The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2021 49 elitists spending taxpayer dollars overseas while problems at home remain unresolved go unchallenged. State does have a few programs in place to address the domestic constituency deficit. The Diplomats in Residence program sends some 20 senior officers to faculties at American universities. Our Hometown Diplomats program tasks a small number of officers each year to make limited outreach in their local communities. What we need, however, is a calculated, strategic approach at a scale that is large enough to have a lasting impact. This pro- posal envisions posting hundreds of FSOs around the country for professional education every year. Building off the Diplomats in Residence and Hometown Diplomats programs, we should require our State U students to not only speak to faculties and other interested classes at the universities they’re attending, but also reach out to other universities in the area, or high schools, governors and mayors, businesses and business clubs, think- tanks, the media and other interested groups. Repeated annually, across the country, we will exponentially increase our domestic outreach, making contact with sections of the public we’ve never reached before. The State Depart- ment would no longer be a stranger to those on Main Street. The converse is also true: Main Street would become a greater part of who we are. We will gain a greater understanding of what our foreign policy means to Americans outside Washington circles, and what Americans want their diplomats to be doing for them. The Need for Subnational Diplomacy American cities and states are becoming increasingly active participants in global diplomacy. From transnational issues such as global warming and pandemic response to terrorism (both international and domestic) and economic development, local institutions are seeking to engage more than ever before with the State Department and international partners. Although foreign policy is the domain of the federal government, the active and growing involvement of American cities and states should be welcomed and encouraged. The logic is circular, but in a good way: The department must enlist cities and states to better advance American interests overseas and, in turn, achieve a foreign policy that benefits the middle class back home. Currently, however, we do not have a mechanism for this. To be sure, State runs numerous subnational programs—from law enforcement exchanges and training for foreign police to immi- grant immersion programs and local consultations over water rights issues along our borders. But overall, our subnational engagement is ad hoc and rarely coordinated in any way with our strategic foreign policy goals. In fact, this discrepancy between our cities and states desir- ing more inclusion in foreign policy and the lack of a mechanism to do so has already caught the attention of Congress. At the time of this writing, Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and others were preparing to reintroduce a bill that would require State to create an Office of Subnational Diplomacy. The bill states: “It is the sense of Congress that it is in the interest of the United States to promote subnational engagements, align such engagements with national foreign policy objectives, and leverage federal resources to enhance the impact of such engagements.” Led by an ambassador-at-large, this office would, among other things, advise the Secretary on subnational issues, help mayors and governors engage with their foreign counterparts, coordinate with the interagency and promote U.S. foreign policy goals through support for subnational engagements. The bill has received widespread support, including from the Council on Foreign Relations, the Truman Center, the German Marshall Fund, the American Academy of Diplomacy and the U.S. Confer- ence of Mayors. How the Program Could Work The program could be implemented as follows, perhaps start- ing with a pilot program of smaller scale. Establish a procedure to send up to X percent (the exact number would be determined by human resources needs) of midlevel Foreign Service officers annually to master’s, Ph.D. or faculty programs. Participants with a bachelor’s degree, or a master’s degree in a program not related to international affairs, would attend one-year master’s degree programs in international affairs or a related field. Participants with master’s degrees in international affairs or a related field could pursue further master’s credits in another related field (such as management or public administration), begin a doctoral program (if State regulations allow) or serve on the faculty of a university international affairs or related program (similar to or as part of the Diplomats in Residence It is apparent that our competition is pulling ahead of us in terms of formal professional development of their diplomats.