re: "We're taking the 2nd ausfahrt prior to the Friendship Bridge, it seems"

Phibian at Cdr Salamander ("PROACTIVELY “FROM THE SEA”; AN AGENT OF CHANGE LEVERAGING THE LITTORAL BEST PRACTICES FOR A PARADIGM BREAKING SIX-SIGMA BEST BUSINESS CASE TO SYNERGIZE A CONSISTENT DESIGN IN THE GLOBAL COMMONS, RIGHTSIZING THE CORE VALUES SUPPORTING OUR MISSION STATEMENT VIA THE 5-VECTOR MODEL THROUGH CULTURAL DIVERSITY.") evaluated Pres. Trump's plan for Afghanistan.

Money quote(s):

"(H)ere’s the Executive Summary: two of the best military minds of their generation, National Security Adviser McMaster and Secretary of Defense Mattis, helped develop a plan that they believe gives us a chance to salvage something in Afghanistan after seven years of dithering. Not a perfect plan, but a doable one. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and fully support it. The major reason is that it returns to something I have written about for well over a decade, Conditions Based Planning, and throws away what remains of the Obama Administration's bollocked-up Calendar Based Planning."

As he stated later in his post, "with a calendar based plan, defeat is inevitable; it is only the timing and method that is in question"  

As a businessman, some of Pres. Trump's ventures have failed, gone bankrupt.  But no one should assume that was the intended goal.  Trump likes to win.  Any plan he attaches to his name-brand is, at the very least, intended to succeed.  Trump does not like losing.

"That is where Trump went Salamander. We are back to Conditions Based Planning – what military best practices tells us is the best path to success.

Another fundamental pillar of our new strategy is the integration of all instruments of American power — diplomatic, economic, and military — toward a successful outcome. Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But nobody knows if or when that will ever happen.

Did you get that? All the traditional levers of national power. This is not just a military way forward. We are also willing to come to accommodation with SOME of the Taliban elements. Good to open that door."

Why ever might the phrasing "traditional levers of national power" ring a bell for even a larval student of strategy?  This might be why it's not always a bad thing to ex-generals and ex-admirals around the top levels of the national security apparatus, so long as you're very picky about the ex-generals and ex-admirals.  Not every problem is best treated as a nail, especially when you've got a whole toolbox to work with.

He concluded:

"For those looking for End States, Objectives, Decisive Points, Criteria for Success, etc – this isn’t the venue for that. This speech gives us approximately the Commander’s Intent and Initiating Directive. The Operational Planners can build a plan off that, and are."

Politico - Tillerson looking to eliminate dozens of special envoy posts

Nahal Toosi at Politico ("We reach the most influential people in the country") did a nice piece of writing here.

Money quote(s):

"Tillerson notes that nearly 70 special envoy or similar positions exist at the department and that some have outlived their purpose. In many cases, Tillerson argues that existing State Department bureaus will be able to handle the same duties in a more efficient way."

Some of the special envoys duplicate offices or even U.S. ambassadors resident in other countries.

"Tillerson's attempts to reduce the number of special envoys has broad support within the State Department, where many diplomats nonetheless cringe at Trump's proposal to cut their budget by 30 percent. The general feeling is that the envoy positions have proliferated to the point where they are undermining existing State Department regional bureaus and other divisions that do similar work."

Yup.  And if eliminating those duplicative positions takes care of some of that 30 percent cut, it may save truly vital functions from getting the ax.

"Some of the special envoy positions are mandated by law, making Tillerson's reorganization process tricky. At the same time, many of the positions are supported by outside advocacy groups who fear that their elimination will undermine efforts to highlight those particular issues."

The articles cites "international labor affairs; cyber issues; rights for the disabled; implementation of the Iran nuclear deal; global youth issues; and the Northern Ireland conflict" specifically as special envoy positions to be eliminated.

The Hill - Diminishing American diplomacy around the globe a dangerous prospect

Brett Bruen at The Hill ("It signals the important issues of the moment.") makes some nice arguments about the importance of U.S. diplomacy to real life Americans.

