The New Diplomacy

Foreign Service employees stretch their skills for an evolving mission.

Throughout its history, the State Department has demonstrated the ability to transform itself to meet its challenges. At the turn of the 20th century, it forged a foreign policy dedicated to expanding trade and freedom on the seas. During World War II, it restructured for a postwar world. After the Cold War, State shifted resources from communist confrontation to coalition building, including exchanges with the former Soviet states and the international alliance that liberated Kuwait, and tackling global issues such as terrorism and the environment.

The fundamental assets of U.S. diplomacy, then and now, are the 50,000 State Department employees-American and foreign nationals alike-who advocate and advance U.S. interests abroad. Diplomacy is both offense and defense, protecting U.S. citizens and borders while helping to transform the world beyond.

Under the stewardship of Secretary Condoleezza Rice, the department is moving forward with what she calls "transformational diplomacy" to deal with terrorism, strengthen democracy, build prosperity and provide help to those who need it most. It seeks not only to manage problems but to solve them at their source.

Human rights and good governance are essential to peace, development and the defeat of terrorism. The Millennium Challenge Account, building toward $5 billion in development assistance per year, supports countries taking the right steps. President Bush says the account "will be devoted to projects in nations that govern justly, invest in people and encourage economic freedom."

Rice says, "We believe that there is a moral obligation of the strongest to help the weakest, and that is why AIDS [relief] and the Millennium Challenge and all of the things that we're doing in development are so important." The State Department's work after the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, which affected a dozen countries, is a prime example.

To anticipate and respond to such crises, State has established an operational readiness reserve of Foreign Service employees who focus their career development on a "major" and a "minor," just as they would at a university. This enables officers to have expertise in at least one area and well-developed experience in another. Every officer and every specialist is a "reservist" for those skills needed in a particular crisis.

Working with the National Security Council, State created the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization to manage the U.S. civilian response to crises in failing, failed and post-conflict states. The program involves developing possible intervention scenarios, training employees in crisis management and strengthening interagency cooperation.

The State Department also created an inventory of skills called Employee Profile Plus, which complements service records with a richer picture of competencies. In coordinating tsunami relief in January, the new tool enabled officials to identify in 20 minutes every employee who had experience in Sri Lanka. And for the first time, the department could pinpoint employees with appropriate language and professional skills.

A new career development plan prepares diplomats to meet the challenges of coming decades. It focuses on four core elements: broader work experience, mandatory leadership and management training, increased language or technical competence, and service at a hardship post. The department also is working to expand job opportunities for spouses, improve networking and increase financial benefits for separated families.

The U.S. National Security Strategy says: "The major institutions of American national security were designed in a different era to meet different requirements. All of them must be transformed." The demands of the 21st century are changing the rules of diplomacy, and the State Department is changing with them.