The Foreign Service Journal, September 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2015 37 A s members of the Foreign Service, we face an inherent tension between the obligation to provide our best analysis and advice in the policy- making process, and our recogni- tion that there will be many times in our careers when we will be asked to carry out policies and actions with which we may personally disagree. Embedded in that tension are endless variations on how, and to what degree, we should offer a dissenting view, how far to push that dissent, when to accept “defeat” and—con- versely—when to push on in the face of objections from those Samuel Kotis just concluded an assignment as deputy minister counselor in the economic, environment, science and technology affairs section in NewDelhi. He is headed to the U.S. Mission to the International Civil Aviation Organization inMontreal next. Since joining the Foreign Service in 1991, he has also served in Jakarta, Singapore, Tunis, Am- man, Budapest, Baghdad and London. He and his wife, Beth, have two children. He is the recipient of AFSA’s 2015 WilliamR. Rivkin Award for Constructive Dissent by a mid-level FSO. FOCUS ON AFSA AWARDS AND DISSENT Clearing the Air IN NEWDELHI How one FSO used constructive dissent to advance a sensible approach to air pollution in India. BY SAMUE L KOT I S