Money quote(s):

"You’re robbed on a trip overseas. It’s late on a Friday night. A short message at the American Embassy informs you that due to budget cuts they no longer provide afterhours service. No help will be available until Monday. Even then, you’ll face long lines and limited options. Can our citizens really do without diplomats?"

Most consular services are supported by fees.  Application fees for visas, processing fees for passports, notarial fees; you get the picture.

There are some instances where there's no fee charged; in death cases, in assisting victims of crime, in visiting U.S. citizens detained, arrested, or imprisoned abroad.  That comes out of overhead.  Embassies and consulates (and the Bureau of Consular Affairs which pays the salaries of consular staff) eat the cost; the paying customers subsidize the non-paying ones.

One of the concerns about (possibly) moving the visa and passport missions to DHS is the question of who then shoulders the burden of some of the most sensitive functions of consular work, assisting U.S. citizens abroad?  Along with that, who pays for it?  Would State retain those responsibilities?  Would DHS assume them?  If the fees ($2 billion annually) were to move along with the visa and passport function to DHS, is Congress then going to begin appropriating a budget (which it hasn't had to do in decades) to pay for those non-fee generating services?

"In defending diplomacy, we too often talk in bold and broad terms. World peace. International trade. America’s standing on the global stage. These goals seem detached from the kinds of things that impact people every day. Less heralded are the concessions achieved by our negotiators that make the world a fairer place to do business. Few will connect the fact Americans need a visa to so few countries with the work of diplomacy. There are no parades for the war that didn’t happen."

Americans may travel to so many countries around the world needing to get a visa beforehand that some are honestly surprised when they encounter a situation where they do.  Naturally, that tends to happen (since nowadays nobody books trips through travel agencies which might have warned them) when they try to board a flight for their dream vacation destination and are denied boarding.  Even more naturally, that will happen as they try to change plans at an airport overseas and on a weekend in a city where they don't understand the language, they have no hotel reservations, and there is no U.S. consulate.

"There are those in the West Wing who doubt diplomats’ support for Trump’s foreign policies. Yet, every senior diplomat in Foggy Bottom served under Republican and Democratic administrations. They did so because they are guided by a belief in American principles, not party."

It's true our diplomats genuinely put country before party.  Nonetheless, it's also true that the last eight years really muddied those waters, especially in the minds of those who watched from the other side of the aisle.

WP - U.S. Embassy stops issuing nonimmigrant visas to Russians as diplomatic standoff deepens

Andrew Roth at the Washington Post ("Democracy Dies in Darkness") offered a well-written article.

Money quote(s):

"The decision comes after Russia demanded that the U.S. mission in the country reduce its staff from more than 1,200 employees to 455, the same size as the Russian diplomatic mission in the United States. The American Embassy’s announcement will likely mean delays for the hundreds of thousands of Russians who apply for nonimmigrant visas to the United States each year."

Wait times will go up, and keep going up, and applicants will have to travel much farther for their interviews.

"Senior Russian lawmakers in the Duma and the Federation Council on Monday suggested a “mirror” response that could affect Americans seeking Russian visas. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he believed that by slowing the visa process the United States may be trying to “provoke discontent of Russian citizens against the actions of the Russian government,” but Lavrov also appeared to rule out a similar response by the Russian government."

In a functioning representative democracy, like the U.S. por ejemplo, that sort of "discontent" means writing your congressional representative or even the White House, and telling them to do something about it.

What that means in Russia, CAA can't predict.

"With a Sept. 1 deadline to cut more than 750 staff positions looming, the embassy announced on Monday that it would suspend all nonimmigrant visa applications and interviews until then, and that afterward it would suspend U.S. visa interviews at the American consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok — effectively forcing Russians across the vast country to travel to Moscow for a U.S. visa."

A staff cut of this magnitude (roughly 60 percent) and including U.S. staff who have to be packed-up and relocated back to (usually) Washington means a huge (if temporary) ramp-up in administrative and logistical tasks, which is why non-essential services get dropped even before the September deadline.

