[Senate Hearing 111-404]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-404
A REVIEW OF U.S. DIPLOMATIC READINESS:
ADDRESSING THE STAFFING AND FOREIGN
LANGUAGE CHALLENGES FACING
THE FOREIGN SERVICE
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HEARING
before the
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 24, 2009
__________
Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs
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53-842 PDF WASHINGTON : 2010
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JON TESTER, Montana
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado
Lisa M. Powell, Staff Director
Joel C. Spangenberg, Professional Staff Member
Jessica K. Nagasako, Professional Staff Member
Jennifer A. Hemingway, Minority Staff Director
Thomas A. Bishop, Minority Professional Staff Member
Benjamin B. Rhodeside, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Akaka................................................ 1
Senator Voinovich............................................ 3
WITNESSES
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Nancy J. Powell, Director General of the Foreign Service and
Director of Human Resources, Department of State............... 5
Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S.
Government Accountability Office............................... 7
Ronald E. Neumann, President, American Academy of Diplomacy...... 18
Susan R. Johnson, President, American Foreign Service Association 20
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Ford, Jess T.:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Johnson, Susan R.:
Testimony.................................................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Neumann, Ronald E.:
Testimony.................................................... 18
Prepared statement by Hon. Thomas D. Boyatt.................. 50
Powell, Nancy J.:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 33
APPENDIX
Background....................................................... 62
GAO Report titled ``Department of State, Additional Steps Needed
to Address Continuing Staffing and Experience Gaps at Hardship
Posts,'' GAO-09-874, September 2009............................ 68
GAO Report titled ``Department of State, Comprehensive Plan
Needed to Address Persistent Foreign Language Shortfalls, GAO-
09-955, September 2009......................................... 116
Responses to questions submitted for the Record:
Ms. Powell................................................... 156
Mr. Ford..................................................... 172
Ms. Johnson.................................................. 173
A REVIEW OF U.S. DIPLOMATIC READINESS:
ADDRESSING THE STAFFING AND FOREIGN
LANGUAGE CHALLENGES FACING
THE FOREIGN SERVICE
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government
Management, the Federal Workforce,
and the District of Columbia,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:34 p.m., in
room SD-342 Dirksen, Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K.
Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Akaka and Voinovich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. I call this hearing of the Subcommittee on
Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and
the District of Columbia to order.
I want to welcome our witnesses. I look forward to a good
hearing today, and thank you very much for being here.
Today's hearing, ``A Review of U.S. Diplomatic Readiness:
Addressing the Staffing and Foreign Language Challenges Facing
the Foreign Service,'' will examine the results of two
Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviews of diplomatic
readiness at the State Department.
Diplomatic readiness means having the right people, with
the right skills, in the right place, at the right time, to
carry out America's foreign policy. And before I continue, I
just want to say, while I was saying that, I couldn't help but
think about anybody but Senator Voinovich, because this is his
statement.
Senator Voinovich. I stole it from David Walker.
[Laughter.]
Senator Akaka. GAO's reports make it clear. The State
Department's diplomatic readiness has been consumed by current
operations and now it must focus on rebuilding its
capabilities.
The State Department struggles in particular with staffing
and experience gaps at hardship posts. Mid-level gaps in public
diplomacy are especially acute. GAO found that an ongoing
shortage of Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) has led to an over-
reliance on junior officers working in positions meant for more
senior officers. This undermines diplomatic readiness as junior
officers handle duties without adequate preparation and
experience and senior diplomatic leaders spend more time
assisting junior officers.
I urge the Department to follow GAO's recommendation to
fill hardship post positions with at-grade officers and
thoroughly evaluate the incentives that it offers to FSOs
considering these assignments.
Foreign language gaps aggravate the staffing shortfalls and
are limiting the effectiveness of U.S. diplomacy. According to
GAO, 73 percent of Foreign Service Officers serving in
Afghanistan and 57 percent of FSOs serving in Iraq do not meet
the language proficiency requirements of their positions. One
number that especially troubles me for strategic reasons is the
40 percent language shortfall among FSOs serving in the Near
East and South and Central Asia.
