re: "Stop “DREAM”-ing And Embrace Reality"

Robert at Atlantic Crossings ("Between the Hudson Highlands and the South of England...") gave the issue of child illegal immigrants some careful thought (in advance of DHS taking this issue on unilaterally).

Money quote(s):

"(T)his needs saying plainly: denoting as an “immigrant” anyone other than a landed arrival with legal permission to settle, is an egregious misnomer that is insulting to actual landed immigrants. The word “immigrant” is not properly applied to those who have taken it upon themselves to “settle unilaterally” (if we wish not to say “illegal”), but have not received a legal right to reside. Nor does it ever apply to the “unilaterally settled” no matter how often it is misused, children included."

Insulting legal immigrants, those who followed the rules and waited their turn, is never a sufficient deterrent to those who want to jump the queue.

"Many activists and journalists do appear to think that whenever someone sets foot in the U.S., he should apparently be allowed to remain permanently regardless."

Especially those journalists who are themselves illegal immigrants.

"(I)n Britain, every child’s immigration status is ascertained upon initial enrollment in school. Doing so prevents any rearing of a generation of “imagined Britons” who spend 10 years in school and think they are British citizens when they are not. Also the “passive barrier” of checking the legality of schoolchildren’s residency makes “unilateral settlement” by adults with children who must attend school extremely difficult to manage.

As a result, “unilateral settlement” in the UK is almost entirely an “adults only” issue. But we, in the U.S., have accidentally allowed the creation of “imagined U.S. citizens.” We have done so due to our being unfailingly “generous” in educating unquestioningly every child who shows up at the school gate."

American citizen children have to come up with birth certificates and proofs of innoculation in order to register for schools. So what gives with unlawfully resident children?

"Even if all of those “undocumented students” of today are overnight granted the right to remain, if the U.S. does not change its approach fundamentally it is inevitable there will ALWAYS be children and parents who are “unilaterally settled” in the U.S.

Moreover if we are seriously considering legislating that if one can essentially sneak children into the U.S., that once in they will be allowed to remain legally a few years later as adults, let us understand the road down which we are heading. It is no secret that word spreads like global wildfire in a world in which media is now immediate. No one on the planet is less than 24 hours’ travel from a U.S. airport.

So as we blunder around looking for some politically plausible framework to address how to assist “undocumented students,” let us at least also bear both of those realities in mind, as well as recall also how the road to hell is indeed often paved with good intentions."

Robert clearly understands how globalization has accelarated the effective speed of information communication, as between the illegal immigrant and prospective illegal immigrant communities.

"The only viable approach to ending the “imagined U.S. citizen” dilemma appears to be two-fold. First, grant a “green card” to anyone under age 26 who can demonstrate “permanent” presence in the country since age 6 — which is easy enough to glean from school records. If for some reason that is not possible, or if they were “brought in” older, give them a student/ work visa, with the “Rubio Plan” for permanent residency and later citizenship, then to kick in."

CAA is not as sanguine about the sanctity and trustworthiness of school records as is Robert, but it's not that bad an idea, it's certainly a start, and is very likely to be a cornerstone of how DHS will actually implement its latest child amnesty scheme.

"More importantly for the longer-term solution is to stop the creation of “imagined U.S. citizens” at all. It appears the only way to do that is end the lackadaisical attitude toward U.S. legal residency and school enrollment. So, second, nationwide, after Part 1 is implemented, from the following August/September every child when first enrolled in school must have produced on his behalf a U.S. birth certificate, green card, or valid U.S. visa (to be asterisked for re-checking at its renewal date), as part of the routine registration process. If some form of legal U.S. residency cannot be supplied, the child cannot be enrolled.

Doing both should largely put the issue to rest. It ends the “legal limbo” entrapping those kids and young adults currently “through no fault of their own.” It will also prevent the arising of yet another generation of “imagined U.S. citizens” who will end up trapped just like them." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

This would be a tough sell, and one that might cause more serious problems (for the U.S.) in the long run than the supposed "imagined U.S. citizen" problem. That's the "permanent underclass" problem of creating an un-educated, un-innoculated underclass of the permanently disadvantaged.

