re: "Threatening Military Pay Emboldens Adversaries and Destroys Morale…Way to Go, Obama!"

Michael Angley at Big Peace had strong things to say about leadership in high places.

Money quote(s):

"(P)ronouncements (or lack of reassurances) not only demonstrate cowardice and an absence of leadership, they may suggest to a potential enemy that we are not going to fund a strong military, a situation fraught with dangerous potential. The mere fact that Obama failed to assure the military that it would get paid is a despicable action by a Commander-in-Chief, one that has already fostered low morale among the troops. This damage cannot be undone, and no matter what happens with paychecks, the fact that Obama did not prioritize troop pay will not be forgotten."

Never let a crisis go to waste; never let an opportunity to let something turn into a crisis slip by unexploited.

"Real leaders rise above petty party politics and reassure the American people that their lives will not be disrupted as the machine of government grinds its gears and debates heavy issues like the debt ceiling. Real leaders take care of seniors, soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and veterans. Real leaders signal to our adversaries that no matter what political issues simmer on the domestic front, that we are a United States of America and we will always have a military force with high morale and esprit de corps ready and capable of destroying any threat we face." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

7/19

re: "Bad Bosses - Army National Guard Style"

Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") highlights a stellar example of a toxic leader.

(For values of the word "leader.")

12/1

re: "Why the FS Should Be More Like the Army -- Esprit de Corps, Taking Care of Troops ... Hey, That Includes EFMs, Right?"

Domani Spero at Diplopundit ("Just one obsessive observer, diplomatic watcher, opinionator and noodle newsmaker monitoring the goings on at Foggy Bottom and the worldwide available universe.") reviewed Jon P. Dorschner's "valedictory address."

Money quote(s):

"There are several fissures in the Foreign Service whether you want to acknowledge them or not. Just a sampling:

Foreign Service vs. the Civil Service. If you doubt that, read the rants here.

FS officers with their conal designations vs. the FS specialists and their specializations

Political cone officers vs. all other cone-officers

Consular Officers vs. "Just EFM" Consular Associates

Eligible Family Members vs. Foreign Service Nationals

Not surprisingly, esprit de corps is not found anywhere in the Promotion Precepts that will be in effect for the 2010-2011, 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 rating cycles. These precepts are the core precepts which provide the guidelines by which Selection Boards determine the tenure and promotability of U.S. Foreign Service employees."

"Fissures" is such a harsh word.

There is indeed a sort of caste system, several of them actually, at work within the State Department and within the Foreign Service(s). And let's not even go to a discussion of our "tenant agencies."

CAA has inhabited several various niches in within that ecosystem during his meandering course of what he laughingly refers to as his "career path." So I can certify that some of these "fissures" do indeed exist. And, at times and places, they are exacerbated by poor leadership.

"Most jobs for spouses and partners in the Foreign Service are located in consular sections. It must be said that some consular managers do know what it means to take care of their troops, not just their FSOs, but also their EFMS and FSNs. But others have no effing clue. Unfortunately, those who have no idea how to take care of the troops as well, are also given leadership and managerial gigs they try hard to fail."

The Bureau of Consular Affairs actually tries hard, as an organization, to model and encourage good (and improving) leadership. There's even a set of precepts for "Consular Leadership."

That being said, the Department as a whole only got behind the notion that leadership can be taught (as opposed, I suppose, from being something that going to the right schools and summering with the right people simplies imbues one).

"In some consular sections, EFMs get their performance reviews late or never, get awards or never. Because hey, they're "just EFMs" -- no matter how great they are, how hard they work, they can't get promoted, anyway. So why waste time writing up their EERs or bother with awards?"

CAA suffers the advantage of coming from a military background; and the U.S. military has was can euphemistically be described as "a mature awards and recognition system." Suffice it to say that I did not find any of the time I spent either writing award nominations or sitting in post awards committee meetings to have been time wasted.

Good and exceptional work should be promoted and encouraged. If you promote and encourage something, you get more of it.

(Why is this so difficult to understand?)