Read the whole thing here.

re: "An Immigrant Who Didn't Cut The Line: 103-Year-Old Cambodian Woman Becomes A U.S. Citizen"

CAA loves legal immigrants.

Reuters - U.S. scales back Russian visa operations after Putin cuts embassy staff

Andrew Osborn and Polina Devitt at Reuters ("the world’s largest international multimedia news provider") report something-wholly-to-be-expected.

Money quote(s):

"The U.S. Embassy said it was suspending all non-immigrant visa operations across Russia on Wednesday and that when they resumed on Sept. 1, they would be offered "on a greatly reduced scale"."

This is what happens when you (Russia) force an embassy staff cut of 60 percent (755 positions) spread out over four posts, all of which have provided consular, including visa, services.  While visa operations are not horribly manpower intensive, taken in aggregate the represent something of an easy target if you don't mind making reducing or eliminating the ease of obtaining a U.S. visa.

""Capacity for interviews in the future will be greatly reduced because we have had to greatly reduce our staffing levels to comply with the Russian government’s requirement," it said in a statement."

Sixty percent is huge staffing cut and the U.S. is all about reciprocity in this sort of situation.  

In a working democracy, local citizens who suddenly can't visit relatives, go on business trips, vacation at Disney (either of them), or have to travel multiple time-zones just to go for their interview (and months later than they'd planned) would scream to their elected representatives to do something.  

In less representative countries, the bigshots (who have no trouble getting visas themselves, even if they have to tag-along as members of an official delegation) are untroubled by this.

"Russian citizens wanting to visit the United States for business, tourism or educational reasons will no longer be able to apply via U.S. consulates outside Moscow and will have to travel to the Russian capital instead.

That will pose a logistical challenge for many Russians, whose country is the world's largest by territory. The United States has consulates in St. Petersburg, Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg."

That's gotta suck.  The flipside is there's just not a similar American demand for Russian visas at their U.S. offices in Washington, New York, and San Francisco, so whatever the retaliation reciprocity will be, it's likely to appear in something not directly linked to visas.  CAA is not a Kremlinologist, but he's been reading the papers long enough to recognized this M.O.

"The U.S. Embassy signaled its new scaled-back visa regime could be in place for some time.

"We will operate at reduced capacity for as long as our staffing levels are reduced," it said."

Can't put it much more clearly than that.

Politico - Newt Gingrich goes to spouse school

Annie Karni at Politico ("We reach the most influential people in the country") shares a look behind the curtain of diplomatic training.

Money quote(s):

"Aware that this new, less celebrated role will take some getting used to, Gingrich eagerly enrolled himself in what he referred to, excitedly, as “spouse school.”

The program, run by the State Department and hosted on the Arlington, Virginia, campus of the Foreign Service Institute, was started in the 1950s, when it was referred to simply as the “Wives Seminar.”"

This is not your father's (or even your older brother's) Foreign Service.  

At half of the embassies CAA has worked at the ambassador was a woman.  Of those three all were married:  one husband was a former ambassador himself (he sometimes had trouble remembering he was a former ambassador, but only in his dealings with American staff).  The others two were each a retired and a serving FSO (assigned elsewhere) so they already knew the lay of the land.

"Gingrich and the 12 other spouses of waiting-to-be-confirmed ambassadors were educated on some basic rules of the road. “You always have two fridges,” Gingrich marveled in an interview with POLITICO, “one for personal food, one for entertaining, so you’re not eating out of the taxpayer refrigerator. I didn’t know that.” "

If only every serving member of Congress got a look behind the curtain to see the lengths we go to not live high on the taxpayer's dime.

" “We learned about art,” Gingrich marveled. “They have an entire loan program for trying to keep the embassies with appropriate art representing the United States.”

