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: "For Rick Perry"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ had some commentary on the Republican primary candidacies.

Money quote(s):

"There are two main sorts of primary voters: Those who know too little, and those who know too much. As for the former -- there's not much I can do about them. They don't read this site, or probably too much of any political source.

Maybe they read Time. Bless their hearts." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

CAA is often asked, by persons preparing to take the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT; the computer-based exam that replaced the FSWE), for advice on how to prepare for it. Now, in olden times, when dinosaurs walked the Earth and the essay portion of the FSWE involved a "blue book" style handwritten essay, CAA took a fairly standard approach to get his brain right before test day.

A lot of the approach involved developing and maintaining a good situational awareness of current events, both domestic and international, and not just about politics. One of the specific suggestions for doing that is to read a weekly news magazine, such as TIME, Newsweek, or U.S. News & World Report.

Not so much anymore, at least as regards TIME. And I say that with sadness.

CAA grew up in a household where we got the Washington Post delivered in the morning, the Evening Star delivered in the afternoon, and every week the mailman would bring a TIME magazine, and I'd read it cover-to-cover.

It's just not the same magazine, although perhaps it never was.

"The online community consists mainly of the latter -- we know a lot about the candidates, and are each making complicated decisions about trade-offs between electability and agenda (and likelihood of advancing that agenda).

My belief is that we know so much that the secondary and tertiary level things we know are crowding out the primary things we know. That is, that we know a bunch of second- and third- order things and knowing so much is crowding out consideration of the top-level, major bullet-point, controlling facts."

Ace makes an interesting point here. People who are wonks and geeks about politics and elections tend to get fairly far down in the weeds about candidates, their positions, and their histories. To the point where we'll drop references in normal conversation that garner puzzled looks from those around us, since it may not have been covered in the broadcasts of American Idol, Dancing With The Hasbeens, Real Housewives, or other trash TV like the Daily Show or the current latenight successors to Johnny Carson.

While I may not be enthusiastic about the relative treatment of dogs by either the Republican front-runner versus the Democratic incumbent, in neither case will they be dispositive regarding my vote come election day.

"(B)iographical and character details. Much of the More Informed cohort of the party seems to be giving these factors short shrift. I would suggest to such folks that a certain type of candidate tends to prevail in elections, and that type of candidate tends to have a positive narrative in biographical and characterological traits."

I like the point Ace makes here. Consider Reagan in light of this, likewise Clinton (to a degree). Optimism sells.

"I can only say so often that the swing voters in the center of the country are among the least-informed voters on the planet. Every survey demonstrates that, despite their claims to be all about "the substance" and "the issues," they know less about the substance and the issues than partisans on either side of the aisle.

Being apolitical, they're not very interested in politics. Stands to reason. This means, then, that they don't read much about politics.

Their decision-making is very superficial."

See how Ace builds an argument here. Crafty.

"I would suggest that we should not get too hung up on fighting the last war, because the media will simply change the rules of engagement."

Well, duh.

"Barack Obama did not serve in the military. That is perhaps the most understated sentence in the history of communications, but since people are interested in drawing contrasts, consider that one."

This passage followed one contrasting the various service (and non-service) records of the various Republican candidates at the time in was written. It wasn't a stand-alone potshot at the president, although it certainly would serve as one.

"I cannot and will not say that brainpower is unimportant. I would however say that character matters too."

Yes.

None of the candidates, no matter what one may be influenced to think by the media, are particularly dumb. They may have worldviews and political perspectives far to the left or right of what you consider to be smart, but that doesn't mean they're dumb.

Presidential debates, public speeches, and the like are hard to do. Which is why most people don't do them. Most people don't like to do them. Some people make them look easier than others. This only means they're better at making speeches (or reading teleprompters, but I digress). I would submit that the particular set of talents and personality traits that help make a good public speaker or debater may or may not make a good president. Still, practice will help. Minor slip-ups in public speaking shouldn't be made too much of though.

"America, and especially the Republican party, has long favored elevating governors to the presidency. Governors are, after all, the presidents of single states. They have nearly the exact same duties and functions (including even maintaining and controlling the state national guards). They have similar executive powers and set the agendas for their respective legislatures. In the case of border states such as Texas, they even require some foreign policy making duties.No job in the world really prepares someone for the Presidency. But one job, more than any other, comes fairly close to doings so."

While the U.S. Senate is famous for housing one hundred politicians who earnestly believe they should be president, the fifty governor's mansions house the people who are most likely to be better chief executives. Or if not better, at least better tested, so the voters can examine a record of leadership in office rather than that of a legislator. Being the "chief legislator" is only a part of the president's job, and it's a part of every state governor's job as well.

