More coverage of Secretary-designate Clinton's comments

This piece in on the Human Rights Campaign's website. There is also a video at the bottom of the piece of Amb. Guest speaking about his experience.

State Department LGBT group welcomes Clinton support for reviewing unequal policies

Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA), the U.S. State Department LGBT employee group, said yesterday that they are pleased with Secretary of State-nominee Hillary Clinton's statement during her confirmation hearing yesterday that she would review policies to see what could be changed to assist LGBT personnel at the Department of State, USAID, and other foreign affairs agencies.

In response to a question from Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Russ Feingold (D-WI), Senator Clinton noted that many foreign countries have already changed the policies to provide equal treatment for gay and lesbian staff of foreign affairs agencies. Senator Feingold specifically referenced regulations that deny the same-sex partners of LGBT personnel the same rights as heterosexual spouses.

Here's more from GLIFAA's statement:
GLIFAA plans to present to the incoming Secretary of State a letter signed by over 2,000 current and former employees of the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies, requesting fairness for LBGT employees. GLIFAA board members also met with members of President-elect Obama's transition team at the Department of State in December.

GLIFAA President Michelle Schohn welcomed Senator Clinton's acknowledgement that fairer policies serve as good business sense. Schohn noted that LGBT U.S. diplomats and aid workers serve overseas in some of the most dangerous locations, but continue to be denied equal treatment for their families. She expressed hope that the incoming Administration would work quickly to implement overdue reforms.

U.S. Foreign Service personnel - as well as civil service and contract employees - are required to serve a large portion of their careers at U.S. embassies and missions overseas. However, the partners of LGBT personnel currently receive no assistance while accompanying employees on these mandatory assignments. Among many other obstacles, LGBT partners lack access to affordable health insurance coverage and resources for moving abroad. During overseas tours, employees' partners do not receive assistance in obtaining a visa and lack access to employment opportunities, emergency evacuation, and embassy medical units, all afforded to married, heterosexual couples.

U.S. Ambassador Michael Guest, the first openly gay ambassador, resigned from the State Department in 2007 after 26 years of service to protest of the department's failure to correct policies that discriminate against LGBT employees.

365gay.com: Clinton wins praise from State Dept. gays

From 365gay.com.

Clinton wins praise from State Dept. gays

(Washington) A group that represents LGBT workers in the federal government is welcoming a commitment by Hillary Clinton that if confirmed as Secretary of State she would review policies to see what could be changed to assist gay personnel at the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other foreign affairs agencies.

During questioning at her confirmation hearing, Clinton was asked by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-WI) about regulations that deny the same-sex partners of LGBT personnel the same rights as heterosexual spouses.

In saying she would review existing policies, Clinton noted that many foreign countries have already changed the policies to provide equal treatment for gay and lesbian staff of foreign affairs agencies.

The employee affinity group for the State Department, Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, said in a statement that it plans to present the incoming Secretary of State with a letter signed by over 2,000 current and former employees of the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies requesting fairness for LBGT employees.

GLIFAA board members also met with members of President-elect Obama’s transition team at the Department of State in December.

GLIFAA President Michelle Schohn noted that gay U.S. diplomats and aid workers serve overseas “in some of the most dangerous locations, but continue to be denied equal treatment for their families.”

U.S. Foreign Service personnel – as well as civil service and contract employees – are required to serve a large portion of their careers at U.S. embassies and missions overseas. However, the partners of gay personnel receive no assistance while accompanying employees on these mandatory assignments.

Among many other obstacles, gay partners lack access to affordable health insurance coverage and resources for moving abroad.

During overseas tours, employees’ partners do not receive assistance in obtaining a visa and lack access to employment opportunities, emergency evacuation, and embassy medical units, all afforded to married, heterosexual couples.

Former U.S. Ambassador Michael Guest, who resigned in protest in 2007, was the highest profile Foreign Service Officer to leave the State Department due to its failure to redress inequalities in the treatment between heterosexual spouses and same-sex partners.

Guest became the first openly gay ambassador confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2001 and earned a number of awards and accolades during his 26 years in the Foreign Service.

[...]

Coverage of Secretary-designate Clinton's comments

The Advocate ran a piece today about Secretary-designate Clinton's comments:

Clinton Pledges Review of LGBT Policies at State Department

Senator Hillary Clinton said Tuesday during her confirmation hearing for Secretary of State that she intended to review the department's policy of not extending benefits to partners of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender foreign service officers. But Clinton stopped short of giving a specific commitment to make partner benefits available, saying she needed more information on the existing policies.

Beyond being deprived of health care benefits, same-sex partners of foreign service personnel are currently unable to access other services available to heterosexual spouses, such as subsidized relocation, language training, employment opportunities, on-site medical treatment, and evacuation aid in emergency situations.

Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin posed the question to Sen. Clinton after he noted that addressing these inequities was a natural outgrowth of the need to build a more robust diplomatic corps.

"Will you support changes to existing personnel policy in order to ensure that LGBT staff at State and [the U.S. Agency for International Development] receive equal benefits and support?" he asked.

Sen. Clinton responded: "Senator, this issue was brought to my attention during the transition. I've asked to have more briefing on it because I think that we should take a hard look at the existing policy. As I understand it, but don't hold me to it because I don't have the full briefing material, but my understanding is other nations have moved to extend that partnership benefit. And we will come back to you to inform you of decisions we make going forward."

LGBT diplomats who work for the State Department welcomed the comments from Senator Clinton, who is expected to be confirmed next week.

"Secretary-designate Clinton has been a good friend to the LGBT community, and I am delighted that she recognizes that fairer policies make good business sense," said Michelle Schohn, president of Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Service Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA). "LGBT diplomats and aid workers serve overseas in some of the most dangerous locations, but current State Department policies continue to be deny equal treatment for our families. I am hopeful that Secretary Clinton will work quickly to implement overdue reforms so that we can continue to serve our country at a time when it needs us most without having to choose our job over our family."

Schohn has personal experience with the inequities faced by LGBT couples. She was a "member of household" when her partner, who has been in the service seven years, was stationed in Baku, Azerbaijan. Schohn ultimately decided to become a U.S. diplomat herself when she realized it would be too difficult to accompany her partner for the duration of her career without having the benefits afforded to heterosexual spouses.

"I left a career I loved," said Schohn, who has now been a foreign service officer for five years. "I am proud of my service but joining the State Department is not a choice everyone can or should have to make." (Kerry Eleveld, Advocate.com)

The issue was also covered at Towleroad:

Issues of inequality and unfair treatment at the State Department were highlighted last year when departing Ambassador to Romania Michael Guest criticized the agency's failure to deal with them. Guest took a parting shot at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at his retirement ceremony for failing to answer his calls to address LGBT issues. Said Guest: "This was my last chance. I never got a response. I don't know that I expected a response. What I wanted was attention to the issue....One word from the secretary [would have spurred action]. That's what I was hoping, that I would somehow get to her heart."

Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA) was pleased with the Feingold-Clinton exchange, and released the following statement:

"GLIFAA plans to present to the incoming Secretary of State a letter signed by over 2,000 current and former employees of the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies, requesting fairness for LBGT employees. GLIFAA board members also met with members of President-elect Obama's transition team at the Department of State in December. GLIFAA President Michelle Schohn welcomed Senator Clinton's acknowledgement that fairer policies serve as good business sense. Schohn noted that LGBT U.S. diplomats and aid workers serve overseas in some of the most dangerous locations, but continue to be denied equal treatment for their families. She expressed hope that the incoming Administration would work quickly to implement overdue reforms...Among many other obstacles, LGBT partners lack access to affordable health insurance coverage and resources for moving abroad. During overseas tours, employees' partners do not receive assistance in obtaining a visa and lack access to employment opportunities, emergency evacuation, and embassy medical units, all afforded to married, heterosexual couples."

Secretary-designate Clinton addresses issues faced by LGBT employees

At her confirmation hearing today, Secretary-designate Clinton was saying a lot of the right things, like that she wanted to make sure that there were sufficient resources for the Foreign Service to do its job. She acknowledged that Foreign Service officers were doing the work of America, often putting their lives at risk to do it.

She also answered a question from Senator Feingold about the issues facing gay and lesbian employees at the State Department and USAID.

