The Foreign Service Journal, March 2008

Ambassadorial Power in NSDD-38 I greatly appreciated the articles on country team management in the De- cember FSJ . Although Ed Peck is absolutely correct in describing the de jure line of authority from the presi- dent to the chief of mission, while serving in that position I certainly recognized that my de facto line was much more modest: i.e., my instruct- ions — with only a few exceptions — originated with the assistant secretary for African affairs, and my perform- ance evaluations were drafted by my desk officers. I did find, however, one very ef- fective instrument which, when deftly wielded, left no doubt that the COM was fully in charge of the entire mission. The National Security Deci- sion Directive 38 process, requiring chief-of-mission approval for “any proposed changes in the size, com- position or mandate” of all agencies at post, gives ambassadors tremendous leverage. While a COM needs to be judi- cious in applying NSDD-38 to preclude being viewed as an irrational obstructionist by Washington, neither should he or she be a doormat. I found that by holding firm to my objections when I believed some agency‘s plans were inconsistent with overall U.S. government priorities or exceeded administrative support capa- bilities, the agency would eventual- ly back down. The same applied to country clearance requests for non- routine visitors (do you really need a five-person Defense Department team to conduct a 30-minute briefing?), and for approving (or blocking) the assign- ment of heads of agencies. Though the line of authority from the presi- dent to ambassadors is mostly illusory, NSDD-38 and the president’s “Letter of Instructions” gives COMs all the power they need to effectively man- age their missions. Tibor P. Nagy Jr. Ambassador, retired Ransom Canyon, Texas Those Who Never Apply I’d like to comment on issues brought up in Mark Johnsen’s Decem- ber article, “One Hand Clapping: The Sound of Staffing the Foreign Ser- vice,” and a letter in the same issue, “Modernize Hiring.” I’m a geography professor special- izing in geospatial techniques. About a year ago, I decided it was time to start looking into different career options. My shortlist included State, USAID, the National Science Found- ation and the plethora of intelligence agencies. To learn more, in addition to visiting Web sites, I subscribed to a number of periodicals, including the Foreign Service Journal. One thing I quickly learned was that State was not an option, and the content of the Journal only served to solidify that opinion. It is not that I don’t find the agency and its work interesting or important, but rather that there is no way that I am going to step back from an M.S. degree, a Ph.D. and 13 years of professional work experience (some of it inter- national) so I can start at the bottom and stamp visas. Not a chance. My point is to verify what has been stated frequently in the FSJ : there are many mid-career professionals out there who have rejected State as an option because of its hiring and promotion policies. I am one of them. Good luck meeting your staffing needs. Dr. Robert Hickey FSJ subscriber Ellensburg, Wash. Counterinsurgency and National Security Counterinsurgency doctrine, policy and programs, usually referred to as COIN, are all the rage in U.S. govern- ment security circles these days. Sarah Sewall’s article in your Septem- ber issue and Alfred Barr’s December letter are thoughtful examples of the discussion under way. However, a bit of caution is called for. That is, we must constantly keep in mind the distinction between military opera- tions and governance on the one hand, and the difference between locals and outsiders on the other. We should remember that the last time the United States conducted a successful COIN operation on our own was in the Philippines in the early 20th century — an experience we have forgotten about. The U.K. experi- ence in Malaysia, commonly used as a model among the cognoscenti, was in a colonial situation where the British were the government. Attempting to conduct such operations where one is not the governing authority is danger- ous: witness the French and American experiences in Vietnam, the Soviet episode in Afghanistan and, one could argue, our efforts in Iraq, at least up until very recently. What the U.S. and other govern- ments can do in such situations is 6 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 8 L ETTERS