re: "Abu Muqawama: State, USAID Must Learn From Afghanistan Errors"

Andrew Exum wrote an article for WPR ("World Politics Review") that anyone in a position of leadership at State Dept. really ought to read.

Money quote(s):

"No one escapes criticism in Chandrasekaran's narrative, this columnist included, but the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Marine Corps come under especially heavy fire.

The reaction from the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. military as a whole has been to add the book and its criticisms to the list of lessons that need to be learned from the disastrous U.S. experience in Afghanistan. The State Department and USAID, by contrast, have reacted angrily to Chandrasekaran's account, blaming the messenger rather than looking into what they might learn from the message."

&

"Since at least the First Gulf War, American society has raised the U.S. military onto a pedestal, constantly praising the military, even when its performance has been, by objective standards, not terribly great. Is it any wonder U.S. military leaders feel they have room for introspection and self-criticism?

The State Department rarely garners similar praise from the American people or its elected leaders. Republican congressmen on Capitol Hill talk a big game on national security and vow never to cut the military's budget, while at the same time threatening to slash the International Affairs budget by 20 percent. U.S. military officers and troops are held up as the best of what America has to offer, while diplomats . . . well, few Americans are quite sure of what diplomats even do.

That's a pity because, despite bungling the admittedly challenging Afghanistan mission, the State Department has a pretty good story to tell about itself." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

It's one of those perennial delusion of the American body politic: that foreign aid and diplomacy (State and USAID) are where all the money goes, when quite the reverse is true.

(This is not to say that the dollar amounts aren't large, from any individual citizen's perspective. It's certainly more than I'll ever have in my wallet or bank account. Even my Swiss and Caymen accounts. But they amount to rounding errors in the context of the federal budget as a whole.)

"One of the illicit delights of reading the WikiLeaks cables has been to discover what wonderful diplomats the United States has in its service. The reports written by U.S. ambassadors and their subordinates are knowledgeable, literate, pithy and often amusing. They confirm, in a larger sample size, my anecdotal experiences visiting embassies around the globe. I remember, for example, spending an afternoon with the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh in 2010 and being blown away by the competence and professionalism of the staff. Many foreign service officers were on their third tours in the country, and even the newest officer -- charged with running the motor pool, of all things -- spoke fluent classical Arabic as well as several dialects."

CAA has not, of course, actually read anything at the Wikileaks site. That's still a no-no.

But CAA did read a few of the articles which were written about those State cables which were leaked, and they tended to echo Mr. Exum's impression: well-written, insightful, and honest; telling "truth to power" as it were.

And as for the motor pool officer.... it's helpful, in foreign countries, if the guy in charge of the motor pool's drivers and mechanics can actually speak their language. That tends to help with little things like telling them what you want them to do.

"Unfortunately, the State Department is not very good at telling its story to either the U.S. Congress or the American people. When people effectively stand up for the budget of the State Department and make the case for a larger International Affairs budget, it is too often either U.S. military officers or conservative, "pro-military" defense intellectuals. The State Department and its foreign service officers deserve some of the blame here. I recently finished John Lewis Gaddis’ biography of George F. Kennan, and Kennan’s life is a reminder that those Americans who are most knowledgeable about other cultures can often be the most contemptuous and ignorant of U.S. domestic political culture. Foreign service officers who do not hesitate to spend endless afternoons drinking chai with Central Asian warlords somehow can't, by and large, stomach the occasional coffee with a junior congressman from Nebraska." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

State has gotten better, having taken a leaf from the DoD and individual uniformed services books and established a permanent liaison presence on Capitol Hill itself, for both houses of Congress. Those folks work daily to increase Congresional awareness of what State (and the Foreign Service) have to offer them in terms that they understand, such as helping members of Congress in providing constituent services (to use a consular example).

So I'm not sure what Mr. Exum means in terms of avoiding coffee with congressmen. For FSOs abroad, generally the last thing visiting CODELs want to do is talk with U.S. diplomats so when they're abroad finding facts. They can talk to State Dept. people when they're in Washington, by gum!

