Why can’t we have T-Hackers stay ahead of potential breaches?

Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general of the State Department (2001-2003) and of the Department of Homeland Security (2003 to 2004) who is currently the director of the Aspen Institute’s homeland security program recently wrote an op-ed for NYT excerpted below:





"Perhaps the biggest lesson for airline security from the recent incident is that we must overcome our tendency to be reactive. We always seem to be at least one step behind the terrorists. They find one security gap — carrying explosives onto a plane in their shoes, for instance — and we close that one, and then wait for them to exploit another. Why not identify all the vulnerabilities and then address each one before terrorists strike again?



Since the authorities have to succeed 100 percent of the time, and terrorists only once, the odds are overwhelmingly against the authorities. But they’ll be more likely to defy fate if they go beyond reflexive defense and play offense for a change."

It’s hard to argue with his point, for we clearly are reactive.  It’s as if our enemies have found our magic buttons, and they know exactly which button would get the desired reaction.

On December 2001, shoe-bomber Richard Reid made an unsuccessful attempt to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with PETN as explosive.   According to Wikipedia, pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) is one of the most powerful high explosives known, with a relative effectiveness factor (R.E. factor) of 1.66. It is also used as a medical drug to treat heart conditions.

Soon after that, we all had to take off our shoes, get wand screenings and pat downs at security points in our airports and at airports overseas. Shoes have become weaponized; they might as well join those box cutters and a whole lot of items now enshrined in the list of prohibited items when we fly.  Some funnies and some not so funny stories here. 

In 2006, the transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives carried on board at least 10 airliners travelling from the United Kingdom was discovered which resulted in chaos on how much liquids one can carry onto commercial aircrafts.



Imagine if you were breastfeeding or pumping milk the day those restrictions took effect? TSA says air travelers may now carry liquids, gels and aerosols in their carry-on bag when going through security checkpoints but “all liquids, gels and aerosols must be in 3.4 ounce (100ml) or smaller containers. Larger containers that are half-full or toothpaste tubes rolled up are not allowed. Each container must be 3.4 ounces (100ml) or smaller.” Somewhere, some not so nice folks are laughing.   

What are they going to think of next?

According to this report from Stratfor, when suicide-bomber Abdullah Hassan al Asiri attempted to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Deputy Minister of Interior Prince Muhammad bin Nayef  this past August, al Asiri who was described as a human Trojan horse activated a small improvised explosive device (IED) he was carrying inside his anal cavity. (Eww!)  PETN was reportedly the explosives used. The minister survived, the bomber did not.

Then on 25 December 2009, PETN was also found in the possession of Underpants Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 while approaching Detroit from Amsterdam. Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to detonate PETN sewn into his underwear, by adding liquid from a syringe.

In the aftermath of these recent failed attempts, especially the latter, it looks like we are now faced with the distinct possibility of 1) a full body security scan which uses high frequency radio waves to produce an image of the human body to determine if passengers are smuggling items (such as drugs, cash or diamonds) in or underneath their clothing or 2) a full body scan which uses X-rays that pass through the body to trace swallowed items. Here is a good article on what Spiegel Online calls “strip search scanners.”

What are they going to think of next?  What if they succeed in putting explosives in ..... um, never mind. 

Banks hire the best hackers money can buy to steal from them—and then show them the holes in their defenses; by compromising their systems, they are able to protect their systems.  Have we done that?  According to this September 2009 GAO report on aviation security, TSA has implemented activities to assess risks to airport perimeters and access controls but has not conducted vulnerability assessments for 87 percent of the nation's approximately 450 commercial airports or any consequence assessments.  We're talking just aviation here, what about the rest?



Why can’t we do the equivalent of hackers when it comes to terrorism and stay one step ahead of potential breaches? The thing is we can't pretend to seal the holes in the boat when we don't know where we are leaking.  Until we know which parts of “us” are vulnerable, we will always play catch up.  And while we are stuck with protecting ourselves for the next shoe-bombing or underpants assault, the enemy may have already imagined other more creative ways to do us harm. The attack may not even have to blow anything up -- just throw us into chaos; at significant costs to our peace of mind and sense of security, and to the taxpayers’ pockets.