11/4























Why the FS Should Be More Like the Army -- Esprit de Corps, Taking Care of Troops ... Hey, That Includes EFMs, Right?
The November 2011 issue of the Foreign Service Journal includes a Speaking Out column by Jon P. Dorschner on Why the Foreign Service Should Be More Like the Army. Don't worry, it's not about pumping more testosterone on the Service that's already "deployed" as "boots

re: "Stupid Headline of the Day"

Murdoc at Murdoc Online ("This weblog is my hobby and other than income from advertising is not run for profit.") tackles the following stupid headline:

"At Auschwitz, future U.S. military leaders learn what not to do"

Money quote(s):

"Yeah. Because otherwise they would have set up concentration camps and genocided someone."

Believe or disbelieve in American exceptionalism as you like, but it takes years of "higher" education for someone to be so mired in the swamps of moral equivalency that they become this stupid.

re: "Why Republicans really want a louder Obama"

Joshua Keating at PASSPORT ("A Blog By The Editors Of Foreign Policy") is usually smarter than this.

Quote(s):

"This doesn't really make any sense. Bachman (sic) thinks the Libya intervention is a disastrously misguided mission, but America should be taking a more prominent role in it? ("We may be going straight to hell but damned if we're going to let the French get there first!")"

Actually, that's not what she said, as Mr. Keating's excerpt makes clear:

"Our policy in Libya is substantially flawed. It's interesting. President Obama's own people said that he was leading from behind. The United States doesn't lead from behind. As commander in chief, I would not lead from behind.

We are the head. We are not the tail. The president was wrong. All we have to know is the president deferred leadership in Libya to France. That's all we need to know. The president was not leading when it came to Libya."

What Mr. Keating missed here is the decision-making aspect of leadership. France has taken the lead with respect to what can laughingly be referred to as NATO's "Libya policy." Not the U.S. Rep. Bachmann said nothing about the U.S. taking a more prominent role in the Libyan intervention. In fact, she seems to be implying that that U.S. leadership might have headed off there being any intervention there at all.

Sadly, this sort of thing was predicted by diploblogging legend Diplomad just yesterday:

"(T)he liberal elite attacks on her will be unrelenting; any minor flub, slip, or inconsistency will be headline news and fodder for the dopey late night "comics." The libs will go through her life with a microscope. This will get ugly. She is going to be abused, maligned, and "Palined" because she does not fit the mould the liberal elite and their MSM pets have decreed for politically savvy and smart women politicians. She is a conservative, a real one, and that's something the libs just cannot abide. To make matters worse, she fights back, and doesn't apologize for being conservative. Women, blacks, Hispanics, and Jews are supposed to be liberal, if they're not, it's OK to call them anything you want: Misogyny or racism in the service of liberalism is just free speech or funny."

Learning Leadership

One of CAA's loyal readers is a new FSO stationed somewhere in The Great Abroad. He or she really liked something I had posted, specifially:

"For all the great stride the Department has made towards improving State's traditionally dismal leadership culture, we're just not there yet. New officers are getting leadership training from the very beginning, with reinforcements throughout their careers. It's still not inculcated the way the uniformed services do it (and they have their own,
recurrent, problems) but we're getting there. It's the more senior folks, both on the Civil Service as well as the Foreign Service sides, who sometimes fail to get leadership isn't just one of those management fads that comes along periodically, like Six Sigma, just-in-time-inventory, or TQM."

She or he provided the following words by email, posted here with kind permission:

"I couldn't agree more. Having been in the military, I am finding myself feeling at times like a fish out of water here at State; chafing at some folks' inability (or outright refusal) to deal with problem employees, as well as make unpopular but necessary decisions. Earlier this week I was grousing with a colleague about the EER process, recalling how in the military evaluations were a top-down process. Your supervisor or CO tells you what's right with you and what's wrong with you, and that's it. The EER at State is like the grown-up version of zero-outcome soccer. Everybody's a winner, just some people are bigger winners than others. Everything is a collaborative effort, even when you are being evaluated. Given the amount of time I have spent so far on my first EER, I would much prefer to receive an assessment based on my supervisor's impression of me, and not something that I have cooked up myself. The whole process seems to have been born of a reluctance to criticize.

