GAO Report: Diplomatic Security Needs Strategic Review

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The Government Accountability Office had just released its report titled Diplomatic Security’s Recent Growth Warrants Strategic Review (GAO-10-156 November 2009). It lists down Diplomatic Security’s policy and operational challenges.

First, according to Diplomatic Security officials, State is maintaining missions in countries where it would have previously evacuated personnel, which requires more resources and, therefore, makes it more difficult for Diplomatic Security to provide a secure environment.

Second, although Diplomatic Security has grown considerably in staff over the last 10 years, staffing shortages in domestic offices and other operational challenges further tax Diplomatic Security’s ability to implement all of its missions. Finally, State has expanded Diplomatic Security without the benefit of solid strategic planning; neither State’s departmental strategic plan nor Diplomatic Security’s bureau strategic plan specifically addresses the bureau’s resource needs or its management challenges.

The GAO report also gives an overview of the impact of the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan on Diplomatic Security:

Staffing the Iraq mission: As previously discussed, staffing the large number of special agents at the Iraq embassy has drawn staff away from other missions and offices. Iraq is a critical threat post; therefore, Diplomatic Security fills it and other critical threat posts first. In 2008, 81 Diplomatic Security special agents—or 16 percent of Diplomatic Security staff—were posted to Iraq for 1-year tours. To fill this need, State officials reported that special agents frequently leave positions in other countries before completing the end of their tours to serve in Iraq. In 2008, we reported that, in order to provide enough Diplomatic Security special agents in Iraq, Diplomatic Security had to move agents from other programs, and those moves have affected the agency’s ability to perform other missions, including providing security for visiting dignitaries and visa, passport, and identity fraud investigations.

Afghanistan is currently Diplomatic Security’s second largest overseas post with a staff of 16 special agents in 2008, which increased to 22 special agents in 2009. As of April 2009, Diplomatic Security was responsible for the security of approximately 300 authorized U.S. civilian personnel, although Diplomatic Security expects that number to increase if State opens consular offices in the cities of Herat and Mazar-e-Sherif. While Diplomatic Security has not been placing a special agent in every contractor-led convoy, as in Iraq, Diplomatic Security plans to increase the use of Diplomatic Security staff for all convoys. To address these changes, Diplomatic Security plans to add an additional 25 special agents in 2010, effectively doubling the number of agents in Afghanistan.

Other operational challenges that impede the Diplomatic Security’s ability to fully implement its missions and activities were also indentified including two glaring ones on foreign language deficiencies and experience gaps. Excerpted from report:

Foreign language deficiencies: Earlier this year, GAO found that 53 percent of RSOs do not speak and read at the level required by their positions. According to officials in Diplomatic Security, language training for security officers is often cut short because many ambassadors are unwilling to leave security positions vacant. However, GAO concluded that these foreign language shortfalls could be negatively affecting several aspects of U.S. diplomacy, including security operations. For example, an officer at a post of strategic interest said because she did not speak the language, she had transferred a sensitive telephone call from a local informant to a local employee, which could have compromised the informant’s identity.

Experience gaps: Thirty-four percent of Diplomatic Security’s positions (not including those in Baghdad) are filled with officers below the position’s grade. In a previous publication, GAO reported that experience gaps can compromise diplomatic readiness. In addition, Diplomatic Security officials stated that these gaps between the experience level required by the position and the experience level of the employee assigned can affect the quality of Diplomatic Security’s work. For example, several ARSOs with whom we met were in their first overseas positions and stated that they did not feel adequately prepared for their job, particularly their responsibility to manage large security contracts.

The GAO concludes that “Diplomatic Security faces human capital challenges, such as inexperienced staff and foreign language proficiency shortfalls. The implications of this growth—in conjunction with the potential for increased challenges in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other hostile environments as well as the management challenges listed above— have not been strategically reviewed by the department. Nevertheless, State leadership acknowledges the importance of broad strategic planning, as evidenced by the Secretary’s new QDDR, which is intended to ensure people, programs, and resources serve the highest priorities at State.”

According to the State Department’s response to this report, there is no current plan to conduct a strategic review of Diplomatic Security’s mission and capabilities under the QDDR, but it still mentioned the QDDR’s overall strategic focus on building operational and resource platforms for success” in its response. See State’s full response in Appendix X.

For the next several months, State can point to the QDDR as the possible response to the different challenges ranging from foreign assistance to human capital challenges and all that ails State. But the QDDR is not expected to be completed until summer or fall of 2010 (I hear that an interim report could be released early next year), half-way through this administration’s first term.