SEN. FEINGOLD: -- Let me switch to something completely different.

There's widespread recognition of the need to build a more robust and effective diplomatic and development corps. And as a part of that effort, it of course makes sense to consider ways to address challenges faced by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees, particularly relating to domestic partner benefits in State Department policies that make it difficult for the partners of Foreign Service officers to travel and live at overseas posts.
What would you do, as secretary of State, to address these concerns? Will you support changes to existing personnel policies in order to ensure that LGBT staff at State and USAID receive equal benefits and support?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, Senator, this issue was brought to my attention during the transition. I've asked to have more briefing on it because I think that we should take a hard look at the existing policy. As I understand it -- but, I don't hold me to it because I don't have the full briefing material, but my understanding is other nations have moved to extend that partnership benefit, and we will come back to you to inform you of decisions we make going forward.

Not perfect, but it is a start. And at least the question was asked (thanks Senator Feingold!).

FT: Management of State top priority for Clinton

From the Federal Times:

Senator: Management of State top priority for Clinton

I just got off a conference call with Sen. Robert Casey, D-Penn., about his meeting today with Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton. Casey, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that will consider Clinton’s nomination Jan. 13, said he is very pleased with the direction Clinton wants to take State and expects she’ll be easily confirmed.

Most of today’s meeting dealt with State’s management, budget and personnel issues, Casey said, which will be among Clinton’s primary concerns. And one of Clinton’s first actions at State will be to elevate management issues to the deputy secretary level.

Eight years ago, Congress created a deputy secretary for management and resources position at State, but it was never officially filled and the job got busted down to undersecretary for management. Casey is glad to see Clinton restore clout to the management position, and said her selection of former Office of Management and Budget director Jacob Lew is the right move to make sure State’s initiatives succeed. “You can have all the right policies and goals, but if you can’t manage and don’t have someone whose expertise is in the world of budgets and dollars, you won’t be successful,” Casey said.

Casey said Clinton is also concerned that the Foreign Service is understaffed and could hire more, though he said Clinton did not say how many she’d like to hire. Casey also said State should improve its training of Foreign Service officers to keep their skills sharp when they are between assignments.

A good start anyway...

According to the Associated Press Friday:

Obama anticipates some political appointments

WASHINGTON (AP) - He's vowed to change the way business is done in Washington, but that doesn't mean Barack Obama won't be making some political appointments to ambassadorial posts around the world.

The president-elect told reporters Friday that his "general inclination" is to have career foreign service people in those posts "whenever possible." He says that's one way of "rejuvenating" the State Department and attracting young people.

But Obama said it would be "disingenuous" for him to suggest that he won't be putting some political appointees in embassies.

He says they'll still be "excellent public servants," and that people will be able to judge the "professionalism and high quality" of the people he appoints to those posts.

Of course he will have political appointees...but if we could reduce the number, I think that would be a good start. As I have said before, my current boss is (was) a political appointee. I thought he was great in the job and he'll be missed. But I do think most Ambassadorships and high-level positions in the State Department should be held by careerists.

Diplopundit on Overseas Compatibility Pay

Diplopundit has a very illustrative example of the effects of the lack of overseas compatibility pay for Foreign Service Officers.

I haven't written much on this issue (I did discuss it some here, here and here) but it is a pretty hot one for the Foreign Service. I have shied away from it largely because it gets played up in the media as FSOs being greedy.

I have mentioned how the situation is even more dire for those with same-sex members of household because MOHs are not allowed to compete for even the nominal jobs available to spouses unless there is no qualified Eligible Family Member (EFM). But even those in the best of circumstances have trouble with the impact of the pay cut. For example, my partner and I need both of our salaries to pay our mortgage. Going overseas, we will both see a 23% cut in pay. The amount we make renting out our place will only lessen but not cover the loss. And we still have to make the payments.

And while we serve side-by-side in embassies with employees of a number of other federal agencies, we are the only ones who take that pay cut to do it.

The fair thing to do is to close the gap. But who knows when (or if) that will happen, especially when Congress thinks we live high on the hog when we are overseas. One alternative solution I have a considered, but no one else seems to have addressed, is to have all of our allowances and differentials included in the calculations of our retirement pay or death benefits. That might encourage folks to go overseas to some high differential hardship posts at the end of their careers, when their experience could be extremely useful, rather than spending the last few years of their career in DC so that their retirement is based on locality pay.

And just my two cents, but if State used PR like many other agencies do, working with the media and Hollywood to show the realities of FS life (the tv show "American Embassy" back in 2002 was killed by the Department while there have been tv shows about the CIA, the military and most recently, DHS) vs the "glamorous image" that persists in the public's (and Congress's) imagination, we'd have a better shot at getting all of our budgetary needs met, including overseas compatability pay.

ON EDIT:

I discovered this link this morning (January 10), where you can track the status of H.R. 370, a bill "to amend the Foreign Service Act of 1980 to extend comparability pay adjustments to members of the Foreign Service assigned to posts abroad, and to amend the provision relating to the death gratuity payable to surviving dependents of Foreign Service employees who die as a result of injuries sustained in the performance of duty abroad."

AP: Clinton's State Department team takes shape

I found this today from the Associated Press. I am especially pleased to see that she plans to keep Undersecretary for Political Affairs Burns, who I think is competent and qualified. I am also glad Undersecretary for Management Pat Kennedy is staying. I have had some dealings with him as well and have appreciated both his guidance and candor.

Clinton's State Department team takes shape

Hillary Rodham Clinton is quietly building a new State Department team with seasoned diplomats as she prepares for her confirmation hearings next week, according to Democratic sources and officials familiar with the transition.

Clinton has settled on choices for a number of top positions, including high-profile special envoys who played prominent roles in her husband's administration for key hotspots South Asia and the Middle East, and pointmen for East Asia and Europe, they said. She will also keep at least two career foreign service officers in critical posts, they said.

The incoming secretary of state plans to name former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke to be special adviser for Pakistan and Afghanistan and is almost certain to appoint former Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross to be her special adviser for the Middle East and Iran, they said.

Clinton will retain respected career diplomat William Burns in his current position as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the department's third-highest ranking job, and keep on Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, who oversees the department's far-flung worldwide operations, the sources said.

In addition, they said, Clinton will select Kurt Campbell, a former Clinton administration Pentagon official, to be assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Philip Gordon, a former director for European affairs at the National Security Council, to be assistant secretary of state for European affairs.

She also intends to name Princeton University professor Anne-Marie Slaughter to be the State Department's next director of policy planning, they said.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the appointments, some of which require Senate confirmation, have not been formally announced. Clinton herself will appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday for what many expect will be a relatively painless confirmation hearing.

Her choices for top positions - including earlier selections of James Steinberg and Jacob Lew, both former Clinton administration officials, to be deputy secretaries of state - appear to reflect a desire to bring back or retain current expertise in many of what will become President-elect Barack Obama's most serious foreign policy challenges.

Holbrooke and Ross have long histories of involvement in some of the most intense diplomatic negotiations in U.S. history.

Holbrooke brokered the peace deal that ended the 1992-1995 Balkans war. He was also U.S. ambassador to Germany and envoy to the United Nations during President Bill Clinton's administration and gave foreign policy advice to Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries last year.

Ross was the lead U.S. negotiator in Mideast peace efforts for both Presidents George H.W. Bush and Clinton. He played a major part in an interim agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in 1995 and worked on the failed effort to arrange peace between Israel and Syria and the ultimately unsuccessful 2000 Camp David talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Picking a Cone

No, not ice cream.

In the foreign service, there are five career tracks: political, public diplomacy (PD), consular, management, and economic. If you have read this for a while, you know that I am PD coned and my partner is Pol coned.

The Hegemenist, a fairly new foreign service blogger, is doing some nice descriptions of each cone, including what to expect before and after tenure. Since I have gotten emails from readers asking about how to choose a cone (beyond taking the quiz at http://www.careers.state.gov/), I think this is pretty useful for those considering the foreign service.

So far, he has done descriptions of Consular, Management and Public Diplomacy.

He says Econ is on deck for tomorrow. If you are interested in learning more, check it out.

