Domani Spero at Diplopundit ("Just one obsessive observer, diplomatic watcher, opinionator and noodle newsmaker monitoring the goings on at Foggy Bottom and the worldwide available universe") makes some on-point observations about this life, this business, we have chosen. 1, 2
Money quote(s):
"Worldwide Availability: All officers are considered worldwide available, that is, prepared to go where needed; ready, at any time, to meet the needs of the Service. Needs of the Service trumps almost everything else, almost always. The first two tours of entry level officers are normally "directed." New employees can put in their bid lists, but they could end up going to places not on their lists. Needs of the Service. Over 60% of FS posts are considered "hardship," in isolated, unhealthful and even dangerous environments. Family members may not even be authorized to join the employee or even if they join, they potentially could be evacuated at any later time. Once saw a mid-level officer who started with a huge bid list, later shrunk down to 6 positions, all in Iraq. Needs of the Service. He had choices, six of them; all in Iraq."
During the early days of the CPA in Iraq, a number of very junior officers found themselves sent to Iraq solely because they had Arabic language training. In the after-actions and lessons-learned, the Department took something of a thumping for sending its least experienced, most-easily-spared officers to what was, for the uniformed services at least, a national security priority.
Not to knock the service and tremendous efforts of those very junior officers; in fact I honor them even as I note that they should never have been put into those positions in the first place. They were sent because to send the most-qualified, more senior FSOs would have disrupted the ever-so-important normal assignments process (not to mention inconveniencing more senior FSOs).
I remain unconvinced that political sentiments within the career ranks of the Department found service in Bush's Iraq war to be a less pressing priority than later was made the (official) line.
CAA considers himself to have actually been quite fortunate in his assignments thus far, although two out of the three overseas assignments were in hardship posts. At my very first post, I grew quite accustomed to the sound of gunfire in the evenings. Since I was in a "nice" part of town, gunfire there generally could be assumed to be celebratory in nature.
In Iraq, of course, gunfire and explosive BOOMS(!) also became just part of the landscape. I knew that if I heard an explosion and it was on either the hour or the half-hour, precisely, that was just EOD doing their thing.
After Iraq I found myself living in the Virginia suburbs as I struggled to re-adjust to civilian life and to learn a foreign language before I went to my next job. (Still working on the "re-adjust" part, btw.) The apartment Madam-At-Arms found for us while I was away sat perhaps a hundred yards or so from the helipad of a busy hospital center, so at any hour I would hear, quite loudly, the sounds of medivacks coming and going.
I found the sound quite soothing, as helicopter sounds in Iraq were always "friendly."
As I made the rounds being introduced to local officials at my second hardship post, some senior police officers were cautioning me about the dangers to be found in their capital city. Crime. Violence. That sort of thing. When I happened to mention serving at a certain previous hardship post, followed by Iraq, their attitude shifted: "Oh, you'll be fine then."
"Leadership matters. Entry level officers on their first tours obviously do not have the same experience as seasoned officers even if they have previously lived/worked overseas. Their fears are understandable. Their anger at being shut out is also understandable. People need to feel they matter. Telling them to basically suck it up because they received danger pay or to go ahead and curtail due to legitimate fears is not good leadership and management. It builds distrust and without trust, the game, as the cliché goes, is over; teamwork becomes a fairy tale."
For all the great stride the Department has made towards improving State's traditionally dismal leadership culture, we're just not there yet. New officers are getting leadership training from the very beginning, with reinforcements throughout their careers. It's still not inculcated the way the uniformed services do it (and they have their own, recurrent, problems) but we're getting there. It's the more senior folks, both on the Civil Service as well as the Foreign Service sides, who sometimes fail to get leadership isn't just one of those management fads that comes along periodically, like Six Sigma, just-in-time-inventory, or TQM.
"Perhaps the FSO's account should encourage not just a discussion on leadership in a crisis but also what it means to be a diplomat in this new and turbulent world. Should diplomats need to have a new mindset that they are vulnerable like soldiers? And if so, what does that mean in terms of their ability and training to protect themselves and their loved ones?
DOD which is responsible for extracting large numbers of civilians in harm's way during disasters and civil strife, has a joint publication on Noncombatant Evacuation Operations. In it, it gave top billing to a legal and political maxim, "The people's safety is the highest law."
In fact, it's just not DOD in an evacuation. Organizations often tout their people as their greatest strength and resource and their safety, a sort of prime directive. Why else do we evacuate people from harm's way (except in diplomatic posts in war zones)? Why have companies evacuated their personnel out of Japan in the aftermath of the earthquake/tsunami and with the increasing bad news on the nuclear reactors? As the familiar phrase go -- in the abundance of caution ...to ensure their safety.
But what happens when the highest law collides with strategic national interest?"
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"(L)eadership and policymakers understand that unarmed civilians in a war zone is at great risk, but they chose to stand up embassies and consulates and put diplomats in the middle of conflict, anyway. An accepted risk.
And why does it take so long, and often at the very last minute for an ordered evacuation to take place? Because it is a political decision, even if no one would admit to that. Governments, including ours, may not want to send the signal that it has lost faith in the ability of the host country to tackle emergencies whether of political nature or natural calamities. Most especially, if the host country is a close ally, and where our national interest requires that we help shore up its support. The negative connotation of an evacuation undermines that. Thus, one can conclude that if employees remain in the danger zone, it means somebody has already calculated that risk against vital national strategic and security interest. And accepted that risk.
I supposed we may think of life in the Service as if it were a weighing scale -- the national strategic and security priorities on one side and on the other side, the acceptable personal risk on the employees. But not everyone will get to look at that scale. And not everyone will get to make the judgment call. Employees do not get to vote, diplomatic missions are not democracies.
They ought to teach this at A100.
On second thought, they ought to have this in the recruitment flyer."
Individual officers need to understand this calculus. We go abroad on our country's business. And while we are not exactly pawns (oh, to reach so exalted a status as "pawn"!), we're usually quite far from any effective assistance other than our most immediate colleagues. I've been blessed with excellent Diplomatic Security and law enforcement colleagues at some posts, and quite awful support at another. Bottom line: FSOs are commissioned officers of the U.S. Foreign Service. We go where we're sent and do our jobs. We're also husbands (and wives) (and partners) and fathers (and mothers). We have to make decisions about our spouses' and families' safety, decisions which may be very different from those we make for our loved ones.
This is the life, the business, we have chosen. God bless us, and those like us.
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