It's bad enough we import them, or allow them to self-import.

5/7

re: "Rick Perry Isn't Entirely Wrong on Illegal Tuition"

Christian Schneider at The Corner ("The one and only.") considered Texas' illegal alien tuition dilemma.


Money quote(s):


"(O)pposing tuition for illegals is about as popular as opposing the guys at the mall who squirt lotion on you when you walk by."


Oh, don't even get me started on all those "Zohan" wannabees violating their tourist visas (by working) at Tysons Corner.


"(C)hildren of illegal aliens born in America are American citizens, and therefore entitled to whatever tuition their state of residence permits for in-staters. Perry’s law dealt with the children of illegal immigrants who were brought here after their birth, making them just as illegal as their parents.


In most cases (and pursuant to the Plyler case cited by Kevin), these kids are already going to the same high schools as our kids (in the case of Texas, for at least three years of school). They have the same teachers. They play on the same sports teams. They take the same tests, and get the same high-school degree. They are indistinct from any other high-school students. By the time an undocumented child makes it from first grade to graduating high school, taxpayers have already sunk over $100,000 into that child’s education. To pull the plug on those children because of the actions of their parents would be unfair, and would nullify the investment taxpayers have already made in the kid."


Interesting argument. But in business school they teach the concept of "sunken costs." It means, in essence, don't "throw good money after bad."


9/23

re: "Total Failure"

Froggy at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") sees the dead hand of America's education establishment behind the Occupy movement.

Money quote(s):

"If there is any coherent message that can be gleaned from the Occupy Wall Street “movement”, it is that our system of public and higher education can now be declared a total and complete failure. The fact that there exists no accountability at any level of our Education-Industrial Complex is perfectly clear for all to see."

For those under crushing student loan debt, why is it that you're mad at the people who loaned you the money in the first place, rather than the universities that consumed it (even as the easily available loan money encouraged schools to steadily, and greatly in advance of inflation, increase tuition costs)?

"(A) child that makes it through that system without dropping out shows up on a college campus totally unprepared for collegiate level academics finds him/herself in a psych, sociology, history, or literature class where their glaring deficiencies aren’t as much of a hindrance as they would be in Chemistry, Calculus, or Physics. Waiting for them there is a tenured hack with the full panoply of liberal/socialist agenda items infused into their course who sees his mission as one of evangelism rather than education. The classes are easy and even inspiring as the ponytailed professor shovels decades old, discredited, leftist socio-racial-economic dogma onto the student’s plates and rewards them for vomiting it back to him with no thought or concern whether those ideas have any practical application whatsoever."

CAA managed (through no particular virtue of his own) to dodge this particular minefield. Can anyone comment as to how accurate the depiction is?

"At the end of the day these young people have been destroyed, perhaps permanently, by adults whose only priority was a government paycheck and the privilege of suspending reality by living in the ivory tower. They are pitiable creatures indeed, and the fact that they are out in public proclaiming their abject ignorance through the humiliating use of the “human microphone” ought to be to the eternal shame of those who have allowed and facilitated this disastrous system of failure inculcation we call education."

10/12

re: "College As Ritual"

Shannon Love at Chicago Boyz examined the consequences of faulty assumptions.

Money quote(s):

"A constant refrain is that young adults went tens of thousands of dollars into debt for degrees and now they can’t find even minimum wage jobs. I don’t think they really understand the purpose of education."

The purpose of education, from the standpoint of a student (and their long-suffering parents) is to prepare someone to enter "the professions." From a societal standpoint, such as that envisioned by the Morrell Land Grant Act, was to train tomorrow's leaders of society, to include the training of militia officers.

"Carefully missing from most of the complaints is the type of degree they got, but I think it’s fairly clear that most of these people got liberal-arts degrees. Moreover, there is no evidence that they pursued these degrees with any eye towards practical economic returns for their considerable financial investment.

