By Patricia H. Kushlis
It’s painfully clear that whoever becomes this country’s new president in January, the US cannot continue to conduct its foreign policy along the business-as-usual lines of the Bush administration. Leading with the military, sending in the tanks, calling in the short and long-range bombers, refusing to negotiate with adversaries – or even perceived adversaries – is a costly and counter-productive way to deal with the world.
This guns-and-steel-first approach by which America has been engaging - or more accurately disengaging - the world throughout the past eight years has boomeranged. It has increased – not decreased – support for those who truly hate America. It has resulted in budget busting defense spending. It has created an overstretched and weary professional military unable to accomplish the Herculean tasks assigned it. And it is an unsung piece of the current financial crisis. This lethal concoction has weakened the country abroad and sapped our ability to meet our citizens’ needs at home.
Leading with Diplomacy: The Single Realistic Foreign Policy Option Left
The next president will, in reality, have only one foreign policy option. This is the imperative to rely far more on traditional diplomacy, public diplomacy and foreign aid delivered through civilian means to begin to repair America’s face and effectively conduct its business abroad. The military first “solution” has proven to be no solution. Fighting elusive militant terrorists ensconced in ungovernable areas is not akin to rolling back the Axis Powers in 1944 or facing off the Red Army and the Warsaw Pact over the Fulda Gap during the Cold War.
The only other alternative to a military-first doctrine besides diplomacy is isolationism. Isolationism failed miserably in the 1920s. The 1990s neo-isolationism of the late Jesse Helms only helped to weaken this country’s position and destroy its foreign affairs capabilities in both the short and long run. This is indeed a globalized world: isolationism – like Communism – belongs in history’s dust bin.
But before a new administration can emphasize diplomatic solutions or peaceful management of complex international problems, it has to understand that the civilian foreign affairs agencies that throughout the Cold War provided the know-how and wherewithal to deal with difficult foreign affairs issues are now hollow shells. They are shadows of their former selves. Reacquiring the requisite expertise that they once housed will not come cheap. Seasoned diplomats do not suddenly spring up out of nowhere.
To quote a recent observation by The New York Times columnist David Brooks, "The more I follow politicians, the more I think experience matters, the ability to have a template of things in your mind that you can refer to on the spot, because believe me, once in office there's no time to think or make decisions."
Right on. Experience matters. Just substitute the word “diplomats for “politicians.”
A major problem at State
Most of the “talent” that turns a green recruit into an effective diplomat, public diplomat or practiced foreign aid officer comes from practical, on-the-ground experience that is learned-by-doing under the tutelage and watchful eyes of more seasoned colleagues. This on-the-job training needs to be combined with extensive and specific foreign language and cultural study that make it possible for US government representatives abroad to communicate effectively with the people in the countries to which they are assigned.
“No time to think or make decisions”
In short, an effective diplomat knows – almost by instinct – what needs to be done and how to accomplish it in whatever country to which he, or she, is assigned. Events happen so rapidly there often is, as Brooks correctly states, “no time to think or make decisions.”
The up-or-out, dog-eat-dog, two tiered, intensely hierarchical Foreign Service personnel structure has, for years, forced out far too many expensively trained and skilled officers at the peak of their careers – just when they should have been the most valuable to the U.S.
Think about the taxpayers for a moment: Intensive training in difficult languages costs thousands of dollars per diplomat. Continuing this now entrenched counterproductive policy is simply not cost effective.
The Hollowed Out Shell
Instead of taking advantage of the considerable skills learned on the job and in language and cultural training at the State Department’s own institute, hundreds – perhaps thousands - of America’s highly educated and trained diplomatic staff have been put out to pasture since the current system was implemented nearly 30 years ago. This enabled the downsizing rash of the 1990s of an already tiny group of people and the making way for younger, less experienced officers, with all that less experience too often brings to the job.
This system did function more or less adequately – albeit not to the taxpayers’ advantage because of the costly skills lost that need constant replenishment – during the years of shrinking government under the Clinton administration and an isolationist Republican Congress.
Under Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Department’s workforce was, in fact, increased, but during the past four years of Condoleezza Rice, the size of the Foreign Service has remained static. The hemorrhaging continues unabated thanks, in large part, to a rigid and antiquated personnel system. More junior and mid-level officers are leaving in disgust far short of retirement as Carnegie’s Joshua Kurlantzik pointed out recently -- many due to personnel’s gross mishandling of the Iraq assignments process.