I did see eval inflation in the military also, though- but your eval and how your CO dealt with you on a daily basis were two different things. One of my old skippers ripped me a new one so many times I thought I was a knob back in college, but come eval time he made me look like the best thing since sliced bread. I think that is the difference between DoS and DoD. It's rainbows and puppy dogs all the time at State. At Defense, your CO will generally tell you when you are screwed up, but won't depth charge you on your eval if you fix your problems after they are pointed out."

re: "Finally."

Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") and I don't agree about everything. In fact, we differ profoundly (if respectfully) on some social issues.

But she nails this.

Money quote(s):

"As with most decisions I make, the reasons behind my decision to join the Foreign Service were complicated. Among them of course was that my wife was in the Service. But bin Laden was a deciding factor too...after 9/11, I wanted to serve my country. And as an out lesbian, military service was not an option.

So I am glad he is dead...I know that while this has cut the head off the snake, the danger continues. I pray for the safety of all those serving our country now."

Western Civilization, including our little corner of it here in Los Estados Unidos, is a fairly big tent. And I welcome those willing to serve to keep the tent poles upright, the lines untangled, and pegs firmly in the ground.

That applies as much to our colleagues in uniform, to those serving around the world in our Intelligence Community, as well as to those of us willing to serve as roustabouts in our Foreign Circus, er, Service.

"He is (was) a spoiled rich kid. He sent poor muslims off to die in the service of a jihad that most muslim leaders reject. He never took a risk to his own life to carry out his murderous plans.

And so all this time, while we had an image of him living in caves, an image that no doubt served him well among his followers, many of whom actually are living in caves and other lives of desparate poverty, he was actually living in a million dollar mansion.

He had excellent security and was in town and a mere 60 miles from Islamabad. He was not living a life of hardship, but he used the lives of hardship of his followers to carry out his plans with no personal risk to himself."

This is not a leadership model I would recommend.

"(T)here are those who will decry this action, who will say all war is wrong.

I am a believer in diplomacy, in negotiation. I believe soft power must go hand in hand with hard power, that we can save lives by better funding the diplomatic corps so we can fight fewer wars. But I don't think we can ever hope to stay out of all wars.

Because I believe Hitler would have continued his evil plans to wipe all Jews from the face of the earth had it not been for war. I am not convinced that slavery would have ended without war."

Violence never settles anything except for those things that only violence will settle.

re: "Obama vs. Pentagon on Libya"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") comments on civilian-military relations.

Money quote(s):

"The administration has a set of foreign policy goals that can be achieved by military force but domestic considerations are limiting the type and amount of force it is willing to commit. The military leaders understand that intuitively and are insisting on either lowering the goals to those achievable by military force or eliminating the caveats in order that they might achieve the goals." (Bold type added for emphasis. - CAA)

This is yet another aspect of expectation management.

re: "In a War That Must Not Be Named, Leadership and Security On the Line"

Domani Spero at Diplopundit ("Just one obsessive observer, diplomatic watcher, opinionator and noodle newsmaker monitoring the goings on at Foggy Bottom and the worldwide available universe") makes some on-point observations about this life, this business, we have chosen. 1, 2

Money quote(s):

"Worldwide Availability: All officers are considered worldwide available, that is, prepared to go where needed; ready, at any time, to meet the needs of the Service. Needs of the Service trumps almost everything else, almost always. The first two tours of entry level officers are normally "directed." New employees can put in their bid lists, but they could end up going to places not on their lists. Needs of the Service. Over 60% of FS posts are considered "hardship," in isolated, unhealthful and even dangerous environments. Family members may not even be authorized to join the employee or even if they join, they potentially could be evacuated at any later time. Once saw a mid-level officer who started with a huge bid list, later shrunk down to 6 positions, all in Iraq. Needs of the Service. He had choices, six of them; all in Iraq."