You’re going to start thinking Domani Spero has gone bat crazy …

Well, okay, maybe – but hiring T-hackers, for lack of a better word, would be no more expensive than what was already spent on security screenings since 2002, or the inevitable body scanners.  For all that expense and inconvenience, we only get the perception of security.  The shoe bomber was the reason we now take off our shoes at security checkpoints in airports but PETN is a plastic explosive that is not picked up by metal detectors. So... why are we  taking off our shoes, again?

According to another GAO report, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have invested over $795 million in technologies to screen passengers at airport checkpoints since fiscal year 2002. News reports indicate that the cost of body scan machines range from 175,000-250,000 each. 

How many airports are there?  According to the Airports Council International, the United States has over 19,847 airports based on the Department of Transportation’s 2007-2011 National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS). More than 3,364 of those airports are recognized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as being open to the public.  382 are Primary Airports, defined as having more than 10,000 annual passengers.



I don’t even want to do the math. My head already hurts.

See what I like about those T-hackers? A squad of dark rangers, brainiacs who can imagine the most dastardly attacks, the most unimaginable chaos and destruction, the dark days we do not want to see in the future – they could poke holes at our security portals and blankets now before a lone wolf or some real bad guys get lucky with poking around. 

  

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• PETN - hard to detect and just 100g can destroy a car (guardian.co.uk)

All the Things We Are – Are Not Learnable

Image via Wikipedia

NDS at Calling a Spade a Spade has an excellent post on selecting a cone or career track in the Foreign Service.

The most significant change to the recruitment process in recent times is the requirement that you choose a career track at the time you take the Foreign Service exam. And until I worked a recent recruitment trip, I didn't realize how big a deal this has become. The problem, of course, is that very few prospective FSOs have any clue about what work in each of those tracks entails.[…]My contention is that your choice of career track should depend primarily upon your personality type. Let me explain. In many parts of the world, if you do political or economic reporting, you may write some bang-up cables and does great liaison work. But at the end of the day, you send out your cable, and only God knows whether anyone ever reads it, especially if you work in Carjackistan or Tsunamia.

Read NDS’ Choosing a Cone (or Career Track or Specialty or Whatever They're Calling It This Week)

I think briefly in the 90’s, the State Department did experiment with taking in entry level officers without preselecting their career tracks. I can’t remember now how long that lasted, or if an in-depth study of its impact was ever conducted. I knew of a couple of folks who wanted to be in the political cone and who were really unhappy when they ended up assigned to the consular and management cones. But I’ve lost track of them so I can’t say if they got out or were able to reconcile themselves to their bureaucratic fates.

I do think that the selection of career tracks ought to be driven by personality type but also strengths. Strengths with its three ingredients as Marcus Buckingham put it: talents (things you’re born with), skills (things you can learn) and knowledge (facts and lessons learned, including self-awareness). But State doesn’t necessarily recruit for specific skills or talents and only test job applicants on general knowledge. Its recruitment drive is to find well-rounded individuals that the organization can mold grow into successful representatives of the government. But the notion of a well-rounded individual is a myth. The most successful people in the world are not conformist or cookie cutter-images of each other but unique individuals with edges and sharpness uniquely their own… Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Richard Branson. Of course, in diplomacy, there is Richard Holbrooke, the larger than life character who is currently SRAP to the most turbulent part of the world. He is probably best known for the Dayton Peace Accords, but also widely known for his aggressiveness and short temper. Which made this British Ambassador mused “I have often wondered why precisely we Europeans cannot produce anyone like Holbrooke to lead our diplomatic effort with bravura and amusing confidence, plus ruthless bullying/intimidation.”

As an aside -- Holbrooke joined the Foreign Service during the Vietnam War. I doubt if it surprised anyone that he did not stay put in the Foreign Service in order to climb the ladder of career ambassadorship.

