Needed: a unitary diplomatic service of the United States of America.

• Author: Kinney, Stephanie
• Position: Report

Editor's Note: If effective diplomacy is such a crucial element of our national security platform, why is there no appropriately named U.S. government institution or resources to support it? After 100 years of following the nineteenth century British Foreign Service model, it is time to create a unitary, twenty-first century Diplomatic Service of the United States of America, the author of this essay proclaims. Think what a signal this would send globally, she urges, and consider the impact that definition of the function would have on recruiting and budgeting for it.--Ed.

Telling fellow citizens that one belongs to the U.S. Foreign Service can be disconcerting. Foreign Service Officers, whose profession is diplomacy, frequently run into the following choice responses:

* "That's good. We need more trees."

* "Why are we servicing foreigners?"

* "Which foreign country do you work for?"

Given the British Empire origins of the model that inspired the U.S. Foreign Service and the lack of "explanatory power" the phrase conveys in an interdependent, globalized twenty-first century world, one can hardly fault fellow citizens for confusion.

Notwithstanding Shakespeare, what's in a name matters a lot, especially where power politics, budgets, and international relations are concerned. In today's world, as in the past, until a function is clearly named and then defined, it has no real power or purpose other than to avoid, obfuscate, or euphemize.

The Puzzlement

U.S. national security is typically described as a platform built on three columns--armed force, intelligence, and diplomacy. Take away any one of these and the platform collapses. Unevenly distribute the weight each column bears and the platform becomes unstable. Twentieth century wars ensured the robustness of clearly named institutions and operating budgets focused on the armed services and intelligence; they did not do the same for diplomacy.

Scan for the word diplomacy, diplomat or diplomatic and you will not find it in any Cabinet context, Congressional oversight committee or budgetary process. This leaves U.S. diplomacy's purpose, function, and content unacknowledged and undefined. On Capitol Hill, something called "foreign affairs" and "state operations" competes for resources with the Departments of Commerce and Justice and their hugely important domestic constituencies. Within the executive branch, the Department of State is regularly the least resourced party at the inter-agency table.

If we agree that first class armed force, intelligence, and diplomacy are interrelated and fundamental to national security, why is diplomacy the only function in this triad without a properly defined and named service, organizational base, and operational appropriation? Why is there no equivalent for diplomacy to the Joint Intelligence College or numerous armed service colleges such as the National War College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, which grant full professional degrees? Why does the State Department's Foreign Service Institute (also known as the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center) only focus on trainable skills that can be conveyed in a matter of weeks, rather than any purposeful curriculum of "professional education" for diplomats, as is required for future leaders of the armed forces and the intelligence community? Or, as this situation suggests, does diplomacy require no certifiable body of knowledge and/or well-defined foundational curriculum to help ensure the quality of its practice and practitioners either before or after entry into the Department of State or another component of our fragmented diplomatic resource base? Is it true that a used car dealer is as qualified as anyone to act as ambassador?

A quick review in search of any organizational or program references to diplomacy turns up the State Department's "Diplomatic Security" program (with its own enormous budget and benefits), the "Diplomat in Residence" program (normally an assignment to various universities for pre-retirement Foreign Service Officers), a short course at the Shultz Center on "Public Diplomacy" (Is there another course for covert diplomacy, which we don't know about?) and a half day course for the children of Foreign Service...