"The stakes in this election are enormous. The next president may well appoint five justices the Supreme Court, essentially choosing our basic jurisprudence for the next 30 years. This will be the presidency in which we make fundamental decisions about debt, and spending, and entitlements. Decisions on those may decide our fiscal policy for the next 20 or 30 years, too.

But while those are the stakes of this election, the election will actually turn on... Jobs.

Unemployment is at 8.6%, with real unemployment around 16%. For the sake of comparison, unemployment during the Great Depression hit 25% at its high. We are not there yet, but we've consistently been at around 9% for years (with real unemployment higher).

Primary voters tend to be strongly ideological. We have very strongly held beliefs about abstract notions of government and "The Good." But general election voters -- especially those swing voters -- do not have strong opinions about such matters. Otherwise they would be partisans for one camp or another. They tend to be pragmatic, rather than abstract, thinkers. They do not have any prevailing theory of governance, which is what gives them the flexibility to vote for George W. Bush in 2004 and then an all-but-declared socialist four years later.

They care almost entirely about results, because they have no underlying theory that might explain away failures"

CAA is torn between deciding whether this should be considered a bug or a feature. I suppose it'll have to simply be accepted as something that simply is.

"If you think the unaffiliated, mostly apolitical voters in the center are going to be swayed by full-throated announcements of steadfast ideological commitment, you're guilty of universalizing from your own experience.

If they thought that way, they would not be independents. They would, like you, be declared partisans and ideologically-motivated voters.

Speeches are nice but facts are what change minds." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA)

Ace is describing a sort of cognitive bias, the version of "mirror-imaging" to which political geeks may fall prey.

"I will say this without fear of contradiction: A president can only really push 3-4 major initiatives in his first term, and 1-2 in his second. By the last half of his second term, he's a lame duck, and is chiefly clocking time and fighting off efforts to undo whatever he's done in the first six years."

&

"(T)hat impulse -- the idea that the first questions should always be "Wait, does the federal government need to do this? Is it even constitutional that they do this?" -- is the right impulse."

1/3

re: Anonymous comment

CAA received a rather ill-tempered (much like laser-mounted sea-bass) comment at his "Seasons Greetings" post the other day.

To wit:

"Anonymous said...

Anyone who wishes a career in the Foreign Circus deserves it. It recruits people lacking spines and brains to insure that the officers never question their fuedal lords. You are one step away from dismissal. There is no real appeal as your supervisor can call you an incompetent, racist, toad and not have to prove a word of it. You must prove him to be wrong, but remember the system protects the guilty not the innocent. This is how it enforces complete submission. Expose theft, criminality, etc and you are dead meat because you rock the boat. An ambassador would never violate the laws of the US for personal profit. Right?

Assignments are on the basis of rabis, not the needs or talents required. Don't speak German, don't even bother asking for Germany. Don't speak Russia, an assignment to one of the coackroach stans is just the ticket you need. Find out your supervisor has served in Europe for the past 20 years and his hardship tour is Mexico City, tough it is how the system works.


Better yet the best do not make it past the senior grading process which is reserved for the prime examples of what the foreign circus considers to be "outstanding." I've seen these losers trying to get posts in law firms and lobbyists in DC once people can no longer tolerate their gaffs, mistakes, and omissions,


One other word, imagine living in housing that is subpar, dangerous and assigned by people who care little and do less. No wonder the divorce and alcoholism rate among FSO is through the roof. Worse yet is the number of kiddies who become warped little monsters because of the availibity of drugs and the mindset that they are part of an "elite."


Talk to an FSO. Most if they speak honestly will not recommend it as a career. If they are honest see if they mention these points. If they do not you know you are being had.


As for the tests, these are for losers. State has stated for years it wants to look more like the US as a whole. What do you think this means? Probably 25% of all candidates do not take the test to get in. They simply don't cut the mustard, but these same people will be ahead of you in the promotion and assignment ques.


Great organization. Do yourself a favor and join the IRS. At least its professional. Even the ATF isn't as politically incoherent as State.


One last point, State status as a bad joke is recognized throughout Washington. Ask any staffer if State is the first choice to be consulted on economic, military or political data that is considered realiable, timely or relevant."

As near as I can figure it, Anonymous came to CAA from the Eternity Road blog where CAA is listed in the "Mainly Politics" blogroll. Anonymous was apparently posting from Manassas, Virginia, where he (or she) is a Verizon customer.

1. "Anyone who wishes a career in the Foreign Circus deserves it. It recruits people lacking spines and brains to insure that the officers never question their fuedal lords. You are one step away from dismissal. There is no real appeal as your supervisor can call you an incompetent, racist, toad and not have to prove a word of it. You must prove him to be wrong, but remember the system protects the guilty not the innocent. This is how it enforces complete submission. Expose theft, criminality, etc and you are dead meat because you rock the boat. An ambassador would never violate the laws of the US for personal profit. Right?"