In any case, perhaps the reason why Europeans cannot produce anyone like Richard Holbrooke is because there are things inherent in all of us that cannot be “produced.” Things that when absent, we cannot compensate by skilling-up or by training.

I once knew a public diplomacy officer, before it was called that, who was promoted up to become the chief of a branch post. He was a nice guy with a deep technical background but had no feel for connecting with the public and was under skilled in managing his small crew. He did his best – he gained experience, learned his lessons and he went to trainings. But no amount of experience or training could hide the fact that at most, he was a mediocre representative of the United States government in the field.

There is, too, former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Say what you will about Secretary Powell’s speech to the UN in the lead up to the war in Iraq, but the fact is Colin Powell’s speeches are always delivered in near perfect pitch, always. And the Toast Masters had nothing to do with it. (If you missed his leadership lecture at the State Department, btw, check it out here). The US Army did not start with a blank slate with Colin Luther Powell in 1958. It honed what was already there.

This contrarian believes that all the things we are – are not learnable.

The self-improvement market in the US worth $11.06 Billion in 2008 would disagree. And so would the State Department’s Human Resource Bureau.This is, of course, contrary to what we’ve been taught most of our lives – that we can be anything we want to be. That we can put in what was left out. And that turning square-peg people into well-rounded ones in perfectly round holes is a real possibility especially in a bureaucracy.

All the things we are – are not learnable. That's not my excuse, just pragmatism. So thanks, but no thanks. I like my square peg edges.

HRC on John Bolton: Priceless

From CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS:An outside the box smack-down, if there ever was one. Excerpts here. Full transcript later of CNN interview here. Fareed also hosted a "townview" with Secretary Clinton for CNN at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. The townview talked about corruption, the need for reform in Kenya, the post-election violence and the ICC, also DRC, Somalia, and lots of tough-love talk. The thing that ricochet around the world in a constant 24 news cycle -- the 40 goats and 20 cows:...

MR. ZAKARIA: Our time is limited, and I’m just going to end with one very specific question. This is a news report I saw while preparing for this town hall, and it involves a woman, a young woman, a very attractive young woman. A Kenyan city councilman says he offered Bill Clinton 40 goats and 20 cows for his daughter’s hand in marriage five years ago. (Laughter.) He is still awaiting an answer. And I thought on this occasion, you know, Mrs. Clinton, if you think about it – (laughter and applause) – if you think in the current global economic climate with asset values have gone down, your stock portfolio is probably down, your government has had – your husband has had to do a little bit of government work, take time off from the private sector, it’s not a bad offer. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, my daughter is her own person. She’s very independent. So I will convey this very kind offer. (Laughter.)

Full transcript here.

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Quickie: Senior Officers and Intellectual Leadership

Excerpts from USAF Maj Gen Charles J. Dunlap Jr.'s piece in the Spring 2009 issue of the Strategic Quarterly Studies. A must read not just for officers in our military but also for those aspiring for leadership roles in our civilian agencies, including our Foreign Service:

[I]t is imperative that those of us involved in formulating and executing national security policy educate ourselves broadly about our service and our agencies, about other services, and about national security matters writ large. Advocacy is not, however, a risk-free enterprise; it is an intellectual contact sport of the first order. Leaders should expect their views to be hotly contested. In many instances the counterpoints will be expressed thoughtfully and at length—but also unsparingly. Such exchanges nevertheless can be productive, because it is often through engaging opposing perspectives that truth can emerge.
[...]
The reality for senior officers is that their advocacy puts more than just the individual officer at risk. It is the family, as well as all of those within the organization who are looking to that person for leadership and mentorship, who will likely suffer if a penalty is to be paid.