Let’s see what else DS, the American Academy of Diplomacy and AFSA might add to this report. The GAO as well as Ambassador Eric J. Boswell, A/Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann, (Ret.) of the American Academy of Diplomacy and Susan R. Johnson of the American Foreign Service Association will be at the Senate tomorrow, December 9 for The Diplomat’s Shield: Diplomatic Security in Today’s World hearing (Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 342, 2:30 PM).

Related Item:GAO-10-156 State Department: Diplomatic Security’s Recent Growth Warrants Strategic Review | November 2009 | PDF

Insider Quote: I was qualified to be in the SFS

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"I took the three-hour long Foreign Service entirely verbal language exam and passed in Czech with a 2:2 in 2004 and in French with a 3:3 in 2005. To join the senior Foreign Service, one must achieve 2:2 in a hard language and 3:3 in an easier language (on a scale of 0-5). So by the time I came to Paris, I am proud to say I was qualified to be in the senior Foreign Service."

Craig Stapleton US Ambassador to France (2005-2009 )and Czech Republic (2001-2004)Greenwich Citizen: Greenwich resident talks about years as Ambassador

Quickie: English Lessons Via Mobile Phones

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Rhys Blakely of Times Online reports that the British Government has joined forces with the six largest mobile operators in Bangladesh to unveil the world’s largest project to teach a language using mobile phones (UK to teach English in Bangladesh via mobile | November 16, 2009). Excerpts:

Starting this week a scheme managed by the BBC World Service and funded by the British Government will offer the 50 million Bangladeshis who own mobile handsets the opportunity to dial up a series of three-minute-long English lessons for 3 takas (2.5p) each — less than the cost of a cup of tea at a roadside stall in Dhaka.[…]With three billion mobile phones now in use globally (compared to 1.5 billion television sets), the use of handsets as educational tools is increasingly being explored.[…]In Thailand, graduate students sit tests via text message, while in Japan — where mobile phones outnumber computers five-to-one — handsets have been used for several years to teach English as a second language. One survey found that 70 per cent of Japanese students preferred receiving lessons on mobile phones than on computers.[…]Mobile learning may be particularly useful in countries where populations are widely dispersed, such as in Mongolia, where special English lessons have been developed for waiters and bank tellers, which are distributed through text messages.

Exciting times for micro-learning! Read the whole thing here.

The Linguists Are Coming ... From DOD?

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In late October, President Obama signed into law H.R. 2647: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. Sec.529 of that Act authorized the establishment of language training centers for the Department of Defense.

The program authorized includes the recruitment of native and heritage speakers of critical and strategic languages under the program into the Armed Forces and the civilian workforce of the Department of Defense and to support the Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps.

Like the CIA, there appears to be a recognition here that the agency cannot train itself out of the language gap in the Department's workforce.

The State Department on the other hand has what it calls, Diplomacy 3.0, a multi-year effort to increase the size of its workforce by 25 percent and aims to bring on board 1,200 new Foreign and Civil Service employees above attrition in fiscal year 2009 and another 1,200 in fiscal year 2010. The Director General of the Foreign Service, Nancy Powell writes that “In the short-term, we are working to identify and establish at least 200 new positions by December and more in 2010. With these new positions, we can also build a language training float, particularly for priority languages, such as Arabic, Chinese and Urdu.”

At a recent congressional hearing on diplomatic readiness, Ambassador Powell also says:

“More targeted recruiting can also help address the current challenges, and we are recruiting aggressively for certain critical language proficiency skills at this time. Those with these language proficiencies who pass our stringent Foreign Service Officer written exam are given preference points in the hiring process. Through this program, we have hired over 400 officers since 2004. For current employees, we have incentivized hard and super-hard languages such as Chinese, Pashto and Hindi. Such incentives underscore the value placed by the Department on obtaining capacity in our most challenging and needed languages.”