"The result is that the State Department as an organization constantly feels that it is under pressure and underappreciated by its appropriators. We should not wonder, then, why such an organization fails to be introspective or critical of itself. That shortchanges both America and the State Department"

&

"A military can defend -- or learn from -- its performance during a war, but diplomats and aid workers can rarely demonstrate how their efforts toward conflict-prevention preclude a need for the military to get involved in the first place. And the efforts of diplomats and aid workers rarely benefit the economies of congressional districts in the same way military bases or the arms industry does.

Nonetheless, if the State Department and USAID are ever going to have the confidence to be as self-critical as the U.S. military, they have to better sell their efforts to the American people and its representatives in Washington."

It's like Al Pacino said in The Recruit: "Our failures are known. Our successes...are not." When a country doesn't fall apart, collapse into civil war, or things don't otherwise get worse; was that because the U.S. was effective in that country or would it have happened anyways. It's always hard to prove a negative.

That being said, as a consular manager, CAA likes to take whatever opportunities he can to garner a little American good will for the State Department, for the Foreign Service, and of course for the dedicated and wonderful people who make up what used to be called the Consular Service.

How to do that? Well, in terms of Congress itself and congress members specifically, be timely and appropriately respectful in responding to congressional inquiries. This should be a given, of course, but it should at least be mentioned.

Some parts of the federal government think that stonewalling or otherwise blowing off questions or requests from the people who vote on their agency's budgets is a good idea. I've never gotten that impression about State, but let's not slack off on this.

Have an office SOP (standard operating procedure) for responding to congressional inquiries which includes things like setting a suspense date when they're received, some simple process for recording and tracking each inquiry's progress, an easily understood scheme for assigning individual responsibility for researching and then drafting a response, and some form of review process by a manager.

CAA likes for the staff under his supervision to have as much "ownership" of their caseload as is practical. So if an inquiry has to do with a particular employees caseload or portfolio, such as a visa case that they handled themselves, then CAA would always have that FSO research and draft the response.

For one thing, every FSO should know how to correctly write an official letter to a congressmen using the correct protocol and forms of address. This is pretty basic stuff, but there's nothing like doing it to gain familiarity and a level of professional comfort.

For another thing, CAA believes in empowering subordinates. This goes along with owning your portfolio or caseload. Supervisors and leaders should set goals, set standards, and then get the Hell out of the way and not micro-manage if they can avoid it. Sometimes being a leader means butting back into a particular case, but if your staff is properly trained (and HR didn't send you an idiot), this shouldn't happen all that often.

Proper formats for responses, including standard language (i.e., boilerplate) should be standardized and readily available for FSO (or local staff) to consult or plagiarize.

And CAA's FSO staff could put their own signature block on their responses if they wanted, or CAA would put his; however the FSO was most comfortable. In some cases, it will be wiser to put a more senior person's name on it, but when that happens it's best to explain to your FSOs why you made that decision.

An example is when an inquiry may be controversial and you want to divert any lightning bolts from Mount Olympus away from your junior officers.

(If you're the leader, providing top cover to your followers is just part of why they pay you the big bucks, after all.)

CAA also likes to respond to congressional inquiries in the medium by which they are received. If an inquiry comes in electronically, then by email shall it be answered; but with a hard copy to follow by mail.

In fact, CAA used to send an electronic copy of his office's responses as email attachments even when the inquiry itself arrived in hard copy, just to let the congressional offices know that a response to their question was on its way, with a sneak preview so they weren't being held in suspense or anything.

CAA once dated a congressional staffer who had as a major part of her responsibilities the logging and tracking of correspondence her congress member's office received, much of which fell under the heading of congressional inquiries that were relayed to individual agencies.

(This was a few years before meeting Mrs. CAA, but that's not really germane.)

The point is that the handling of such matters is a core function of any congressional office. So FSOs would be wise to bear that in mind.

The further point is that good congressmen know how to field requests and questions by their constituents, and like good players of America's pastime, they know how to field the balls that come their way.

