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63 4 Form and Content Members of the foreign service like to say that they are professionals, and not just in the sense that they are paid for their work. They see diplomacy as a profession—asetofskillstobemasteredthroughapprenticeshipandtraining, with restrictions on entry, advancement by merit, and codes of behavior. But diplomacy is different from other professions. Unlike the law, medicine , teaching, or preaching, amateurs are allowed to participate. There are no sanctions against being diplomatic without a license.1 Anyone formally designated by a sending state and accredited by a receiving state is a certified diplomat, with rights and obligations under international law. In the United States there are only two credentials for service in a high diplomatic position: nomination by the president and confirmation by the Senate.2 Professionals are proud of their craft, and when elected officials name political friends as ambassadors or assistant secretaries, career diplomats fret and pout. Career foreign service personnel tend to presume that political appointees, especially those without a distinguished record in academia or public service, are incompetent until proven otherwise. The ratio of career to political appointees under President Kennedy was about two to one, and that rough standard has prevailed ever since. The Obama administration, which in its first year awarded fewer than half of its ambassadorial nominations to career foreign service officers (FSOs), said it would over time move back toward the historic 2:1 ratio. That ratio is not good enough for the AFSA, which is simultaneously the professional society for American diplomats and the collective bargaining agent for American foreign service personnel, or for the American Academy of Diplomacy, a group of eminent retired career and noncareer ambassadors. These two organizations want the administration to fill no more than 10 percent of ambassadorial positions with noncareer appointments.3 They have no prospect of success. The numbers game has its silly side. After all, the foreign service is a career. It is diplomacy that is the profession, and you don’t have to belong 64 The Profession to the foreign service to be a professional diplomat, or eminently qualified for an ambassadorial assignment. Zalmay Khalilzad, American ambassador to Afghanistan (2003–5), Iraq (2005–7), and the United Nations (2007–9), moves between think tanks, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, RAND, and Cambridge Energy Research Associates, and government service with the National Security Council staff, the Department of State, and the Department of Defense; he is not a member of the foreign service but diplomacy has become his profession. Peter Galbraith left the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to become the first US ambassador to Croatia (1993–98), where he is credited with putting together the agreement that ended the Muslim-Croat war. He later worked for the United Nations in East Timor and in Afghanistan. Robert Gallucci, who led the nuclear negotiations with North Korea during the Clinton administration , was a State Department civil servant with no overseas experience ; he later became dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. The late Richard Holbrooke, who in 2009 was named special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was ambassador to Germany (1993–94) and to the United Nations (1999–2001), and twice assistant secretary of state (for East Asian affairs, 1977–81, and for European affairs, 1994–96). Ambassador Holbrooke joined the foreign service in 1962 but resigned a decade later; the Department of State considers him a noncareer appointee.4 Is Dennis Ross a professional diplomat? He came to government from an academic background and served presidents of both parties as the chief US negotiator on Middle East issues from 1988 to 2000, and he served as special adviser to the secretary of state for the Persian Gulf and southwest Asia in 2009. Military officers with international experience are often asked to take on diplomatic roles. Colin Powell’s deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage , was a US Navy veteran who under presidential assignment in the 1990s handled diplomatic missions in the Philippines, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union. Major General Scott Gration (USAF, Ret.), a Swahili speaker who grew up in Congo and Kenya and served in the Pentagon as the air force assistant deputy undersecretary for international affairs, was named in 2009 as the president’s special envoy to Sudan. Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry (USA, Ret.) commanded coalition forces in Afghanistan in 2005–7 before his appointment as ambassador to that country in 2009. Under the last nine secretaries of...

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