CAA: Advice for FSO bloggers

Consul-At Arms (who has apparently started a new blog) answers an email from new FSO blogger The Hegemonist (as an anthropologist, I LOVE that name for a blog) asking for advice on blogging as a Foreign Service Officer.

CAA writes:

Encourage and applaud the things you feel the Department or the Service is doing right; be judicious in your public criticism (after all, Damning-with-faint-praise is something of an FS tradition);

Take advantage of the many opportunities to explain/defend your profession, the Service, the Department, when commenting at other web logs or when unfair/unbalanced media coverage slams us. As a Department, our PD effort is on the weak side, with lots of room for improvement, and as "new media" proliferates and increases in importance, it's incumbent upon individual FSOs to help "carry the water." It's not about being a mindless cheerleader, it's about combatting outdated and pernicious stereotypes that interfere with accomplishing our core missions. An informed citizenry is a bulwark of democracy."

FDIC announces domestic partner program

I hope that everyone had a wonderful time ringing in the new year and that regardless of how your 2008 was, that 2009 is even better.

I heard some positive, though agency-specific, news about the FDIC. They have developed a domestic partner program that will allow, among other things, the employee to get insurance for his or her partner. It is my hope that this will help pave the way for similar (and dare I say, better) programs for the foreign service.

You can read the announcement below.

For information regarding this message contact the Benefits Hotline
OIG Employees should contact the OIG Human Resources Branch at 703-562-6419

Through the extended efforts of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the Chairman’s Diversity Advisory Committee (CDAC), and the Chairman’s Culture Change Initiative, the FDIC has developed and received Board approval to implement a Domestic Partner Program. This new program will enable eligible employees to cover their same sex or opposite sex domestic partners and/or the domestic partner’s children for certain FDIC health-related and life insurance benefits as well as coverage under provisions of the FDIC Relocation Travel Program and FDIC Business Travel Accident Insurance Program when the domestic partnership meets certain requirements. The FDIC has negotiated the provisions and reached an agreement with the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) on this program for bargaining unit employees. In addition, FDIC management has extended the terms and conditions of this program to cover all non-bargaining unit employees.

Details about the FDIC Domestic Partner Program can be viewed on the Domestic Partner Program web page.

Domestic Partner Benefits Available During Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment for certain FDIC benefits extended to domestic partners begins immediately and will coincide with the Benefits Open Enrollment Period that is underway and continues through Monday, December 8th. Additionally, employees with domestic partners who have not made their benefits elections through MyEnroll.com by the end of Open Enrollment and who still want to opt into the Domestic Partner Program will be able to do so by calling the FDIC Benefits Hotline beginning December 9th through December 15th to complete their enrollment outside of the MyEnroll.com system with the assistance of an FDIC Benefits Hotline agent. This call-in process is not available until December 9th and is available only if the employee is enrolling under the Domestic Partner Program.

Eligible employees may cover a domestic partner and/or the domestic partner’s eligible dependent children under the following FDIC benefits:

· FDIC Dental Insurance
· FDIC Vision Insurance
· FDIC Dependent Life Insurance (FDIC Option 2, Spouse/Domestic Partner Life Insurance, and FDIC Option 3, Family Life Insurance)
· Health Insurance Premium Reimbursement – a reimbursement to the employee for a portion of the premium cost for non-subsidized health insurance on the domestic partner and/or the domestic partner’s eligible dependent children.

Enrollment for domestic partner benefits is performed through MyEnroll.com as an integral part of an employee’s open enrollment for FDIC benefits. When an employee enrolls for one or more domestic partner benefits, the election(s) will be pended and the employee will be sent a Declaration of Domestic Partnership form via a MyEnrollServices.com e-mail. The employee and the employee’s domestic partner must complete and sign this form and return it as instructed. Domestic partner benefits elections will become effective on the later of January 1, 2009, or the first day of the first pay period after receipt of a completed Declaration acceptable to FDIC.

FDIC Relocation Travel Program and FDIC Business Travel Accident Insurance

The provisions of the FDIC Relocation Travel Program and the FDIC Business Travel Accident Insurance Program are extended to an eligible employee’s domestic partner and the domestic partner’s eligible, dependent children on the same basis as a spouse and the employee’s eligible children. The employee and the employee’s domestic partner must complete a Declaration of Domestic Partnership to be eligible to participate in these Programs. The Declaration form that is submitted for benefits enrollment through MyEnroll.com can also be used for these purposes.

Tax Implications of Domestic Partner Benefits

There are tax implications associated with domestic partner benefits. Employees are encouraged to seek the guidance of a tax advisor if they are considering enrolling under the FDIC Domestic Partner Program.

Briefly, under Federal law, if a domestic partner and/or the domestic partner’s eligible dependent children do not qualify as the employee’s tax dependent for health coverage purposes, then the portion of the employee premium for the domestic partner’s/children’s FDIC Dental and/or Vision coverage must be paid on a post-tax basis. Furthermore, the value of that coverage is considered imputed income subject to taxation, less any post-tax premiums that the employee pays for that coverage.

Similarly, the Health Insurance Premium Reimbursement (HIPR) is taxable income from which applicable taxes will be withheld. See the Domestic Partner Program web page for examples of post-tax premium and imputed income calculations for various options and coverage levels under the FDIC Dental and Vision Plans and for a HIPR worksheet to calculate the reimbursable portion of non-subsidized health insurance premiums for a domestic partner’s/children’s coverage prior to tax withholding.

Reservation of Rights

The FDIC may terminate the Domestic Partner Program or may modify, amend or change the provisions, terms, and conditions of the Program at any time, subject to fulfillment of bargaining obligations with the NTEU.

ST: Sizing Up Diplomacy

This illustrative piece from the Seattle Times was sent out by AFSA, our employee organization. I wonder how many people outside the Foreign Service got the correct answer.

Sizing up U.S. diplomacy
How many diplomats does the U.S. government have in active service?

Throughout the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, President-elect Obama talked forcefully about the need to repair frayed relations with allies. To make it all happen, the new administration must rely on its diplomats. How many diplomats does the U.S. government have in active service?

A. 57,000

B. 12,000

C. 6,400

D. 4,700

How many diplomats does the U.S. government have in active service?

A. 57,000 is not correct.

The State Department employs roughly 57,000 people. However, 31,000 are foreign nationals working overseas as support staff in U.S. embassies and consulates. The United States maintains diplomatic relations with nearly 180 of 191 countries, as well as with several international organizations. Altogether, the State Department maintains nearly 265 diplomatic and consular posts.

B. 12,000 is not correct.

The State Department employs approximately 12,000 Foreign Service personnel. This number includes foreign-service officers as well as support staff and diplomatic security agents, a significant number of whom are stationed in the United States. Throughout much of the 1990s, overseas diplomatic staffing was significantly reduced, as the United States cashed in on the "peace dividend" brought about by the end of the Cold War. Although this trend began to reverse itself by 1997, the American Academy of Diplomacy estimates that the State Department faces a personnel shortfall of more than 2,000 staff-years relating to enduring core diplomatic work, emerging policy challenges and critical training needs.

C. 6,400 is correct.

Among all State Department employees, 6,400 — or 11 percent — are diplomats, meaning they are engaged in government-to-government diplomacy and represent U.S. interests and advocate U.S. policy positions abroad.

Coincidentally, this number is roughly equal to the personnel stationed aboard a typical U.S. aircraft-carrier battle group, such as the USS Enterprise.

D. 4,700 is not correct.

The American Academy of Diplomacy estimates that the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development will need to increase their ranks by 4,700 employees between 2010 and 2014 in order to carry out U.S. diplomatic initiatives successfully. For instance, the public diplomacy staff, which seeks to influence foreign publics by promoting U.S. policies, culture, society and values, is 24 percent smaller than in 1986.

And speaking of increasing the size of the Foreign Service, here is a comment from the blog Enough:

A good article in the January/February edition of Foreign Affairs by former President of the American Foreign Service Association J. Anthony Holmes advocates dramatically increasing the number of Foreign Service Officers (FSOs). Holmes offers some powerful statistics:

The number of lawyers at the Defense Department is larger than the entire U.S. diplomatic corps, there are more musicians in the military bands than there are U.S. diplomats, and the Defense Department’s 2008 budget was over 24 times as large as the combined budgets of the State Department and USAID ($750 billion compared with $31 billion).