As for furnishing the place, he noted, “you can bring your own furniture and store theirs, but you’re moving into a furnished facility. I think we’re going to use theirs, but that’s not a decision I would pretend to be the final arbiter on.” "

The public areas of an ambassador's residence are exactly that:  public.  They are representational spaces.  That being said, the ambassador and her or his family have to actually live there so each one's decisions of what's personal and what's mission are going to vary a bit based on preferences and on the nature of the building and the host country themselves.

At a minimum this suggestion:  bring your own bed.

"“I sat through a couple of hours on how to do interviews,” Gingrich said. “The first point they make over and over is, you are not the principal. I’m wearing my spouse hat. I’ve got to be very circumspect. We don’t want to confuse people about who speaks for the United States. Callista speaks for the United States. I just speak for Newt Gingrich.” "

Mr. Gingrich doesn't need a lot of coaching on giving interviews personally but it's encouraging he recognizes the altered boundaries due to his wife's mission.  Wish him luck!

NYP - I hope Trump is right (and I’m wrong) on Afghanistan - By Ralph Peters

Ralph Peters at the New York Post ("Your source for breaking news, news about New York, sports, business, entertainment, opinion, real estate, culture, fashion, and more.") paid a soldier and strategist's attention to Pres. Trump's recent speech on Afghanistan.

Colonel Peters retiterated many of these same points during a radio interview yesterday.

Money quote(s):

"Trump will be sending additional troops — likely up to 4,000 — to Afghanistan. That would boost our commitment to just above 12,000 men and women in uniform.

And they’ll be expected to accomplish what 140,000 US and allied troops couldn’t achieve at the peak of our engagement, when the Taliban was considerably weaker."

This level of engagement, essentially a maneuver division in strength, is not going to defeat anyone on a national basis, but it provides the U.S. with a robust platform to support the training and capacity-building mission.  The Afghan government has to win this war for itself.

"One suspects that this new initiative springs less from rigorous analysis than from the emotional attachment felt by senior officers who’ve seen their troops bleed and can’t bear the prospect of a meaningless sacrifice, of simply walking away.

We have a magnificent, well-led military, but rare is the general who understands the economic principle of “sunk costs,” that you can’t redeem a bad investment by investing even more. When money is gone, it’s gone. The same applies to lives."

The concept of "sunken costs" is an unthinkable one to apply to a decade-and-a-half of American casualties, but strategic thinking sometimes requires thinking-the-unthinkable.  I once felt the same way about the Vietnam War (and was likely wrong) and feel the same about our involvement in Iraq.  But a steely-eyed analysis (rather than feeling) may be in our national interest, at long last.

"In 2001, we did the right thing by going to Afghanistan to slaughter terrorists. But we were fools to stay. Afghanistan is strategically worthless. Tragically, former President Barack Obama backed the wrong war when his turn came, abandoning the strategic prize of Iraq because of a campaign promise to concentrate on Afghanistan — which he called the right war — to prove his security chops."

For the U.S., Afghanistan's strategic value is essentially a negative one:  denying its use as a base for our enemies.  Nation-building there may be a fool's errand.

Peters concludes:

"We can justify a limited presence in Afghanistan, perhaps 3,000 to 4,000 troops total, for the purpose of killing international terrorists. And we need not stop providing arms to Kabul. But it’s time to stop giving blood.

I hope I’m wrong. I, too, want our casualties to have meaning. But no matter how we reinterpret our mission, there’ll be more American blood. And the only Americans who’ll benefit will be contractors, who love impossible missions that never end.

We cannot save a country that won’t save itself."

re: "US to designate the IRGC, affiliates as terrorists"

Amir Toumaj at the Long War Journal ("dedicated to providing original and accurate reporting and analysis of the Long War (also known as the Global War on Terror)") marked some long-overdue news.

Money quote(s):

"Known as the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, the law’s Iran section requires the president to extend a terrorism designation pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224 to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its foreign agents and affiliates by Oct. 30.

The milestone marks the first instance the US will designate the military branch of a foreign country for terrorism."

Read the whole thing here.