So FSOs need to do the same, and with the same understanding of their importance. They really do come from the people who pay our salaries and they are routed to us by the people who set those salaries.

(There are other ways FSOs can implement outreach to congress or the U.S. citizens, but that'll have to wait for another post on another day.)

7/25

re: "Bolton: Biden's Statement that Taliban Not Our Enemy Was No Gaffe"

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs (" Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction. ") agreed with Amb. Bolton's characterization.

Money quote(s):

"The Taliban does not share Western values, goals, objectives. The Taliban's playbook is the qur'an and its stated aims.

The whole idea of a moderate Taliban or a moderate Islam is false"

Reasonable people can disagree whether or not there can be a moderate Islam.

(CAA believes in it on alternating days, himself.)

"Never mind their role in 9/11. Never mind their hosting al-Qaeda camps and working with al-Qaeda.

It amounts to surrender, to prostration before the jihadist enemy.

Now, we know old Joe is none too bright, but here Bolton explains: this was no gaffe."

And here's why:

"Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said Tuesday that Joe Biden’s statement that the Taliban is not America's enemy in Afghanistan was not a gaffe, but instead the vice president was “articulating what the White House strategy is.” Biden made his remarks in a recent Newsweek interview, but the Obama administration is saying they were taken out of context

“I don’t think this is a gaffe by Joe Biden — I think he is articulating what the White House strategy is — I think they know exactly what they are trying to do,” Bolton told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “They are trying to redefine the terrorist threat to be a limited group of al-Qaida people along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

“They are going to redefine Taliban away from that — they are going to ignore Taliban in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Qaida in Iraq, and al-Qaida in North Africa,” Bolton said. “And they’re going to say it’s just that one little thing: We’ve killed Osama bin Laden — the war on terror is over.”"

Based upon my own sporadic observations regarding Vice Pres. Biden's tendency to "gaffe," I wouldn't urgently disagree with Amb. Bolton's assessment.

VP Biden sometimes says things that suggest he's regurgitating, in his own words, the substance of things about which he's been briefed. Specifically, I'm thinking about his remarks a few years ago about the H1N1 flu virus and air travel.

He seems to speak uncomfortable truths, as he understands them and based upon some frank and factual briefings (i.e., not for public distribution), and wholly without regard for the political, economic, or diplomatic fallout. Indeed, he says them without any apparent consciousness that there could be, even should be, such repercussions.

"Bolton said the Taliban treats anyone who does not agree with them horribly."

Word.

""It reminds me of Vietnam. Remember Sen. George Aiken, the Republican of Vermont? It was clear to him that we didn’t have the stamina to go on and actually win,” Bolton said. “So the George Aiken strategy: We’ll declare victory and get out — that is what the administration is going to do in the war on terror. Having redefined who the terrorists are and having said the Taliban is not our enemy, they’re going to say we have won and the war is over.""

And, if we'd put some of our HVT Taliban officials on the other side of a conference table, gotten them to publicly disavow Al Qaeda and UBL, and made it clear that if we ever had to come back to Afghanistan it would not be with gentle words and reconstruction budgets....

....all of that before we'd spent a decade nation-building and taking casualties, then this would have been a reasonable, if limited, outcome for our intervention there.

"The jihad against the U.S. will continue all over the world, not just in Afghanistan."

12/21

re: "Negotiations"

Dr. Jerry Pournelle at Chaos Manor (" The Original Blog and Daybook. ") posted some thoughts on the Middle East and the Occupy movement.

Money quote(s):

"The Israelis have traded 1,000 well treated prisoners for one mistreated sergeant.

I once told then Israeli President Weizman that I didn’t know how to govern his country. Of course that was preparatory to my suggestions on what I thought they were doing wrong. I still don’t know how to govern Israel, nor do I have the stake in the outcome that the Israeli government does, but that doesn’t stop me from suggesting a different course of action.

Were it up to me to negotiate for the return of a soldier kidnapped by Hamas, I would simply ask how many Hamas officials they wanted in exchange for my sergeant. “I need to know the number, because I have Mossad standing by to make up the list of Hamas officials we will have the IDF take as prisoners. The sooner I have the number the quicker Mossad and our special forces can do their work. We can then have the exchange. Please tell me the number.” "

I rather like the way Dr. Pournelle thinks.

