Confronting professional risk intolerance was an important part of our modernization agenda. And a hard one to tackle. could also continue to look for ways to modernize the Foreign Service personnel system to create more opportunities for promotion and advancement. Risk Intolerance. Risk is inherent in the job of advancing U.S. interests and relationships around the globe. From at least Vietnam on, physical danger has threatened members of the Foreign Service. The 1983 terrorist bombing of the Beirut embassy and the 1998 bombing of embassies in East Africa prompted legislative efforts to protect diplomats and U.S. embassies. Congress mandated security standards for new embassies, including “setbacks” that made it harder for terrorists to attack but also more difficult for local people to engage with embassy officials and vice versa. Since the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, in particular, FSOs have increasingly been restricted in their movement and engagements in certain areas. Risk-taking to advance U.S. interests and relationships is an inherent part of the job and is necessary for innovation and evolution. As part of our efforts on modernization, we engaged State’s congressional stakeholders to urge changes to the laws that mandated restrictive security standards for embassies overseas. We sought innovative ways to open new embassies or consulates, including looking to co-locate with allies in certain countries. At State, however, risk intolerance extends beyond concerns for physical danger. While policy successes are celebrated, failures are feared to be career-ending; and this can lead to kneejerk reactions that discourage innovative thinking. The 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan is a good example. Earlier that summer, U.S. Embassy Kabul had signaled (through a “dissent” cable) that it believed the timeline for the Taliban takeover was much shorter than others were estimating. Yet little was done to expedite withdrawal. Though I believe the evacuation was a success—more than 120,000 people were evacuated in about a month’s time—the prevailing sentiment in Washington (and in Congress, in particular) was that it was a failure. After-action reviews followed, and many feared there would be a hunt for a scapegoat. Confronting this professional risk intolerance was an important part of our modernization agenda. And a hard one to tackle. The Secretary championed a reinvigorated Dissent Channel and the creation of a “policy ideas channel,” encouraging employees at all levels to submit recommendations on policies and stimulate discussion about policy successes and challenges. Some employees took advantage of these tools, but we did not see wide engagement. I heard, informally, that managers were dismissive of the policy ideas channel, in particular, and were likely dissuading entry-level officers from feeling empowered to submit ideas. In 2022 I joined conversations with the Secretary, both Deputy Secretaries, and other seventh-floor leaders who talked about risks they had taken in their careers. We sought to capture these stories and created posts on our modernization website, trying to demonstrate that innovation and creative ideas—whether they succeed or not—were welcome. While we tried to encourage innovation in policy development and execution, there were no obvious incentives or awards for such ideation, and for members of the Foreign Service, the risks outweighed the benefits. State should continue to find ways to engage staff at all levels to think creatively about how to confront the challenges of today and the future, and find ways to reward innovative ideas. Congress. State’s relationship with Congress is fraught. The relationship between the department and its congressional oversight committees is, at best, adversarial, creating obstacles in partnering to solve State’s challenges. Following the tragedy in Benghazi, Congress launched investigations into the events. While ultimately the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found no wrongdoing, there were critiques of State’s security practices, and several State whistleblowers testified before Congress. Similarly, following the complicated—and chaotic—withdrawal from Afghanistan, Congress was highly critical of State’s “failures.” Such negative attention on State’s gaffes differs from how Congress generally treats the failures of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the intelligence community (IC), and this has acted to heighten State’s risk intolerance. State’s congressional overseers notoriously do not like the department, and the feeling is mutual. I cannot identify the origins of the distrust between the two, but I keenly observed the impact. In other roles, I have observed, for instance, that DoD and the IC are uniquely transparent with their congressional 22 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL
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