Meanwhile, the tasks assigned to State Department staff have become more difficult and wide ranging at home and abroad.
Various studies over the past year indicate that the State Department’s staffing shortfall ranges from between 1,000 and 2,000 officers depending upon who’s counting. The American Academy of Diplomacy tells us that a new administration will require more than 4,700 additional Foreign Service Officers including those in USAID over the next five years to fulfill the expanding roll civilian government officials with foreign affairs skills will be asked to play in the future. But where will it find them and how will it treat them?
A first priority for the new president is to replace State’s broken, archaic, opaque and crony-riddled personnel system and send its current enforcers packing – without golden parachutes.
Ironically, the one person in the Bush administration who seems to recognize the depths of the budget and some of the personnel problems facing the State Department is Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Sure, Iraq and Afghanistan are being filled – by hook and by crook – but at what cost?
Public Diplomacy under the State Department has been, and continues to be, a bad joke. Between 20 and 30 percent of the public diplomacy positions overseas are vacant. Too many of the ones that are filled are staffed by people who spend most of their time handling administrative chores or “managing” Ambassadors – whatever that means - as opposed to what they should be doing – interacting with foreign publics.
Just in the past two years, the Consular Affairs Bureau has been wracked by a chain of highly visible embarrassments and fiascos: last year’s passport issuance delay problems need not have happened, for instance, with better planning and management.
Visa applicants are too often faced with lengthy waits, costly nonrefundable applicant fees if their applications are rejected and surly and demeaning interviews by nasty – and probably overtaxed - Consular Officers. DHS’ German shepherd-like greeting at the border – providing the foreign visitor gets that far – is another story. This too needs fixing. True, this deficiency does not fall under the State Department’s control but it forms yet another piece of the “why they hate us” story.
The Department does not even have enough qualified people to fill all Ambassadorial appointments – or at least I don’t think so or why would it have called out of retirement two former career Ambassadors I know to fill in – and not just to cover a summer or unexpected assignments gap.
Managing Human Capital - Not
In short, the State Department as it now operates seems singularly incapable of managing its most precious resource: its human capital. This is nothing new, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Here are some deficiencies that a new administration needs to deal with immediately:
• The up-or-out policy needs redressing and the two tier system needs to be abolished if the Department is ever going to fill the need for many more experienced diplomatic hands. There are other means available to handle people who are truly no longer fit to be in the Foreign Service. In reality, the Department has always been able to use them.
• The promotion and assignments systems are singularly opaque. There is no transparency and no accountability in their implementation. This is particularly worrisome when it concerns assignments to Iraq and Afghanistan which are widely viewed as unfairly administered. The "teacher's pets" don't have to go to the war zones, but far too often those without powerful friends do. Further, promises are made – but not always kept.
• Not surprisingly - when secrecy and opaqueness prevail cronyism flourishes as is now happening in the State Department. As I’ve noted before, a Senior Foreign Service Officer serving in personnel today is three times more likely to get an ambassadorship than one who has served in Iraq. This cronyism sometimes takes a greedy turn: I understand that year after year, high level officials in State’s Division of Human Resources and their friends are receiving the department's large cash bonus awards. But Human Resources “gatekeepers” do not limit themselves to departmental awards -- Senior Human Resources Executive Civil Servants Ruth Whiteside and Linda Taglialatela -- were the sole State Department recipients of the lucrative and highest level presidential senior professional awards for 2006 and 2008 respectively. Yet there are a total of 136 members of the Senior Executive Service in the State Department overall. Where is the transparency in the awards system? Who makes those decisions and what safeguards are there to ensure equity?
• I have written before of another, even more disturbing example of Human Resources’ disregard for normal procedures -- there are credible claims of tampering with Foreign Service promotions lists that outside investigators have been looking into for some time. The Human Resources Division’s response to these extremely serious allegations? To investigate itself -- something not surprising in a Third World country, but a practice one should never expect to find here in the U.S. Federal Government.
The current system is clearly not up to today’s – let alone tomorrow’s – needs or standards. The Bush administration’s penchant for secrecy and executive privilege has turned an already dysfunctional system into one that has run-amok. It has become a system that rewards a few gatekeepers at the expense of most everyone else.
This system is in wrack and ruin and a new administration needs to change it sooner rather than later if it is to address America’s pressing foreign policy needs. Diplomacy is, in the end, our only option. We desperately need to change direction. To make it work effectively, those changes must begin at home.