During the early days of the CPA in Iraq, a number of very junior officers found themselves sent to Iraq solely because they had Arabic language training. In the after-actions and lessons-learned, the Department took something of a thumping for sending its least experienced, most-easily-spared officers to what was, for the uniformed services at least, a national security priority.

Not to knock the service and tremendous efforts of those very junior officers; in fact I honor them even as I note that they should never have been put into those positions in the first place. They were sent because to send the most-qualified, more senior FSOs would have disrupted the ever-so-important normal assignments process (not to mention inconveniencing more senior FSOs).

I remain unconvinced that political sentiments within the career ranks of the Department found service in Bush's Iraq war to be a less pressing priority than later was made the (official) line.

CAA considers himself to have actually been quite fortunate in his assignments thus far, although two out of the three overseas assignments were in hardship posts. At my very first post, I grew quite accustomed to the sound of gunfire in the evenings. Since I was in a "nice" part of town, gunfire there generally could be assumed to be celebratory in nature.

In Iraq, of course, gunfire and explosive BOOMS(!) also became just part of the landscape. I knew that if I heard an explosion and it was on either the hour or the half-hour, precisely, that was just EOD doing their thing.

After Iraq I found myself living in the Virginia suburbs as I struggled to re-adjust to civilian life and to learn a foreign language before I went to my next job. (Still working on the "re-adjust" part, btw.) The apartment Madam-At-Arms found for us while I was away sat perhaps a hundred yards or so from the helipad of a busy hospital center, so at any hour I would hear, quite loudly, the sounds of medivacks coming and going.

I found the sound quite soothing, as helicopter sounds in Iraq were always "friendly."

As I made the rounds being introduced to local officials at my second hardship post, some senior police officers were cautioning me about the dangers to be found in their capital city. Crime. Violence. That sort of thing. When I happened to mention serving at a certain previous hardship post, followed by Iraq, their attitude shifted: "Oh, you'll be fine then."

"Leadership matters. Entry level officers on their first tours obviously do not have the same experience as seasoned officers even if they have previously lived/worked overseas. Their fears are understandable. Their anger at being shut out is also understandable. People need to feel they matter. Telling them to basically suck it up because they received danger pay or to go ahead and curtail due to legitimate fears is not good leadership and management. It builds distrust and without trust, the game, as the cliché goes, is over; teamwork becomes a fairy tale."

For all the great stride the Department has made towards improving State's traditionally dismal leadership culture, we're just not there yet. New officers are getting leadership training from the very beginning, with reinforcements throughout their careers. It's still not inculcated the way the uniformed services do it (and they have their own, recurrent, problems) but we're getting there. It's the more senior folks, both on the Civil Service as well as the Foreign Service sides, who sometimes fail to get leadership isn't just one of those management fads that comes along periodically, like Six Sigma, just-in-time-inventory, or TQM.

"Perhaps the FSO's account should encourage not just a discussion on leadership in a crisis but also what it means to be a diplomat in this new and turbulent world. Should diplomats need to have a new mindset that they are vulnerable like soldiers? And if so, what does that mean in terms of their ability and training to protect themselves and their loved ones?

DOD which is responsible for extracting large numbers of civilians in harm's way during disasters and civil strife, has a joint publication on Noncombatant Evacuation Operations. In it, it gave top billing to a legal and political maxim, "The people's safety is the highest law."

In fact, it's just not DOD in an evacuation. Organizations often tout their people as their greatest strength and resource and their safety, a sort of prime directive. Why else do we evacuate people from harm's way (except in diplomatic posts in war zones)? Why have companies evacuated their personnel out of Japan in the aftermath of the earthquake/tsunami and with the increasing bad news on the nuclear reactors? As the familiar phrase go -- in the abundance of caution ...to ensure their safety.

But what happens when the highest law collides with strategic national interest?"

&

"(L)eadership and policymakers understand that unarmed civilians in a war zone is at great risk, but they chose to stand up embassies and consulates and put diplomats in the middle of conflict, anyway. An accepted risk.