The exact number is 445 officers. That’s an average of 89 officers per year in the last 5 years. According to State, officers recruited for their proficiency in supercritical and critical needs languages are obligated to serve at an overseas post where they can use the language during their first or second tour. Officers recruited since 2008 are also required to serve at a post where they can use the language a second time as a midlevel officer. The State Department, however, told the GAO that it could not yet assess the program’s effectiveness because the program, which started in 2004, is still new and the department does not have sufficient data to perform such an assessment. Of course, what we don't know is how many of those recruits came in with a 2/2 or with a 5/5 native level skills. We do know from a series of GAO reports that even FSOs admit that 3/3 is not enough for them to effectively engage with their foreign audience on US foreign policy. We also know from this report (page 19) that "some officials noted the department believes it is easier to train individuals with good diplomatic skills to speak a language than it is to recruit linguists and train them to be good diplomats."The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learners will have 10 to 14 jobs by their 38th birthday. I think that State’s recruitment and training practices are still stuck in the career paradigm of the 50’s, of growing everyone from the bottom, of training everybody from scratch, of one career for life – and I can’t help but wonder if it will ever be able to climb out of this hole to face the next round of challenges in five years or the new challenges in 2030.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” That’s Albert Einstein. But they are…using the same kind of thinking, that is.And now, it is not even far off to imagine that in 5-10 years but maybe much sooner, the Defense Department will also have far more linguists than the State Department. And what happens then? Now that I have shocked you into walking down this corridor...

I should note that the bill the President signed into law was the authorization bill; it sets limits on funds that can be appropriated, but does not grant funding which must be provided by a separate congressional appropriation. Only after the president signs the Defense Appropriations Act does the program have budget authority (i.e. can incur obligations and make payments). The Defense appropriations bill, H.R. 3326, is still in conference committee as of November 8. Below is the text from the authorization bill that had been signed into law; this won't have teeth until the appropriations bill becomes law:

SEC. 529. LANGUAGE TRAINING CENTERS FOR MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES AND CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.

(a) Program Authorized- The Secretary of Defense may carry out a program to establish language training centers at accredited universities, senior military colleges, or other similar institutions of higher education for purposes of accelerating the development of foundational expertise in critical and strategic languages and regional area studies (as defined by the Secretary of Defense for purposes of this section) for members of the Armed Forces, including members of the reserve components and candidates of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs, and civilian employees of the Department of Defense.

(b) Elements- Each language training center established under the program authorized by subsection (a) shall include the following:

• (1) Programs to provide that members of the Armed Forces or civilian employees of the Department of Defense who graduate from the institution of higher education concerned include members or employees, as the case may be, who are skilled in the languages and area studies covered by the program from beginning through advanced skill levels.

• (2) Programs of language proficiency training for such members and civilian employees at the institution of higher education concerned in critical and strategic languages tailored to meet operational readiness requirements.

• (3) Alternative language training delivery systems and modalities to meet language and regional area study requirements for such members and employees whether prior to deployment, during deployment, or post-deployment.

• (4) Programs on critical and strategic languages under the program that can be incorporated into Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs to facilitate the development of language skills in such languages among future officers of the Armed Forces.

• (5) Training and education programs to expand the pool of qualified instructors and educators on critical and strategic languages and regional area studies under the program for the Armed Forces.

• (6) Programs to facilitate and encourage the recruitment of native and heritage speakers of critical and strategic languages under the program into the Armed Forces and the civilian workforce of the Department of Defense and to support the Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps.

(c) Partnerships With Other Schools- Any language training center established under the program authorized by subsection (a) may enter into a partnership with one or more local educational agencies to facilitate the development of skills in critical and strategic languages under the program among students attending the elementary and secondary schools of such agencies who may pursue a military career.

(d) Coordination- The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that the language training centers established under the program authorized by subsection (a) are aligned with those of the National Security Education Program, the Defense Language Institute, and other appropriate Department of Defense programs to facilitate and encourage the recruitment of native and heritage speakers of critical and strategic languages under the program into the Armed Forces and the civilian workforce of the Department of Defense and to support the Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps.

(e) Report- Not later than one year after the date of the establishment of the program authorized by subsection (a), the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report on the program. The report shall include the following:

• (1) A description of each language training center established under the program.

• (2) An assessment of the cost-effectiveness of the program in providing foundational expertise in critical and strategic languages and regional area studies in support of the Defense Language Transformation Roadmap.

• (3) An assessment of the progress made by each language training center in providing capabilities in critical and strategic languages under the program to members of the Armed Forces and Department of Defense employees.

• (4) A recommendation whether the program should be continued and, if so, recommendations as to any modifications of the program that the Secretary considers appropriate.

Language Training as a “Net Minus”

Language Designated PositionsState Department

I posted a summary of the most recent GAO report on language shortfalls at the State Department here. The full report is now available for your reading pleasure here.