This is the third time this decade that GAO has recommended
that the State Department take a strategic and systematic
approach to addressing its language shortcomings. I believe the
Department needs to fully commit to a strategic effort that
involves its senior leadership and produces the meaningful
performance measures and objective language proficiency
analysis that GAO has called for.
The State Department is not alone in its struggle for
language proficiency. As a Nation, the United States lags far
behind other nations in foreign language proficiency, with less
than 10 percent of its citizens being able to speak another
language fluently. While the State Department needs a strategy
for addressing its language shortfalls, the Nation as a whole
needs one too. We need more Americans both inside and outside
of government to have the language skills that will support our
national security and economic stability.
Earlier this year, I reintroduced the National Foreign
Language Coordination Act to address our government-wide
language gaps. This bill would require the appointment of a
National Language Advisor, the formation of a National Foreign
Language Coordination Council, and the development of a
National Foreign Language Strategy. Leadership in this effort
must be comprehensive, as not one sector of government,
industry, or academia has all of the needs for language and
cultural competency or all of the solutions.
The Obama Administration and the State Department
understand the need and have requested funding for hundreds of
additional Foreign Service Officers. This growth in officers
will provide sufficient staff and resources to allow for long-
term foreign language training and other professional
development without interfering with the Department's
operations.
But as we saw earlier this decade, with the former
Secretary of State Colin Powell's Diplomatic Readiness
Initiative, these personnel and training gains can be quickly
depleted if the strategic situation changes and long-term
strategic workforce planning and resourcing are not firmly in
place.
I look forward to hearing more about the issues affecting
diplomatic readiness. We are fortunate that momentum is on our
side and that there is a broad consensus that our Foreign
Service needs to be supported.
Let me now call on Senator Voinovich for his opening
statement. Senator Voinovich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Senator Voinovich. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I am deeply
grateful that you are holding this hearing, as you have held
hearings since you have been the Chairman of this Subcommittee.
I have been very concerned about the management of the
State Department. I was a member of the Foreign Relations
Committee and got involved with Colin Powell and Dick Armitage
about the management of the Department, the human capital
challenges that it faced, and the concern I had for the esprit
de corps within the Department.
When Secretary Rice took over, I was very concerned whether
or not we would continue the effort that was made by Colin
Powell and by Armitage, and unfortunately, it wasn't. I think
we fell behind on some of the things that should have been
done, and at the same time we were doing that, our public
diplomacy also hit its lowest level.
I think with the election of President Obama, we have a new
lease on life in terms of our public diplomacy, but our smart
power must be supported by the infrastructure in the State
Department.
So I just thank you, Senator Akaka, for what you have done.
Last year, this Subcomittee held several hearings examining the
impact of chronic understaffing. At that time, one out of every
five employees held a job designated for a more experienced
person. The State Department had identified a training and
readiness gap of 1,030 positions, about 15 percent of its
workforce.
After that hearing, Congress received the American Academy
of Diplomacy's report, ``A Foreign Affairs Budget for the
Future,'' which found that the State Department lacked the
people, competencies, and funding to meet the U.S. foreign
policy demands effectively. And that report, which we shared
with Secretary Clinton before her confirmation, called for an
increase of more than 4,000 employees in the Department by
2014, accompanied by a significant investment in training. As
Secretary Gates observed, we faced a situation that no longer
could be ignored because of our reliance on hard power.
The Commission on Smart Power emphasized the fact that our
success in public diplomacy depends in large part upon building
long-term people-to-people relationships. Nine months into
office, the Administration, through the leadership of Secretary
Clinton and General Jones, has rightly focused on strengthening
our smart power. Our best military strategies will do little to
meet new realities and emerging challenges without the
personnel to improve our global posture through diplomacy.
Congress heard the message and I believe will continue its
effort to provide for an increase in personnel and enact a
permanent solution to the pay gap facing junior employees
assigned to overseas posts. I applaud Secretary Clinton's
efforts to rebuild our diplomatic corps and know our Nation
will benefit from the men and women who have joined the Foreign
Service, motivated by the ideals of public service. I am
pleased she recognized the importance of the Deputy Secretary
for Management Position, and I am encouraged by Jack Lew's
efforts.