And why does it take so long, and often at the very last minute for an ordered evacuation to take place? Because it is a political decision, even if no one would admit to that. Governments, including ours, may not want to send the signal that it has lost faith in the ability of the host country to tackle emergencies whether of political nature or natural calamities. Most especially, if the host country is a close ally, and where our national interest requires that we help shore up its support. The negative connotation of an evacuation undermines that. Thus, one can conclude that if employees remain in the danger zone, it means somebody has already calculated that risk against vital national strategic and security interest. And accepted that risk.

I supposed we may think of life in the Service as if it were a weighing scale -- the national strategic and security priorities on one side and on the other side, the acceptable personal risk on the employees. But not everyone will get to look at that scale. And not everyone will get to make the judgment call. Employees do not get to vote, diplomatic missions are not democracies.

They ought to teach this at A100.

On second thought, they ought to have this in the recruitment flyer."

Individual officers need to understand this calculus. We go abroad on our country's business. And while we are not exactly pawns (oh, to reach so exalted a status as "pawn"!), we're usually quite far from any effective assistance other than our most immediate colleagues. I've been blessed with excellent Diplomatic Security and law enforcement colleagues at some posts, and quite awful support at another. Bottom line: FSOs are commissioned officers of the U.S. Foreign Service. We go where we're sent and do our jobs. We're also husbands (and wives) (and partners) and fathers (and mothers). We have to make decisions about our spouses' and families' safety, decisions which may be very different from those we make for our loved ones.

This is the life, the business, we have chosen. God bless us, and those like us.

re: "This Is Why We Have Meetings...."

Deebow at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") explains why one should avoid working with amateurs.

Money quote(s):

"It is my belief that if this "bong hit diplomacy" continues (one of my favorite Uncle Jimbo-isms BTW), we are in for at least a generation of rebuilding our character and relationships around the world, because this President can't seem to be able to order an omelet without having to first check the poll numbers (would mushrooms be offended if ham and onions were not included?), consult what MSNBC thinks about eggs (too much cholesterol--have some granola instead), ask the UN if it violates the eggs rights, get the buy in of our allies to ensure the omelet has the right amount of calories (can't have a "heavy" package omelet--allies might not like it), minimize collateral damage to chicken farms and on and on....

I had an old platoon sergeant who I watched tell my new platoon leader during an unguarded moment while training "Sir, you need to lead, follow or get the hell out of the way." Exactly.... "

re: "Is the military leadership “too white and too male?” Diversity gone wild ..."

McQ at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") has read an absurd report commissioned by Congress.

Money quote(s):

"We sort of have to stop and talk about some basic things when we see a report like this. And the first is “what is the purpose of the military – diversity or victory”? Playing this sort of numbers game is stupid in an all volunteer force which has the job of defending the country. We’re not talking the university campus or some corporate board.

What you want is the best leaders to rise to the top. That isn’t to say that always happens, but to pretend that there’s an “acceptable” mix of ethnicity, race and gender that will optimize that leadership and improve the military is simply silly.

I object to this report not because it says we should allow women to serve in combat units – that’s an entirely different argument. I object to it because of the stupidity of the premise that diversity is more important than effectiveness, especially in military matters."

This sort of attitude, that one can continue social-tinker (it doesn't merit the promotion of the term "social engineering") with the nation's defenses, even during time of war (that's often overlooked) and no matter what there's just so much military awesome-to-spare that no one can ever beat us, or even hurt us.

I don't know whether to feel flattered they think we're that good, to feel insulted because the think we don't really matter, or to feel frightened that they don't understand why the U.S. might actually need a military, after all, that is capable of defending the nation from its enemies. There are enemies, despite what the good people (sic) at Columbia U. may think.

"It isn’t the job of a military to “reflect [the] racial, ethnic and gender mix” of the nation in its leadership. Its job is to field the best military and military leadership it can, close with and destroy enemies of the US and protect and defend its citizens and way of life. So it must reflect the best leadership available for the job REGARDLESS of race, ethnicity or gender. On its face the report’s premise is just silly."

