Our Vanishing Diplomats

For John, BLUF:  Our Foreign Service, our Diplomats, is loosing career people at too high a rate to sustain a professional force.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Study Finds Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. Diplomats Eyeing the Exit Door

Here is the sub-headline:

Systemic management and morale issues plague the State Department, even after Trump era.

From Foreign Policy, by Reporters Amy Mackinnonrter and Robbie Gramer, 2 July 2021.

Here is the lede plus two:

New research has found that nearly a third of the U.S. State Department’s diplomats and professional support staff are considering leaving the department and are actively looking for new jobs, pointing to a crisis of morale and management inside America’s diplomatic corps.

The study, conducted by a team of graduate students at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and released on Friday by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, surveyed nearly 3,000 foreign service officers and foreign service specialists, and found the projected attrition rate was higher than that projected by the State Department and nearly double the share of employees who left the department in 2016.

It follows four years of warnings from current and former diplomats about low morale and allegations of widespread mismanagement at the State Department under President Donald Trump’s administration. But the study also makes clear the problems at the department go beyond the Trump era, pointing to systemic management problems that will hinder the State Department’s ability to recruit and retain talent.

This is a serious problem, and one that goes beyond President Trumps troubles with Foggy Bottom.

The Report states:

The survey, taken by some 20 percent of the foreign service, found that the top concerns driving people to leave were related to their families, assignments, promotions, and bias.

There is the long standing suggestion that the Foreign Service is too “pale, male, and Yale”.  Very clever.  On the other hand, one of our US Navy friends, from our time in Naples, Italy, have a Daughter who became a Foreign Service Officer after being an IBM Sales Person, who has served as an Ambassador and did not graduate from an Ivy League school.

For sure, work is needed at the Department of State.  I fear the Biden Administration (and Secretary of State Tony Blinken) may think that "not-Trump" is a sufficient solution to the prioblem.  No.  This problem is much older.

Regards  —  Cliff