Enough made similar calls for reform in a recent report, which noted that that in order to more effectively prevent conflict and mass atrocities, the U.S. Government must address the critical “mismatch between resources and requirements” at the State Department - sentiments which were echoed by former U.S. Ambassador for counter-narcotics in Afghanistan Thomas Schweich in the Washington Post.

DSJ's Cautionary Tale

Disaffected Scanner Jockey, a former diplomatic spouse, offers a "Cautionary Tale" about being a "trailing spouse." It should be required reading for anyone considering joining the Foreign Service and their spouses.

A Cautionary Tale

[...]

The Foreign Service doesn’t create new problems. It takes the flaws and marital issues you already have and blows them wide open. I believe my divorce would have happened with or without the added stress of living overseas. It just happened a whole lot quicker than it would have back home. This is actually a very lucky thing, as both of us were young enough to pick up and start over.

The couples I see with the most success are the ones with an escape clause. Before they even fill out their first form, they sit down and say, “We’ll give it a fair shot for two years, if either of us is unhappy we’ll go home.” Truth is, life as an FS spouse can be stifling. There aren’t a whole lot of outlets or opportunities, just the endless rounds of Embassy life. So don’t enter into a Foreign Service marriage unless you’ve got a commitment that you can go home if you aren't happy.

And, yes, being a Foreign Service spouse can be intellecually and emotionally stifling. Your sense of self is under near-constant attack.

[...]

And, once you get on that plane, your career is over. Some people enjoy the Embassy hobby-jobs set aside for them, some enjoy the extra family time, some work a miracle and get a job with an overseas corporation. The people who do maintain their careers will blather about how you have to be up to the challenge, flexible and so on. (These people are even more annoying than they sound.) But, really, you’re never going to get to the corner office. A few weeks ago, I calculated that my Foreign Service sojourn probably cost me at least $50,000 lost income potential. Money well spent, but it takes a long time to dig out of a career hiatus.

You can read the entire post here. I recommend it.

She couldn't be more right. I am in the service because it is so hard to be a trailing spouse. The situation is even harder for a "member of household," since because we aren't "eligible family members," we generally don't get even the paultry jobs (DSJ calls them "hobby-jobs") offered to spouses. The simple fact for an FS spouse is that unless you want to be a stay at home mom or dad, your chances for personal fullfillment are slim. (Even internet businesses are seldom a possibility because you can't use the APO for shipping or receiving and overseas shipping is impossibly expensive.)

So, as those of you who have been reading this for a while know, I quit archaeology, a career I loved, rather than face either a career apart or no career at all. I have mixed feelings about the choice, though I think it was ultimately for the best. But not everyone can or should make that choice. Some people can be perfectly happy with the life of a "trailing spouse." And not being able to is not, as DSJ says, a personality flaw. People should have reasonable expectations of what they will face in the foreign service and the what the choices are they will have to make.

NYT: Clinton Moves to Widen Role of State Dept.

I know I said I was taking a hiatus for the holidays, but I wanted to make sure you saw this piece in yesterday's New York Times online. Besides, my vacation spot has wireless this time!

Clinton Moves to Widen Role of State Dept.

WASHINGTON — Even before taking office, Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking to build a more powerful State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with global economic issues at a time of crisis.

Mrs. Clinton is recruiting Jacob J. Lew, the budget director under President Bill Clinton, as one of two deputies, according to people close to the Obama transition team. Mr. Lew’s focus, they said, will be on increasing the share of financing that goes to the diplomatic corps. He and James B. Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, are to be Mrs. Clinton’s chief lieutenants.

Nominations of deputy secretaries, like Mrs. Clinton’s, would be subject to confirmation by the Senate.

The incoming administration is also likely to name several envoys, officials said, reviving a practice of the Clinton administration, when Richard C. Holbrooke, Dennis Ross and other diplomats played a central role in mediating disputes in the Balkans and the Middle East.

As Mrs. Clinton puts together her senior team, officials said, she is also trying to carve out a bigger role for the State Department in economic affairs, where the Treasury has dominated during the Bush years. She has sought advice from Laura D’Andrea Tyson, an economist who headed Mr. Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers.

The steps seem intended to strengthen the role of diplomacy after a long stretch, particularly under Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in which the Pentagon, the vice president’s office and even the intelligence agencies held considerable sway over American foreign policy.

[...]

The recruitment of Mr. Lew — for a position that was not filled in the Bush administration — suggests that Mrs. Clinton is determined to win a larger share of financial resources for the department. A well-connected figure who was once an aide to Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill, Mr. Lew now works for Citigroup in a unit that oversees hedge funds.

“If we’re going to re-establish diplomacy as the critical tool in America’s arsenal,” a senior transition official said, “you need someone who can work both the budget and management side. He has very strong relations on the Hill; he knows the inner workings of how to manage a big enterprise.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private, said Mrs. Clinton was being supported in her push for more resources by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Obama’s incoming national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones Jr.

For years, some Pentagon officials have complained that jobs like the economic reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq have been added to the military’s burden when they could have been handled by a robust Foreign Service.

“The Pentagon would like to turn functionality over to civilian resources, but the resources are not there,” the official said. “We’re looking to have a State Department that has what it needs.”

Mrs. Clinton’s push for a more vigorous economic team, one of her advisers said, stems from her conviction that the State Department needs to play a part in the recovery from the global financial crisis. Economic issues also underpin some of the most important diplomatic relationships, notably with China.

In recent years, the Treasury Department, led by Henry M. Paulson Jr., has dominated policy toward China. Mr. Paulson leads a “strategic economic dialogue” with China that involves several agencies. It is not yet clear who will pick up that role in the Obama administration, although Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is frequently mentioned as a possibility.

NYT: Hiring Window Is Open at the Foreign Service

I had expected to be taking a hiatus from blogging for much of this week, as I am on vacation speinding Christmas with my family. However, I found this piece today at the New York Times online and wanted to pass it along.

Hiring Window Is Open at the Foreign Service

A RARE bright spot has appeared in a job landscape dominated by layoffs: the Foreign Service.

For the last several years, hiring in the United States Foreign Service was minimal because of a lack of Congressional funding. In addition, war has created an urgent need for diplomatic personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as officers have moved to these countries their previous jobs have remained unfilled.

So, in the last several months — with a new president on the horizon and new funding from Congress — both the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development, or Usaid, are ramping back up.

A supplemental war funding bill, which became law in June, has provided money for Foreign Service hiring. And President-elect Barack Obama “has talked explicitly about the need to increase the Foreign Service and we hope he will make that a priority,” said John Naland, president of the American Foreign Service Association, the professional association and labor union representing career diplomats.

The State Department has asked for funding for 1,500 new positions for the current fiscal year. Of these, roughly 800 are Foreign Service and 700 civil service, said Luis Arreaga, director of recruitment, examination and employment at the department. Many of those positions are being filled because of attrition but about 160 are new. "We consider that a down payment,” said Mr. Arreaga.

Felix Salazar, hired as a junior officer by the State Department in September, said that during the interview process he felt “a sense of urgency, that they were actively hiring and really valued my experience.” Mr. Salazar, who spent three years in the Peace Corps, leaves in February for his first posting, in South Africa.

Not everyone is cut out for Foreign Service work, which can be stressful and highly demanding. About two-thirds of a diplomat’s career is spent overseas; officers usually move every two to four years and can be exposed to dangers like disease and war. The State Department offers a suitability quiz for prospective applicants on its Web site.

Yet career diplomats like Ronald E. Neumann, a former ambassador to Afghanistan who now heads the American Academy of Diplomacy, called it the best job in the world. “I enjoy what I’m doing now but it’s nothing like working on foreign policy,” he said. “In my 37 years of service I may have gone home tired or frustrated with how a decision came out, but I never went home and asked myself if what I was working on was worthwhile.”

Applying for a job with the State Department involves written and oral examinations. Those who pass the oral exam become conditional officers and receive a ranking score based on oral-exam performance and language skills. The higher the rank, the sooner they will be assigned.

Of the 12,000 to 15,000 people who register annually for the written exam, about 450 officers are hired, said Frank J. Coulter, management officer with the Foreign Service and a member of the State Department’s board of examiners.