"E.O. 13224 is an authority aimed at freezing the assets of terrorists and their supporters, while isolating them from the US financial and commercial systems, according to Treasury."

Why is this long overdue?  Here's why (highlighted for emphasis):

"During the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Revolutionary Guard provided material assistance to militants targeting American soldiers and in Iraq directly oversaw attacks."

re: "Wanted: Robust Intelligence and Diplomatic Reporting"

James Bruno at Diplo Denizen ("Author and ex-diplomat comments on foreign affairs & writing") explains the importance of diplomatic reporting.

Money quote(s):

"After I completed my assignment, I unexpectedly received kudos from analysts in the intelligence community. They pointed out how much the atmospherics I described in my reporting helped them put together their analyses.

Diplomatic and intelligence reporting work hand-in-hand. Put together, they flesh out a fulsome picture of events, players, and issues. When one component is lagging or missing, the other suffers. When policymakers ignore one or both, they are flying blind."

Throughout the IC we have some incredible analysts who are great in their various specialties, all-source and fusion-cell sorts not excluded, so it can be a very pleasant surprise to learn from them how they value diplomatic reporting.  Even some of our publicly-available "open source" contributions, that convey the basic ground truths which may be common knowledge in a particular country, are valuable to analysts working inside (or near) the beltway.

"One noteworthy fallout of the WikiLeaks publication of State Department cables, leaked by Chelsea Manning, was the compliments about diplomatic reporting from journalists, academics, and others. The New York Times noted, “curious diplomats can turn out to be accomplished reporters, sending vivid dispatches to deepen the government’s understanding of exotic places,” and “the drama in the cables often comes from diplomats’ narratives of meetings with foreign figures, games of diplomatic poker in which each side is sizing up the other and neither is showing all its cards.” "

If there was a silver lining to that debacle it was this; however short-lived it may turn out to be, our reporting officers garnered some "street cred" for their work.

"(A) senior Foreign Service officer said, “It’s infuriating that even after WikiLeaks, the ‘thinking’ world and journalists in general, to say nothing of politicians, don’t understand that our stuff is America’s true bedrock intelligence.” "

It truly is.  Although it may seem thankless or even pointless to draft what may seem obvious from where the writer sits abroad, what "everyone knows" in Timbuktu will be anything to an analyst struggling to understand a new portfolio.

"Practitioners know that the value of intelligence is the marrying of open source information with reporting and data collection obtained through spying. The success of U.S. intelligence is the layering of SIGINT [signals intelligence], HUMINT [human intelligence], overhead imagery, open source, and other data, with diplomatic reporting. All are necessary. One without the other yields an incomplete picture.

It is no surprise that the places where the U.S. has had intelligence and diplomatic failures over the years are places where it had no diplomatic representation – hence no diplomatic reporting and the kind of on-the-ground knowledge necessary to make informed decisions. Iraq [between 1990-2003], Iran, and North Korea are notable examples."

Read the whole thing.

Daily Beast - Rex Tillerson Is Not Going to Fire the Top Asia Diplomat Bannon Hates

Of course, this is eclipsed by today's latest leaks from the White House.

Spencer Ackerman at the Daily Beast ("Independent. Irreverent. Intelligent.") interpreted the present and predicted the future.

Money quote(s):

"The State Department is standing firmly behind a senior Asia-focused diplomat under attack by Steve Bannon."

That is a nice thing to see.

"Thornton is a widely respected and non-ideological career diplomat"

At that level, most of them are.  Both.  (Or they are neither.)

"Bannon’s pledge to remove Thornton from State is the latest chapter in a long-running feud between Tillerson and the White House. For months, the Secretary of State has pushed back against efforts to meddle in his affairs and undermine his top aide, even reportedly yelling at White House personnel official over their resistance to making Thornton the permanent assistant secretary."

I don't mind a secstate who will raise his voice in support of his personnel picks.

"Haas said that the only reason for dumping Thornton was to ensure her position goes to a political loyalist.