For all the well-intentioned rhetoric about encouraging “out of the box” thinking, it is naive to believe that the “system” necessarily protects innovators or intellectual iconoclasts. Being “right” is no insurance policy either.²⁶ In the real world, happy endings are not guaranteed. In his speech to the Air War College in the spring of 2008, Secretary Gates was candid about this truth.27 Using the legendary Air Force reformer Col John Boyd as a “historical exemplar,” the secretary eulogized Boyd’s contributions to airpower thinking while recognizing that he was “a brilliant, eccentric, and stubborn character” who engendered much resistance in the Air Force’s bureaucracy.
[...]
Leaders need to lead. In the case of generals especially, that sometimes means speaking and writing about doctrines which they find ill-serve the Nation by failing to fully utilize the capabilities of the whole joint team.
[...]
Why do I feel so strongly about this? In my nearly years of service I’ve experienced some terrible things—I can still recall, for example, the stench of rotting corpses in Somalia. Yet the most heartbreaking scene I’ve personally witnessed was at the Dover AFB mortuary. To see the bodies of young American Soldiers neatly laid out in their dress uniforms—but forever to be silent—is something that will haunt me forever. Do not we—all of us—owe such heroes our level best to try to find a better way?

The Contact Sport Senior Leaders Must Play (pdf)
Maj Gen Charles J. Dunlap Jr., USAF
Excerpted from Strategic Quarterly Studies

Video of the Week: Special Victims (of Exclusion) Unit

The producers of this video note at the end that the actors' scripts are based on real events:

"This is not meant to suggest that this kind of culture exists everywhere," the producers state at the end. "But elements of this culture exist in many areas and are huge Barriers to Innovation and Inclusion."

Video of the Week: Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce

Malcolm Gladwell searches for the counterintuitive in what we all take to be the mundane: cookies, sneakers, pasta sauce. A New Yorker staff writer since 1996, he visits obscure laboratories and infomercial set kitchens as often as the hangouts of freelance cool-hunters -- a sort of pop-R&D gumshoe -- and for that has become a star lecturer and bestselling author.

Sparkling with curiosity, undaunted by difficult research (yet an eloquent, accessible writer), his work uncovers truths hidden in strange data. His always-delightful blog tackles topics from serial killers to steroids in sports, while provocative recent work in the New Yorker sheds new light on the Flynn effect -- the decades-spanning rise in I.Q. scores.

Gladwell has written two books. The Tipping Point, which began as a New Yorker piece, applies the principles of epidemiology to crime (and sneaker sales), while Blink examines the unconscious processes that allow the mind to "thin slice" reality -- and make decisions in the blink of an eye. A third book is forthcoming.

Video from ted.com

Our Shooty-Shooty and Talky-Talky Teams in Afghanistan

Photo from wikimedia commons

In the February 2009 issue of the Men’s Journal, Robert Young Pelton goes inside our new and brainier strategy in Afghanistan and finds that, on the front line, scientists and soldiers don’t always mix. Afghanistan: The New War for Hearts and Minds, has been called “an absurdist tale of modern warfare,” and there is a good reason for that.

Pelton’s piece focused on the subject of human terrain teams, or HTTs, the idea of putting a small army of civilian social scientists (apparently anthropologists are the ideal ones) and intel-savvy military officers into the field to give brigade commanders a better understanding of local dynamics (social structures, linkages, tribal implications, etc). This is reportedly all part of General Petraeus’s doctrine of a smarter, management-style counterinsurgency.

Pelton reports that there are now “six five-to-nine-person human terrain teams in Afghanistan and 21 teams in Iraq. If the concept proves successful, the $120 million–plus program would grow to 700 HTT and support staff in those countries and other hot spots.”

The man charged with managing the program is retired special operations colonel Steve Fondacaro who freely admits that one of the biggest obstacles to injecting social science into the military will be the military itself. “We are like a virus infecting the host,” he told Pelton. “Either the army will be inoculated and be stronger, or they will expel us in a torrent of puke.” Okay, if that is not a quotable quote, I don’t know what is.

