Crisis Response: Mending a Weak Diplomacy The revolutionary struggles in Tunisia and Egypt have faded from the headlines, but the hard work of fostering stable democracies remains, both there and elsewhere in the region. As America seeks to help while at the same time safeguarding its interests, we need to develop contacts with numerous new groups and individuals if we are to understand the forces at work. This essential effort requires highly trained diplomatic professionals who are fluent in Arabic. Currently, the US has only a fraction of the diplomats needed. Years of inadequate staffing have short-changed the training and professional education of America’s Foreign Service Officers. In fact, the required training is frequently waived to get officers out to critical posts. On a recent trip to Afghanistan, I found the same problems bedeviling our stabilization efforts there. How have we arrived at this point, where in the midst of so many challenges our Foreign Service remains short of essential training to safeguard our interests? In 2011, the Academy and Stimson returned to the training issue in a new report, Forging a 21st Century Diplomatic Service for the United States through Professional Education and Training. New global challenges, from climate change to money laundering, demand new skills, even as the old skills of negotiation and understanding foreign cultures remain essential. Mentoring is breaking down under the strains of a Foreign Service in which two-thirds of the officers have less than ten years’ experience as diplomats. Where the military maintains a personnel reserve — a training and transition “float” — to allow for extensive professional education and training (think General David Petraeus’ PhD), the Foreign Service does most of its training by leaving holes in active offices and sandwiching short courses into periods of leave. On a recent trip to Afghanistan, where I served as Ambassador, I witnessed the problems first hand. The so-called civilian surge is critical to improving effective governance. But because State and USAID lack sufficient staff, the “diplomatic surge” has been slow to deploy and excessively reliant on temporary contracts. As one hard-pressed US general remarked in frustration, “I feel the civilian surge lapping around my ankles.” Yet as State struggles mightily to provide training for those heading to Afghanistan, too many other needs remain unmet, as our report documents. Officers cannot get to essential supervisory and management training because of crucial needs in the field. Mid-level officers have the same requirement for professional education as their military counterparts, but will not get it. The reserve of personnel (training float) needs to be expanded and sustained if new requirements are to be more than words on paper. Expanded education to fit officers for senior positions and teach them new skills of program management are available only to a few, largely by piggybacking on military war colleges, because State cannot afford its own senior training. Even as the U.S. Government struggles to understand new revolutionary movements and provide the sound information and analysis that are the bedrock of intelligent policy, the efforts to rebuild our institutions and train our people are grinding to a halt. America’s military leaders recognize the problem: “It has become clear that America’s civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long…relative to the responsibilities and challenges our nation has around the world.” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Speech before the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (July 15, 2008). “I am concerned that levels of funding for our State Department and USAID partners will not sufficiently enable them to build on the hard-fought security achievements of our men and women in uniform. Inadequate resourcing of our civilian partners could, in fact, jeopardize accomplishment of the overall mission.” General David Petraeus, Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 15, 2011 In the face of these challenges, Congress is failing to appreciate the close relationship and mutual supportiveness of the three pillars of U.S. international engagement: diplomacy, development and defense. It continues to lump diplomacy with domestic programs rather than treat them as essential elements of U.S. national security. Indeed, some in Congress are seeking to roll diplomacy back to the funding levels of 2008, a level that would undo even the limited progress that has been made over the past several years. If these initiatives are not reconsidered and reversed, poor policy and an inadequate response to foreign challenges will continue to characterize American diplomacy in a turbulent and unpredictable world. Ronald Neumann is the President of the American Academy of Diplomacy, served three times as Ambassador (Algeria, Bahrain, and Afghanistan), and is the author of The Other War, Winning and Losing in Afghanistan, (Potomac 2009). |
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