The first time he took the written exam, Mr. Salazar failed, after running out of time during the essay portion. He was so determined to pass that he spent the next year writing an essay in 30 minutes every day. “When I took it the second time and got my results, it actually sent chills down my spine,” he said.

New Foreign Service officers at the State Department choose one of five career tracks: consular affairs, economic affairs, management affairs, political affairs or diplomacy. No matter the track, all entry-level officers spend their first several years working in a consulate, interviewing applicants for United States visas and working with American citizens who need their help.

The State Department also hires Foreign Service specialists, who provide technical, security and administrative support overseas or in Washington. Specialists must pass an oral assessment but not a written exam, and start in a specialty like medicine, information technology or law enforcement, Mr. Coulter said. All newly hired officers and specialists are trained at the Foreign Service Institute in Washington.

Each of the first two postings overseas last two years; after that, it is generally a three-year posting in each country. One-year hardship postings — in a region too dangerous to allow an officer’s spouse and children to accompany him or her — are required at least twice in the course of a career. After two assignments, Foreign Service personnel can bid on postings — requesting particular countries or Washington — but everyone is expected to serve in a variety of assignments, Mr. Arreaga said.

[...]


THE base salary for entry-level Foreign Service officers ranges from about $40,000 to $72,000 annually, but compensation can increase depending on the danger level of the posting and on a region’s cost of living.

For Foreign Service specialists, the salary range is anywhere from about $26,500 to more than $100,000; for civil service employees at Usaid, the salary ranges from $16,500 to over $100,000. Overseas benefits include housing and private school for dependent children.

Many of those choosing Foreign Service work do so out of a dedication to public service and see it as not just a career, but also a way of life.

Salman Khalil, hired in May, took a 50 percent cut in take-home pay to join the Foreign Service after a decade in the I.T. industry. Any day now he will leave for his first assignment, in India. “In my I.T. profession I was helping big companies make more money and it wasn’t satisfying for me,” he said. “What I wanted to do was serve in a capacity where I could directly help people.”

Christmas? What Christmas?

Diplopundit had this piece today:

Of course, Leahy’s letter [to Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA)] started with this blurb for public record: “As I hope you know, I honored your request and asked Secretary Rice to facilitate your 14-day trip to 10 countries from December 25 through January 7. Please do let me know who the other Senators are who will be accompanying you.” Heh!

Al Kamen of WaPo did a big “Hmmm” on this. He speculated that “Leahy, as Judiciary chairman, probably authorized Specter’s congressional delegation, though it’s possible he didn’t know that the “delegation” was just Specter and his wife and an aide, who are taking a military jet to Europe and the Middle East over the holidays. The itinerary includes stops in England, Israel (his 26th visit), Syria (18th) and Austria. The Austria stop is for a chat with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei.”

In short, at least ten unfortunate diplomats in mostly sparkling capital cities (London, Jerusalem, Damascus, Vienna plus six more) will be working as control officers for the congressional delegation over the holidays. Sorry guys and gals, you are public servants and should never be off duty. The local staff would have to be drafted especially the drivers. The Community Liaison Officers would also need to be drafted unless no shopping spree is in order (no shopping? where's the fun in that?). I wonder if our diplomats get brownie points if they’re “it” for Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day? No, there's no overtime. What, comptime? Forgetaboutit.

I can certainly sympathize. As a Junior Officer in Jerusalem, I worked on nearly a dozen Secretary visits, numerous congressional visits (CODELS) and one First lady visit. Almost inevitably, these visits occurred over holidays or long weekends (we were actually told this was intentional so as not to "interfere" with our regular business.

We were offered comp time, but comp time expires after a relatively short period of time, so most of us were never able to use it. Small wonder we all came out of there stressed and exhausted. I was advised when I first arrived there to get out of town as often as possible to recharge my batteries, because the stress of being in a place that lives and breathes the Palestinian-Israeli conflict 24/7 is really taxing. But the reality is that it is really difficult to take time off. I came back to DC, even given as little leave as a junior officer earns, with "use or lose" leave (yes, not only did my comp time expire, but they were threatening to take away my earned annual leave).

Luckily I never had to work Christmas (purely dumb luck) or Easter (also dumb luck). And while those who did got sympathy, they got nothing else.

The possibility of fairness

The Washington Blade had an article this week on how President-elect Obama's cabinet picks could impact gay rights.

A lesbian in Obama’s cabinet?
Speculation swirls around Maxwell for labor secretary
By CHRIS JOHNSON, Washington Blade

President-elect Barack Obama this week was reportedly considering nominating an openly gay person to serve as labor secretary.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Obama was considering Mary Beth Maxwell, the founding executive director of American Rights at Work, to head the Labor Department. If nominated, and confirmed by the Senate, she would be the nation’s first openly gay cabinet member.

[...]

Cabinet picks could impact gay rights

Meanwhile, Obama this week nominated several other prominent figures to fill key cabinet positions. The nominees would hold positions that would significantly influence how the administration handles gay issues.

Gays working in the State Department, for example, could benefit from Obama’s choice of gay-supportive Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) as secretary of state.

The head of the State Department could change rules on how the department treats the partners of gay Foreign Service officers, who are not entitled to the same benefits as the spouses of straight Foreign Service officers.

Michelle Schohn, head of Gays & Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, said partners of their gay Foreign Service officers are not included in travel orders, not eligible for health insurance, not entitled to emergency or medical evacuation, and not eligible for more than basic language and security training at the Foreign Service Institute — unlike the spouses of their straight counterparts.

The State Department also provides no help in providing visas for the partners of gay Foreign Service officers, and while the department will pick up various travel expenses when moving overseas, including the cost of transporting a pet, the department will not reimburse costs for transporting a domestic partner, she said.

Michael Guest, former U.S. ambassador to Romania, retired from the State Department last year in protest because of these inequities and said they could have been rectified by a rule change from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Guest declined to comment for this article.

Schohn said Clinton could change things by making the partners of gay Foreign Service officers “eligible family members” as opposed to considering them “members of household.”

“Senator Clinton can, with the stroke of a pen, grant the families of LGBT employees equality,” Schohn said. “I am hopeful that Senator Clinton will see this as a matter of simple fairness and offer the protections to our families that will enable us to continue to serve.”

[...]

You can read the whole article here.

AP: Clinton looks to loyalists for State Department staff

Clinton looks to loyalists for State Department staff
By Matthew Lee
Associated Press

WASHINGTON: Preparing for her new role as secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton is moving to surround herself with a cast of die-hard loyalists and veterans of her husband's administration to help her cope with world crises and backstage Washington power plays.

For her team of foreign policy experts, the nation's third female secretary of state is expected to draw heavily from the staff of the first, Madeleine Albright, who was an early supporter of Clinton's unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

And to deal with internal Obama administration affairs, State Department bureaucratic politics and media pressures, the former first lady appears set to tap current Senate aides and former White House ''Hillaryland'' stalwarts, whose reputation for insularity and staunch protectiveness has already set off anxiety among career foreign service officers.

State Department officials say they have been told to expect visits as early as next week from Clinton advisers who are working with President-elect Barack Obama's incoming transition team. Members of the new administration's team have been at State since mid-November, getting briefings and visiting officials there. Neither the transition team nor Clinton's office would comment.

Those officials and people familiar with the transition say most, if not all of Clinton's growing team of advisers will be tapped for senior State Department positions.

James Steinberg, President Bill Clinton's former deputy national security adviser, who was once thought a prospect to become Obama's national security adviser, is now ''a lock'' to become deputy secretary of state under Clinton, according to people close to the transition who spoke on condition of anonymity because no announcements have yet been made.

On the policy side, there is strong speculation that Clinton's Senate foreign policy adviser, Andrew Shapiro, will play a leading role as will Lee Feinstein, who was her national security adviser during the campaign. Feinstein is a member of the State Department transition team and served as deputy policy planning director under Albright.

For Clinton's personal staff, names already floated include longtime confidante and 2008 Clinton presidential campaign manager Maggie Williams, attorney Cheryl Mills, personal assistant Huma Abedin, current senior adviser and spokesman Philippe Reines and Clinton's chief of staff when she was first lady, Melanne Verveer.

