The Foreign Service Journal, October 2015

8 OCTOBER 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Working with the Military BY SHAWN DORMAN T Shawn Dorman is the editor of The Foreign Service Journal. for the Simons Center for the Study of Interagency Cooperation from 2010 to 2012 and was the first political adviser at the U.S. Strategic Command, shares lessons learned from his experience in “Working with the Military—10 Things the Foreign Service Needs to Know.” Senior USAID FSO Ambassador Jonathan Addleton shares his deeply personal story of serving alongside mili- tary colleagues in southern Afghanistan, and of losing civilian and military col- leagues to that war. Then former Director General George Staples talks about his own military background and how that helped inform his Foreign Service career. He offers his take on how to bes t understand the U.S. military and its role in interagency decision-making. Two features offer food for thought on practical policy matters. In “A Closer Look at Advancing World Food Security,” retired FSO Michael McClellan makes a case for syncing the free trade and com- modity export agendas with the devel- opment agenda to combat global food insecurity. FSO and former AFSA State VP Matthew Asada takes us to the 2015 world’s fair in Milan, presenting a brief history of the fair, including the less- than-perfect attendance record for the United States in this “public diplomacy Olympics.” Our Speaking Out column this month will surely raise some eyebrows. It directly addresses the tension in Civil Service–Foreign Service relations at the State Department. In “Seeking Parity Between the Civil and Foreign Services,” retired State Department foreign affairs officer Larry Roeder Jr. lays out his argu- ment for treating members of the CS and FS as equals. As the Journal aims to devote more attention to professional issues, the state of the Foreign Service and how diplo- macy can stay relevant, we cannot ignore this elephant in the room. Send your reactions and letters to journal@afsa.org ! In President’s Views, Ambassador Barbara Stephenson follows her first column, “Stepping Forward to Lead,” with an overview of the new Governing Board’s vision for their term in “Setting Our Course.” She is prioritizing trans- parency and engagement with AFSA members to strengthen both AFSA and the Foreign Service. Finally, I would like to introduce a new occasional feature in Letters, one of our most popular departments. Called “Back Story,” it is a place to highlight, well, the Foreign Service back story on anything featured in the Journal . Our authors know their subjects well, but there is always more to any story. On just about any topic we cover, there are those among you who were there or who have specialized knowledge of that event, story, policy, etc. The most recent example, in September Letters, is Ambassador Tom Boyatt’s response to the FSJ Vietnam articles, giving the back story on what AFSA was doing during that time in relation to Vietnam. Send us your back story, in 500 words or less, and we’ll try to run it as a letter. n his month, our focus is on civilian-military relations. This topic has so many critical dimensions, but we can only touch on a few of them this month. We hope this set of focus articles can serve as a starting point for a broader discus- sion of this important subject. With each month’s focus, we strive to contribute to or spark a conversation that will extend out to future issues of the FSJ and to dialogue and debate among those inside and outside the Foreign Service community. The primary purpose of the Journal , according to its bylaws, is to provide “a forum for the lively debate of issues of interest to foreign affairs professionals by authors in the Foreign Service, the media, academia, etc.” In a sea of mili- tary, think-tank and academic publica- tions and ever-expanding media venues, the FSJ occupies a unique space, offering a Foreign Service and diplomacy lens on issues of concern. As a clarifying point, I would add that the AFSA lens on issues is found in the president’s monthly column and in the AFSA News department of the Journal . The rest of the FSJ is your space, where the views expressed are those of the authors. We urge you to add your voice to the discussions. We start the focus with a primer, a kind of Civ-Mil Relations 101. Retired senior FSO Ted Strickler, who was executive director