The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2015

30 JULY-AUGUST 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL with the kinds of field/capacity-building operations we have done or are doing in Colombia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Soma- lia and Pakistan, or do we get back to the capitals? A related question raised by Rufus Phillips in “Fostering Positive Political Change—the Key to Stabilizing Vulnerable States” (National Strategy Information Center, February 2012), is whether the State Department should be satisfied deliver- ing our position and reporting back the other guy’s position, or whether we should be more involved in supporting political transitions. Second, we are an institution that expects its senior leaders to be part George Patton and part George Kennan. I don’t know many senior leaders in the department who combine the ability to manage large complex organizations while also being at the top of the policy game. Those who do certainly stand out. Many gravitate to whichever they are comfortable with and delegate the other; some don’t really do either very well. If we truly want this kind of well-rounded, operationally capable but policy-savvy leaders, we may need to restructure key aspects of our career system, something that for the most part is not at the mercy of budgets or personnel constraints. The AAD report hits some of this. But, as with most recent changes in personnel imperatives, the creative workarounds are always there. To really get this right, I am afraid we would simply have to go to a more directed process for assignments, in which “the good of the Service” is not just about Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, but how each assignment builds a future leader. The military has a number of lessons on this that could easily be applied. —Keith W. Mines Political Counselor Embassy Tel Aviv Corruption and Cronyism at State T he American Academy of Diplomacy’s report, American Diplomacy at Risk , could not be more timely. It pulls back the curtain on the hyperpoliticization of State Department positions, policies and programs. Let’s start at the top. In one bureau, the assistant secretary—a political appointee—reports to an under secretary who is one of the eight-out-of-10 non-career senior diplomats reported by the AAD and is married to another of the eight- out-of-10 non-career senior diplomats. In the same bureau, one deputy assistant secretary arrived as a Presidential Management Fellow and catapulted from there after marrying a political appointee—who is now a DAS in a different bureau. Schedule B and C appointments continue to fill the precious few GS-15 slots in the bureau. This has to stop. It is wrong, and it sends a very bad message to young officers who are expected to demarche foreign counterparts about corruption and cronyism. By disclosing the extent to which domestic politics dictates department staffing and policies, the report also has brought to light an alarming trend heretofore ignored by the media: the White House’s near-total micromanagement of the State Department. Young staffers are cavalier in pushing unfunded mandates tied to short-term administration politics. The damn- ing list of 59 special envoys could be read to correspond, in numerous cases, with domestic constituencies. Kudos to the AAD also for telling it like it is regarding the separate worlds of Civil Service and Foreign Service colleagues. Unfamiliarity and distrust are growing between the two services, ironically at least in part due to the department’s efforts to gloss over the very real differences in conditions of employment for the two. Leadership should be bridging the divide by educating all employees about what different positions require, not masking the differences or pretending they don’t exist. The bottom line: Foreign Service personnel must learn languages and work overseas for a great part of their careers. Meanwhile, our Civil Service colleagues may elect to keep their families in Washington, D.C., and never deal with living condi- tions abroad. On the other hand, their opportunities to move up in the hierarchy are limited. The report is right to call for far more training and job opportunities for Civil Service colleagues. Politicization eats up both Civil and Foreign Service jobs. The two parts of State’s family need to work together to put an end to cronyism run “Politicization eats up both Civil and Foreign Service jobs. The two parts of State’s family need to work together to put an end to cronyism run rampant.” —An active-duty FSO