"I have some sympathy for those who have a lifelong debt in exchange for some years of their lives acquiring an education that is in essence worthless. They learned no history, no economics, and little else of any real value, and they have little prospect of a job until the economy revives. They saw a $Trillion spent on stimulus and bailouts with not much result other than enormous bonuses paid to people whose contribution to the world is to move money around in circles. Not much of it seems to get down to the levels where they live.

Their view of the world is somewhat distorted but their education didn’t show them how to see it all more clearly."

A university education used to mean (correct me if I'm wrong) at least a core curriculum that should have been grounded in some basic humanities (English lit., composition, world history, Western civilization, &tc.) that would at the very least given college graduates the factual and analytical basis from which to think about things and make more-or-less rational decisions.

The proliferation of hyphen-studies courses crowding out the old-fashioned syllabi have lead to this.

"(I)t does seem a bit odd that the NATO air power including a US killer drone were waiting for the cavalcade out of Sirte. It’s unlikely that they stumbled on it, or that they were maintaining air patrols there. This appears to be a reasonably well planned kill operation. As to whether it conforms to the directive of protecting the civil population of Libya I have no idea. One wonders how the Presidents of Syria and Yemen understand the messages here.

Khaddafi’s body has been subjected to practices not permitted under the Quran, so it is clear that Sharia law does not yet govern Libya.

The execution of Qadafi was no more than he deserved, and the desecration of his body echoes that of the founder of united Libya, Benito Mussolini." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"Iraq will probably break up into its component provinces; almost certainly the Kurds will refuse to accept the sovereignty of Baghdad and the Shia. It is not likely that Baghdad has the means for the conquest of the Kurdish province, which may well proclaim its independence and apply for membership in the United Nations. Libya was united under the Italian rule under Mussolini. Just how strong the union between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania has been forged is not clear. There are plenty of reasons for conflict. The stakes are high, and the US has considerable interest in the matter, but it is not clear that the US has any strong influence over the outcome." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

10/24

re: "A sure sign the wars are ending..."

The Armorer at Castle Argghhh! has observed signs of increased garrisonification within the U.S. Army.

Money quote(s):

"A sure sign the wars are ending... ...is the Sergeant Major of the Army glowering menacingly from the cover of the Army Times saying "Lose weight or get out!""

&

"Heh. Anybody remember the challenges to discharges under AR 600-9, when the pencil-necked sunken-chested generals and their puppeteers the Sergeants Major solemnly intoned "Soldiers must be fit and able to fight on a moment's notice. It is crucial we have this tool to remove the unfit and protect the readiness of the force, which must be able to go to war from a standing start." Or words to that effect."

&

"What was about the first thing the Army did on September 12, 2001? Suspend discharges under AR600-9. But wait - I thought widebodies were a liability in an Army that has to go to war from a standing start...

Can't up the PT standards too much. We'd start losing pretty people, while the stout (not the obese, just the stout ones) would breeze by. Can't have that. Because we're far more concerned about looking pretty as we start our return to a garrison mentality, and it's emphasis on the appearance of discipline." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

The side with the prettiest uniforms always loses. That's a military axiom.

There should probably be a corollary to that regarding soldiers who look pretty.

Bottom line: War isn't about running in unit formation with guidons flapping in the breeze. While fitness is certainly an issue, there's always going to be a need for some beefy guys who can pick up and move some heavy stuff. War stuff. Stuff like heavy machine guns, vehicle parts, and ammunition.

Because there's no such thing as too much ammunition.

"You'll know it's really on if they go back to smooth leather boots.

Courtney Massengale is stirring, brushing the lint off his nicely tailored, neatly pressed (and lightly starched) uniform, getting ready to assert himself as Sam Damon gets shoved into advisory duty somewhere."

No extra credit for those who get the "Once An Eagle" references; it's not like it hasn't been on the Army's reading lists for years.