According to the report, State officials have said that IF (emphasis added) their fiscal year 2010 request for an additional 200 training positions is approved, they expect to see language gaps close starting in 2011; however, State has not indicated when its foreign language staffing requirements will be completely met, and previous staffing increases have been consumed by higher priorities.

But the GAO has a long memory and remembers ...

"For example, in 2003, State officials stated that the increased hiring under the department’s Diplomatic Readiness Initiative would create a training float to help eliminate the foreign language gaps at overseas posts within several years. Although the initiative enabled State to hire more than 1,000 employees above attrition, it did not reduce the language gaps, as most of this increase was absorbed by the demand for personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thus the training reserve was not achieved."

The report also addresses the challenge persistent to language training and promotion.

Another challenge to State’s efforts to address its language shortfalls is the persistent perception among Foreign Service officers that State’s promotion system undervalues language training; however, while HR officials told us that the system values language training, the department has not conducted a systematic assessment to refute the perceptions. Officers at several posts we visited stated a belief that long-term training, specifically advanced training in hard languages, hinders their promotion

For example, officers in Beijing said that some officers are reluctant to study a foreign language that requires a 1- or 2-year commitment because they believe it makes them less competitive for promotion, and one officer said that she would not have bid on her current position if she had had to take Chinese first. A former ambassador told us that many officers feel that language training is a “net minus” to their careers, as the department views this as a drain on the staffing system (italics added).We reported similar sentiments in 2006, when several officers said they believed that State’s promotion system might hinder officers’ ability to enhance and maintain their language skills over time. Although senior HR officials told us that the promotion system weighs time in training as equal to time at post, they acknowledged that officers applying for promotion while in long-term training were at a disadvantage compared with officers assigned to an overseas post. Although promotion boards are required by law to weigh end-of-training reports for employees in full-time language training as heavily as the annual employee evaluation reports, officers in Beijing, Shenyang, Istanbul, and Washington expressed concern that evaluations for time in training were discounted.State officials said they have reviewed the results of one promotion board and found a slightly lower rate of promotions for officers in long-term training at the time of the review. However, these officials were not sure if these results were statistically significant and said that the department has not conducted a more systematic assessment of the issue.

At least the CIA had recognized that it cannot train itself out of this problem and Director Panetta has publicly announced its plan for improving his agency’s foreign language capability. State has been trying to bridge this gap since 2002 as indicated in reports by the GAO and others. It is still trying seven years later, and it has offered no coherent plan to effectively address this issue.

Of course, it is true that the agency's underfunding and the lack of an appropriate training float made it hard for officers in the State Department to pursue extended training. But it is also true that State’s culture does not give the pursuit of extended training or advanced education a high priority (Did you know that there are only two 4/4 language-designated positions in the department? And FSI says “there is almost no formal requirement for FSI to provide such training”). Go look at its promotion precepts – which by the way includes Openness to Dissent. On Foreign Language Skill (Generalists; Specialists as applicable), the precepts say:

Attains general professional proficiency* in at least one foreign language, strives to acquire advanced level proficiency and/or general professional proficiency in additional languages; uses that skill effectively to communicate USG themes and exercise influence; works to increase foreign language ability.*Generalists, to cross senior threshold, must attain S/3-R/3 (i.e., general professional proficiency) in one language.

At the Senior level it only requires that officers “maintain and/or further develops proficiency in foreign language(s); uses skill to promote U.S. interests with a wide range of audiences, including the media.”

So if you already had a 3/3 in one language when you make it to the Senior level, what is there to prod you to bring your game up to a 4/4? The precepts also presume that officers with a 3/3 can effectively communicate USG themes and exercise influence. Apparently that is not the case. The GAO reports that FSOs told them a 3/3 is not enough to do their jobs:

Officials at most of the posts the GAO visited said that a 3/3 in certain critical languages is not always enough for officers to do their jobs. An Economic Officer at one of the posts visited said that she could start meetings and read the newspaper with her 3/3 in Arabic, but that level of proficiency did not provide her with language skills needed to discuss technical issues. And officers in the public affairs section of the same post said that a 3/3 was not sufficient to effectively explain U.S. positions in the local media. Senior officials at another post said 3/3 is adequate to ask and answer questions but not to conduct business. An officer with a 4/4 in Chinese said officers in his section did the best job they could but a 3/3 was not enough. He said he sometimes had difficulty at his level, for example, when participating in radio interviews broadcast to local audiences.

