From Kenneth Pollack and Carlos Pascual, Salvaging the Possible: Policy Options in Iraq -- "In contrast to the 150,000 troops that will be in Iraq, there are only about 7,500 Foreign Service Officers posted everywhere in the world." It's not directly relevant to the Iraq issue, which is too pressing and acute to wait for big picture changes, but this imbalance between the military and non-military aspects of the American foreign policy apparatus is really absurd.
« Keep It Like a Secret | Main | The Wonk's Dilemma »
Factoid of the Day
10 Sep 2007 09:47 am
Comments (14)
That's about 40 foreign service officers per country. Do we really need many more than that?
Matt, don't tout this report without reading the "safe havens and buffer zones" part of the report's recommendations (pp.16-17). It's simply astounding. 50-80,000 U.S. troops left in Iraq, who "police", "protect", and "disarm" large refugee camps (excuse me: "safe havens") full of Iraqi civilians. They also "patrol Iraq's borders", preventing the "outflow of terrorists" or the "inflow of external forces".
This is simply continued occupation, except with a smaller force. To say nothing of the obvious set of problems with U.S. patrolled and managed refugee camps.
At least they favor some kind of diplomacy. Although a key goal of this would be to "make clear to all that we are staying engaged in the Region", along with other code words for bullying.
I know these guys are "serious", but can they possibly be serious? I'm sort of incredulous. Although I shouldn't be at this late date.
The Foreign Service had 22,000 employees back in 1987. Perhaps - to register the unfamous Matt's observation - the State Department has undergone a similar privatization to the military and a lot of this work has been farmed out to NGOs and the like. Automation of papershuffling could possibly explain some of the staff cuts, as well.
Correction: 22,000 was the State Department payroll in '87. Just looking for some actual numbers to determine the trend...
Foreign Service Officers are a minority of State Department employees. FSO's take the exam and are given specific job types with specific responsibilities overseas. Many paper pushers and clerk types in Washington are not FSOs.
Dylan is right. But even overseas many, many US government civilian emplpyees are not FSOs. When I was in the Peace Corps, for example, we had 6 or 8 support staff for our opperation, none of whome were FSOs. The embassy there also had a very large number of non FSO employees, and the USAID staff were also mostly (maybe all) not FSOs. Foreign Service Officers are a special part of the international presences of the US (a fair number work in the US, too) but they are not even close to the total number of people doing important work overseas for the US government.
As a former Foreign Service Officer, I'll just note as many have, that a lot of US folks overseas are not FSOs (or even State Department -- we used to refer to the London embassy as the "world's largest overseas Federal Building"). Also, and very important if you're trying to gauge the total US presence overseas, is the fact that in any embassy or consulate, the majority of employees are not Americans, but "Foreign Service Nationals," i.e., locals. FSNs do most of the grunt work while FSOs supervise. That said, FSOs aren't stupid, and while a suprising number -- nearly a third -- have cycled through Baghdad at one time or another, most are not anxious to throw themselves into what they know is a quagmire, and a super-dangerous one at that.
You forget, however that every FSO is as ten ordinary mortals ... why, some of them have even been to college, and speak foreign languages.
I just remembered reading about staffing shortfalls in the news some time ago, thanks for the clarifications.
This 06 GAO report covers some relevant background:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06894.pdf
It makes it pretty clear that expanding the Foreign Service to whatever purpose wouldn't be a trivial matter: State is still having trouble meeting existing requirements.
As I recall, about 10% of the staff in our new Baghdad 'embassy' are supposed to speak some Arabic.
Given the ratio others in this thread report for FSO's to non-FSO staff, his would fit well, if we assume most of the (apparently better-educated/better prepared) staffers are FSO's.
The FSO test is quite a bit harder than the ASVAB. You actually need to know history and geography and current events. The ASVAB, by contrast, asks things like 'What is the needle of a phonograph called?" (at least, they asked that back in the 80s when I took it.)
I believe you can download a sample FSO exam online.
The illusion of power vs the reality of powerlessness
A large and effective military allows the illusion that we can use it to do useful things like bringing democracy to Iraq. A large and effective Foreign Service would serve only to deliver the bad news that there isn't much we can do in a country like Iraq except harm.
So which would you choose?
The choice is a no-brainer for the type of person who would want what we have let the Presidency become. Unfortunately, they will all make the wrong, brainless, choice.
Comments closed September 24, 2007.
| 
Heads in the Sand
The conclusion is right, of course, but it's worth noting that many government employees, including many working for aid agencies and doing humanitarian work, are not foreign service officers (who are all state dept. employees of a special sort) so the comparison isn't quite right.
Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | September 10, 2007 10:01 AM