The Foreign Service Journal, October 2012

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2012 65 Time for Straight Talk State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department Kori N. Schake, Hoover Institution Press, 2012, $19.95, hardcover, 157 pages. Reviewed by Donald M. Bishop Here’s how Kori Schake of the Hoover Institution frames her book: “The culture shock of working in the Department of State for someone who’d professionally grown up in the Pentagon is difficult to overstate.” As its title says, the depart- ment is in a state of “disrepair” and needs “fixing.” Opening it, I feared a screed by some- one who spent years at the Pentagon but only a few months on State’s Policy Planning staff. What could she know? How can she understand the nuances and texture of our work? Doesn’t she understand all the burdens we bear? As I read on, however, I found many telling criticisms. “State has not been able to provide the personnel, readiness, flexibility, agility and funding to support and shape recon- struction programs.” I saw that up close and personal in Afghanistan. The department “fails to foster the tal- ent it possesses.” How true. “The ‘whole of government’ opera- tions mantra chanted by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Admiral [Mike] Mullen should be understood as a plea by the Department of Defense for State to better do its job.” Amen. The department “blames its manage- ment inadequacies on lack of resources.” Count me guilty, too. I’ve voiced the same opinion. “State excuses itself from the respon- sibility of building support in the public and, crucially, on Capitol Hill.” Ouch! Think of what many of us say to col- leagues, or ourselves, over coffee in the department cafeteria or an embassy can- teen. “We don’t do any training except in languages.” “We policy plan, but we don’t plan programs.” “No one gives us the people or the money we need.” “We don’t have a constituency.” Schake agrees that these are accurate descriptions of organi- zational shortcomings that have atrophied the department. But she also sees them as excuses for failure, and she is impatient with our “business as usual” approach. The militarization of foreign policy, in her view, has come about not because the armed forces covet working on diplomacy and development. It’s hap- pened because State proved unequal to its taskings, and missions migrated to the military. Schake argues—to my mind, accu- rately—that much of this is due to the department’s culture and organizational dysfunction. We see problems, but we shrug our shoulders. They’re just too big, too hard to fix. It’s not possible in a short review to address all her recommendations. She gives the work of consular officers high praise, indeed, though she might have noted that the Department of Homeland Security now plays a role in visa deci- sions, too. In any case, consular officers are best placed to see just how ambitious is her agenda for the cone, and how dif- ficult to achieve. Schake’s diagnosis and the strong medicine she prescribes both stem from the depart- ment’s shortcomings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many in the Foreign Service regard our massive deployments in those nations as aberrations we can soon, happily, put behind us. I sense a longing for a steady- state Foreign Service, for the protect-report-represent institution we knew in the 1990s. Laying down the burdens of Iraq and Afghanistan will not, however, release the State Department frommeeting the chal- lenges of insurgencies or violent extrem- ism. Moreover, we need to be prepared for equally disruptive new challenges. Schake is right: Now is the time to address training, education and plan- ning deficits, as well as the confusion of executive authorities that so hobbled our response after 9/11. For all these reasons, State of Disrepair is an important book. Without a manage- ment and professional upgrade, State and the other foreign affairs agencies, and the Foreign Service, will fall short. That stark conclusion should not be dismissed simply because it’s sweeping, direct and lacking in nuance, and may hurt our feelings. n Donald M. Bishop, a retired Foreign Service public diplomacy officer, was a public affairs officer in Dhaka, Lagos and Beijing, and twice a political adviser at the Pentagon. His last assignment was Kabul. Schake is right: Now is the time to address State’s training, education and planning deficits, as well as the confusion of executive authorities that so hobbled our response after 9/11.