All are known to be fiercely loyal. The prospect of their imminent arrival in Foggy Bottom has been a hot topic of nervous corridor conversation among many in the professional diplomatic corps who fear they will be frozen out of positions of influence.

Doug Hattaway, a former spokesman for Al Gore's 2000 presidential bid who also worked for Clinton during the primaries, has been mentioned as a favorite to become the next State Department spokesman.

Albright's high-profile former spokesman, James Rubin, along with top Albright assistant Suzy George, have already been seen at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. They are working with a group that will smooth the way for the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Albright protege Susan Rice, whose defection to the Obama camp during the 2008 campaign caused a stir among Clinton loyalists. Rubin, based in New York, is advising the transition team.

A look at the Obama camp's agency review team for the State Department and its national security policy working group provides hints as to other potential appointments.

Among those who served in the Albright State Department are former counselor Wendy Sherman, counterterrorism coordinator Michael Sheehan, law enforcement chief Rand Beers, arms control expert Robert Einhorn, former ambassador to Indonesia Robert Gelbard and Mideast hands Daniel Kurtzer, Dennis Ross and Toni Verstandig. All are potential candidates for top slots.

One notable name on the list is Michael Guest, one of only two openly gay ambassadors ever to represent the United States overseas. Guest resigned from the foreign service in mid-career last December to protest the State Department's treatment of same-sex partners of diplomats.

Politically Appointed Vs Career Foreign Service Officers

Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post reported this item yesterday and I have noticed quite a few mentions of it in other blogs:

Obama Gives Political Ambassadors Their Pink Slips
By Glenn Kessler
The incoming Obama administration has notified all politically-appointed ambassadors that they must vacate their posts as of Jan. 20, the day President-elect Barack Obama takes the oath of office, a State Department official said.

The clean slate will open up prime opportunities for the president-elect to reward political supporters with posts in London, Paris, Tokyo and the like. The notice to diplomatic posts was issued this week.

Political ambassadors sometimes are permitted to stay on briefly during a new administration, but the sweeping nature of the directive suggests that Obama has little interest in retaining any of Bush's ambassadorial appointees.

Most ambassadors, of course, are foreign service officers, but often the posts involving the most important bilateral relations (such as with Great Britain, Japan and India) or desirable locales (such as the Bahamas) are given to close friends and well-heeled contributors of the president.

UN Dispatch was one of the blogs commenting on the development (which, just to be clear is not a HUGE development...all ambassadors, even career Foreign Service Officers, offer their resignation at the end of an administration. It is true that some are allowed to stay, at least for a little while. This is just more overt than usual).

Politically Appointed Vs Career Foreign Service Officers?

Matthew Yglesias links to this item explaining that President-elect Barack Obama has ordered all politically appointed ambassadors to vacate their posts by January 20th. Matt says:

"I had always just thought of this is a kind of casual, widely accepted corruption. But recently I did learn the official story as to why this is good practice, namely that an important political supporter or a friend of the president is likely to have a much easier time of getting access to the Oval Office than any mere foreign service officer would. Thus, it's arguably better for the host country to have a political appointee than a career FSO. Therefore, this practice helps build good-will and so forth."

This may be true, but it should be pointed out that many ambassadors to posts that require actual trouble-shooting are often career foreign service officers. The United States ambassador to Chad Louis J. Nigro, for example, joined the foreign service in 1980. Is it really more desirable that the Ambassador to say, Holland, have easier access to the Oval Office than say, Mr. Nigiro? I'm doubtful.

I admit I am a fan of reducing (I don't expect the practice to stop) the number of political appointee Ambassadors, for a number of reasons. First, you don't see political appointee Generals or Admirals. Why? Because we expect the leaders of our soldiers to be professional soldiers themselves, with the years of training and experience they have built up coming through the ranks serving them as they make life and death decisions. Can you imagine a "Brownie" leading our troops the way Mike Brown led FEMA? Of course not. It is the same with the Foreign Service. We are the "soft power" to the military's "hard power." We are professional diplomats with the training and experience to effectively serve our country's foreign policy objectives. Just knowing the President doesn't give you those qualifications. I will admit there are political appointees who are very very good and who bring useful skill sets to the job. But there are also political appointees who bring nothing more than a receipt for their contribution. Do they have better access to the White House? Maybe. But I would hope my President would be wise enough to listen to his Ambassadors from all countries, because crisis can strike anywhere and small countries can have big global impacts.

And second, political appointees hurt morale. Most of us serve knowing that no matter how good we are, we can't expect to attain the highest positions in the Department unless we win the lottery. Only one Secretary of State has been a career Foreign Service Officer (points if you know who), and many of the Under Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries, and the Ambassadors at the nicest posts are political appointees. Which sends a strong message that the rank and file don't measure up.

And the truth is we do measure up. We serve, year after year, advancing the President's foreign policy to the best of our abilities agenda regardless of who occupies the White House. Because we are professionals. And just like professional soldiers, we should be able to expect that the majority of our leaders have gotten where they are by succeeding on the same path we are walking, not by the size of their checkbook or the happenstance of their birth.

Mission for the national security team: rebuild America's 'soft power'

There are a couple of pieces today on rebuilding America's "soft power." From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Worldview: The focus is on 'soft power'
Obama's new security team must first rebuild America's diplomatic machine.

[...]

Gates and Jones want to bolster our capacity to project "soft power" - diplomacy, and foreign aid for development and reconstruction. They view soft power as an essential complement to hard, military power, and as a way to prevent future conflicts.

Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton supports this shift, though she sought to project a tough-guy image in the presidential race. It will fall to her to implement one of the hardest parts of the new strategy - rebuilding a State Department so depleted that it can't do what needs to be done.

For years, the Bush administration derided soft power as "social work" - no substitute for the tough work of war-making. Its attitudes shifted as Afghanistan and Iraq fell apart following U.S. military actions. But the United States lacked the civilian skills to help those nations recover.

This forced the military to take on nation-building tasks for which it wasn't trained.

Meantime, Gen. David Petraeus' new emphasis on counterinsurgency doctrine stressed that such fights could not be won through military means alone, but also require political and economic components.

[...]

"What is not ... well-known," Gates said in a 2007 lecture at Kansas State University, "was the gutting of America's ability to engage, assist and communicate with other parts of the world - the 'soft power' which was so important during the Cold War."

For example, the United States has more members of military marching bands than Foreign Service officers. Gates also noted that the number of Foreign Service officers was frozen as the number of embassies grew after the Soviet Union breakup. Meantime, "the United States Agency for International Development saw deep staff cuts ... and the U.S. Information Agency was abolished."

[...]

The extent of the problem was described graphically in a report on the crisis in diplomatic readiness recently released by the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Stimson Center (available at www.academyofdiplomacy.org). The report details the shortage of Foreign Service officers, and particularly of those with training in critical languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi and Urdu.

At a time when America's need to engage with the world has never been greater, funding for public diplomacy has been shrinking. USIA libraries and cultural centers, where young Arabs once could interact with Americans, have long been shuttered. While terrorists set up Web chat rooms, we have no capacity to interact with a global generation that uses the Internet.

"We are not staffed to keep up with old needs, let alone new needs," said Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy. He calls for more staffing for public diplomacy, new Web outreach, reopened cultural centers, and more exchanges.

[...]

It won't be easy to rebuild - and fund - soft-power agencies at a time when Obama is beset by crises. We don't know whether Clinton has the needed management skills. Obama's team will have to work together closely to give him the soft-power tools he seeks.

You can read the entire piece here.

And from Politics and Soccer:

Everyone wants a larger State Dept
[...]

But what is even better news is that Clinton, Gen. Jones (the national security adviser), and Gates at the Pentagon all signed on to Obama's core idea of shifting resources away from the Pentagon and towards the State Dept. This is a great idea and people have been screaming about it for years. [...] While the Pentagon's budget is over $500 billion and including the wars and future medical costs may rise over $1 trillion (and some idiots want to pin it to 4% of GDP), the State Dept had a measly $10 billion for FY 2008.