“The only rationale I can think of for seeking to get rid of her is fact she’s a foreign service officer,” he said. “As a lapsed foreign service officer myself, I find that deeply disappointing – that anyone would be disqualified on basis having devoted their life, being sent around world, working long hours in high stress, for low pay, for the sole purpose of advancing America’s interest.” "

The real ideologues come and go with each administration.  They're called political appointees.  And with the housecleaning across State's sub-cabinet level earlier this year, the message should be clear among the career folks in both civil and foreign services.

"But if recent reports turn out to be true, Thornton may stick around longer in her gig than Bannon in his."

I suppose he'll go back to Breitbart.Com.  Which hasn't been the same since Andrew died.

re: "Pondering Matters of State..."

OldAFSarge at Chant du Départ ("The musings, rants, and dissertations of 3 retired military guys and 1 chick.") accurately described frequent fate of my bookstore purchases:

"I should mention that I purchased that book 17 years ago. This is the first time I've read it. It was on the "To Read" pile which The Missus Herself translated as the "Needs to be put away" pile and bingo, I read it 17 years later. How do I know it was 17 years ago? The receipt was still in the book."

Politico - State Department's No. 2 tries to buck up staff morale ahead of reorganization

Nahal Toosi at Politico ("We reach the most influential people in the country") spoke with two unnamed sources about a town-hall meeting held by the new deputy secstate.

Money quote(s):

"Sullivan also urged diplomats and other employees to take media reports on the department's woes with a grain of salt."

Ain't that the truth!  That might even have been one of CAA's very points on his own input to the employee survey, but with the point that the new management shouldn't believe everything it reads in the media about the Department and the people in it.

"When asked how seriously the Trump administration is taking a proposal that the State Department's consular services be transferred to the Department of Homeland Security,Sullivan indicated that the leadership at State intends to keep the division under its umbrella. He acknowledged, however, that all options remain on the table."

Well, he pretty much has to say that.  What would be the point of all the working groups and their recommendations if major decisions like these have already been made by top management?

The Hill - 6 ways to know if State Department reform is real or fake

Joseph Cassidy writing at The Hill makes some excellent points.

Money quote(s):

"A real reform plan would mobilize the department to confront the dangers of the 21st century. It would remedy organizational weaknesses and inefficiencies. It would clarify State’s role in formulating foreign policy and define its relationship with other U.S. government agencies. It would provide a sense of purpose to State’s dedicated but downtrodden employees. "

That right there looks like an pretty fair mission statement for departmental reform.

"In recent administrations, the State Department’s structure has been more hourglass than pyramid. Senior officials and their staffer remoras have been over-abundant and have consumed a disproportionate amount of the department’s workload. Real reform would cut senior positions and reduce the number of staff officers who don’t originate work product."

&

"There is widespread agreement that the weedy proliferation of special envoys (not just those with that specific title, but also other powerful single-issue envoys outside State’s regional and functional bureau chains of command) must be pruned. Real reform will substantially reduce their number but also ensure that important responsibilities are incorporated into other parts of the department (double-hatting officials with a special envoy title, when its termination would be politically or diplomatically problematic).

Envoy proliferation has had two pernicious consequences — disempowering regional bureaus (which should rather be reinforced) by removing important diplomatic issues from their control and ensuring regional bureaus don’t in practice follow “special envoy” issues as closely. Real reform will mainstream as well as streamline."

This.  The dozens of special envoys and such duplicating and tromping over the responsibilities of existing embassies and missions is overkill.  Even granting the half-dozen or so (seven?) actually mandated by law, the idea of dual-hatting some of those back into the fold, onto the worthy-brows of the officials already charged with those countries, regions, or issues is one well worth exploiting.

(Gotta love the use of "remoras" to describe the spear-carriers and special assistants attending to extraneous special envoys.)

"Too many otherwise smart people believe diplomacy is something separate from other elements of national power, e.g., that the James Mattis does national defense, the Treasury Department does international finance and sanctions, the Commerce Department helps U.S. business abroad, the Department of Justice does international law and State carries messages back and forth to other governments like an Amazon delivery drone.