Pelton situates us in Bagram and gives us a feel of the “many tribes” there from the dominant ones “identifiable by their digital camo and bad haircuts,” to the “contractors recognizable by their Fu Manchu mustaches,” and an invisible tribe of about 600 aka prisoners. With Burger King, DQ, and Subway in addition to premium cable available for $115 a month and massages from young Kyrgyz ladies for $15, he calls Bagram “America’s duty-free space station in the war on terror and may be the most culturally isolated outpost on the planet. The world’s most effective killing machine has ensconced itself in a hastily constructed replica of a Midwest strip mall.”

Ouch!

Some more interesting stuff:

A scientist did not want to be photographed or named: Pelton speculates “It seems that within left-leaning academic circles, hanging out with the military is the equivalent of a movie star doing infomercials.”

The research manager, Army lieutenant “Indiana Jones” makes about $30,000 before danger pay, while a top-tier scientist can make $250,000 a year in the program. The interpreter makes four times what the lieutenant earns. Think how much will be in this pot if there is one scientist for each of the 700 HTTs at $250,000 a pop.

Read about a team of three burly, geared-up men known only as Peter, an Afghan-American translator named, Joseph; and Peter’s partner, who calls himself “Paris Hilton;” Their team also called HTT, for HUMINT or human intelligence are the “shooty-shooty guys” according to Paris. Apparently the scientists of the human terrain teams are the “talky-talky” guys. They threw around other acronyms like THT for tactical human terrain teams and CTTs for cultural terrain teams to avoid confusion but gave up on it after a while.

Halfway through the piece, Pelton writes:

“Imagine if dudes with guns like that come into your house at 2 am,” Jones says. He has stumbled across the dirty secret of “human terrain” mapping. In order to snip the connective tissue between the network of evildoers, someone has to figure out who they are. Whether you snip the web by being nice or nasty is irrelevant. The information Jones and his team collect with good intentions is all part of a massive database that may eventually lead to Paris Hilton knocking on someone’s door.”

And like any writer in search of a story, he wastes no time while waiting for a ride. Pelton asked his company to name who are the good guys and the bad guys. You have to wade through many more acronyms but he was kind enough to explain each one. Somebody put JAG, the U.S. military’s investigation unit in the bad guys’ column. Jeez!

He closes his article with a quote from an MBA grad, Masood Karokhail, “You can’t be in the military and expect to work with the very people they are attacking,” and decided that Karokhail has captured the crux of the problem.

“My time with Jones taught me more about how Americans think and operate in Afghanistan than how Afghans think and operate. The resurgent Taliban is thrilled to see the Americans make many of the same mistakes the Russians did here: worn-out troops isolated in hardened forts defending a weakened central government promoting a foreign agenda. HTTs are supposed to bring down the cultural barrier between the military and the locals, but the biggest enemy is the natural inclination of troops to be troops, not social workers. Strangely enough, the Taliban is far more expert at meeting the basic needs of Afghans: namely, by fighting the corrupt central government and providing justice and security. Until that changes the Afghans will be more inclined to identify with the “enemy” than the well-intentioned guests.”

Our national security strategy stands on the three legs of defense, diplomacy and development. Leaning on one leg for much of the last eight years has made for a wobbly stool to put it mildly. As Afghanistan heats up once more, I think this one makes for a very serious reading. I am curious as to how much of the Afghanistan strategy is going to change with the new national security team in place. How much control/oversight will the new Obama team and 111th Congress exercise over the execution of new programs like this, especially one that is part of the Petreus Doctrine.

You’ve got to read the whole thing here.

Danger Room has more articles on the Human Terrain Teams here.

Video of the Week: Building a Natural Constituency

How to trick Congress into spending more on diplomacy (07:35)

Let's see - you don't really want to trick Congress, but the idea these guys talked about here is not such a bad idea (you need money, of course). But how about regional training centers instead of training centers sprinkled across the United States or one concentrated at FSI in Virginia?

This would be at least four states, with at least eight senators and some congressional reps. And since it's regional, the number of employees would be higher than it would be if they were simply training centers. Instead of possibly 20 employees at some center in Oklahoma, perhaps you might have 300 workers in Florida or Texas as hub for those heading to the Western Hemisphere. Put one in Seattle for those heading to the East Asian regions. Multiply that by four - those employees would mean more to the congressional representatives than a mere 20, wouldn't it? The higher the numbers, the merrier of course, and the more votes, too. And hey! we can talk other agencies to sending their staff to these training centers and DOD into sending their soldiers over for language training to these satellite regional branches of FSI. May even open up the courses to federal contractors for a fee.