I would like to say, Senator Akaka, I was with Ben Cardin
and went to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) meeting in Lithuania, and then I traveled for a
day up to Latvia. It is just unbelievable how happy the people
in the State Department are that we finally recognized the
locality pay situation that they face and I think it is really
important that we understand how important it has been to them
and try to make sure that we talk to the Chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry, about enacting
a permanent solution.
So many of the challenges that we face are ones we had not
anticipated. However, additional resources are a part of the
solution. Our increased investment and growing overseas
presence requires more careful attention to be given to the
type of strategic planning required to make measurable progress
in our diplomatic readiness. Although it may be tempting to
rush personnel to post, the opportunity to rebuild the Foreign
Service doesn't come along too often. Otherwise, we diminish
our ability to foster democratic principles that will affect
both our children and our grandchildren.
Each of us are gathered in this room today because we know
that strengthening our diplomatic corps is critical to ensuring
American national security and economic vitality. While some
might tire at the thought of crafting a remedial strategic
plan, we all know that which gets measured gets done. I am
hoping, Mr. Chairman, that we get a plan from the State
Department with some measurable goals and, of course, metrics,
so that there is no difference of opinion between the
Government Accountability Office folks and the State
Department--which we have seen too often. We come to a meeting
and the Government Accountability Office says one thing, the
State Department says another, and I always say to them, why
don't you just get your heads together and try to work
something out, agree on a plan, agree on the goals, agree on
the metrics, and we can make music.
So I am hoping that as a result of this hearing, that we
will maybe see that plan so that 6 months from now, the
Chairman of this Subcomittee and I, can see how the State
Department is doing, and also during that period of time have
you give us a chance to see, if there are some things that we
can do to help. That is what we are here for. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich.
And now, I want to again welcome our panel and to introduce
you. Nancy J. Powell, who is the Director General of the
Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources at the
Department of State, and Jess T. Ford, the Director of
International Affairs and Trade at the U.S. Government
Accountability Office.
It is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear in all
witnesses and I would ask you to please stand and raise your
right hand.
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to
give the Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Ms. Powell. I do.
Mr. Ford. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Let it be noted for the record
that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Before we start, I want you to know that your full written
statements will be part of the record. I would also like to
remind you to please limit your oral remarks to 5 minutes.
Ms. Powell, will you please proceed with your statement?
TESTIMONY OF NANCY J. POWELL,\1\ DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE
FOREIGN SERVICE AND DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES, DEPARTMENT OF
STATE
Ms. Powell. Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Voinovich,
thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to
address the Department of State's efforts to meet the staffing
and foreign language challenges we face as we strive to meet
our Nation's foreign policy objectives.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Powell appears in the Appendix on
page 33.
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I appreciate your interest in the issues raised by the two
GAO reports we are considering today. The Bureau of Human
Resources worked closely with the GAO teams over a period of
months and welcomed their recommendations. The Bureau has the
critical responsibility of strengthening American diplomacy
through our people.\1\
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\1\ The GAO reports referred to appear in the Appendix on pages 68
and 116 respectively.
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As you stated, our principal task is ensuring that we have
the right people with the right skills in the right places at
the right time. We are very grateful that Congress has
appropriated funds to improve our ability to accomplish this
mission in a highly dynamic global environment. I am confident
that these resources have set us on the right path to address
the diplomatic challenges of today and tomorrow. That said, we
have much catching up to do, as reflected in some of the GAO's
findings.
We know that we must continue to reach out beyond the
embassy to influence public opinion and expand our diplomatic
presence where our interests are most at stake. We have
increased the number of positions at difficult, potentially
dangerous posts that are essential to our foreign policy
objectives. We have also increased the language designated
positions by 33 percent since 2002.
While our mission has grown considerably over the past 10
years, our staffing has not kept pace. Due to a lack of
resources, we have had to make difficult decisions as to which
positions to fill and which to leave vacant, whether to leave a
position empty for the months it takes to train a fully
language qualified officer or sacrifice part of or all of the
language training. These have not been easy choices. We
prioritize as dictated by our foreign policy goals. As a
result, we have fully staffed high priority posts, such as
Afghanistan and Iraq, but have not been able to meet all the
needs of other posts or even of our Washington headquarters.
