The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2020

14 JULY-AUGUST 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL are limited in their influence to only a few levers of state power. How, then, to build diplomacy as a profession for our Foreign Service officers? In this context, Mr. Smith’s recom- mendations to achieve expertise, expand training and research, and create stan- dardized doctrine are especially critical: • Acquiring expertise . Considering the host of actors in U.S. foreign policy, State’s influence is linked inevitably with the perception of its expertise. To remain relevant and shape issues over which it has little formal control, State must lever- age its institutional advantage—an overt global presence—to derive expertise on host-country history, context and current events. Our credibility as nonpartisan for- eign policy experts will also be the deter- mining factor in our ability to gain the trust of our politically appointed principals. • Expand training and research . Research goes hand in hand with acquir- ing expertise and building credibility. Enough said. Training, meanwhile, has a critical role to play for FS-2 and FS-1 officers. These officers have considerable experience supporting the department and are beginning to touch or engage in the “management of power.” Expanded general training can help pull together the disparate elements of a career into preparation for an actual diplomatic role. • Standardized doctrine . Mr. Smith convincingly argues for a codified, official doctrine of principles, concepts and informed professional guidance. Beyond the benefits he cites, an accepted body of doctrine can rebalance the department toward the field. Clear doctrine allows for greater autonomy at the local level— more FSOs would be able to actually practice diplomacy, and earlier in their careers, by taking initiative within the doctrinal bounds Washington endorses. Empowering our FSOs may lead to an occasional diplomatic faux pas, but overly centralized management hasn’t prevented those either. Doctrine can set the guide rails and then unleash the dynamism in our talented workforce. Everyone at State seems to agree that the United States faces a challenging and changing international environment, and that the department needs to rise to the occasion and advance U.S. foreign policy for a better nation and a better world. The State Department will only ever be as good as its people, so building diplomacy as a profession per Mr. Smith’s recommendations will be central to that effort. Jarek Buss is a first-tour officer in Guang- zhou, China, though due to COVID-19, he has also spent months working with Overseas Citizen Services and the Corona- virus Global Response Coordination Unit in Washington, D.C. He served in Chengdu, China, and in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs as a Pickering Fellow. He hails fromWyoming. The Profession: It’s All about Peace BY PETER LYDON T his retired Foreign Service foot soldier is glad to see from AFSA a renewed interest in its role as the professional association of U.S. diplomats. Part of that must clearly be continuous introspection about what the profession of diplomacy is. In the May Journal , Chris- topher Smith, after comparisons with the military and a good deal of leaning on Samuel Huntington, holds that it is “the management of U.S. national power in the conduct of the nation’s foreign affairs.” I’d say this statement is an extraor- dinarily dilute and undemanding, not to say trivializing, characterization of our profession, which mainly expresses complacency during what is in fact a very dangerous time. Its acceptance as the standard of professional work would be a severe retreat by our professional association. Contrarily, I would define the profes- sion of diplomacy as the specifically peaceful management of international tensions and conflicts of interest. The State Department and Foreign Service should redevelop and reassert a profes- sional commitment to work among inter- national differences and antagonisms with the purpose of avoiding war. We should recruit the very best people we can for this task. It is to be recognized that that is a higher standard, and one that we will not always meet, in a poten- tially tragic domain in which there are failures as well as successes. Nonetheless, it is a professional standard that more genuinely distinguishes us among other professions and government occupa- tions. It is an aspiration we should not give up. Reevaluation Needed In a late 1976 piece in the Open Forum Journal , “Diplomacy as a Profession: Recovering from Vietnam,” I stated th at the State Department and Foreign Ser-