service will not serve U.S. diplomacy. It is time to recognize diplomacy as a profession and provide the support the Foreign Service needs, like any other specialized professional service. One area that we find particularly troubling is what appears to be a deliberate effort to homogenize the Foreign and Civil Services, without requiring the CS to accept the same disci- plines based on needs of the State Department as their FS colleagues. This may have begun as a necessary effort to meet emergency needs and redress the feeling of many in the Civil Service that they were treated as second-class citizens by the Foreign Service. That needed to change. But the effort has gone well beyond the notion of “one mission, one team,” to undercut the very concept of a separate Foreign Service. This charge is serious, and many who have not been involved in these matters find it incredible. We believe the evidence is extensive. Consider State’s April 2013 press guidance, responding to our Washington Post op-ed, stating that it is the department’s policy to “break down institutional, cultural and legal barriers (emphasis added) between the Foreign Service and the Civil Service.” (The full text of that guidance, including the names of the drafting and clearing officers, is reprinted in our report). A year later there was a reaffirmation of policy, although with a changed rationale, when the then-acting Director General told the Board of the Foreign Service (see the May 8, 2014, Summary of Proceedings) that it is the policy of the department to “break down barriers” between the Foreign Service and the Civil Service in the interest of “managerial flexibility.” That is a very flexible term, indeed, but not one based in the law. Actions to implement this policy include the regular, Orwellian substitution of the word “generalist” for the term “Foreign Service officer.” A further undermining of the profes- sion occurs with the Director General’s assertion, until recently, of the right to convert Civil Service personnel into Foreign Ser- vice officers even when there is no shortage in the designated cone. The transformation of desk officer positions from FS to CS occurs for many reasons; but when such conversions become common practice, the Foreign Service loses positions essential for the professional development of new officers, including how to understand and work in the interagency system. To put it bluntly, as detailed extensively in the full AAD report, the Foreign Service is being reduced, both intention- ally and inadvertently. That combination is destructive to the Service and to the department—and, most of all, to the national interest and security of the country and people the Foreign Service serves and represents. A second problem of politicization is the increase in political appointees at ever- lower levels in the department.