The State Department needed the change yesterday. I think we need no less than the Secretary of State to acknowledge that yes, this is a problem and to provide leadership on how to address this problem now. And not with cosmetic changes like providing 3.5 hours of language training but revamping the whole thing even if you have to turn FSI upside down, or update the promotion and the hiring systems --

Otherwise, we’ll be here next fall talking about one more GAO report on the foreign language gap at the State Department. Count on it.

A Fall Re-Run: Language Shortfalls at the State Dept

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The GAO has just released its latest report on the foreign language shortfalls at the State Department. Since 2002, six reports have been issued altogether on this topic alone. This is beginning to look like a TV series with a return engagement every fall-winter season.

The full report has not been posted yet but here is a summary:

Proficiency in foreign languages is a key skill for U.S. diplomats to advance U.S. interests overseas. GAO has issued several reports highlighting the Department of State's (State) persistent foreign language shortages. In 2006, GAO recommended that State evaluate the effectiveness of its efforts to improve the language proficiency of its staff. State responded by providing examples of activities it believed addressed our recommendation. In this report, which updates the 2006 report, GAO (1) examined the extent to which State is meeting its foreign language requirements and the potential impact of any shortfall, (2) assessed State's efforts to meet its foreign language requirements and described the challenges it faces in doing so, and (3) assessed the extent to which State has a comprehensive strategy to determine and meet these requirements. GAO analyzed data on State's overseas language-designated positions; reviewed strategic planning and budgetary documents; interviewed State officials; and conducted fieldwork in China, Egypt, India, Tunisia, and Turkey.

As of October 31, 2008, 31 percent of Foreign Service officers in overseas language-designated positions (LDP) did not meet both the foreign languages speaking and reading proficiency requirements for their positions. State continues to face foreign language shortfalls in regions of strategic interest--such as the Near East and South and Central Asia, where about 40 percent of officers in LDPs did not meet requirements. Despite efforts to recruit individuals with proficiency in critical languages, shortfalls in supercritical languages, such as Arabic and Chinese, remain at 39 percent.

State trains staff in about 70 languages in Washington and overseas, and has reported a training success rate of 86 percent. Moreover, State offers bonus points for language-proficient applicants who have passed the Foreign Service exam and has hired 445 officers under this program since 2004. However, various challenges limit the effectiveness of these efforts. According to State, a primary challenge is overall staffing shortages, which limit the number of staff available for language training, as well as the recent increase in LDPs. State's efforts to meet its foreign language requirements have yielded some results but have not closed persistent gaps and reflect, in part, a lack of a comprehensive, strategic approach.State officials have said that the department's plan for meeting its foreign language requirements is spread throughout a number of documents that address these needs; however these documents are not linked to each other and do not contain measurable goals, objectives, or milestones for reducing the foreign language gaps. Because these gaps have persisted over several years despite staffing increases, we believe that a more comprehensive, strategic approach would help State to more effectively guide its efforts and assess its progress in meeting its foreign language requirements.

The GAO report makes two recommendations:

Recommendation: To address State's persistent foreign language proficiency shortfalls in the U.S. Foreign Service, the Secretary of State should develop a comprehensive strategic plan consistent with GAO and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) workforce planning guidance that links all of State's efforts to meet its foreign language requirements. Such a plan should include, but not be limited to, the following elements: (1) clearly defined and measurable performance goals and objectives of the department's language proficiency program that reflect the priorities and strategic interests of U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy (2) a transparent, comprehensive process for identifying foreign language requirements, based on objective criteria, that goes beyond the current annual process, to determine which positions should be language designated and the proficiency level needed to enable officers to effectively perform their duties; and (3) a more effective mechanism that allows State to gather feedback from FSOs on the relevance of the foreign language skills that they acquired at FSI to their jobs, and mechanisms for assessing the effectiveness of State's recruitment of critical needs foreign language speakers, and language incentive payments, as well as future efforts toward closing the department's language proficiency gaps.

Recommendation: To address State's persistent foreign language proficiency shortfalls in the U.S. Foreign Service, and to more accurately measure the extent to which language-designated positions are filled with officers who meet the language requirements of the position, the Secretary of State should revise the department's methodology in its Congressional Budget Justifications and annual reports to Congress on foreign language proficiency. Specifically, the department should measure and report on the percentage of officers in language-designated positions who have tested at or above the level of proficiency required for the position, rather than officers who have been assigned to language training but who have not yet completed this training.

