The Administration Is On A Run-Condi On Board

[Annie]

How to clear out some of the deadwood:

http://austinbay.net/blog/?p=815

Yesterday Secretary of State Rice discussed the 21st century “skill set” for US Foreign Service officers. (This link is to the Washington Post’s coverage.) These requirements are (1) common sense, (2) critical to any sustained diplomatic effort but (3) especially critical when pursuing a reformationist foreign policy.

The lede:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that she will shift hundreds of Foreign Service positions from Europe and Washington to difficult assignments in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere as part of a broad restructuring of the diplomatic corps that she has dubbed “transformational diplomacy.”

The State Department’s culture of deployment and ideas about career advancement must alter now that the Cold War is over and the United States is battling transnational threats of terrorism, drug smuggling and disease, Rice said in a speech at Georgetown University. “The greatest threats now emerge more within states than between them,” she said. “The fundamental character of regimes now matters more than the international distribution of power.”

As part of the change in priorities, Rice announced that diplomats will not be promoted into the senior ranks unless they accept assignments in dangerous posts, gain expertise in at least two regions and are fluent in two foreign languages, citing Chinese, Urdu and Arabic as a few preferred examples.

Rice noted that the United States has nearly as many State Department personnel in Germany — which has 82 million people — as in India, with 1 billion people. As a first step, 100 jobs in Europe and Washington will be immediately shifted to expanded embassies in countries such as India, China and Lebanon. Many of these diplomats had been scheduled to rotate into coveted posts in European capitals this summer, and the sudden change in assignment has caused some distress, State Department officials said.

Officials said that ultimately as many as one-third of the 6,400 Foreign Service positions could be affected in the coming years.

Separately, today Rice plans to unveil a restructuring of U.S. foreign assistance, including announcing the nomination of Randall L. Tobias as the new administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Officials said Rice plans to elevate the USAID post, giving Tobias — a former Eli Lilly chief executive who now heads the administration’s global AIDS relief program — an office and a planning staff in the State Department. Rice will designate Tobias as having a rank equivalent of deputy secretary of state.

Although the move stops short of merging USAID with State, it is intended to draw the agency closer into the department’s fold, the officials said. Additionally, the new director will be given broader authority over a range of foreign assistance accounts now managed by separate entities. “Effectively, this will allow a single person to have visibility into these various accounts,” a State official said.

Ah, but here’s the Beltway critique (as in, I must protect my rice bowl so I’ll scream partisanship):

Anticipating such a change, some outside the government have warned that it could result in a greater politicization of foreign assistance. “We’re concerned that the same priority won’t be given to long-term development as resources are siphoned to support shorter-term diplomatic or military objectives,” said Jim Bishop, a senior officer of InterAction, the largest coalition of non-governmental U.S. aid groups.

Pish. This is prattle to give Nancy Pelosi a soundbite. The skills Dr. Rice wants to emphasize focus on the long-term.

Rice wants to increase diplomatic presence and person to person contact, which ultimately leads to more useful (and more granular) political intelligence.

Example:

Under the plan outlined yesterday, Rice will expand the U.S. presence by encouraging the spread of new one-person diplomatic outposts, now located in a few cities such as Alexandria, Egypt, and Medan, Indonesia. “There are nearly 200 cities worldwide with over 1 million people in which the United States has no formal diplomatic presence,” Rice said. “This is where the action is today.”

What do I mean by a “reformationist” policy? In Rice’s case, a “democratic development and democracy expanding” policy.

UPDATE: I added this as an “editorial note” to a comment on this post. I think I’ll post it as an update. (see comment 23.)

Last year I received several emails from readers regarding Rice’s new personnel requirements and other reforms at State (at least one of the readers worked at State, and as I recall one identified himself as working at USAID or having worked for USAID). The three-piece suit diplomat isn’t quite history– there will always be state dinners. But that isn’t where the action is. It may be where the “reaction” is, but it isn’t pro-active diplomacy. Rice wants to build a pro-active State Department, one that listens and sees beyond the confines of foreign capitals

 

[Avatar4321]

Sounds like a good plan to me. I considered the Foriegn services for a while. Honestly im not sure id want to be stuck in a government job all the time.

 

[5stringJeff]

Good for her. Of course, it's hard as hell to get any government agency to change, let alone State, but if anyone can do it, she can.