Aww. This sort of talk is liable to hurt my feelings.

Oddly, the recruitment and examination process seemed (to me) designed to ensure that prospective FSOs exhibited both brains and good judgment. Part of good judgment, to me, means picking your battles carefully and being picky about upon which hill you want to die, upon which sword you wish to fall.

(Military and naval officers have to know how to do the same thing.)

As a consular officer, I know that when it comes to fraud or malfeasance or matters of integrity, the Bureau of Consular Affairs will have my back if I'm in the right. Part of being in the right is knowing the applicable laws, directives, and regulations and following them in the spirit they're intended. Not being burdened overmuch with ambassadorial ambitions, perhaps that's easy for me to say....

As a former intelligence professional, I've always taught my subordinates to tell the truth. The truth being what they themselves saw, heard, read, or otherwise sensed and intuited, and being very clear about which is which. Err on the side of clarity at the expense of politeness or political correctness; don't be afraid to voice a conclusion or informed opinion but label it as such and be clear about your sources and reasoning. In other words, show the math. Let those who have broader access (i.e., all-source analysts) make broader conclusions.

And to be frank, any supervisor who called me "an incompetent, racist, toad" would probably suffer an accident walking into a door jamb.

(But CAA has been hoarding his PTSD card for just such an occasion.)

2. "Assignments are on the basis of rabis (sic), not the needs or talents required. Don't speak German, don't even bother asking for Germany. Don't speak Russia, an assignment to one of the coackroach stans is just the ticket you need. Find out your supervisor has served in Europe for the past 20 years and his hardship tour is Mexico City, tough it is how the system works."

This has not been, to say the least, my experience of the assignments process to date. Needs of the post or bureau have generally seemed paramount.

While it's certainly imperfect, and something of a black box in spots, I know (for instance) plenty of officers who had to learn (or re-learn) German in order to be assigned therein. Once FSI-trained in German and with an assignment under ones belt, however, legend has it that being in the "German mafia" could get you re-assigned back to Germany later on after an assignment (or three) elsewhere in the (Third?) (W)orld. I've seen that happen, including instances where the intervening assignments were in Iraq or Afghanistan (or both).

(To me, that always seemed more a matter of taking advantage of language/country experience rather than favoritism. Germany alone boasts six different post, plus Austria, plus Switzerland. Due to the decline in the number of high school and college German curriculae, fewer and fewer FSOs enter the Foreign Service speaking the language, which means most FSOs taking an assignment there have to be trained in-house at FSI.)

As for the former Soviet "Stan" assignments going to newly trained Russian speakers, this is of a piece with French speakers serving in West Africa before getting a much-coveted Paris gig or similar scenarios involving Portugese/Angola-Mozambique-Brazil/Lisbon and Spanish/South&Central-America/Madrid. It's not prejudice or favoritism; it's paying your dues.

Generally speaking, very few of even the senior ranks of the career Foreign Service will spend all that long in Western Europe before taking a "career enhancing" hardship assignment. That being said, some hardship assignments are harder than others; there is a range involved there and hardship ratings can be based on a variety of factors.

CAA has himself received hardship differential pay in countries which are home to quite posh resorts. It should be noted that CAA did neither live nor work (nor even much visit) in said resorts; U.S. embassies tending to be located in slum-filled capital cities rather than along an exotic coast or in picturesque mountains.

3. "Better yet the best do not make it past the senior grading process which is reserved for the prime examples of what the foreign circus considers to be "outstanding." I've seen these losers trying to get posts in law firms and lobbyists in DC once people can no longer tolerate their gaffs, mistakes, and omissions,"

If I read this correctly, the "losers" in this paragraph are those who make it into the Senior Foreign Service (SFS). Not having spent much time around D.C. law or lobbying firms since joining the Foreign Service, I must yield to Anonymous' expertise.

(For those keeping score, CAA is in no imminent danger of becoming a member of the Senior Foreign Service.)

4. "One other word, imagine living in housing that is subpar, dangerous and assigned by people who care little and do less. No wonder the divorce and alcoholism rate among FSO is through the roof. Worse yet is the number of kiddies who become warped little monsters because of the availibity of drugs and the mindset that they are part of an "elite." "

Wow. CAA married a Foreign Service brat; on the morrow I will inquire whether she is a "warped little monster."

Housing varies. Rules as to how it's assigned are uniform throughout the service, but its quality, quantity, and availability are subject to the reality of life abroad. Generally it's more comfortable than military tentage in a combat zone or even enlisted dependent housing at domestic military bases. But that is going to depend upon what's available on the local market or what the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations was able to construct.