* * *

An FS candidate (declined to be publicly identified for fear of adverse reaction) who has a 5/5 in a superhard language wrote to Diplopundit not too long ago. The candidate made it to the orals but scored a teensy weensy point short of the score needed to pass (we’re talking less than a full point). But here’s the contortion in this entrance process that is out of step with current realities – the candidate’s language skills only came into consideration after the applicant passed the orals (by getting a 0.4 - 0.5 boost on the Register). State HR apparently treats a 2/2 in hard and superhard languages the same way as a 5/5 in the application process (QEP and post-orals). But... but ... the difference between an elementary 2/2 and a native speaker 5/5 is almost like an ocean, yes, the Pacific one. Can you really order a beer and also explain our foreign policy in Afghanistan with a 2/2 in Dari? I think not.

A 5/5 in superhard languages like Chinese, Korean, Arabic and Japanese is rarely achieved through a couple of years of training at FSI and even getting to a 4/4 takes years of constant practice. So -- because the FS entry process is wedded to the 1950’s, we instead hire somebody who has no Chinese, no Korean, no Arabic and no Japanese, spend time (a luxury we don’t have) and money (we don’t have, and thus borrowed) training him/her for a language that he/she may never use beyond 3/3 for the near future. In US Embassy Yemen’s example, a senior official complained that a level 3/3 speaking/reading proficiency in Arabic is not enough for mission officers to participate in debates about U.S. foreign policy in Arabic.

And there my friends is a bullheaded strategy for you.

See my previous posts on this topic:

• Language Shortfalls at the State Department, Revisited

• The CIA's Plan for Improving Foreign Language Capability

• More on the State Department’s Arabic Training
• Arabic 3.5: Better Than Nothing Part II
• Insider Quote: A Case of Better Than Nothing?
• Insider Quote: Big Language Hullabaloo Not New

Related Items:

Department of State: Comprehensive Plan Needed to Address Persistent Foreign Language Shortfalls | GAO-09-955, September 17, 2009

State Department: Staffing and Foreign Language Shortfalls Persist Despite Initiatives to Address Gaps | GAO-07-1154T, August 1, 2007

Department of State: Staffing and Foreign Language Shortfalls Persist Despite Initiatives to Address Gaps | GAO-06-894, August 4, 2006

State Department: Targets for Hiring, Filling Vacancies Overseas Being Met, but Gaps Remain in Hard-to-Learn Languages | GAO-04-139, November 19, 2003

Foreign Languages: Workforce Planning Could Help Address Staffing and Proficiency Shortfalls: GAO-02-514T, March 12, 2002

Foreign Languages: Human Capital Approach Needed to Correct Staffing and Proficiency Shortfalls | GAO-02-375, January 31, 2002

Insider Quote: Big Language Hullabaloo Not New

“So I was then assigned as consul to Liverpool. By this time I had already spent sixteen weeks very assiduously studying German. Anyway, while I was at the Foreign Service Institute I insisted on taking an examination in Chinese. There was a big hullabaloo at this time in the Department about language abilities and qualifications. There had been a lot of stuff in the press about people being sent to posts when they didn't have any knowledge of the language.”

Interview with John S. Service
Foreign Service Officer
1977 Oral History, ADST

Language Shortfalls at the State Department, Revisited

No money, no people, and a philosophy from an outdated era

Source: OIG Report, 2006

Ken Dilanian of USA Today reported last week on the language shortfalls at the State Department: State Dept. has few who speak language of area where Taliban operates.

His report says that according to records and interviews, State employs just 18 Foreign Service officers who can speak the language of the region where the Taliban insurgency rages. “Two of them work in Afghanistan, both in the capital, Kabul, according to the State Department's Bureau of Human Resources. Five are in Peshawar, Pakistan.” It quoted Ronald Neumann, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007 as saying: "It's a grim illustration of two problems. First, there is no money, and second, there are no people."

Apparently, the Defense Department has trained 200 people in Pashto and 300 in Dari, the primary language of the non-Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. On the other hand, the report says that “The State Department's efforts have been more modest. In addition to the 18 Foreign Service officers who are proficient in Pashto, 82 speak Dari, State's bureau of human resources said in an e-mail. It said 20 Dari speakers are in Afghanistan. Foreign Service Institute is also training 13 diplomats in Pashto and 37 in Dari.” A larger 2010 budget will expand those numbers according to FSI Director Ruth Whiteside quoted in the report.