11/22

re: "Springtime for Islamists in Libya?"

Neo-Neocon (" slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing: a neocon ") is one of those who possess an Inigo Montoya-like sensibility regarding the meaning of words.

Money quote(s):

"The headline reads “interim [Libyan] ruler unveils more radical than expected plans for Islamic law.”

There’s that word again: expected. But those who thought they knew what to expect in Libya were either arrogant or daft, or both. And one of the many things that was clearly possible there was the ascendance of Islamist elements." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Wishful thinking, like hope, is not a plan. Nor is it a particularly useful analytical tool.

"David Warren contrasts the irony of the relatively orderly Bush-overseen judicial end of Saddam Hussein with Gaddafi’s extra-judicial lynching under forces promoted by Obama."

CAA has nothing but good things to say about Mr. Warren, one of our neighbors in the Great White North.

"Not unexpected at all. That’s why there is something to be said for what happened in Iraq, where—because we invaded and stuck around, despite the huge cost in blood and treasure—that country has at least a chance of coming out relatively well compared to others in the region."

From her keyboard to God's monitor.

10/24

re: "What Lies Beneath"

Richard Fernandez a Belmont Club critiqued the Administration's habit of pre-emption.

Money quote(s):

"Pre-emption was also in evidence in foreign affairs, but this Pearl Harbor was not directed against America’s supposed enemies, but at its allies. Mark Perry at Foreign Policy writes an article strongly implies that the Obama administration is pre-emptively leaking Israeli military cooperation arrangements with Azerbaijan to protect Iran from a potential strike. Perry says officials told him that Israel was acquiring airfields on Iran’s northern border, something that may not have been common knowledge."

&

"Well if the Iranians didn’t know about Azerbaijan, they know now. Lee Smith says that this may be a blatant tip-off. “A number of Israeli journalists, led by Ron Ben-Yishai, one of the country’s esteemed security correspondents, claimed that Mark Perry’s article was clear evidence the White House was leaking critical information about Israel’s strategy in order to pressure Jerusalem to abandon its war plans and wait for the administration’s sanctions to bring the Iranian regime to its knees.” Maybe they’ll have to wait a long time. But for what it is worth, John Bolton believes the administration is alerting Iran, the administration acting as their Chain Home system, so to speak."

Omitted from my selective excerption were the passages that suggest the information about Azerbaijan may not have been correct, and the whys of that.

About half of Wretchard's post had to do with the Supreme Court's then-pending health care reform decision.

4/4

re: "Shadow of the Past"

Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club reminded us where the "Democratic" left actually came from.

Money quote(s):

"Breitbart’s video, recorded shortly before his death, is literally a voice from the beyond the grave about the past. The period concerned is not just Barack Obama’s college days, but more generically what happened after 1968. That’s what Breitbart really seems to want to talk about, what he means when talks about “vetting”.

In that period, if we’re to believe people like David Horowitz, a prominent radical from the New Left, what called itself the Peace Movement was actually a totalitarian conspiracy with possible links to foreign intelligence agencies, which eventually set out to control the Democratic Party, if it has not already."

Pres. Obama was in barely in elementary school in 1968; whether that was in Hawaii or Indonesia or on Triton (Neptune's seventh, and largest, moon) is irrelevent to this discussion.

"Well we all ‘know’, or so we read, that David Horowitz is just a looney old renegade who’s got an axe to grind against his old pals. None of that directly argues what he’s saying isn’t true."

Given the historical truths about things like McCarthyism (he was right), Alger Hiss (guilty), the Rosenbergs (guilty), &tc., allegations about HOIS sponsorship in the "Peace Movement" aren't exactly made of moonbeams and spidersilk.

"(I)t’s the stuff of conspiracy theories all right, equal in scope if not greater than those of the Kennedy assassination, which argue that to truly understand things one has to go back to 1968 and what followed. Because that’s when it all began."

3/3

re: "Was the EU Referendum Vote the Tory Party’s Bunker Hill?"