Except, of course, that with DOD's budget, they can actually expand DLI, their language school in Monterrey or build more foreign language schools across the country if they want. Or DOD can just hire non-U.S. citizens as language and cultural specialists, so no need for training schools.

But look - if we really think about it, wouldn't it be a good idea not to get everything concentrated in one place like DC? It made sense then, but not in this day and age. I think the regional centers would be useful not only in recalibrating the organizational structure into a starfish-like entity for security purposes but also in building up a natural constituency in the process. Is that really crazy?

Links to other segments in this Foreign Policy Forecast
Note that if you click on the links to the other segments, it will take you to the bloggingheads.tv website.

Can candidates discuss foreign policy in a non-stupid way? (07:35)
The future of the Iraq debate (10:17)
Talking foreign policy without losing the average Joe (06:27)
Heather on why Democrats are getting stronger on defense (08:40)
Dan defends Bush’s diplomatic skills (07:35)

Staffing the Foreign Service – Part III

I have written previously about Staffing the Foreign Service here and here. This post will specifically address the State Department’s most underutilized resources – the Foreign Service spouses and partners (aka: members of household same sex partners).

The “two-person single career,” that was the norm in the Foreign Service at the start of the 20^th century is long dead. In 2005, it was reported that 65% of people in the national workforce are in dual-career relationships. I’m not sure what the percentage is for FS couples, but since the Foreign Service generally reflects American society, I would guess that the number is not too far off from this figure.

The 2007 statistics available from the Family Liaison Office of the State Department indicates that we have over 9,000 family members (from 217 posts) overseas, of which 80% are female and 20% are male. Approximately 2,000 family members or 25% are working within an embassy while a large chunk – 63% are not working. I don’t have the stats on educational level but the family member talent pool also indicates that we have 37% in the high end executive level, 38% in the mid-executive level and only 25% in the emerging level. Note that these stats refer to adult family members of U.S. government employees assigned to overseas mission under Chief of Mission authority, and do not include members of household partners (numbering between 500-700).

We can glean a few things from these stats: 1) the family member talent pool is rich but underutilized, 2) Family members employed at US Missions typically do clerical work and dead-end jobs; a captured workforce at the emerging level unless they return to school and/or return to the U.S for more substantial jobs; 3) the number of family members not working is much higher as these numbers do not include member of household partners, 4) If 63% of family members are not working, and couples revert to the “two-person single career” mold from the 50’s, we will have a large number of FS spouses/partners with minimal financial security in their old age (no job or low pay = minimal retirement pay). This could be a significant drawback for Gen-Y and Millennial-employees considering the length of their stay in the Service.

From “Diplomats and Diplomacy for the 21^st Century,” a dissertation written by Gustav Lindstrom for RAND University (pdf file):

… "From a retention perspective, the State Department needs to take active steps to ensure that spouses of FSOs can attain gainful employment while serving abroad."

…"Entering FSOs may be able to take one or two “deployments” with the spouse staying at home, however, for the long run, such an arrangement may turn out to be untenable which may lead to attrition from the Service. From an economic standpoint, giving up the career of one of the family members is a costly decision.

….While spouses can have careers, they are probably not going to be the ones that they envision; Lindstrom quoted Ray Leki of the FSI Transition Center."

The need is not just for gainful employment but meaningful employment. I have actually meet some people in the FS (not too many, thank goodness!) who thinks that spouses should be happy if they get a job, any job - never mind if it's a mindless one or a dead ender job. After all, despite a bachelor or graduate degree, one is "just a spouse." At the extreme end of some of the egregious remarks that spouses occasionally hear came from a DCM who told a female FSO that she should leave the FS because she has a professional husband, who wants to work in his field (the spouse is a lawyer). At least the senior officer had a mind not to suggest that she divorce her spouse to solve the two-career problem.

