The Foreign Service Journal, December 2005

30 agencies at embassies, each with its business applica- tions locked in stovepiped systems. Its first attempt to leap across the stovepipes failed at the pilot stage. The Foreign Affairs Systems Integration System, funded at $17 million, aimed to create a specialized, unclassified- but-protected network called the Interagency Coll- aboration Zone. FASI was abandoned in January 2003 after the software was tried at Embassy Mexico City. The leadership replaced FASI with a dual approach: the new messaging system, which was already in the early stage of development, and full participation in two networks linking multiple intelligence and defense agencies. Neither has yet achieved a breakthrough. Getting SMART SMART messaging will replace cables, e-mail and other correspondence with a system that looks like Outlook e-mail to the user, but tags and archives each policy-oriented message for easy retrieval. Deployed across more than 50,000 unclassified and classified computers on two global networks, SMART is compli- cated. The new SMART messages will have to inter- face with other agencies’ existing systems set up for cables, and the system’s designers want it to pass infor- mation across security classification boundaries within security guidelines. A blue-ribbon steering committee made up of senior officials and technologists selected these characteristics and — after surveying 24 private- and public-sector mes- saging systems for ready-made programs — decided in 2002 that SMART would have to be built from several commercial software components. Headed by retired Ambassador Joe Lake, the committee set up a project office and, in November 2003, selected the Northrop Grumman Corporation to build and maintain a system at a potential cost of $270 million. Originally intended for deployment in 2005, SMART is now running more than a year behind schedule. A system is currently being tested in State facilities for a pilot run at embassies in Northeastern Europe and in parts of the F O C U S D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 25