The Foreign Service Journal, December 2005

disconnect my old but smart computer and take it off the card table where I had kept it, next to the new, dumb PC on my desk. In thinking about how the State Department has adopted information technology to carry out its mission, that experience is a good starting point. It’s not enough to buy the gear; you have to work to put it to use. Sometimes new capabilities even change how you work. Over the past decade, the State Department has moved with increasing speed to establish strong networks of computers, to integrate computer applications to man- age its global operations, and to ensure that new invest- ments would be sustainable and accountable to Congress. So this is a good time to ask: what did the department get, and how well is it using its new capabilities? To what extent State can and will use its new electron- ic capability to further its core mission of conducting and leading diplomacy remains an open question. Information: A Core Resource and Responsibility Information has always been a core resource and responsibility for the State Department. When Congress established the department as the first cabinet agency in 1789, the act of law gave the Secretary of State custody of all official records going back to the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation. State’s mandate has evolved since then, but not its reliance on information, which is increasingly automated. To think of all the diverse ways in which the department is using information technology right now, it helps to imagine the daily routine at an average embassy. • The consular officer pulls up electronic files on the applicant before him or her, including previous visa appli- cations with photos, thereby revealing evidence of fraud in an instant. Outside the embassy, a private call center answers applicants’ questions for a fee and schedules their appointments with the visa officer. • The management officer uses a suite of software applications to view the budget, logistics and critical func- tions at post, while requests for services go electronically to administrative staff. • In the political section, the office management spe- cialist posts the latest reporting cable to the embassy’s classified Web site, where everyone on the Secret SIPRNet (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network), including the regional combatant command headquar- ters, can find it. • The public affairs officer convenes local opinion- makers with an expert inWashington via videoconference; the embassy’s public Web site is updated automatically. • After everyone has gone home, the embassy duty officer carries a palm-size BlackBerry device with all ref- erence information and contact points. This digital assis- tant receives and sends e-mail and doubles as a telephone. The above are ideal cases, not available at all posts. (BlackBerry deployment overseas, for instance, is only beginning.) But all these technologies are in use today in embassies and inside the department. Measured against State’s total operating budget, the $1 billion per year being spent on information technology outstrips the proportion spent by a typical American com- pany by a factor of two or more, however you take the measure. Admittedly, the department has had to play catch-up. In 1999, examining the East Africa embassy bombings, the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel levied the following judgment: “We were dismayed to find that our embassies are equipped with antiquated, grossly inef- ficient, and incompatible information-technology systems incapable of even the simplest electronic communications across department lines that are now commonplace in pri- vate-sector organizations.” Powell Ramps up Technology A modernization program was already in progress when Colin Powell launched his Diplomatic Readiness Initiative in 2001, but Powell sent the makeover into high gear. William Smullen, who served as Secretary Powell’s chief of staff at that time, recalls: “At our initial briefings, we learned that State was not even close to being able to grapple with the requirements of the 21st century.” The upgrades would include new Foreign Service personnel, more modern and secure embassy buildings, and enhanced technology. “Ever since I’ve known him, Secretary Powell believed in technology as a force multi- plier,” Smullen says. When the Secretary went to Con- gress for new money, he justified information technology as an integral part of diplomatic readiness. By the time Powell left office, 43,000 employees the F O C U S 22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 5 Joe Johnson recently retired from the Foreign Service after heading the State Department’s Office of eDiplomacy. He now works for the Computer Sciences Corporation as a part-time consultant.