THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2024 29 COURTESY OF THE COHEN GROUP The reports shared the premise that U.S. diplomacy, with its long and proud history, staffed today by a remarkable group of patriotic, committed, and effective employees, confronts crises both from external attacks on its core functions and an internal culture that creates roadblocks to change, and that it needs an honest self-assessment of how best to meet its vital responsibilities. These and other important observations are the foundation for the November 2020 report, “A U.S. Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century,” published by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. I was a co-author of the Belfer report along with Ambassador Marcie Ries and Ambassador Nick Burns. We are delighted that some of the proposals in the Belfer report have been adopted, including appointing a State Department coordinator for diversity and inclusion, making a down payment on a training “float” or complement, establishing paid internships that will broaden the socioeconomic base of future applicants, opening up more leadership positions to career officers, establishing new parameters for risk management, and planning for career-long professional education for both the Foreign Service and Civil Service. After the positive response to the Belfer report, Ambassador Ries and I pursued a Phase II effort focused on four achievable, affordable, urgently needed, high-impact recommendations— the blueprints. What makes the “Blueprints for a More Modern U.S. Diplomatic Service,” supported by the Una Chapman Cox Foundation and Arizona State University and released in September 2022, unique is that the report has a detailed implementation plan for each blueprint, including all the required legislative or administrative language. We appreciate AFSA’s strong support and the help of the FSJ in publicizing the blueprints. There are four blueprints: 1. A revised mission and mandate for the Foreign Service, and a new framework for communicating with the American public. 2. Expanded professional education and training to deepen our diplomats’ expertise as leaders and preeminent experts, and a plan to create sufficient positions to make it possible. 3. Modernization of the personnel system to build in more diversity, accountability, flexibility, and accommodation of the needs of accompanying families and partners at home and overseas. 4. A plan for a Diplomatic Reserve Corps to provide surge capacity in geopolitical crises and natural disasters. We are now trying to get the blueprints accepted, adopted, and funded. This work is being led by the American Academy of Diplomacy, again supported by the Cox Foundation and Arizona State University. Four ambassadors who served as U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs together at a Cohen Group dinner on March 28, 2019. From left: Tom Pickering, David Hale (then serving in the U/S position), Marc Grossman, and Nicholas Burns. One of the hardest things to do is to speak truth to power. It is imperative that this happens. Ambassador Marc Grossman, top right, leads a program titled “Blueprints for Modern Diplomacy” at an American Academy of Diplomacy event held in collaboration with the San Diego World Affairs Council on March 23, 2023. COURTESY OF AAD
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