I really get the sense that many of these people simply don’t understand that an education is supposed to equip you with skills that make you valuable to other people. Instead, I think these kids have somehow got the idea that college is more of a ritual you have to go through, a kind of right of passage, that entitles you to a middle-class or better life-style while pursuing a job you find interesting and emotionally fulfilling."

The mindset isn't all that new, and it wasn't all that long ago (just a few short years) that possession of the sheepskin itself was a sufficient credential to guarantee a middle class job (or better) and the lifestyle that went with it.

The availability of massive amounts of student loan money has allowed universities to ramp up their fees many times the rate of inflation; after all, the students would simply borrow the money anyways. What matter that the universities and our government have successfully created the country's first nation-wide debtor class of indentured servants.

"We need to think long and hard how so many young people simply don’t understand the purpose of education. Where did they get the idea that a liberal-arts degree automatically entitled them to a middle-class income that could easily pay off tens of thousands in student loans?"

The first part (liberal arts degree = middle class income) is somewhat unfair to lay all of the blame for on the students, given that it had been true not so long before.

The second part is newer; there never used to be that much student loan money available. Taking on that kind of debt without learning a "hard" degree such as in engineering, science & technology, accounting, or at least business, was an iffy proposition at best. It betrays something of a fantastical mindset, as if all of them expected to marry into money or something.

11/8

re: "International Relations Graduate School Pros and Cons"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") offered advice to international relations students.

Money quote(s):

"If you want to go into the Foreign Service, Intelligence community, or the Pentagon, a PhD is desirable but probably not worth the tradeoff in delayed earnings and entry into the workforce." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Mr. Joyner excerpted a passage than explains that in greater detail.

There are plenty of Ph.D folks who do enter the Foreign Service; there's certainly no bar to it, but the point about delayed earnings impacting lifetime earnings is valid enough. IIRC, entering FSOs with Ph.Ds come in at pay grade (actually "class") FS-04, the highest of the three entry level pay grades. Which is nice, but since they're ineligible for promotion to FS-03 until they complete their probationary period (approx. 3-5 years) and receive their permanent "commissioning and tenure," their less-credentialed entering classmates will have caught up with them (due to administrative time-in-grade promotions) by the time any of them can enter the mid-grade FSO ranks.*

" Presidential Management Fellowship. The PMF is the Golden Ticket in government service, shooting you all the way to the GS-13 level in a very short period and opening the path to the Senior Executive/Intelligence/Foreign Service as a relative kid. By comparison, it took David Petraeus 11 years to make lieutenant colonel (GS-13 equivalent) and 26 years to make brigadier general (the lowest SES equivalent). And he’s a West Pointer with a Princeton PhD!

Even without the PMF, a public policy masters will get you in the door and give you both the training and credentials to enable you to move up through the ranks expeditiously. Theoretically, the government doesn’t really care where you went to school–a degree from University of Phoenix is as good as one from Harvard to the personnel department. But a good brand name will matter later in your career.

Many government types actually manage to get a PhD in mid-career. (It’s especially common for military officers, since the Pentagon has a relationship with a handful of schools, most notably Princeton, that allows them to rush people through the program in a mere three years.) This comes with the twin benefits of the degree being paid for and being paid while in school.

Additionally, government service provides another route to being a think tanker or even a professor. While several of us at the director level at the think tank where I work have PhDs, most have MAs and very valuable experience at senior levels of government–ambassadors, assistant secretaries, National Security Council staffers, and such. And many of the elite universities around the country will hire people with that sort of experience as professors (especially in the public policy schools). The war colleges and other professional military education schools vastly prefer them to career academics." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

For those entering the Foreign Service without a masters degree, once you get to the mid-grade ranks there are opportunities for long-term training assignments outside of the Department, even outside of the federal government. They have the advantage, as Mr. Joyner correctly notes, of "the twin benefits of the degree being paid for and being paid while in school." You just can't beat a scholarship like that.

(For those suspecting that this is a boondoggle at the taxpayer's expense, I would counter that students in this sort of program are already in government service, so the advantages to the government of providing professional development to its career officers is that the benefits of having a better professionally-developed officer start paying off as soon as the student returns to the Department.)