Despite almost universal agreement that the State Department is under-resourced, Pentagon budgets have continued to outpace State budgets in growth because of lots of Congressional pork. Probably the largest pork item is the United States Air Force. OK, that was an exaggeration, but stuff like the F-22 which is projected to cost at least $62 billion is equal to the State Dept budget for six years, and this is for an aircraft with no actual mission other than to defeat imaginary Chinese planes. Unfortunately for the State Department, it's budget doesn't create jobs in Congressional districts because they invest in people rather than buying stuff, so Congress doesn't throw $5 billion (half the State Dept's budget) at the State Dept in unwanted pork projects like they do the Pentagon.

[...]

You can read P&S's entire piece here.

The Dislocated Americans

Here is an article from today's NY Times about Americans, including Foreign Service spouses, living overseas. As I have mentioned before, life for spouses overseas can be difficult. For same-sex spouses, it is even harder.

The Dislocated Americans

By TANYA MOHN

More and more workers have relocated abroad in recent years, but despite the growing numbers, family issues remain a major factor in the failure of overseas postings.

The initial excitement of an exotic new posting can turn to culture shock, loneliness, identity loss and depression, and it is often the employee’s spouse and children — without the familiar routine of work — who are most affected.

“I thought it would be an adventure, and it was,” said Francesca Kelly, who moved 10 times in the first nine years as a Foreign Service spouse, living in places like Belgrade and the former Soviet Union during the cold war. But it “was much more difficult than I ever imagined it would be.”

Brenda H. Fender, director of global initiatives for Worldwide ERC, an association concerned with work force mobility, said “if the family cannot adapt, the employee will likely not succeed.”

[...]

Yvonne McNulty, a Singapore-based consultant who studies mobility issues, said the biggest issue for spouses was loss of identity. “What I found in my research is that almost all spouses face an identity crisis but only about 10 to 15 percent did something about it, by becoming authors, getting an M.B.A. or starting businesses,” she said. Most “felt they were victims, with no control.”

Even when a company offers generous support, which may include help finding housing, language training and even funds for personal development for the spouse, that is often not enough.

[Digger comments: And as I have mentioned before, the State Department does not offer much in the way of training and support for same-sex spouses. Same-sex partners are limited to a short course in language while heterosexual spouses can get a full course of language. In many cases, that full course of language later facilitates the spouse in joining the Foreign Service, because those who can pass a language test get a bump in the score on the oral part of the Foreign Service Officers Test. As for professional development funds, those are not available to same-sex spouses. In fact, same-sex spouses can not compete for jobs at post unless there are no qualified heterosexual spouses (even if the same-sex spouse is more qualified) and then must compete with all expats who apply. Heterosexual spouses get preference. And even when a same-sex partner is hired, they are often paid the local rate rather than the American rate, meaning they earn far less than the pittance given to the heterosexual spouses.]

[...]

Ms. Kelly, the Foreign Service spouse, who now lives in Bethesda, Md., and another spouse founded The Sun (The Spouses’ Underground Newsletter) as a way to create their own support community. Initially, it was an irreverent mix of poetry, opinions and the continuing tales of a fictional “highly flawed, complete disaster of a diplomatic wife,” she said.

Soon contributions took on a more serious cast; readers wanted information about where they were planning to live. By 2000, The Sun became Tales From a Small Planet, a nonprofit Web site where members can read reports on some 350 cities written by expatriates.

Patricia Linderman — living in Guayaquil, Ecuador — edits Tales and is co-author of “The Expert Expat: Your Guide to Successful Relocation Abroad” (Nicholas Brealey, 2007). She said there had been an explosion of resources in recent years that support expatriates and many now also “focus on the personal and emotional aspects of cross-cultural living,” she said.

[...]

You can read the entire article here.

Benefits for LGBT FS families

Open Season for FEHBP (Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan) closes on December 8. This afternoon, to help demonstrate to OPM that LGBT federal employees want and need health benefits for their families, HRC released the statement below. That statement includes a link to an Action Site for individuals to send letters asking OPM to support domestic partner benefits. Such benefits are particularly important for the partners of LGBT foreign service officers, who otherwise might have difficulty getting coverage in some of the countries where their partner might be serving.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 1, 2008
Brad Luna Phone: 202/216.1514 Cell: 202/812.8140
Trevor Thomas Phone: 202/216.1547 Cell: 202/250.9758

Federal Employee Groups Urge Government for Partner Benefits

“Open season” time period raises the alarm in lack of benefits for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people

WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, in conjunction with federal employee groups, today urged the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to support domestic partner benefits for federal civilian employees. Each fall, 8 million federal employees, retirees, and their dependents, are offered the opportunity to review the various health program options in a time period referred to as “open season.” For lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers, this time draws attention to the existing inequality that they face when it comes to employer-provided benefits.

“The federal government should be the standard bearer for fair workplace practices,“ said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “As long as it denies lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees the comprehensive family benefits that their heterosexual colleagues receive, the federal government will fall short of that standard, and continue to lag behind the nation’s top employers.”

This year, in addition to pouring over extensive information about 269 health-plan options, cost, and quality, LGBT civil servants are asking OPM to support covering their family members as well. The health benefits which the vast majority of workers obtain through their place of work, are not extended to domestic partners of federal civil servants. While their colleagues are worried about increasing co-pays and deductibles, LGBT employees struggle to come up with 100% of the cost of insuring their partners.

Expressing her support for the issue, Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus co-chair, Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) stated, “Only when we eliminate discriminatory practices in the workplace will we allow both employees and businesses to reach their full potential. As an employer, the federal government must not only set an example, but must compete with corporate America for the best-qualified workforce. Offering domestic partner benefits is a means toward both ends.”

“The most frequent concern we hear expressed by our members is the need for fairness in health benefits for their partners and families, and in having equal compensation with heterosexual employees,” said Len Hirsch, president of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Employees of the Federal Government, also known as Federal GLOBE, a group that has pressed for domestic partner benefits since its inception in 1992.

Through an online website, individuals have the opportunity to write to OPM and express their desire for equal benefits. While the incoming administration has expressed its support for the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, encouraging OPM to support LGBT families improves the prospects for achieving that goal. To write to the Office of Personnel Management, visit: http://www.hrcactioncenter.org/campaign/opm_dpb

The benefits programs include the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHB), which is used by members of congress, as well as the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Program, and the Federal Flexible Spending Account Program. “We hope that Members of Congress will extend health benefits to all Federal employees’ families – including the families of Members’ own staff,” said Derek Dorn, co-chair of the Gay, Lesbian, Allied Senate Staff (GLASS) Caucus.

“Adopting fair policies in the treatment of domestic partner benefits will not only benefit current LGBT employees of Congress, it will enable the entire government to draw highly qualified LGBT Americans, who may otherwise elect to work elsewhere, to careers in public service, “ said Victor Castillo, co-founder of the Lesbian & Gay Congressional Staff Association (LGCSA).

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope this Thanksgiving finds you and your family safe, happy and secure.

Our thoughts go our to our friends in Kabul, where a bomb went off near the Embassy while they were having a Thanksgiving Day event, and to those in Mumbai, where the chaos at the hands of terrorists continues.

I am thankful all of the folks serving our country in those two places are safe, and I pray for those others, both American and not, enduring the unbearable.

More on the Overseas Pay Gap

I have to say, I really like blogs that make me snicker, and The Skeptical Bureaucrat and Consul-At-Arms are often good for that. So I thought I would share some of their take on the Overseas Pay Gap and Sen. Coburn's mistaken views on the issue.

TSB wrote Sunday about posts "Where The Pants Are Not Striped, and Cookies Are Not Pushed", one of which he recently visited for a very brief TDY. He gives you a hint or five about where that was: a volatile country...one of our most hazardous diplomatic posts. If you've been following the news, you can probably guess which diplomatic post that was from the following clues. All these incidents occurred there in the last week: a USAID contractor was ambushed and killed, an Iranian diplomat was abducted when departing his home for the office, two foreign journalists were shot, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the gates of a sports stadium, and, in a region outside the city, a missile strike of unattributed origin killed five al Qaeda figures, one of whom was reportedly a suspect in a 2006 plot to bomb ten airliners heading to the U.S. from Britain. In addition to all that, a few months ago the principal U.S. diplomat there was ambushed while en route to the office but escaped unharmed. A few weeks after that incident, the principal officer of another, non-U.S., diplomatic mission was successfully abducted in a similar attack.