I'm not trying to sugar-coat this; much of the world is simply not up to providing the kind of amenities (i.e., safety, comfort, and health) the average American suburbanite takes for granted. That's one of the tradeoff Foreign Service families make, or at least have made for them by their Foreign Service Officer/Specialist parent or spouse.

The availability of drugs is not something unique to FS or even expat life. I hear tell, in fact, that there are drugs even in American public schools nowadays. As for the "elite" charge, this is where the occasional domestic assignment helps keep FS brats grounded, just as a year or three of commuting to Foggy Bottom by Metrorail will blunt the elitest edge of even the most credentialed FSO.

Lastly, I can't really speak to divorce and/or alcoholism rates beyond the anecdotal.

5. "Talk to an FSO. Most if they speak honestly will not recommend it as a career. If they are honest see if they mention these points. If they do not you know you are being had."

Who shaves the barber? All Cretans are liars.

An honest FSO (and we all at least start honest) will tell you it's not for everyone, but we're still only half kidding when we tell each other we're "living the dream."

Every assignment isn't a dream, and there are supervisors (and co-workers) you will grow to loath so much that you will rather take Lower Slobovia without them rather than work in London with them. FSOs need to be very honest with their spouses and children and weigh their interests fairly during the course of their FS careers.

6. "As for the tests, these are for losers. State has stated for years it wants to look more like the US as a whole. What do you think this means? Probably 25% of all candidates do not take the test to get in. They simply don't cut the mustard, but these same people will be ahead of you in the promotion and assignment ques."

CAA presumes that Anonymous is referring to those who, as either Pickering or Presidential Management Fellows (or similar) bypass having to take the written examination (actually, nowadays it's computer-based). They still have to make it past the FS Oral Assessment (and not all of them do).

Once upon a time, when CAA was in his A-1oo class (new FS Officer orientation), out of idle curiousity and political incorrectness he crunched the numbers with regards to ethnic background. Within a percentage point (or two), they did in fact match what I recalled of the general U.S. population.

CAA is a pretty smart guy (if I do say so myself) and without false modesty can admit to having served in several career fields which can fairly be described as being quite selective, even elite. The folks that make it into an A-100 class can only be described as smart.

(I never bothered to crunch the numbers with regards to gender, but it's fair to say that the women in the Foreign Service are simply scary smart.).

7. "Great organization. Do yourself a favor and join the IRS. At least its professional. Even the ATF isn't as politically incoherent as State."

Conclusion insufficiently grounded by facts in evidence. Hearsay. Comparing State with these two federal agencies in particular is something in the way of libel by itself.

(Lies. Damned Lies. Statistics!)

8. "One last point, State status as a bad joke is recognized throughout Washington. Ask any staffer if State is the first choice to be consulted on economic, military or political data that is considered realiable, timely or relevant."

Which staffers would those be? Congressional members or committee staff (i.e., "hill rats")? CAA's sense is that many of the wannabee policy-wonks that infest Capitol Hill/Adams-Morgan/Georgetown never managed to pass the FS exam and are holding a grudge about it.

As for being consulted on data of various sorts, when CAA was schooled in intelligence analysis, he was cautioned that policy- and decision-makers tend to rely less on official- and/or intelligence reports than on the sources of information to which they had access before becoming policy- and/or decision-makers. Personal contacts. Media. Pre-existing impressions and prejudices. And usually only as an afterthought would actual processed intelligence be considered, and that for what-do-you-have-that-I-haven't-already-heard.

State has decent political and economic collection and analysis, and it's all-source analysts in INR have a uniformly stellar reputation within the Intelligence Community (IC) (although frankly, going to State for military information seems like a fairly stupid thing to do). Where State really adds the value is in providing context for intelligence by having a cadre of folks who're either on the ground and know the players or have been there.

By way of example, during a previous assignment I happened to have a lot of general access to intelligence products from across the spectrum of the IC. On a whim I looked up satellite imagery of a area of significance in a prior overseas assignment (am I being vague enough?). The imagery didn't match what I knew were the facts (geography) on the ground. After a bit of head-scratching, I realized what I was looking at, and that was imagery of the town just west of what I should have been seeing, and I was quickly able to find the correct imagery.

Now, imagine you're on an aircraft carrier and you're launching helicopters to evacuate American citizens from a certain Third World city, and you end up in the wrong place. Or worse, imagine you're in a bad way and you're waiting on a helicopter to come get you, and it's late or never makes it at all, simply because someone who had the local knowledge never had input.

This sort of thing can get complicated.

re: "Are you smarter than a US diplomat?"

Curzon at Coming Anarchy ("Speak Victorian, Think Pagan") has issued a challenge.