So that makes 7 Pashto-speaking FSOs in the Af/Pak region right now. Where are the remaining 11 FSOs posted? I don’t know. But assignments in hard locations like Afghanistan and Pakistan are usually “unaccompanied” and have one-year durations. Given that we’re seven years into the Afghan war, even if we reduce the number assigned to that region to 5 FSOs in each of the last 6 years, that still amounts to something like a 1 ½ tour for those qualified speakers. I suspect that almost all of those 18-language qualified employees would have done their second tour in the region by now.

Isn’t this the same old story that happened to the Arabic speakers sent to Iraq? At a certain point, you run out of qualified speakers. What do you do? Make people do repeat tours for a second, third, fourth time? Or maybe give others 3.5hours of Arabic training and send them off to battle sheep, the electric grid, water wells, etc. in the provinces of Baghdad. Only this time they’ll do this now in the rural areas of Afghanistan?

The report also says that State has 82 Dari speakers, and 20 are currently in Afghanistan. The Official Spokesman has recently said that State has “identified more than fifty civilians who will be in position by early summer.” And that “represent a 50 % increase to our current civilian staffing outside of Kabul.”

It is not clear if the number he cited are FSOs, CRS component, 3161 employees or a combined composition of all three. But if all the remaining 62 Dari qualified officers would go to Kabul, that’ll be good until next summer when they rotate out. And then …there are 13 Pashto and 37 Dari officers currently on training at FSI, plus whatever number is added from the FY10 budget. Those can then rotate into the region in summer 2010. What happens in summer 2011? How about summer 2012?

You know what’s going to happen – it happened before when we fumbled into Baghdad. There will be a mad scramble at the Hill to find out more about this language deficit. We don’t have enough people to go; it’s not like this is really news. But Congress will be shocked and the CRS or the GAO will be tasked to review the language shortfalls at the State Department, again. The good thing about that is -- the last report the GAO conducted was way back in August 2006, so it’s about time to check on what strides had been made in the last 30 months.

From publicly available materials from 2006: The Government Accountability Office reported that as of October 2005, there were 3,267 positions (43 percent) in the State Department that required some level of foreign language proficiency. These positions span about 69 languages.

At that time, the GAO compared the language proficiency of staff in all language-designated positions with the requirements for the positions. Its analysis showed that 71 percent of all worldwide language-designated positions were filled by individuals who met the position’s proficiency requirements, while 29 percent of the positions were not. Language deficiencies exist world-wide, but were among the greatest in the Middle East, a region of great importance to the war on terror, where 37 percent of all language-designated positions were filled by staff without the language skills required of their positions. The skills gap was even greater at some critical posts; for example, 59 percent in Cairo, Egypt; and 60 percent in Sana’a, Yemen.

After reading this report, I was not sure which is worse – that there is large skills gap or that the training provided is an ineffective response against the real world requirement. The report cited an example from US Mission Sana’a where even a level-3 Arabic speaking and reading proficiency is not enough for senior officers to participate in debates about U.S. foreign policy in Arabic.

Sigh ... we need an embeddable language microchip, people! This is the consequences of underfunding but also of short-term planning. Even if money is appropriated now, and additional people are hired, time is in extremely short supply.

The GAO points out that State’s philosophy is to hire officers with a wide range of skills that it believes are predictors of success in the Foreign Service. It does not hire exclusively for skills that State can train, such as foreign languages. As a result, State’s primary approach to meeting its language requirements is through language training, primarily through classes provided at its training arm, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI). An officer's training can last as short as 3.5 hours (like the Arabic PRT), or from a few months to six months; for harder languages, I think they still go for 12 months or 24 months.

Frankly, this is an old school philosophy that suited the cold-war era of containment where then Soviet power according to George Kennan “does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to logic of reason, and it is highly sensitive to logic of force. For this reason it can easily withdraw--and usually does when strong resistance is encountered at any point.”

Our current universe is everything about risks. The current enemy stretches the globe like a giant octopus, with tentacles in many different hot spots around the world. Do you think our opponents in the "war of ideas" will wait quietly until we’re done and ready to counter them?


If there is ever a time when State’s hiring and recruitment philosophy needs an extreme makeover, that time is now. State does not have the luxury of time for training its officers from scratch whether in functional, regional or language areas. It needs to speed up, and it can't speed up using the same old SOPs from an outdated era.

Retired Army officer, John A. Nagl writing for The Wilson Quarterly on The Expeditionary Imperative: “The State Department has finally requested the money to hire 1,100 new Foreign Service ­officers—­the biggest increase since ­Vietnam—­but there is no guarantee that it will be approved by Congress, and no understanding that this 15 percent increase must be only a down payment. At a recent conference on building capacity to win the wars of the 21st century, a four-star Army general exploded, “Eleven hundred! I need another 11,000, and I need them now!”