In any case, it is not unheard of for a 10-hour/week roving secretary position that pays $12/hr advertised as "a good job for spouses." That's about how much Walmart pays for its associate and slightly more than what you'd pay for a nanny per hour in the UK. It is true that there are spouses who prefer to stay home to take care of the kids, that there are spouses who would rather take a $12/hr job than have no job, and there's nothing wrong with that. Within this limited universe, spouses should have the free choice whether to stay home or work. But it is also true that we have spouses who aspire for careers of their own. The fact that the later group wants careers of their own should not make them whiners but should make us think harder how we can best support them. I am aware of the initiatives that had been rolled out in the last five or so years - but remember, these EFM employment numbers are from 2007. There's a huge difference between doing something and doing all we can. I'm sure somebody would be happy to tell me that "this is better than nothing" - true, but "better than nothing" should not be our bar, if we want to do this right. Furthermore, "better than nothing" has never been a good recipe for employee engagement.

Below are some ideas for promoting gainful and meaningful employment for our Foreign Service spouses and partners (I'm sure there are many more floating around out there). I realized that the inclusion of MOH partners under the Eligible Family Member (EFM) definition is still being fought (see Life After Jerusalem), but for purposes of these "orphan ideas,"my reference to EFMs here include spouses and MOH partners.

Functional Fellowship for EFMs

Most jobs (including State’s specialist requirements) require candidates to have the skills and specialized experience of at least three years. Given that family members move every 2-3 years, and have no control over what jobs becomes available at any given post, an FS spouse would have to be extremely lucky if he/she can have that three years experience in one specific field in a span of three overseas assignments (6-9 years). In reality, that almost never happens because most spouses take whatever job becomes available –mail clerk, security escort, roving secretary, CLO, newsletter editor, visa clerk, fingerprint clerk, etc. etc. - all the fun jobs at the embassy.

The Functional Fellowships would allow spouses/partners who have the educational background but lacking specific work experience, to work at our US Missions in order to gain specialized experience in a progressive manner. At the conclusion of the fellowship, he/she should have the option of applying for the specialist vacancy relevant to his/her experience. For this to work, the fellowships must be based on educational qualifications, past performance, and potential and must be centrally funded. The State leadership’s full support on this and commitment on the increase of tandem couples in our ranks is crucial to the success of this initiative.

EFM Virtual Corps

We have approximately 2,000 out of 9,000 family members who are currently working in over 217 missions worldwide. Majority if not all of them already have, at the minimum, a “Secret” level clearance. And yet, when they relocate to other posts, it is entirely possible that they won’t find work there. The average cost to process a SECRET clearance has been reported to run from several hundred dollars to $3,000, depending on individual factors. The average cost to process a TOP SECRET clearance is between $3,000 and about $15,000, depending on individual factors. Given that most FS folks spend majority of their lives overseas, the $3,000 for a Secret clearance process for EFMs would be way too low. But let's assume that all the EFMs currently working only have a Secret level clearance - at $3,000 each that's still 6Million USD right there. Even if only 500 of them lost their jobs due to regular reassignment, that’s 1.5M USD that’s not put to effective use.

So here’s the idea – why can’t we create an EFM Virtual Corps? The EFMs who are already in the system could be assigned a specialization based on prior work experience within the US Mission. When not employed at post, their names could be added to the EFM Virtual Corps, a resource for other posts who require virtual supplementary or temporary/ongoing support online. Their email and Intranet logon should be enabled to facilitate communication while they are on a float assignment and their reporting authority should be a straight line to a central coordinator at Main State and a dotted line to the Management Counselor at post. I know, I know, somebody from HR probably have a ready list of reasons on why this can’t be done, but - how do we know if this works or not if we don’t try? The technology is already available, we just need organizational will and some, to make this work.