_____

While no particular formal educational credential is required to be selected as a probationary FSO, far and away the vast majority (99 percent?) of newly-hired FSO have an undergraduate degree when they are hired.

Without a university-level (or better) education, the chances of successfully completing the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) aren't all that good.

The Foreign Service is something of a meritocratic mandarinate that way. It's not prejudice so much as the level of intellectual preparation that it requires. In fact, my sense is that the majority of entering FSOs have graduate (or equivalent) degrees. Its hiring process is extremely competitive and that level of academic preparation gives FS candidates a distinct edge.

The same goes for professional work experience as well, including military service. There are some things that very few schools teach, after all, but can nonetheless be learned by the willing.

(I should mention that there is a Veterans Preference factored into the selection process, which is why, like in the Civil Service, prior military and naval folks are more highly represented in the Foreign Service than in the general population.)

"The better your credentials and contacts, the better. Going to Harvard or Stanford or Chicago simply gives you more options than going to a less prestigious institution because it stands out on a resume. Additionally, as Farley notes, some schools do a much better job than others of providing institutional support in networking and finding jobs. And, of course, having spent your 20s working for the Deputy Secretary of Defense or the Ambassador to the United Kingdom is going to open more doors than having spent them in an archive somewhere working on a giant book few will ever read." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Quite a few FSOs went to big "name" schools, but frankly the largest cohort seems to come into the Foreign Service with graduate (or undergraduate) degrees from Foggy Bottom's neighboring George Washington University (GWU) campus. It's an excellent school whose proximity apparently facilitates recruitment.

Vanishingly few come from elite "name" programs such as Georgetown University's (GU) Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service or Harvard's Kennedy School. Instead, I've met quite a few Tufts and Thunderbird graduates in the Foreign Service.

_____

* - FS pay grades or "classes" work differently from civil service ("General Schedule" ("GS") pay grades in that the lower the FS number, the higher the rank. That is, the higher the number, the lower the rank. Something like that.

FSOs enter at either FS-06, -05, or -04. Over the last decade or so, these have been variously called Junior Officer ("JO"), Entry Level Officer (ELO), and First-And-Second-Tour (FAST) officer ranks. They're equivalent to Civil Service GS-8, -9, and -10 or to the Army's "company grade" officer ranks of Second Lieutenant (O-1), First Lieutenant (O-2), and Captain (O-3).

Mid-grade FSO ranks are FS-03, -02, and -01. They are the equivalent of military "field grade" commissioned officer ranks (i.e., major/lieutenant commander/O-4, lieutenant colonel/commander/O-5, and colonel/captain/O-6) or Civil Service GS-13, -14, and -15.

Above FS-01 are several Senior Foreign Service (SFS) ranks with names like Counselor (OC), Minister-Counselor (MC) and Career-Minister (CM) equivalent to the Civil Service's "Senior Executive Service" (SFS) or to military/naval "general officer" (GO) or "flag" ranks (i.e., admirals).

There's also the SFS rank of "Career Ambassador" (CA) which, while a great honor and quite a rare cap to a FS career, doesn't actually come with a pay bump beyond what is earned by a Career-Minister.

8/11

re: "What's Wrong and What's Right With the War Colleges"

Dr. George E. Reed at Defense Policy ("a non-partisan forum for news, opinions, viewpoints, blogs, commentary, analysis, and debate from America’s defense and national security community") has a great round-up of recent kerfuffles surrounding the war college system, and has his own ideas about it.

Money quote(s):

"A cascade of withering criticism has recently been leveled at the war colleges– those venerable institutions that represent the pinnacle of the hierarchy of professional military education. Each service maintains a war college or equivalent designed to prepare lieutenant colonels and colonels for the highest levels of responsibility, and while they have different cultures in many respects they also share some common attributes and challenges."

Foreign service officers above a certain rank have the opportunity to attend most (if not all) of these colleges, as well as some others. It broadens both the FSO and the student body of which they become a part, giving military and naval officers a chance to see past the stereotypes (which works both ways).

If you read (as I do) the published biography sheets of our most senior diplomatic appointees, you'll often notice that they are graduates of one or more of these institutions.