Fortunately, that is beginning to change. With the
additional hiring authorized by Congress, we launched Diplomacy
3.0 in March 2009 and expect to bring on board 1,200 new
Foreign Service and civil service employees above attrition in
fiscal year 2009. With your continued support, we will hire
another 1,200 more in fiscal year 2010. This is the first step
in achieving a downpayment on Secretary Clinton's goal to
increase the size of the Foreign Service by 25 percent by 2013.
Our professionals are working to ensure that these new
employees will be fully prepared to meet the challenges at hand
and trained to pursue their work as effectively as possible. As
these much-needed new hires, and those yet to come, are trained
and move into positions, the system should come into alignment
and the gaps in diplomatic staffing should be reduced. That is
our goal, and, I am sure, yours, as well.
Many of the issues raised by GAO are directly related to
these staffing shortages. Additional staffing will enable us to
begin filling vacancies at posts as well as ensure our
employees can complete the training they need to most
effectively fulfill our mission.
Approximately two-thirds of our Foreign Service posts are
now designated as hardship posts, a considerable increase from
32 years ago when I joined the Foreign Service. In addition,
more than 900 positions are designated as unaccompanied or
limited accompanied for reasons of hardship or danger, an
increase from just 200 such positions in 2001.
With insufficient officers to fully staff all of our posts,
we have had to prioritize which positions to fill and which to
leave vacant. We value service at hardship posts, and I am
proud to say that our dedicated employees continue to step
forward. We agree with GAO that we can better assess the impact
of our individual incentives and allowances and are seeking
more effective methods to do so. I would like to emphasize that
many of these incentives may not be quantifiable, but we will
be working to try to take a look at all of them.
We appreciate that GAO acknowledged our success in staffing
Afghanistan and Iraq, the two unaccompanied posts that are
among our highest foreign policy priorities. We also agree with
GAO that the Department should link all of its efforts to meet
foreign language requirements. We are in the process with a
working group that I have established in the last 2 weeks to
put together a more strategic look at the language staffing
needs and our training capabilities.
It is appropriate that we are reviewing these two GAO
reports together, and they come at a most welcome time. The new
State Human Resources (HR) Department leadership team looks
forward to using these reports to help guide our efforts to
address our staffing and readiness challenges.
On behalf of the State Department, I want to again thank
the Congress for the resources provided through Diplomacy 3.0
that are beginning to allow us to address our human resource
needs and encourage you to continue that with the 2010 budget.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ambassador Powell.
Mr. Ford, will you please proceed with your statement?
TESTIMONY OF JESS T. FORD,\1\ DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
AND TRADE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Ford. Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, I
am pleased to be here today to discuss U.S. diplomatic
readiness, in particular, the staffing and foreign language
challenges facing the Foreign Service.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ford appears in the Appendix on
page 39.
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The State Department faces an ongoing challenge in ensuring
that it has the right people with the right skills in the right
places overseas. In particular, the State Department has had a
long, difficult time of staffing its hardship posts, many in
places that are difficult to work, such as Beirut and Lagos,
Nigeria, where conditions are difficult, sometimes dangerous,
and living conditions can be extreme. But many of them also
need a full complement of staff because they are part of our
foreign policy priorities.
The State Department has also faced persistent shortages
with staff in critical language areas, despite the importance
of foreign language proficiency in advancing U.S. foreign
policy and economic interests overseas.
My statement today is based on two GAO reports which were
issued 2 days ago. I am going to briefly summarize them.
We found that despite a number of steps taken over the
years, the State Department continues to face a persistent
staffing and experience gap at hardship posts, as well as
notable shortfalls in foreign language capabilities. A common
element of these problems has been a longstanding staffing and
experience deficit which has both contributed to the gaps at
hardship posts and fueled the language shortfall by limiting
the number of staff available for language training.
The State Department has undertaken several initiatives to
address these shortfalls, including multiple staffing increases
intended to fill the gaps. However, the Department has not
undertaken these initiatives in a comprehensive and strategic
manner. As a result, it is unclear when the staffing and skill
gaps that will put our diplomatic readiness at risk will close.
