The Foreign Service Journal, November 2015

16 NOVEMBER 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Albright is co-chair, with former National Security Advisor Stephen Had- ley, of the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force, which organized the event in conjunction with USIP. International Rescue Committee President and former U.K. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs David Miliband, USIP President Nancy Lindborg and Mr. Antoine Frem, the mayor of Jounieh, Lebanon, joined Albright and Hadley on the panel. The task force is a bipartisan initia- tive to better understand the regional crises causing the flood of refugees into Lebanon, Jordan, and now Europe, and to develop long-termU.S. policy to support stability. Panelists stressed the need to move beyond the current humanitarian aid framework, arguing that the failure to pri- oritize integration and education along- side food and shelter fuels disenfranchise- ment, cycles of poverty and victimization. Indeed, the issue should be reframed to recognize refugee populations not as burdens, but as assets. Investing in them now by providing education for children and employment training for adults will prevent greater costs later on. According to the United Nations, the average length of displacement for inter- nally displaced persons is currently 17 years. Fully 25 percent of Lebanon’s total population is displaced. Mayor Frem gave the audience a window into the stress Lebanon faces as a result of the massive inflow of Syrian refugees. There isn’t sufficient health care for Syrians, who often cannot pay. Some schools are running second shifts to accommodate children, but it is not enough. Local tensions are growing between ethnic groups as a result of overcrowding. The result is a growing “lost generation,” fertile ground for radicalization. “We cannot ask European countries to do something we are not willing to do our- selves,” Albright stated, referring to the ref- ugee influx in Europe. If the United States wants to continue to be the world leader in taking in and integrating refugees—it has taken in half of the total refugee population every year since WorldWar II—it needs to take half of the U.N.-recommended total of 200,000 people per year. Americans can help make this a reality, Albright said, by calling their legislators to voice their support and make it clear that this is the American way to approach this issue. —Shannon Mizzi, Editorial Intern The Foreign Service: A Glance at the Future I detect a certain nostalgia among some of our officers for the time when the conduct of foreign affairs was relatively uncomplicated; when the Foreign Service was a small, select group in Washington and abroad, uncluttered by attachments of one kind or another, and engaged in diplomacy in traditional terms. Those days are gone. Foreign affairs are now conducted through a vast and complicated mechanism, and they embrace so many activities on so many fronts that it is difficult to comprehend them, let alone manage them. …What has happened to the Foreign Service, or to put it another way, to the profession of diplomacy? … We are at the stage where the old methods, the old traditions, the old disciplines, the practices of the past have in part broken down, but we have yet to replace them with new methods, traditions and disciplines which com- bine certain practices of the old with the requirements of the new world in which we live. … The traditional practice of diplomacy is in danger of being engulfed, and yet the work of the professional diplomat is no less important than it was in the past. Indeed, it is more important than ever before. The mission in the field under the ambassador is the only place where day-in and day-out there is complete and utter preoccupation at a high and intimate level with the problems of a country and our relationship. Here is where traditional diplomacy counts most—where the experience and judgment and activities of the mission and the ambassador have the greatest impact on our policy and its effectiveness. —Ambassador Samuel D. Berger, in remarks before the American Foreign Service Association, Oct. 1, 1965, from the November 1965 FSJ . 50 Years Ago