"The most widely read and vitriolic criticism came from a series of Foreign Policy.com blogs by former Washington Post writer Thomas Ricks. Ricks actually called for closure of the war colleges calling them both expensive and second-rate."

There are several of these colleges, run by both the individual services and by various parts of the DoD itself, so individual mileage may vary widely.

"Ricks made some good points that we are likely to see again as defense spending decreases and tough decisions are made about where to get most bang out of a much smaller budget.

Daniel Hughes published a chapter, “Professors in the Colonels’ World” in a 2010 book entitled Military Culture and Education edited by Douglas Higbee that examined the divide between military and academic cultures. His depiction of the Air War College pointed out a nasty strain of anti-intellectualism, ultra conservativism, Christian nationalism and a largely disinterested student body. While some might reject the observations of an outsider like Ricks, Hughes served for eighteen years at the Air War College providing an insider view, albeit from the perspective of an underappreciated academic imbedded in military culture. Some might be inclined to dismiss him as a disgruntled former employee."

Dismiss away, but disgruntled former employees were often disgruntled during their employment, and with good reason.

"(P)articularly insightful from a systemic perspective, was an article published in Proceedings Magazine by Robert Scales, retired two-star general and former commandant of the Army War College. He did not address the war colleges specifically, except for noting that the average age of attendees has increased from 41 to 45 making an expensive educational experience more of a preparation for retirement than a platform for leadership at higher levels. He lamented the possibility that the military is becoming “too busy to learn.” He decried the wane of experienced officers as instructors in the system of professional military education and suggested that a bias for action over learning and organizational malaise in the schools have made them an “intellectual backwater.” His solution is to change the military’s reward system to elevate soldier scholars rather than denigrate them. He advocates a return to the day when uniformed officers rather than civilian instructors and contractors are assigned to the schoolhouse to teach, not because their careers are dead-ended, but as career enhancing assignments on the way to even higher levels of responsibility."

It's difficult, especially during wartime, to balance the competing needs to reward and promote proven combat leaders, not disadvantaging their warzone service by favoring promotion of those who stayed behind in staff or educational assignments. The military (correctly) took a boot in the behind during the early years of Iraq and Afghanistan for pulling out military officers from their deployments in order to get them into their scheduled military educational assignments on time. Which led to deferment, sometimes indefinitely or permanently, of useful military education for exactly those upcoming leaders who should get it.

There's no (to my understanding) perfect solution to this problem. Real leaders want to be with their troops, to be in the fight, to win the fight. Taking a year or more at a time for "book learning" can seem pointless. But unless you want your generals and admirals to all be staff weenies, you need to get your gunslingers into the schoolhouse too.

"An increasing number of officers are deferring attendance. Allen points out that over the last five years 50 percent of those initially selected will choose to defer attendance leading him to assert that it is becoming more important to be selected for senior level schooling than to actually attend. Combat arms officers are apparently going elsewhere, perhaps to fellowship programs or joint service colleges that are viewed as more career enhancing." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Both the fellowship programs and joint service colleges are all good programs, but if the service's war colleges are perceived as being second-rate in comparison, then they will get neither first-tier students or faculty. And become tempting targets for the budget axe.

"My time as a student at the Army War College resulted in an intellectual awakening. Before attending I was so busy doing things like commanding a battalion that I had little time to reflect on larger issues affecting my profession. Reflection is the essential bridge between experience and learning. The Army War College gave me opportunities to delve deeply into national security issues and other aspects of my profession that I never would have had in a civilian academic institution. Comparing war colleges to traditional civilian graduate institutions is an “apples to oranges” exercise. The very best graduate program at a top tier university would, in many respects, be a poor substitute for what should happen at the war colleges. The model for the War Colleges is much more akin to that of a professional school (e.g., law or medicine) where sophisticated craft knowledge is blended to a lesser degree with disciplinary forays more common to where I now teach. I loved my time at the Army War College both as a student and a teacher. The adult learning model, seminar method, use of case studies contextually appropriate to a unique group of experienced practitioners, and the many opportunities to engage in no holds barred professional discussions with a parade of flag officers and civilian officials are bright spots that should not be underestimated for their positive impact on future senior military leaders. It is important to have a place where military officers can delve deeply into the nuances of their profession, and most importantly plumb the tensions, intricacies, and limitations of operating a large standing military in a democracy. If done properly that very process can serve as an important protection of the republic. Uninformed and undereducated officers who control vast amounts of military power can fall, or be led, to serious mischief."

