The Foreign Service Journal, October 2006

O C T O B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 11 distinguished group of American diplomats brought together since the days of the Founding Fathers.” Grove, a retired FSO and former ambassador who took over from Ambassador Bruce Laingen as pres- ident in April, intends to lead a “fun- damental reassessment” of the Academy’s mission to determine the best way it can enhance American diplomacy to meet the demands of a volatile and complicated world. “We are at a crossroads in history. The world is changing quickly around us,” Grove said. “There are new things to understand about diplomacy itself. We have got to move forward and share that understanding. The world is not ordered in any dis- cernible way today. The U.S.’s pur- poses are not as clearly and consis- tently defined as they should be. The Academy is looking for ways to help American diplomacy in a changed environment.” A No-Nonsense Look at State’s Staffing Crisis On Aug. 4, the Government Accountability Office delivered a 65- page report on the State Depart- ment’s staffing and foreign language shortfalls to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Rela- tions ( www.goa.gov ) . GAO’s aim was to evaluate State’s progress in address- ing these problems since the 2002 implementation of the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative. With characteris- tic thoroughness, the GAO sets forth the scope of the crisis in black and white. The report, GAO-06-894, states repeatedly that the DRI has been overtaken by demands for staffing and expertise from Iraq and Afghanistan. The initiative enabled State to hire more than 1,000 employees above attrition, but “most of this increase was absorbed by the demand for person- nel in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thus the desired crises and training reserve was not achieved.” And: “Although the DRI brought in a large number of new FSOs, it made minimal impact in addressing the staffing gaps at hard- ship posts, largely because of new staffing demands in Iraq and Afghan- istan.” Elsewhere, it notes: “DRI’s goals became quickly outdated as new pressures resulted from staffing demands for Iraq and Afghanistan. For example, the department has currently levied what it calls an ‘Iraq tax’ on all its bureaus in order to sup- port its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.” In the past two years, the Iraq tax has claimed a total of 280 mid-level generalist and specialist positions, and another such tax is expected for 2007. The most severe staffing gaps con- tinue to be at the mid-level, concen- trated in the consular and public diplomacy cones. Citing a recent sur- vey of FS spouses and members of household, the report identifies fami- ly issues and the lack of locality pay as the greatest obstacles to meeting the requirement for mid-level officers at hardship posts. The staffing shortfall directly affects the ability to implement poli- cy in many areas. For instance, due to staffing shortages in consular sec- tions around the world, there are fewer officers to implement the new interview requirements and screen- ing procedures for visas, resulting in extensive wait times for applicants for visa interviews at consular posts overseas. Other functions, such as regional security, are also compro- mised. On the issue of increasing lan- guage capabilities, despite efforts by State, progress has been halting. As of October 2005, nearly 30 percent of language-designated positions were held by individuals who did not meet the requirements. In the Middle East this proportion is at 37 percent. Moreover, GAO found that State has not yet put in place a system for eval- uating the effectiveness of its initia- tives. GAO made five broad recommen- dations to solve these problems including using directed assignments as necessary to fill vital positions at critical-needs posts; systematically evaluating the effectiveness of the incentive programs for hardship post assignments, and adjusting the incen- tives on that basis; altering the assign- ment system to enhance language capability; systematically evaluating incentive programs for language-pro- ficiency improvement; and, conduct- ing a risk assessment of critical-lan- guage needs in regions and countries of strategic importance, including requirements for staff and training, and targeting limited resources accordingly. C YBERNOTES