I am going to cite some of the numbers in our reports. As
of September 2008, the State Department had a 17 percent
average vacancy rate at its greatest hardship posts overseas.
Posts in this category include such places as Peshawar,
Pakistan, and Shenyang, China. This 17 percent vacancy rate was
nearly double the average vacancy rate at posts with no
hardship differential.
About 34 percent of mid-level generalist positions at the
posts with the greatest hardship are filled with officers at
grades below the requirement. For example, over 40 percent of
the officers' positions in Iraq and Afghanistan were filled by
Foreign Service Officers at grades below the assignment
requirements.
In the area of foreign language, 31 percent of Foreign
Service Officers did not meet the foreign language requirement
for their position. Forty percent of them in Near East, South,
and Central Asia did not meet the requirement. As you noted in
your opening statement, 73 percent in Afghanistan and 57
percent in Iraq did not meet the language requirement. Over
half of the State Department's Foreign Service specialists do
not meet the foreign language requirement, and that is 740
people.
Mr. Chairman, this has serious implications for our
diplomatic readiness. During our overseas field work and in
conversations with a number of former and current senior
officials at the State Department, we found that staffing
inexperience and foreign language gaps diminish diplomatic
readiness in several ways, including decreasing our ability to
get good reporting coverage, loss of institutional knowledge,
and general experience in conducting our foreign policy
overseas.
To cite a couple of examples, in Russia, there was a vacant
position there because the officer left for a tour in
Afghanistan, and as a consequence, according to officials
there, the vacancy slowed negotiations between the Russians and
the U.S. Government, and the Russians regarding military
transit to Afghanistan. Consular officials in other posts we
visited cited language skill gaps that indicated that they were
not sure whether they made appropriate adjudication decisions
on visas. We had a number of other examples which we cited in
our reports, but I won't go into them now.
Mr. Chairman, the State Department is taking actions to
address many of these gaps. You have just heard the Director
General talk about some of the things that they are doing to
address issues in our report, so I am not going to go over
those, but there are two key findings in our report that I want
to touch on.
First, we believe the State Department needs to
systematically evaluate its incentive programs to staff
hardship posts. The financial incentives cost millions of
dollars every year, but the State Department has not evaluated
whether these financial incentives have been effective. We
cited in our report that the State Department did not comply
with a 2005 Congressional requirement to report on the
effectiveness of increasing hardship and danger pay to fill
difficult positions. The State Department has also not
evaluated its non-financial incentives, such as promotion
consideration and shorter tours of assignments. Without full
evaluation of hardship incentives, the Department cannot obtain
valuable insights that could help them guide resource decisions
and address some of the gaps that I cited earlier.
The second major issue in our language report is that the
State Department has not developed a comprehensive, strategic
approach to dealing with its foreign language requirements. The
State Department's workforce and other planning documents are
not linked to each other and do not contain measurable goals,
objectives, resource requirements, or milestones for reducing
the foreign language gap. Moreover, as with the case of
hardship post staffing, the State Department has not assessed
the Foreign Language Incentive Programs to determine whether
they are attracting sufficient staff to meet their foreign
language needs.
We made several recommendations in our report to address
these two problems. Mr. Chairman, I am going to stop here and
would be happy to answer any of your questions.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Ford.
Ambassador Powell, the American Academy of Diplomacy
recommends that the State Department's priorities for
allocating all new personnel should be to first fill existing
gaps and vacancies and then move forward with establishing
training positions. How does the Department plan on allocating
its increased number of Foreign Service Officers?
Ms. Powell. Mr. Chairman, with the Diplomacy 3.0 personnel
that have come in during this fiscal year, we have taken care
of the gaps and vacancies that were appropriate at that level
for our entry-level people. The positions that had been frozen
are being thawed this year. They will not be frozen. Where an
entry-level person or an arrangement could be made for a mid-
level person to take a more senior position, we have moved it
down, and we have been able to use the new hires this year to
close most of those gaps at those levels.