That paragraph should be required reading for all military and naval officers at all ranks.

FSOs too.

Military and foreign service officers spend a lot of their careers in training assignments, getting ready for their next jobs. This is not a bug, it's a feature. If anything, FSOs need more of that, not less, although since Sec. Powell's tenure the gap seems to be narrowing in comparison to our military colleagues' career patterns. This is a good thing. But there's a difference between training and education.

The war colleges bridge the difference between training and education and offer the opportunity to take officers to that next level, where they're thinking those deep thoughts about big issues, stuff that you expect generals and admirals (at least American ones) to understand, that go beyond the (expected) technical and tactical proficiency in the profession of arms.

"The war colleges may be the only institutions of higher learning that have such paltry control over who attends them. Boards comprised of officers from the field select attendees who have not necessarily expressed any interest at all in attending. No writing samples are required and there’s no graduate record exam or any other testing considered for admission."

This is not completely true. But it will suffice as a general qualification.

&

"The war colleges really should be, and indeed could be, intellectual centers of excellence with a mix of the best and brightest military and civilian faculty members. They have the potential to serve as incubators of big and even disruptive ideas fueled by cutting edge research on important and relevant questions and dedicated to preparing high potential senior military officers for the great challenges of our age. In return for the investment of national treasure that goes into operating the war colleges, the American people and indeed the service members who will serve under their graduates deserve far better than mediocre."

_____

Hat tip to the editors at Small Wars Journal ("news and commentary on the goings on across the broad community of small wars practitioners, thought leaders, and pundits").

re: "Free-Thinkers and Unchained Intellects All Over the World Decide, Simultaneously, That We're All Supposed To Feel Rather Ashamed That Usama bin"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ explains why intelligentsias aren't always very intelligent.

Money quote(s):

"It is truly remarkable how all these maverick minds, these unshackled brains, these members of the Vanguard of Free Thought, nearly always manage to fall into line with what a few of their more mouthy members are saying at any particular moment.

Are we supposed to feel bad that we used lethal force to incapacitate a murderous force for evil? Are we to feel guilt that, having exposed so many of our troops to great risks to preserve innocent, and not-so-innocent life, on this particular mission we told our troops, "Don't worry about bin Ladin's life"?

Are we really supposed to regret this?"

Author Tom Kratman opines that this sort of thing isn't really a conspiracy, but rather a consensus based on a particular, and wide-spread, consensus. (My apologies to The Good Colonel if I've mis-paraphrased him. - CAA)

"This is the primary psychological drive of the bien pensants. If you understand this about them, you understand everything about them.

Everything they say, and everything they do, is calculated towards one specific purpose, one unchanging goal: To differentiate themselves from their "common" fellows, and, by differentiating themselves, in conspicuous demonstrations of anti-common sentiment, declare and affirm themselves to be members of the New Aristocracy." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA)

My experience to date is that doesn't actually require a great deal of higher education to cause one's native rational faculties to be over-ridden by politically correct dogma, although that does trend towards the likelihood of same.

It certainly requires a certain flavor of higher (and not-so-higher) indoctrination to make a bright person this stupid.

"This isn't thinking. This isn't reason. This is simply the automatic, reflexive contradiction of anything a commoner might happen to say. Even if the "commoner" happens to be right.
Because the whole point is to have a different opinion, one the commoners do not share. And the commoners, being, generally, a reasonable and sound-thinking lot, unfortunately have the tendency to think the right things a distressingly large amount of the time.

Forcing the New Aristocrats to often, and more and more, take increasingly unreasonable positions simply to signal their uncommonness.

And hence: Increasing stupidity from the supposedly smart.

