The Foreign Service Journal, November 2018

16 NOVEMBER 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Dissent, and the energetic debate that underlies it, is an essential component of our duty. It is as important a part of our duty as discipline and obedience. Dissent, as understood and practiced in the Foreign Service, is not just about personal integrity. It is also about professional integrity, and the integrity of our policymaking process. When we took our oath, we swore to uphold and defend our Constitution. We committed ourselves to the values, rights and institutions that define our democracy, and to respect the will of our sovereign: the American people. We cannot meet this commitment if we are unable to speak our mind. We must be able to provide our elected leaders our best understanding and assessment of a situation, and we must be clear about the consequences of decisions and actions. Sometimes those consequences are moral and ethical; sometimes they are practical; sometimes they are strategic; and sometimes they combine all three. Dissent, nomatter how purposeful, has a bitter aftertaste. By its nature it reflects a failure to affect a change in thought, decision or action. Within the world of foreign policy and diplomacy, we must become comfortable with the understanding that we will not always prevail. But we must also understand that the institutions we are a part of, and the great Republic that we represent, have remarkable characteristics of intro- spection, reflection and rectification. In this sense, dissent, as we understand and practice it, is not a single event that passes without effect. Instead, it is part of a larger conversation that we have with ourselves. It is designed to give us pause, to think anew, and to have a touchpoint to return to when we have recognized that we have made a mistake. —Former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs TomShannon, speaking at the Oct. 10 AFSA award ceremony on accepting the Christian A. Herter Award for constructive dissent by a senior officer. Contemporary Quote approved of her job performance, while 75 percent of Republicans viewed her performance favorably. The same poll showed the president’s own approval rating at just 39 percent. The race to replace Haley has only begun. Dina Powell, an early frontrun- ner who was formerly a Trump official and now works at Goldman Sachs in New York City, took herself out of the running without explanation. President Trump told reporters that there are five names on his short list to replace Haley, but he declined on Oct. 11 to name any of those people other than Powell. Diplomat Killed in Madagascar I n a press statement released on Sept. 24, the State Department confirmed that a U.S. Foreign Service officer was found dead in his residence in Antananarivo on Sept. 21. Multiple news outlets, includ- ing Reuters, Time , CNN and ABC, reported on the death. According to the Daily Beast and others, a suspect was apprehended while trying to scale the perimeter fence outside the resi- dence. The suspect is currently in custody. As we go to press, the name of the victim has been officially released: Kevin Webb. L isteners can tune into thousands of radio stations across the world using a free radio service called Radio Garden. Using an interactive 3D globe, listeners can hover over icons that tune into radio stations, whether Hitradio Dragon in the Czech Republic, Radio Xamsadine in Sen- egal or Mandalika FM Radio Lombok in Indonesia. According to one of the founders of the project, Jonathan Puckey, “The main idea is to help radio makers and listeners connect with distant cul- tures and reconnect with people from home and thousands of miles away.” In Radio Garden’s History section listeners can tune into clips through- out radio history. Listeners can hear Radio Moscow announce history as Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to visit space in 1963. Or listeners can hear a 1942 broadcast fromWarsaw where German propa- ganda disseminates news of wartime victory—and a jamming station joins in on the same frequency to counter those claims and provide a different perspective. The Jingles section helps listeners identify various stations and learn types of radio programming. Radio Garden was launched in 2016 using public funds from the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision. It was developed by the Amsterdam-based Studio Moniker, and is now run by Studio Puckey. SITE OF THE MONTH: RADIO.GARDEN