Diplomacy without foreign policy content is irrelevant, and there’s no such thing as short-term strategy. Real reform would reassert State’s role as lead strategist and coordinator of U.S. foreign policy, including the current actions of other cabinet agencies and America’s role in the world over the next several decades. "

You can bet that Sec. Mattis knows very well the many aspects of national powers, DIMEFILS and similar mnemonics outlining the instrumentalities and elements of implementing national strategies and grand strategies.  State is a logical place for interagency coordination of national strategy although the National Security Council staff seems to have inherited that mantel of late.

Read the whole thing.

Politico - Interest in U.S. diplomatic corps tumbles in early months of Trump

Daniel Lipplman and Nahal Toosi at Politico ("We reach the most influential people in the country") discussed plunging recruitment numbers.

"This June, the number of Americans who took the Foreign Service exam to start the process of joining the prestigious State Department ranks fell 26 percent from the same month a year earlier to 2,730, according to data obtained by POLITICO. The June tally marked the lowest number of test-takers in nearly a decade."

That's a big dip.  Unfortunately the article doesn't specify when the previous low-point, sometime about 10 years ago, was. Arithmetic suggests that it was during Pres. Obama's first term, which is interesting given this next set of figures.

"Since 9/11, annual hiring for FSOs has ranged from about 300 to just above 700.

The exam is usually given three times a year. The number of applicants spiked to almost 9,000 in June 2009 and was mostly around 4,000 to 7,000 for tests during the Obama years."

Reading between the lines, there was a big influx of exam-takers just after Pres. Obama took office and then, sometime not too long after, the lowest number of applicants until this latest figure.  At a guess, there was a lot of enthusiasm and interest so more people took the exam early in Obama's first term, which left a smaller pool of potential applicants just afterwards, since test-takers have to wait 12 months to re-take the examination.

About a quarter to a fifth of test-takers are selected to move forward in the selection process from this first hurdle.

" “The Foreign Service is like the military — if you don’t bring in lieutenants now, you don’t have the majors you need in 10 years and don’t have the colonels you need in 20,” said Ronald E. Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy"

Preach it.  The Foreign Service suffered for years from the lack of hiring under the Clinton administration (when there were years the FS exam wasn't even offered).  Several hiring initiatives, beginning under Sec. Powell's "Diplomatic Readiness Initiative," have turned that around over the past decade or so.

"(T)he secretary of state, has already suspended the use of prestigious fellowship programs and otherwise severely restricted hiring as he ponders ways to reorganize the department, a process that could take many more months to complete."

This is troublesome.  It's particularly galling to see a Republican administration repeat a Democratic administration's mistakes in hiring new officers at below the rate of attrition.

"14,000 Foreign Service employees carry out U.S. diplomacy around the world, interacting with people from other countries while helping Americans overseas."

We interact with foreigners so you don't have to.  And helping Americans overseas is one of the most worthwhile and satisfying functions of a U.S. consular officer.

"Devika Ranjan, president of the student Academic Council of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service this past year, said many of her recent fellow graduates, who earlier would have followed a storied tradition of the school’s grads going into State, are choosing to focus their attention instead on think tanks, nonprofits and further education. “They’re concerned about representing the United States abroad when they don’t necessarily agree with the decisions of the administration,” she said.

There are still more than enough applications to fill the limited number of open slots in the Foreign Service, an intensely competitive program in which only 1.8% of Foreign Service applicants get hired. The State Department expects to hire 222 new Foreign Service officers by the end of fiscal year 2017, according to a State Department official. "

Two-hundred plus officers is barely two (perhaps three) orientation or "A-100" intake classes.  That's better than nothing but what perhaps explains the drop in test-takers is that that number means nearly all of the new-hires will be from one of the special hiring tracks like Rangel or Pickering fellows.

This means only a handful will be from the normal accession channels, i.e., taking the Foreign Service exam.  In other words, test-takers opting out of the process at this time are being perfectly rational, since only a literal handful or dozen of them will get a job offer, rather than several hundred.

