The Foreign Service Journal, June 2008

Union, as well, during the burgeoning of negotiations relating to commercial trade, cooperative threat reduc- tion, law enforcement and other activities with the states of the former Soviet Union. The lead negotiators and interlocutors within our government for these issues typ- ically came from DOD, Commerce, the FBI or other non-State agencies, or from State’s Civil Service person- nel, with FSOs relegated to the role of facilitators (if that). Carrots and Sticks When I was an office director in functional policy offices at the Pentagon, I regularly sought out FSOs to complement my mixed civilian and military staff. While there was (and is) no shortage of outstanding officers in the Foreign Service, it was a real challenge to find anyone willing to accept such assignments, even though they offered a chance to make real progress on cutting-edge arms control, verification or nonproliferation issues. Generally speaking, the officers who accepted my invita- tion to work with us were either approaching the end of their careers or had already decided to sacrifice their chances for promotion to do something they saw as meaningful. (I would note that finding top-notch military officers also was a challenge before the Goldwater- Nichols Act, which requires “joint” experience for pro- motion, became law in 1986.) Indeed, the latest guidance to Foreign Service mem- bers acknowledges that out-of-cone assignments — which, de facto, include assignments to most, if not all, of the functional policy bureaus and offices at State, as well as assignments to other agencies — are career busters. To quote the tips from the 2007 Foreign Service Selection Boards contained in State 30199: “Proven and ongoing competence in a primary cone is a requirement for both classwide and conal promotion. Particularly at the FS-2 level and above, extensive out-of-cone service could place employees at a disadvantage for promotion. …The longer employees work out-of-cone, the more dif- ficult it is for them to compete successfully and demon- strate potential to advance in their primary skill code.” It is no wonder, then, that many of the best and bright- est members of the Foreign Service choose not to work in functional policy bureaus or outside agencies — even though most of the top items on our national security agenda are functional issues, not bilateral or even region- al ones. These include preventing the development, use and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; con- vincing other nations that it is in their own interest to do so, and then helping them build the capacity to stop WMD terrorism; working with other nations on practical solutions to the proliferation of small arms and light weapons that are helping to fuel regional and ethnic con- flicts; identifying, negotiating and implementing effective verification measures to halt and roll back missile, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in rogue states; coping with global climate change; and pro- moting democracy and human rights. I would argue that all FSOs need more functional pol- icy experience and exposure to do their jobs well. A diplomat in Africa responsible for delivering demarches to local officials of a member of the U.N. Security Council to solicit support for a resolution on the Iranian nuclear program should have enough understanding of nonproliferation matters to be able to answer basic ques- tions that foreign interlocutors may pose in response — without having to come back to Washington for guidance. Similarly, an FSO on a U.S. team negotiating a nonprolif- eration agreement with a very recalcitrant government should have a sufficient appreciation of the history of arms control, and the advantages and drawbacks of alter- native approaches, to know when to push back because the other side’s proposals are deficient from a verification perspective. And an officer serving overseas with a Provincial Reconstruction Team should already have suf- ficient functional and interagency competencies to hit the ground running. But how can the personnel system be reformed to encourage Foreign Service generalists to build up such expertise? The T Bureau has come up with a set of pro- posals and initiatives that warrant serious consideration by the department. The T Family Initiative About two years ago, then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph decided to find out why FSOs were not more fully represented in the three bureaus that, along with the under secretary’s office, comprise the T family: International Security and Negotiations (ISN), Political- Military Affairs (PM) and Verification, Compliance and Implementation (VCI). He also sought advice on how to make assignments in those bureaus more attractive to FSOs. F O C U S J U N E 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37