Second, we are now in the process, since I came on board,
of looking at new positions that will be created for the
entrants coming in, starting in January next year. We are in
the process of working with our posts, with our regional
bureaus, and with others in the State Department to take the
Secretary's foreign policy priorities, to take the needs that
had been identified in our planning documents over the past 3
years, and to take a look at our training needs, particularly
for language, and then ask each of these participants in the
process to present us with their list of proposed positions
based on the fact that in January, there will be approximately
200 positions, and then in June, there will be approximately
300 positions.
We will be reviewing the first tranche of those to see if
they have met those criteria starting right after the first of
October. We hope to have those assignments made in early
January with the class that is coming in at that time, and then
throughout the fiscal year 2010.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador, in your response to GAO's report
findings, the State Department indicated that it will begin to
close language gaps in 2011. Also, according to your written
testimony, the State Department plans on significantly reducing
its mid-level experience gap by 2012. How long will it take
before the State Department can expect to fully eliminate both
its language and mid-level experience gaps, and does the
Department have a strategy in place to do so?
Ms. Powell. This is what we are trying to develop with
Diplomacy 3.0 as we create these new positions. I don't have a
precise answer to your question, partially because one of the
things we are dealing with is the group from the mid-1990s when
we had very little hiring. We were below attrition. That is
going to continue to follow through their careers. That right
now is at the mid-level. It will continue to go.
We anticipate that those who have followed over the past
few years will be entering into the mid-level years, as
indicated in the testimony and in the response, starting in
2012 in particular. Using the training float or the training
positions that we anticipate being created starting this next
year with fiscal year 2010 money and positions, many of those
people will not reach post for approximately a year. They are
going into hard language training. Some of the mid-level
training is, in fact, for 2 years. So you will see improvements
in the numbers, but it is going to take some time because of
the length of training for our hard and super-hard languages.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador, in 2006, the Bush Administration
launched the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) in
response to the findings of the Department of Defense National
Language Conference. NSLI was to shore up our national security
language needs by coordinating efforts through the Departments
of State, Defense, and Education, and the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence. While I support the intent
of NSLI, I felt that it was too limited to be truly effective.
Can you tell me if NSLI is continuing in this
Administration and if coordination among agencies is being
expanded to address the government's language needs?
Ms. Powell. Mr. Chairman, this is the first time I have
heard of NSLI. I will have to go back and get you details. I
apologize, but it is something I don't know the answer to.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Will you please do that?
Ms. Powell. I will do that.
Senator Akaka. Yes. Ambassador, we will look forward to
that.
Mr. Ford, in your report on the State Department's language
capabilities, you state that there is a widely-held perception
among FSOs that the State Department does not adequately
account for time spent in language training when evaluating
officers for promotion. This could inhibit the improvement of
the State Department's language capabilities. Could you please
elaborate on this perception and steps the Department could
take to correct it?
Mr. Ford. Sure. The issue you are referring to, in our
conversations with a number of senior former and current State
Department officials and with the number of officers we met
overseas at all different levels, including junior officers,
there is a perception that going away for training for a year
or possibly 2 years, in the case of the very difficult
languages, is not an incentive for promotion, that the
Department tends to value people who are on the job doing their
jobs and doesn't give as much credit to people who are in
training.
The fact of the matter is, we have not seen any good data
from the Department to verify or refute that perception. I can
tell you that perception exists among several Foreign Service
Officers that we met with in the course of doing our work, but
we haven't seen good data from the Department about whether or
not, in fact, in their promotion consideration process, people
that have, in fact, gone away from training have been fairly
treated compared to those who were serving in their positions
overseas.
So, yes, the perception is real, but I can't tell you
whether or not the data would suggest that it is real, that, in
fact, they are being treated fairly or not.
Senator Akaka. Before I call for questions from Senator
Voinovich, let me finish this question by asking Ambassador
Powell, I understand that the Department disputed this finding.
Would you like an opportunity to address this issue as well as
what you are doing to encourage language training?
Ms. Powell. Mr. Chairman, I would agree that the perception
persists. I am hoping that as we finish our promotion cycle--we
are almost done with it this month--that I will be able to come
back to you with data that establishes a baseline for us to
look at as to how many people who are in training got promoted.