Why was my pencil-pushing self in such a crazy place so far from my cubicle? Because Danger is my middle name, that's why. (Actually, Risk Analysis is my middle name, but there is no way to make that sound dashing; in fact, it should be the opposite of dashing).

More to the point, why are any of my fellow citizens there?

CAA points out that TSB's fellow citizens are there "doing the jobs that our fellow Americans send us overseas to do, per the wishes and stated desires of our elected representatives and chief executive>"

Senator Coburn's communications director John Hart, in opposing the Overseas Compatability Pay Act (which would mean that folks serving overseas would not lose the DC locality portion of their pay...Senior Foreign Service and other agencies serving overseas already get to keep their locality pay, so it is only lower- and mid-level State folks who lose it), commented, as I noted in an earlier post, that "Congress should be focused on improving conditions of workers who have lost their jobs or may lose their jobs and not on handing out huge raises to foreign service officers who already receive very generous benefits overseas." But as TSB suspects that Hart and Coburn get their image of Foreign Service life from tv and the movies, and CAA adds that we, as Foreign Service Officers, have not helped the matter. CAA writes: "Sen. Coburn's out-of-touch communications director might not be basing his under-factual statement solely on the basis of late-night movie fare. He may have actually traveled abroad on a STAFDEL or CODEL ("congressional staff delegation" or "congressional delegation," respectively). In which case some of the fault for his unrealistic impression of Foreign Service life may actual be our own fault.

When congressmen or their staff members travel overseas, describing that experience as being "inside a bubble" does not do it justice. They are met, escorted, control-officered, protected, briefed, introduced, coddled, dined-out, and expense-accounted to a fair-thee-well all the way to "wheels-up." And all by FSOs. We so want to make a good impression on our congressional visitors, after all our Department is the one without much of a natural "consituency" back home, but we do ourselves something of a disservice when we make it look too easy to our visiting fireman."

TSB says that he "like to see someone correct the American public's perception of embassy life. Some sort of Foreign Service Truth Squad that could fill in the picture of what life is like in all those places where our diplomats work out of ratty hovels rather than palatial surroundings. He rightly refers to some of the places we serve as "hell holes." Yes, we usually get housed in some of the best housing available at post, but if the best housing is a hovel (or in Iraq, a shipping container), guess what you get housed in. I had a marine tell me of his serve at one Embassy where he literally fell through the floor of the decrepit building. Guess what post housing there looks like? My housing at my last post was decent (though I did regularly get trapped in my elevator, once for more than 30 minutes while it repeatedly went up and down from the basement to the seventh floor), but our consulate (which we had rented more than 50 years ago) was a health and security hazard. And my partner returned from her last post with pollution-induced asthma.

Most of the places we serve are far from the western European posts where Senators like to visit. TSB notes: "Having seen the U.S. embassy offices and houses in Bangui, [Central African Republic] and experienced the difficulties and uncertainties of simply getting there and back, I can assure my fellow Americans that Senator Coburn's lowliest intern wouldn't want to trade life styles with the most senior diplomat there, even with the housing allowance. Much less would he want to trade places with the diplomats in the hot-spot that I was happy to drive away from at high speed last week."

Amen.

Or as CAA says: "As for the lowly interns.... I've met just one or two of those over the years who seem to still be nursing a grudge that they didn't pass the FS exam.

I'm just saying....."

Me too.

Addressing the Overseas Pay Gap

This was in today's Washington Post:

Diplomatically Trying to Close Overseas Pay Gap

By Joe Davidson

Michael Keller has worked on five continents during his 15 years in the foreign service. He's been in Germany, where the standard of living is pretty good, and the Central African Republic and Cambodia, where he could only hope that his three children suffered nothing more than bumps and bruises because of poor medical care.

He likes his work, but he's always confronted with a big source of frustration -- the overseas pay gap.

When State Department diplomats are posted abroad, they lose locality pay. That's the amount added to a federal worker's salary based on where they work.

Since 1994, when locality pay started, the increase for federal employees in the D.C. area has amounted to almost 21 percent. Moving overseas from the State Department's Foggy Bottom headquarters and other area installations means workers lose that differential.

[...]

There is support, on Capitol Hill and in the administration, for legislation that would close the gap. Committees in the House and Senate have approved such measures.

[...]

But that support has not moved Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican physician also known as "Dr. No." He's earned that nickname because he relentlessly uses a Senate procedure to hold up bills that require additional federal spending unless the legislation provides money to pay for its project.

"Congress should be focused on improving conditions of workers who have lost their jobs or may lose their jobs and not on handing out huge raises to foreign service officers who already receive very generous benefits overseas," said John Hart, Coburn's communications director.

That kind of talk could make a diplomat get very undiplomatic. But John Naland, president of the American Foreign Service Association, knows how to keep his cool (which should come in handy when he's transferred to Iraq next year).

Closing the gap is not a pay raise, he said calmly. "It's fixing an unintended inequality."

Naland doesn't quarrel with Coburn's right to oppose legislation closing the gap, "but his hold is preventing his 99 colleagues from voting," Naland said. "That's just the way the Senate works nowadays."

He does quarrel, however, with Coburn's notion that foreign service officers are seeking huge raises on top of other big benefits. It's true that diplomats get a housing allowance and, in some cases, dangerous duty or hardship duty pay. But that doesn't negate the need to close the gap, especially for lower-level diplomats.

Senior foreign service officers get those same benefits, but their pay is not reduced by the locality amount when they go abroad. That cut applies only to the junior and mid-level diplomats.

Furthermore, Naland said, the "allowances were never meant to obviate the need for the basic locality pay adjustment that all other federal employees get."

That's what upsets foreign service officers -- working cheek by jowl with colleagues from the CIA, who might pretend to be foreign service officers, and other agencies whose pay is not cut when they leave the D.C. area.

"It becomes an equity issue," Keller said.

And foreign service officers don't have the option of staying in D.C. They spend most of their careers outside the country.

The issue is compounded when a diplomat takes his family abroad because the family often loses the spouse's income, too. Sonja Keller had a growing career as a journalist and public relations officer when Michael was sent to the Central African Republic.

"The financial impact was significant," she said. Her income was greater than his, but the family had to give that up. "Once I left my job, my career basically stopped," she said.

She worked in embassies where her husband was posted, but it was "generally nominal stuff," she said.

That's not the kind of information that would attract potential foreign service officers, even if they were driven by public service more than big bucks. It also makes folks like Keller wonder if they should stay in the foreign service, when their retirement funds are being shortchanged by the current pay system."

Diplopundit covers this issue very well here. She says "I know what she [Sonja Keller] means; and that's a pretty familiar spouse story. For FS spouses, the "good" jobs are paid normally about $12-13/hour; about how much you get paid as a nanny in London. I knew somebody who was paid $2o/hour once and her boss thought that was way too much money. At one post, another FS spouse, the commissary manager who took care of our tiny store had an advanced degree in dance therapy. I'm quite sure she was not an exception. There really are "good jobs" out there, as long as you don't complain that you, too, have brains. I knew somebody who left a 100K job in DC and eventually took a 36K job in some blissful country - with free housing, of course (some expensive free housing, huh?).

There are way too many somebodies with the same story ... And onebody says its greedy for folks to asked for the closure of this pay gap? Go tickle yourself silly!

The situation is even more dire for those with same-sex members of household. MOHs are not allowed to compete for even the nominal jobs available to spouses unless there is no qualified Eligible Family Member (EFM). Even then, some posts will not consider an MOH at all, or if they do, will hire them at the salary of a local hire, which is generally substantially less than what they pay EFMs. So while yes, we do sometimes get danger or hardship pay and we do get a housing allowance, our partners can usually not work at all (and this is in addition to having to pay to fly to and from the country, an expense opposite sex spouses do not have to deal with). Even if our partners stay home (which the Department admits diminishes productivity), they do not receive the Separate Maintenance Allowance that opposite sex partners receive. So when we go overseas to serve, our income is cut, our partner's income is lost, and we may still have expenses here in the states (for example, if you have a mortgage and the amount you can rent it for is less than your monthly payment).

Naland is right. This is not a huge pay raise. It is the right thing to do to help people continue to serve the country.