As the saying goes: Only an intellectual can believe things this stupid." (Bold type added for emphasis. - CAA)

re: "Need budget cuts? We probably can start by shutting the Air War College"

Thomas E. Ricks at The Best Defense ("Tom Rick's Daily Take on National Security") reviews some criticism of the Air War College.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he place is an expensive joke. Funny except that the taxpayer picks up the tab."

Happily, this does not jibe at all with my experiences regarding DoD's higher learning institutions, such as the other various war colleges and universities. Some of the issues raised by Hughes are certainly potential pitfalls for any institution of this type; the sponsoring organization has to value the institution (or, more importantly, its product) enough to send its best and brightest to be students and its very best and brightest to teach there. The way organizations send the message that an institution is important is by promoting those who excel there.

"Tom's bottom line: Hughes says it costs at least $300,000 a year to send an officer to the AWC. So this looks like a good place to begin budget cuts, Secretary Gates. Close the place and send the students out into the world of civilian academia, where they will be challenged intellectually and might learn something."

Pretty big black eye for the Air Force if it muffs running its own war college. Professional military education is an investment in a service's future top leaders, not a block to be checked off, particularly if that education is known by the other service's top leaders to be a joke.

re: "AAD Report: Under-investment in diplomacy has left Foreign Service overstretched, under prepared"

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.") summarizes this professionally-relevant report.

Money quote(s):

"Among its recommendations are 1) fully funding of the staffing initiative under Diplomacy 3.0, 2) creation of a 15% training float, 3) long-term commitment to investing in the professional education and training needed "to build a 21st-century diplomatic service of the United States able to meet the complex challenges and competition we face in the coming decades"; 4) strengthening and expansion of the Department of State’s professional development process ; 5) establishment of a temporary corps of roving counselors to address mentoring problems caused by the mid-level gap; 6) a study that will examine best practices in the field to determine how on-the-job training can be most effectively conducted for FSOs; 7) completion of a year of advanced study related to FSO's career track as a requirement for promotion to the Senior Foreign Service; and 8) appropriately targeted consultations before a new Chief of Mission (COM) even begins pre-assignment consultations."

1. Failing to fully fund staffing means jobs go unfilled means FSOs juggle multiple jobs means decreasing quality of all jobs. And that even more jobs are simply left unfilled.

2. A "training float" means that officers are able to take the training needed to perform new duties or learn new languages before they go to new jobs. A lot of the hiring under the old DRI was intended to make this good, but then a war broke out and things like PRTs and two or three of the world's most highly-staffed embassies soaked up that safety margin like a sponge.

3. The Foreign Service Institute does a pretty good job training officers but not, so far as I've seen, such a good job at educating them. There's sort of an unspoken attitude of you-should-already-be-fully-educated-when-you-get-hired.

That's not the attitude, by the way, one encounters in DoD. Funny how it's the killing-people-and-breaking-things agencies that actually value education.

Odd how these legacies of the old WASP establishment era of American diplomacy seem to linger on, when the actual Foreign Service looks "a lot like America," as the saying goes.

State needs to consider establishment of an institute focused on education, and learn the difference between training and education. There is one, which is one reason you generally can't get college credit for courses taken at FSI. Not to disrespect FSI too much because it's actually pretty good at the training piece, but while it's got many of the trappings of an educational institute (coat-of-arms, deans, registrars, &tc.) that's all surface gloss.

4. SecState Powell did a phenomenal job at establishing and implementing the beginnings of professional development training because he understood, coming from DoD, why it's important. He got that there's a continuum of training necessary during the life-cycle of a career officer, whether they are military or civilians.

5. I'm not sure what "roving counselors" are intended to accomplish, where they're supposed to come from, and what mid-grade jobs will they leave unfilled while they're "roving." (If mid-grade FSOs weren't facing a 24% pay cut for serving overseas, perhaps it'd be easier to make up the shortfall in their numbers.)

