The Foreign Service Journal, November 2008

N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 5 Last month, my column ended by posing a question: What are the professional re- sponsibilities of senior career officials and what should hap- pen to those who fail to fulfill those duties? As I explained, the context of that question is the widespread view that — due to timidity or careerism — some senior career diplomats in recent years have not fulfilled their professional respon- sibilities to provide their political superiors with frank, expert advice behind closed doors. What are examples of such fail- ures? Future historians may point to any number of foreign policy deci- sions in recent years. However, I will leave such judgments to history since any criticism by me of foreign policy decisions made by sitting officials might hamper those officials in their dealings with foreign governments during the remainder of their term of office. But I see no professional con- straint on citing leadership failures by senior career officials that have weak- ened diplomatic readiness to the point that the next president will face seri- ous logistical constraints in imple- menting his foreign policy. Examples include: • Secretary Powell’s hard-won gains in reversing the ill-advised 1990s downsizing of the Foreign Service evaporated in recent years as newmis- sion requirements (notably in Iraq) far exceeded the available staffing. The result- ing staffing gaps are so harm- ful to national security that concerned outsiders such as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates are calling for sharply expanded resources for diplomacy and development assistance. While the Bush administration’s final budget requested significant new resources, they should have been sought years earlier. The fact that they were not was due in part to a failure by some senior career officials to insist — if necessary at the point of resignation — that more resources must be requested from Congress. • To fulfill the desire of their polit- ical superiors that Embassy Baghdad be fully staffed regardless of other concerns, senior career officials unnecessarily raised the specter of ordered assignments in the fall of 2007 instead of allowing the normal assignment process to take its course. In so doing, they undermined con- gressional and public confidence in the Foreign Service by leaving the mistaken impression that employees were refusing to answer the call to duty, despite the fact that the Foreign Service has stepped up every year since 2003 to volunteer for Iraq. The fact that Foreign Service members, including myself, have now volun- teered to fill all 2009 vacancies in Iraq proves how unnecessary the earlier ordered assignment threats were. • Several senior career officers launched a public attack in January against an AFSA survey that showed deep dissatisfaction within the For- eign Service over inadequate resour- ces. Nearly 40 percent of the State Department’s active-duty FS person- nel participated in the online survey. Despite that high response rate, the senior officers dismissed the survey findings as being non-representative and non-credible. They then lauded the job their political superiors had done in obtaining resources, without mentioning the serious budget and staffing gaps then facing the State Department. In response, one em- ployee noted that great courage must be required for senior officials to “go on the record to say that they love their boss.“ These examples show senior offi- cers failing to stand up for the career Service. Instead of speaking up to their political superiors about likely negative consequences of the pending decisions, some officers became com- pliant yes-men and yes-women. Some crossed the divide between nonparti- san career officials and political appointees by allying themselves with a politically appointed patron. As a result, they reaped personal gains such as obtaining or retaining a plum assign- ment leading to a pay-grade promotion or performance-pay bonus. These trends must be arrested. Were it to become accepted practice for career officials to ally themselves with political appointees, then every P RESIDENT ’ S V IEWS Professional Responsibility B Y J OHN K. N ALAND John K. Naland is the president of the American Foreign Service Association.