Ramblings from the Far Abroad
To the Next Secretary of State
1 Item Updated Wed, Nov 17 2004 9:35 AM
By Diplomad
Unless you live on Pluto, by now you know that Colin Powell has submitted his resignation as SecState and President Bush has selected National Security Advisor Condi Rice to succeed Powell. We offer below some totally unsolicited and free advice on managing the State Department to Mr. Powell's successor.
We won't deal with policy issues here. There will be plenty of time for that. Our concern is the Department as an institution and what can be done to rescue it from itself and make it an effective agency, and by that we mean effective at representing and promoting America's interests abroad.
We all know that the new Secretary is not going to spend time fixing this broken institution. No political appointee Secretary with perhaps four years to look forward to will spend that time worrying about reforming arcane personnel and managerial practices. The new Secretary will want to think the deep thoughts, and will probably be inclined to let the Department muddle along. We hope that this inclination will be resisted (we can dream, eh?) and that at a minimum a fierce, Neanderthal-like brute will be appointed Undersecretary for Management. It is to this person that we direct ourselves with hope in our hearts and pleading in our eyes.
You will find very smart people in the Department; people who put in incredibly long hours. Laziness is not a characteristic of the Foreign Service. The FS prides itself on being a meritocracy. You must begin to restore our shaken confidence that that, in fact, is true.
The single greatest step you could take to ensuring that merit is the basis for advancement is to do away with the Department's Affirmative Action program, i.e., quota system. It is a total fraud. It is just another white upper- and middle-class entitlement. The overwhelming beneficiaries of the program are white women from elite schools. White upper and middle-class women are not oppressed in the United States; it is time to end the fiction that they are. Kill off the affirmative action program in all its many manifestations at State. Let white women compete with everyone else on an equal footing. They'll manage just fine.
Slash and burn. At times it appears that half the FS is involved in making personnel decisions on the other half. The teeth-to-tail ratio is very poor. The assignment process must be streamlined; the seemingly endless negotiations for assignments must end; the protracted meetings and deal-makings must stop; show less sympathy for special needs, e.g., tandem couples. It can take a year or more to assign someone to a posting. Absurd. Reduce the size of the personnel (HR) operation. Put an end to the little empires that exist in HR, empires established by bureaucrats who "homestead" themselves in the HR system, spending years there accumulating power, establishing networks to reward themselves and friends and to punish "enemies." It is tempting to rely on these persons' "expertise," but resist it; rotate them out. Make them stand in a visa line in Mexico City. Get them out of Washington on a regular basis. It's the Foreign Service. They want to go? They can go work for the DMV.
Drastically reduce the layers of bureaucracy. Do we need so many staff assistants, special assistants, executive assistants, etc.? Flatten out the pyramid. Work on eliminating whole offices and bureaus. Have the Secretary go to Congress and argue for eliminating the annual human rights report exercise -- an enormous and wasteful enterprise that keeps hundreds of people employed to appease a handful of NGOs who don't like the reports anyhow. Kill off this requirement; eliminate the whole human rights bureau (DRL). Scrap the Undersecretary for Global Affairs (G): what the hell is that job anyhow? Cut the oceans and environment bureau (OES). Merge the three quasi- pol-mil bureaus and reduce their overall size. Beef up the INR function. Spin off USIA, again. Take a merciless look at the consular affairs (CA) bureau, and get rid of all those lawyers in that bureau! Do we need to baby long-term American expats who haven't lived in the US for years and years and often don't pay taxes? Split the CA bureau: hive off citizen services from visa issues.
Until you reform the assignment process, have the Secretary not assume that a person who is, for example, working on Arab-Israeli affairs, actually knows something about Arab-Israeli affairs or that what he knows is actually right or worth knowing. That person could have gotten the job thanks to some complex deal having nothing to do with substance.
Take a hard look at the size and number of embassies abroad. Do we really need an embassy in every African and European country? Do we need them so big?
Finally, ignore the New York Times and CNN.
More thoughts to come |