Harrumph.  This too shall pass but at what cost?

re: "Fullbore Friday"

Phibian at Cdr Salamander ("PROACTIVELY “FROM THE SEA”; AN AGENT OF CHANGE LEVERAGING THE LITTORAL BEST PRACTICES FOR A PARADIGM BREAKING SIX-SIGMA BEST BUSINESS CASE TO SYNERGIZE A CONSISTENT DESIGN IN THE GLOBAL COMMONS, RIGHTSIZING THE CORE VALUES SUPPORTING OUR MISSION STATEMENT VIA THE 5-VECTOR MODEL THROUGH CULTURAL DIVERSITY.") unleashed the power of a fully-operational battle quip in a recent "Fullbore Friday" feature:

"In a day where the national "elite" hide from service like cockroaches from the light, you know what Buckley did before the war? He was a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law and left his practice at the outbreak of WWII."

National Review - Boots to Suits: Reforming the State Department

The National Review's The Corner hosted a recent article by Jim Hanson (of Blackfive fame) and Brad Patty ruffled a few feathers among my colleagues.

Money quote(s):

"The State Department needs people who know how to do direct diplomacy under fire, and who are comfortable in muddy boots."

How much national-level diplomacy can actually be accomplished "under fire," as it were?  Read on.

"Tillerson is right to take a hard look at the culture of the institution. For more than a decade, State has failed to address cultural challenges its leadership has acknowledged. 

The two of us have seen this cultural failure in the field. Jim was a Special Forces weapons sergeant in First Group. Brad spent long parts of three consecutive years in Iraq, including working closely with “State Department” Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). We put that in scare quotes because almost all State employees stayed in the embassy. Aside from a handful of Provincial Reconstruction Team leaders, State sent contractors out to the field in boots. The PRTs and the USAID presence were both made up almost exclusively of contractors because State simply could not get its people to volunteer for such hazardous and unpleasant duty."

We heard about something called "expeditionary diplomacy" for awhile.  Was that before (or after) "transformational diplomacy"?

(Buzzwords make CAA's head hurt.)

Why might, do you suppose, a federal agency engage contractors to fill positions on Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT)?  Might it be because the particular hard skill needed on that team was one not maintained in any abundance on-the-shelf at that agency?  DOS team leaders, unless I'm wrong, on PRTs were full-time "Direct Hires" in most cases, whereas specialists of various sorts on those teams might represent skill-sets outside the scope of traditional diplomacy but which State nonetheless was responsible for staffing.

And as for the "almost all State employees stayed in the embassy" crack, that might just have something to do with travel and security restrictions imposed on them by risk averse chiefs-of-mission and by Diplomatic Security representatives, no matter what personal preferences might have been.

"The State Department traditionally hires academically inclined people who come from a fairly narrow collection of universities and think tanks. This makes sense as many of the skills and knowledge necessary to be a successful Foreign Service officer are nurtured in these circles. The department, however, could also use the kind of people who know how to do direct diplomacy under fire, and who are comfortable in muddy boots. A perfect collection of those have served in U.S. Army Special Forces."

Like much of the federal government, there's a hiring preference for veterans with the result that a higher percentage of the Foreign Service (just like the Civil Service) are veterans than are present in the general population.  These days that means in most cases that they are veterans of combat deployments to one or multiple theaters of operations.

Unfortunately, with current FSO hiring almost entirely coming from Pickering and Rangel fellows due to the self-imposed hiring freeze, I expect those percentages to slip steadily.  I have yet to meet a Pickering or Rangel fellow who was a combat veteran.  I would be very happy to learn that I am wrong in my sense that nearly all of these highly-credentialed folks have taken an academic career track that completely avoided military service.

Might State be well-served to recruit (once it resumes a recruiting effort that involves actual hiring) highly-qualified ex-SF personnel?  Certainly.  There was a pilot "mustang" program not that long ago open to non-State federal personnel not so many years ago that could be revived to good effect.