To many on the Left, the military sole use (to the extent it is seen as in any way useful) is as a social laboratory where pet theories can be decreed into reality. After all, the military are mindless automatons who can be ordered to do anything and being unthinking drones they'll blindly obey.

"The military is and must remain a meritocracy. And while I know that the very best don’t always rise to the top, a good enough portion of them do. And, shock of shocks, it all somehow works. That’s what we want to encourage and continue REGARDLESS of race, ethnicity or gender.

Playing diversity games just to have pleasing numbers in “leadership” is nonsense, especially if there is no real need for it."

I was privileged to serve with men and women in the U.S. Army and her sister services who were of every hue and came from all walks of American life. They don't need special treatment to succeed, they just need a fair shot and they'll go as far as they're able.

Recall that it takes 20-30 years to "grow" a military leader into the top ranks. They're not just excreted from a factory somewhere or talent-scouted from a rival firm (although that would be an interest premise for a science fiction novel). I expect that, should I still be alive to see it 20-30 years from now, I will see a somewhat less caucasian group of general officers grown from today's lieutenants serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

re: "Apocalyptic Mental Midgetry...."

Deebow at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") is underimpressed with the current foreign policy leadership.

Money quote(s):

"The apocalyptic lack of actual experience in the area of foreign affairs, foreign policy, and knowledge of what actually works is becoming stunningly clear to those Americans who are willing to do the barest amount of news-watching. I wonder where we can find more of these people to hire?

And with men like Leon Panetta (whose foresight on intelligence matters is limited to his playing "Risk" in college, and evidently, watching the news), and DNI James Clapper (who evidently didn't see the word "muslim" in the title "Muslim Brotherhood"), and SOS Hillary Pantsuits (well, ummm... Never Mind..) advising the community organizer in chief on how best to not show weakness, send a consistent message and try not to alienate the .02 percent of the population that attended UC Berkeley who would vote for him 2012; we end up with a situation that, unfortunately, our enemies are watching very closely, because they get a vote in what happens as well."

Ouch. More than a little bit of partisan anger is clouding the criticism here, which should be examined cooly and with some professional detachment, thank-you-very-much.

"This is not leadership. Vacilation is not a leadership trait. Good leaders make consistent decisions from consistent thinking with intelligence guided by experience and training. This President seems to be flipping a coin or taking a poll in the Situation Room by a show of hands.

I know what real leadership looks like, the writers and viewers of this blog know what leadership looks like, and this ain't it. Fire Panetta now. Fire Clapper now. Fire Clinton now."

One of the things that's so frustrating sometimes is knowing just how little the U.S. can actually do, sometimes, to influence events in faraway places. For instance, when unorganized protesters occupy a major public square for a week or more, who has their leader (hint: there isn't one) in their Rolodex file? Lack of understanding of just how limited our options sometimes are makes it easy to direct the anger this frustration produces on simplistic targets.

re: "'Full Victory - Nothing Else'"

Crush at Blackfive ("The Paratrooper of Love") explains why mission statements are important.

Money quote(s):

"Gen. Dwight Eisenhower gives the order of the day "Full Victory - Nothing Else" to paratroopers about to board planes for the invasion of Europe. In a matter of months, our military would achieve "Full Victory" over Nazi Germany, while simultaneously engaged with Imperial Japan in another theater.

Today, our leadership (political and military) refuses to even use the word "Victory.""

&

"Our troops are undoubtedly capable of defeating our enemies. They just need leadership (political and military) willing to identify the enemy, state what their intentions are, and then allow the military to defeat said enemy. Our troops are warfighters after all, not diplomats."

""

re: "That's one way to play CINC"

With some leaders, their version of leadership-by-example is to provide a bad one.

Cdr Salamander ("Proactively “From the Sea”; leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model.") provides one instance of this:

"(W)e are telling the Soldiers and Marines getting ready to head out to Afghanistan to mark-time while the new Administration goes through a Les Aspin like chat-fest as people die?"