The Foreign Service Journal, September 2009

8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 9 “EERs: The Forgotten Front in the War for Talent.” Having just wit- nessed the process for the first time, I feel like Alice in Wonderland. This spring, I proofread many Em- ployee Evaluation Reports and did not see a single negative statement — even in the one for my office’s former Office Management Specialist, whom I’ll call “Janet.” Janet was assigned to cover the phones in our busy office, but spent half the day in the hall chat- ting with friends. When she was at her desk, surfing the Web was one of her prime activities. She worked with us until the head of our office told the human resources director at post that he never wanted to see her again. HR moved Janet to another office, where she has continued to be unmotivated and uncaring. Janet’s EER rater joked to me that he’d had to include her participation in a local 5K race as an achievement because it was so difficult to come up with anything good to say about her work. Apparently, being nice is much more important than being truthful. After only one year with the For- eign Service, I’ve come to a depress- ing conclusion: because FS personnel aren’t actually evaluated, we are just like Soviet factory workers — lacking any incentive to excel. Name withheld by request Foreign Service employee A post in Africa On Officers and Specialists I recently read the June Speaking Out column by Jonathan Fritz. While I certainly agree that there are many shortcomings in the personnel evalua- tion system, one absolute requirement for the promotion of Foreign Service officers should be the recognition and understanding that not all members of the Service are officers. A failure to understand the categories of FS per- sonnel should automatically disqualify any generalist or specialist from pro- motion, regardless of other sterling qualities. Additionally, Mr. Fritz may not be aware that, at times, FSOs are the sub- ordinates of specialists, and their evalu- ations are written by the specialist supervisor. Therefore, the term “offi- cer” should not have been universally applied in the article. (In that regard, I’d point out that I was misidentified as an FS officer rather than as an FS spe- cialist in my July-August letter to you.) Ken Yeager FS Specialist, retired Großhansdorf, Germany Stabilizing Afghanistan Why, in 2009, is the United States, and its NATO allies to a lesser degree, still almost solely responsible for re- solving Afghanistan’s political future? We live in a multipolar world, and the Obama administration appears to be committed to the idea that the U.S. will accomplish more by working with other countries and through interna- tional organizations to achieve na- tional objectives than going it alone. Our national security interests in Afghanistan are essentially limited to preventing that country from once again providing a secure base for al- Qaida and its ilk. (The Obama ad- ministration once claimed it would not pursue the broader nationbuild- ing goals of the Bush administration, but its subsequent actions have been more ambiguous.) While our NATO partners share that goal, many of them remain reluctant to become en- gaged in the (hopefully) short-term military phase. Contrast that with the interests of Afghanistan’s neighbors — China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Turk- menistan, Uzbekistan and, by exten- sion, Russia. All of them have concerns about Afghanistan’s poten- tial to become a terrorist base of op- erations. But they also have a direct interest in keeping it from becoming a destabilizing vacuum in the center of the region. They probably don’t agree on what a stable Afghanistan should look like, but with real national secu- rity interests involved, they probably can find a formula that satisfies each of their essential needs. So I suggest that the time has come for the U.S. and NATO to sit down for a serious discussion with those countries, making clear to them that we share their concern that Afghanistan never again become a safe haven for non-state terrorists. Moreover, given their direct stake in the future of their region, we should also make clear that we intend to turn over responsibility for Afghanistan’s security and political future to local leaders at the earliest possible time. At the same time, we should also commit to playing a supportive role with a reasonable level of financial and human resources. Such a step would imply abandon- ing plans for a long-term U.S. military presence in Central Asia. But in light of the concerted opposition of the re- gion’s powers to such a presence, such plans — assuming they exist — are simply not realistic. Given the limited tolerance of the American people for extended military adventures halfway around the globe, the most sensible course is to leave the region’s prob- lems primarily in the hands of those directly involved. What better way to do so than by beginning serious dis- cussions right now on handing over L E T T E R S