6. Best practices are always good to share, Consular bureau makes this a near fetish (and I mean that in a good way).

7. Another requirement for "passing the senior threshold" may or may not be a good thing. Making it a requirement means the Department would need to make it a possibility rather than the fairly rare opportunity it is now. FSOs are eligible to bid on a number of out-of-Department training opportunities once they become tenured. Some of these are at non-governmental universities, others are as sort of exchange students at DoD schools like the various war colleges. Making this a requirement for promotion means either providing a lot more opportunities (governmental or otherwise), expecting FSOs to be independently wealthy enough to take year-long leave-without-pay (LWOP) sabbaticals to accomplish this, or deciding relatively early who's destined for "flag rank" and who's not.

A word about governmental/DoD schools: they generally seem happy to have a State Dept. person or two in any given class, as well as from other civilian agencies, in the various war college and other DoD schools. But if we're going to start really trying to load more FSOs into their training system, perhaps we should consider establishing our own advanced educational program, based at FSI for instance, where they can send their own exchange students. See #3 above.

8. I'm not quite sure what this intends. Is the idea that there should be more general pre-COM training for new ambassadors before they begin focussing on post-/country-specific consultations?

S&S - Congress wants troops to focus on academics. Study advocates emphasis on officer education.

From today's news:

Stars and Stripes

Congress wants troops to focus on academics

Study advocates emphasis on officer education

By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes

Mideast edition, Sunday, May 9, 2010


WASHINGTON — A new congressional study calls for more emphasis on professional military education in officers’ careers, saying such experience helps create the great battlefield strategists of the future.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Members of the House Armed Services Committee who worked on the study, released Thursday, said scholarly work is still not widely regarded as advantageous to the career of a potential flag or general officer. In fact, trading warfighting missions for higher education can often be a detriment to promotions."

"The study advocates senior officers should be afforded more opportunity to pursue higher degrees, both at Defense war colleges and outside institutions.

Today, those programs are mostly reserved for future faculty members, not potential battlefield strategists.

Lawmakers mentioned that one notable exception is U.S. Central Command commander Gen. David Petraeus, who earned his master’s and doctorate degrees while serving. They credited his leadership in Iraq at least in part to lessons he learned earning international relations degrees."

"The study authors said they believe most senior leadership is willing to support scholarly pursuits among select officers, but the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have limited those opportunities."

&

"In recent years, the Army War College has developed an exchange program with the State Department, allowing a small number of soldiers to train with workers with the U.S. Agency for International Development or similar agencies while some members of the diplomatic corps attend military classes alongside officers.

The program has drawn high marks from both sides, but when lawmakers asked if similar programs were at work in the Navy and Air Force, they found officials there had no knowledge of it."

JG - Patois, Bible and translation

From my archive of press clippings:

Jamaica Gleaner

Patois, Bible and translation

published: Sunday June 22, 2008 R. Anthony Lewis, Contributor

The perennial 'patois' debate is on again, triggered this time by a Jamaica Observer news report on June 16, of a $60 million project to translate the Bible into the Jamaican vernacular. As one of the few who have studied and written on translation and creolisation, with an emphasis on Jamaican Creole, I feel impelled to enter this debate.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"One of the consequences of translation on a language is its standardisation.

Because of the history of European Christian colonisation of much of the world, this process has been achieved primarily through biblical texts.

Notwithstanding the necessary and apropos post-colonial critique of the evangelising-cum-civilising mission of colonial Christianity, in many developing countries, particularly in Africa, Bible translation has played a significant role in transforming hitherto unwritten languages into tools of literacy and education."

&

"One spinoff of this missionary activity was the strengthening of local languages.

Because of the variety of text types present in the Bible - from poetry and song to wisdom sayings and dream narratives - its translation into any language provided a point of reference for language use in a variety of text contexts.

These and the wide range of vocabulary necessary for translation stretched the language, forcing it to convey a wider range of ideas and concepts.

This link between translation and language standardisation has a long history.

One has only to look at the work of the Reformation translators, particularly that of Martin Luther, chief reformer and, according to Daniel Baggioni, 'language maker'.

Luther's work was an essential departure point in a Europe-wide quest to break free from the stranglehold of Catholic Latin over people whose first languages were vernaculars akin to our Creole."