John C. Dyer, UK correspondent at WhirledView ("a look at politics and most everything else"), reported on a surprising development in Parliament.

Money quote(s):

"Soon after coming to office, the Coalition government instituted an experiment in direct democracy. Voters who want to see Parliament debate an issue may petition the government for such a debate, using an online petitioning procedure. If 100,000 voters sign, the Parliamentary “back bench business” committee considers whether to schedule a debate.

Hundreds of thousands of voters signed such a petition calling for the government to submit a referendum on the UK’s continued involvement in the European Union to the voters. Polls suggest that as much as two thirds of the voters favour such a referendum. The data is less clear whether or not such a referendum would result in a majority voting to withdraw." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Membership in the European Union is, to borrow the phraseology of one prominent politician, a "big fucking deal." And letting the British people have a voice in decisions about EU membership is something that successive UK prime ministers have promised, in the form of a referendum, but failed to deliver.

"The leaders of all 3 major parties invoked the well known “3 line whip” discipline rule. Under this discipline, party members must vote as directed by their leaders or face potential long term career consequences.

Not only did 81 Conservative MP’s defy the rule, including 2 junior Ministers, at least one, Adam Holloway, stepped down from his (albeit minor and unpaid) ministerial post. The final fallout for breaching discipline is not yet known.

The defiance was not confined to Conservatives. 111 MP’s voted in favour of the motion, including 19 Labour. But the imposition of the "three line Whip" by each of the 3 major parties delivered a crushing 483 vote defeat for the referendum on EU membership in the House of Commons.

Although defeated, the Conservative vote was particularly eye-catching. It was perhaps the most significant Conservative rebellion in this Parliament and the most significant Conservative rebellion on the European question since 41 Conservative MPs did so in 1993." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"The issue of ceding British sovereignty to Europe may not be as hot a hot button in the UK among voters as MPs, but the believed impact of Europe on UK jobs is. In part, the rebellion reflects MPs responding to the economic angst of their constituents. The question of what level of involvement the UK should have in Europe has been credited with dividing past Conservative governments and contributing to the demise of John Major’s. This one issue has served to divide leaders from their party faithful over and over again. Once again as the Eurozone falters, British unemployment grows, and British chaffing under European rules increases, the “European Question” has taken center stage.

But speaker after speaker recognized that the vote would fail, no referendum would be held, and the leadership of not one of the three major parties had even found the timing “right” for such a referendum." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"Some of the 81 rebellious MPs during floor debate in the House of Commons contended that they were not arguing the UK should withdraw from trade with the EU, but rather should confine its involvement to free trade treaties. It is the subordination of British law and policy to Brussels to which they object. But the current "sovereign debt crisis" in the EU is the "hook" leveraging the debate." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

The "European Project," so-called, is about economic and trade integration only insofar as it compels ever-more-closer political union within Europe. It's amazing, really, that Britain has been allowed to avoid membership in the "common currency," and completely un-surprising that it is now expected to help foot the bill for that rickety currencies failures.

"The reality of the UK’s position in the global economy is such it is doubtful that the UK can hold its economic ground (much less regain ground) without involvement in a successful Europe, and without even greater political integration it is doubtful Europe will be able to be successful. While there are a number of issues that make such integration a steep climb in any event, the UK is not in a position either to dictate the rules of the game or to pick up its marbles and go home."

Britain isn't about to become un-involved in Europe, certainly not in economic terms, so this is a bunch of hogwash. It's also something of an empty threat from Brussels. Britain, if needs be, can renew economic integration with its worldwide Commonwealth partners, petition to join NAFTA, or take any of a number of other alternative measures to replace unreliable Continental partners. The EU needs Britain, and its Pound Sterling, at least as much as Britain needs the EU.

10/24

re: "State Department: America’s Increasingly Irrelevant Concierge"

Peter Van Buren at We Meant Well ("How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People") leveled a criticism of the Department of State (which reminds me of Amb. Bolton's joke about the UN*).

