The Foreign Service Journal, October 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2020 13 Should Not Be Specialists”). Thus, the argument is drawn once again, as often in the past, of generalists vs. specialists. We are thereby in old territory, with arguments that are useful to review. I had my own crack at this in the FSJ some years ago (“Is the Foreign Service Still a Profession?” June 2011), but have since had time to reconsider. First, as British Prime Minister Anthony Eden once exclaimed (perhaps conscious of his mistakes in the Suez crisis): “Events, my boy, events!” A key strength of the For- eign Service is that it is always on guard, day and night, to changes in the political, military, economic or public relations environments everywhere in the world, and is usually able to come up with rec- ommendations to address those changes in America’s interest. This is not “managing power,” but it certainly sets State apart from every other government organization (including the National Security Council, lodged near the president in the White House). This also makes the Foreign Service more relevant to wise foreign policy than even the many-voiced press. Second, after the diplomatic service was put on a professional basis with the Rogers Act of 1924, it was “Wristonized” in the 1950s, so that diplomats now help make policy in Washington, as well as continuing to report on events abroad that the policy is meant to address. PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION MAY 2020 TEX HARRIS, LARGER THAN LIFE THE DIPLOMAT AND THE STATE NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY TODAY Diplomacy and the Foreign Service   BY GEORGE LAMBRAKIS IN RESPONSE TO THE MAY SPEAKING OUT COLUMN, “THE DIPLOMAT AND THE STATE” A s an old-timer with 31 years of service in State and USIA, I was impressed by Chris- topher Smith’s effort in the May FSJ (Speaking Out) to describe U.S. diplomats as managers of American power after his 15 years as a diplomat, often working and studying with the U.S. military, and espousing the military’s specialization as the only way for State to impress its professionalism on others in the U.S. government and its citizens. Smith calls for much more formal training on the specifics of diplomatic action than now available for U.S. diplo- mats (but available to the military), an argument that I take to heart as a former director of training assignments in State’s Career Development Office. But in the July-August FSJ , Ambas- sador (ret.) Michael Cotter retorts that becoming expert on one or two countries would mean abandoning the sacred principle of worldwide availability and would expose officers to the old charge of “going native” clientelism (Letters, “FSOs George Lambrakis served with the U.S. Infor- mation Agency in Vietnam and Laos and with the State Department in Guinea, Ger- many, Israel, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Lebanon, Iran, Guinea-Bissau, Swaziland, and in Washington, D.C., and New York City. He subsequently taught international relations and diplomacy for two decades in London and Paris. He recently published a memoir, So You Want to Be a Diplomat? The task at home is not the same as abroad, and different people are differ- ently talented in each case; but the change was intended to make sure that policymakers in Washington rec- ognize the need to act within chang- ing environments—not just among Americans at home, but also among governments and populations abroad. Third, those environments abroad almost always include situations of war and peace. Still, I would not use the term “management of power” to describe U.S. diplomacy, Christopher Smith’s clever distinctions of soft, sharp, smart and hard power notwithstanding. Surely policies to promote democracy, humanitarian values, peace and coopera- tion all rely at least as much on virtue at home and effective persuasion abroad as on U.S. “power” abroad (especially in an age of “America First”). Smith quotes Harvard’s Profes- sor Samuel Huntington at length. But Huntington’s starting point was always the military, and his theories of political development (which I studied at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy) were based on his appreciation for efficiency of action as exemplified by militaries around the world. American diplomats are not American soldiers, even if Secretaries of State like General Colin Powell can make valuable contributions, such as introducing spe- cific leadership training (which people like me had to learn on the job) and get- ting extra money from Congress, which is traditionally much more responsive to the military than to State. Christopher Smith correctly notes that one reason why the American public knows less about its diplomatic service than its military is the huge difference in numbers. He argues that an additional reason is that diplomats have not defined