State-Supported EFM, Inc. – An Outsourcing Provider

A friend of mine actually gave me this idea when she asked – Why can’t State outsource its contracting and support jobs to a State-supported/enabled corporation staffed by qualified family members overseas? Yes, why not? While Washington, D.C. and half of the world sleep, the other part is awake and should be able to perform the required tasks. Instead of sending the work to a BPO in India or the Philippines, State could simply send the required tasks to a virtual corporation staffed by our own people. Wouldn’t this what you’d call a “win-win” proposition?

Excerpted from Fast Company: Jordan Cohen, senior director of organizational effectiveness at Pfizer learned after analyzing the activities of Pfizer employees, that they spend 20% to 40% of their time on four activities: creating documents, manipulating and analyzing spreadsheets, scheduling meetings, and researching. "Our Harvard MBA staff was spending a lot of time doing 'support' work, not their actual jobs," says Jordan Cohen, senior director of organizational effectiveness. "These are people we hired to develop strategies and innovate. Instead, they were Googling and making PowerPoints." I’m convinced that State can learn from Pfizer’s success in this area – but, this would of course, require an “outside the box” and “running with scissors to embrace the future” perspective. You get penalized for these perspectives at times (although there are exceptions) … but if we truly want to be the diplomatic corps of the 21^st century, well then we should embrace the Office of the Future, and all that it can offer, shouldn’t we?

Language Specialist Corps

A GAO Report on Foreign Languages: Human Capital Approach Needed to Correct Staffing and Proficiency Shortfalls indicates that personnel with foreign language skills are needed in a range of federal agency programs and missions. It states in part:

“In light of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the importance of foreign language skills will increase as the United States expands its efforts to counter terrorist activities. The federal agencies we reviewed face shortages of translators and interpreters, as well as staff with other foreign language skills. These shortages strain agency operations that depend in part on language-skilled employees to meet increasingly complex missions. Agencies have pursued strategies such as training, targeted recruitment efforts, and contracting to fill documented skill gaps. However, these strategies have not been completely effective in closing those gaps.”

Although the US Army make use of external resources including contracting staff as needed, recruiting native or U.S.–trained language speakers; or drawing on the expertise of other agency staff, reservists, or retirees, the State Department does not target native speakers, nor use external resources, because it does not believe that language proficiency is the primary criterion for selecting Foreign Service officers. However, we’re talking about shortages not just within the FS but across other Federal agencies with foreign language requirement.

I feel like waving my arms and jumping up and down here and screaming ya-hoo!! What are you looking elsewhere for? We have an available pool of native language speakers within our ranks, but as usual, we did not see it fit to factor them in our strategic human capital planning. We have shortages of translators and interpreters in the Federal Government, why can’t we put to use FS family members and partners with native foreign language proficiency? How many foreign born spouses do we have? How many native born spouses do we have who have already availed themselves of language training at FSI? More than I could count. Test them at FSI, keep them on the roster and reward them hiring points for keeping/improving language capabilities, put them on call as translators and foreign language specialist as needed by the Government. With a Language Specialist Corps composed of native speakers from the Foreign Service community, we would not only be filling up a documented skills gap in the Federal Government, we would also give our family members another option at creating a portable career at home and abroad. Why can’t this be done?

People talk about the ongoing “war on talent,” and yet when we talk about that we only seem to think of our officers and support personnel. We have paid cursory attention to the talent we already have, not fully recognizing what our FS spouses/partners have to offer. They have significant influence over whether an employee stays or leave this organization and utilizing them in a strategic manner can offer the organization cost-savings in moving and support expenses, and more. Unless the State Department releases a new directive requiring diplomats to remain single, spouses and partners are here to stay. In this era of budget crunch, of doing more with less, of accelerating talent wars, or boomers riding out into the sunset, I wonder why State still spends all that money and energy recruiting externally instead of looking at what it already has within. It is high time that we start looking at FS spouses and partners as resource and not as "cost." This group has the potential to impact not only the organization's bottom line, but also its retention of talent. This is no longer grandma's Foreign Service; some spouses will not be happy to just bake pie.