Money quote(s):

"A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released July 16 shows that overall more than one fourth of all State Department Foreign Service positions are either unfilled or are filled with below-grade employees. What should be staggering news pointing out a crisis in government is in fact barely worth a media mention in that State’s lack of personnel is silently tracking its increasing irrelevance to the United States, sliding into the role of America’s Concierge abroad."

&

"At the senior levels, the alleged leaders of America’s diplomacy, the number is 36 percent vacant or filled with “stretch” assignments, people of lower rank and experience pressed into service. At the crucial midranks, the number is 26 percent. Entry level jobs are at 28 percent, though it is unclear how some of those can be filled with stretch assignments since they are already at the bottom."

CAA had always assumed that the midranks (or midgrades) were where the shortages were the worst, and that the Senior Foreign Service was relatively flush.

I stand corrected.

"In fact though, it is much worse. Within State’s Foreign Service ranks, there exists the Consular Bureau and everyone else. Consular stands quite separate from the other Foreign Service Officers in that Consular employees have very specific worker bee jobs processing passports and visas and are not involved in the “traditional” diplomatic tasks we know and love such as maintaining inter-government relations, writing reports, negotiating treaties, rebuilding Afghanistan and all that. Many of these jobs are filled because they have to be, cash cow that issuing visas is for increasingly foreign tourism dependent third world America. That means broken down by function, it is likely that there are even larger gaps in vacancies in traditional diplomatic roles than even the sad percentages suggest."

The Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) is unusual within the Department of State for several reasons.

First, CA is the only functional bureau with effective control of the assignments of an entire "cone" (or "career track" in current parlance) within the Foreign Service.

(A quick primer: The Foreign Service comprises FS generalist officers who are commissioned officers of the U.S. Foreign Service as well as a number of cadres of Foreign Service Specialists who have specific skill sets such as couriers, diplomatic security special agents, physicians, nurses, engineers, office managers, &tc. Within the generalist corps, there are five "cones" or "career tracks" by which each FSO is designated: Political, Economic, Management, Public Diplomacy, and Consular.)

So CA controls which FSOs get those FS jobs, domestic and overseas, which are designated as being Consular. Most of those will go to FSO whose "cone" is Consular, but some will go to FSOs seeking to work outside their own "cone" for whatever reason. Since every FSO spends at least a year (usually more like 2-3) doing consular work during their first two overseas assignments, it's not like they're coming to it cold even if it's not their official career track.

There isn't any other bureau within State which manages to do this for any of the remaining four career tracks, no matter what that bureau's name or responsibilities would suggest.

Second, is money. Mr. Van Buren's suggestion that consular work is a "cash cow" is not without merit. Some years ago a deal was struck whereby much of the money collected in consular fees (such as passport and visa fees) would stay with the Department of State rather than going directly to the Treasury Department's general revenue coffers.

By law, visa and other consular fees are adjusted on a regular basis to reflect the actual costs of providing those services, to the best of State's ability to account for them. But that includes a lot of salaries and other costs that would otherwise have to be included in budget requests and congressional appropriations. Maintaining the Department's ability to keep bringing in those dollars is not an insignificant issue.

"GAO says in its report that “Although the State Department is attempting to compensate by hiring retirees and placing current civil service employees in Foreign Service jobs, it ‘lacks a strategy to fill those gaps.’”

(State has 10,490 Civil Service employees and was only able to convert four employees to the Foreign Service. That’s a 0.03813 percent conversion rate to help bridge the gap, so much for that idea. Want another perspective? Here’s why some Civil Servants might pass on the chance to become FSOs.)."

Linking to The Skeptical Bureaucrat is always a good idea. More web logs should follow suit.

"State’s somnolent response to what should be a crisis call (anyone wish to speculate on what the response might be to a report that the military is understaffed by 36 percent at the senior levels?) tells the tale. It really doesn’t matter, and even State itself knows.

What vibrant it-really-matters institution could persist with staffing gaps over time as gaping as State’s? Seriously friends, if your organization can continue to mumble along with over one out of four slots un/underfilled, that kinda shows that you don’t matter much."