Despite talks about 21^st century wars and 21^st century diplomacy, one fact remains. In many parts of the bureaucracy, the 20^th century is clinging mightily hard to dear life, afraid to budge to a changed world and a new reality. It is time to change that.

Related Items:

• State Department: Staffing and Foreign Language Shortfalls Persist Despite Initiatives to Address Gaps: GAO-07-1154T, August 1, 2007
  
  
• Department of State: Staffing and Foreign Language Shortfalls Persist Despite Initiatives to Address Gaps: GAO-06-894, August 4, 2006
  
  
• State Department: Targets for Hiring, Filling Vacancies Overseas Being Met, but Gaps Remain in Hard-to-Learn Languages: GAO-04-139, November 19, 2003
  
  
• Foreign Languages: Workforce Planning Could Help Address Staffing and Proficiency Shortfalls: GAO-02-514T, March 12, 2002
  
  
• Foreign Languages: Human Capital Approach Needed to Correct Staffing and Proficiency Shortfalls: GAO-02-375, January 31, 2002

More on the State Department’s Arabic Training

Arabic alphabet in Kufic script, cropped from page 4 of Fry's Pantographia (1799)
Source: Wikipedia

“State enrollments in Arabic language courses, for example, have nearly quadrupled since 2001, with roughly 450 enrollments in the various types of Arabic courses in Fiscal Year 2006. To date in Fiscal Year 2007, there have already been 306 enrollments of State employees in Arabic language training courses, including full-time FSI courses, the Tunis field training course, online distance learning courses, and early morning language courses.”

That's from Ambassador Heather Hodges’ (currently US Ambassador to Ecuador) statement at the Hearing on Building a Stronger Diplomatic Presence to Meet the Challenges of a Post 9-11 World in August 1, 2007. At that time, she was the Acting Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources for the Department of State.

I wonder what was the Arabic enrollment figure in FY 2008?

In 2008, Ruth A. Whiteside, the Director of the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of State wrote about American Diplomacy and the Foreign Language Challenge in the Fall issue of The Ambassadors Review:

“Arabic enrollments have more than tripled since 2001 while Chinese enrollments have more than doubled. We have expanded and enhanced language and area training to more advanced levels including focused targeted in-language media training and other job-specific modules designed to meet the needs of the 21st century foreign affairs professional.”

Nearly quadrupled in 2007, more than tripled in 2008? Whatever –

What I’d really like to know is if they were both counting the 3.5 hour-Arabic training as part of this “surge” in Arabic enrollment? I mean, this is important -- because eventually, Congress and the American public would ask for some accounting as in -- “Where have all the Arabists gone?” So then State could say:

A. These folks are serving in such and such posts overseas

B. These folks were TIC-out
(subjected to “up or out” limitation)

C. These folks were mandatorily retired

OR ...

D. These folks only had 3.5 hours of Arabic training.

Related Posts:

• Arabic 3.5: Better Than Nothing Part II
• Insider Quote: A Case of Better Than Nothing?
  
  

Arabic 3.5: Better Than Nothing Part II

Lughati al arabic laisat kama yajib. La taqlaq! Adrusu allughah al arabia mundu shahr. Um… kaifa taqoulu kalimat "3.5 hours" bel arabia?

My Arabic is bad. Don't worry! I've been learning Arabic for 1 Month. Um.... how do you say "3.5 hours" in Arabic?

See? It's not that hard. Anyone can learn Arabic in 3.5 hours (that's 210 minutes, by the way). And if this does not impress the bejesus out of you, just think -- that's exactly 12,600 seconds of training! Here's how you might slip this info into a congressional hearing or media event:

We do not send out people without proper training, period. You can be assured that all our personnel going into the war zones have at least 12,600 seconds of Arabic training.

Of course, if 12,600 seconds are really not enough for you, try the 100 most used Arabic phrases to learn here (came with the video/audio below) and here, also with audio.

Insider Quote: A Case of Better Than Nothing?

"I have signed up for the pre-deployment training available to me – including the 3.5 hours (yes hours) of Arabic language training that is apparently deemed sufficient to lead a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq."

John K. Naland
Foreign Service Officer & AFSA President
Reflections│ Precious Times
Foreign Service Journal, March 2009 (p.76)

Note: FSJ is now in Folio format, so you either read it online or you download an executable file.