To put this into a more longterm perspective, staffing gaps this significant, if not larger, have existed since at least the end of the Cold War and the Clinton Administration, which bade us all to do more with less. The "Peace Dividend" as it was called.

As I heard K.T. McFarland say on the radio one morning, "you don't do more with less, you do less with less."

State had to come up with the staffing for all those new embassies within the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the Former Soviet Union (FSU). And they had to do it without adding a single new position.

State not only didn't add a single new position, for some years it failed to even hire enough new FSOs to make up for attrition.

So it attrited.

In some years, the Department didn't even administer the Foreign Service Written Examination (FSWE) since it had so many qualified candidates already sitting on their Register, waiting for "The Call."

That started to turn around when Colin Powell was secstate and he got Congress to provide funding for the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative (DRI). The DRI was supposed to hire above attrition, to make up for the years of not-particularly-benign neglect.

It was also intended to establish sufficient numbers of FSO above the number of positions needed to be filled that FSOs would be able to complete necessary training (like learning foreign languages) to do their jobs when they got there, without leaving the job positions vacant for too long.

This is known as a "training float."

Of course, 9/11 and the personnel staffing needs of wartime wiped out all that progress, and of the Diplomacy 2.0 follow-on to the DRI.

We're now in "Diplomacy 3.o" and there's no sign that we're all that closer to solving the problem.

"The most obvious sign of State’s irrelevance is the militarization of foreign policy. There really are more military band members than State Department Foreign Service Officers. The whole of the Foreign Service is smaller than the complement aboard one aircraft carrier. Despite the role that foreign affairs has always played in America’s drunken intercourse abroad, the State Department remains a very small part of the pageant. The Transportation Security Administration has about 58,000 employees; the State Department has about 22,000. The Department of Defense (DOD) has nearly 450,000 employees stationed overseas, with 2.5 million more in the US.

At the same time, Congress continues to hack away at State’s budget. The most recent round of bloodletting saw State lose some $8 billion while DOD gained another $5 billion. The found fiver at DOD will hardly be noticed in their overall budget of $671 billion. The $8 billion loss from State’s total of $47 billion will further cripple the organization. The pattern is familiar and has dogged State-DOD throughout the war of terror years. No more taxi vouchers and office supplies for you! What you do get for your money is the militarization of foreign policy." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"(T)he combatant commands are already the putative epicenters for security, diplomatic, humanitarian and commercial affairs in their regions. Local leaders receive them as powerful heads of state, with motorcades, honor guards and ceremonial feats. Their radiance obscures everything in its midst, including the authority of US ambassadors."

Combatant commanders (who used to be called "commanders-in-chief" until a stop was put to it; there can be only one CINC, after all) have a lot more money, people, and other resources than any single U.S. ambassador is likely, ever, to have on tap.

That matters.

Officially, a U.S. ambassador is the personal representative of the president and, in the country to which he (or she) is accredited ranks as the equivalent of a four-star general (or admiral).

Of course, the combatant commanders, who are four-star generals (and admirals) have that rank no matter where they may go.

"The increasing role of the military in America’s foreign relations sidelines State. The most likely American for a foreigner to encounter in most parts of the world now, for better or worse, carries a weapon and drives a tank."

That's why he's called the "strategic corporal."

"Lop off a quarter or so of the Foreign Service for Consular work, which hums by more or less independent of the rest of the State Department.

That leaves for the understaffed Department of State pretty much only the role of concierge. America’s VIPs and wanna be VIPs need their hands held, their security arranged, their motorcades organized and their Congressional visits’ hotels and receptions handled, all tasks that falls squarely on the Department of State and its embassies abroad. “Supporting” CODELS (Congressional Delegations’ visits to foreign lands) is a right of passage for State Department employees, and every Foreign Service Officer has his/her war stories to tell."

Consular work is one of the State Department's core missions, looking after the interests of our U.S. citizens abroad. So it's not something one needs to be apologizing after.

And CAA could tell you about the gang of drunken congressmen who poured off of their VIP flight..... but he won't.

_____

* Amb. Bolton's joke: "The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference"

7/18