I think there are two things to be considered with this.
Most Foreign Service officers who are doing language training
understand that they are going to be better officers and be
able to perform better as a result of that. That certainly is
documented when they get to their assignment. It is part of the
precepts of our promotion process of how well and effectively
they use their language capabilities. I think our promotion
panels take that precept very seriously as they look at it. But
I cannot cite for you today statistics to back that up. That
would be my perception in terms of the performance that is
enhanced by people who have spent time in language training.
Senator Akaka. Thank you, Ambassador. Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. In my opening statement, I talked about
having a strategic plan with milestones and metrics to respond
to the recommendation of GAO. The GAO works for the Legislative
Branch of the Federal Government. We ask them to go out and do
reports and I would like to have in writing a response back
from the Department in regard to the recommendations that they
have, and if there are some that you feel that aren't relevant
or are not correct, I would like to know that. But more
important, the ones that you do agree on and what you intend to
do about moving forward with them.
I would also like to know to what extent are human capital
needs included in the Department's ongoing quadrennial
diplomacy and development review. One of the things we found
out over the years is that in too many instances, human capital
just wasn't even mentioned. Ambassador Powell.
Ms. Powell. In our formal response to the GAO draft we
agreed with the recommendations and have already started to
work on the language designated one. We have started a working
group to examine the issues that we need to plan strategically
and, as I mentioned, we are obviously including this as a very
important part of our Diplomacy 3.0. We will put the metrics
into that and provide those in our more formal response as a
follow-up to the GAO report and in our own planning.
We have been examining the alternatives for looking
particularly at the incentives, both for language and for
hardship, which was documented in the GAO report. We have been
using the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) survey and our
own internal employee satisfaction surveys in alternating years
as a measure of that. The conclusion that we have come to, I
think, which was backed up by the GAO, is that those are not
sufficiently detailed. We are looking at what impact the annual
OPM survey is going to have on our own survey, the possibility
that we may need to devote resources to a study of this in
particular, defining in much greater detail what the incentives
are and what seems to influence people most.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you. As Senator Akaka and I
support a permanent legislative remedy to address the locality
pay gap for folks overseas, a byproduct of this increase in
basic pay is an increase in the cost of existing incentives,
such as hardship differentials, which are computed as a
percentage of base pay. I know that Congress is committed to
growing our diplomatic strength, but we need reassurance that
our limited dollars produce positive gains. What is the cost
impact of overseas locality pay to the State Department's
budget? Is the State Department reconsidering its existing
incentives? And when will the State Department complete its
review of the effectiveness of increasing hardship and danger
pay incentives?
Ms. Powell. I would say two things. First of all, a very
big thank you to all of those who supported the efforts to work
with us on locality pay and all of those who have been involved
in it.
I have just come back from a 25 percent differential post
when there was no locality pay for the employees under my
supervision. They, in essence, got a 2 percent differential for
serving in a 25 percent hardship post. This goes a long way in
addressing that. They were all there as volunteers, no one was
complaining, but it was obviously noted by people.
We will be using the study, particularly using our look at
our hardship statistics. I will take back your interest in
having a review of what the locality pay difference will make
on our budget. I don't have those figures with me.
Senator Voinovich. I know I have talked to Senator Kerry
about getting something permanent.
The other thing that I would like as part of this overall
response to GAO would be to capture in writing the costs and
the budget implications of what it is that you want to do, so
again we have some kind of idea of what commitments are we
going to have to make in order--continued commitments to move
forward with this new approach that we are making. I think, too
often, what happens during the budget period is that people
hold back on expressing themselves as to the money that they
are going to need to do their work, and I think that it might
be real good to look down the road a year, 2 years, 3 years,
maybe 4 years to get it down on paper about what it is that you
folks really think you are going to need to get the job done so
that gets widely disseminated so everybody gets an
understanding that if we are going to do the job that we have
asked you to do, that we are going to come back with the money
to pay for it.
One of the things that came up in one of our last hearings
was the issue of the float. Could you give us a little insight
into that? My understanding is that you have got to have enough
people so that you can give some time off to folks so that they
can go out and get the training and upgrade their skills so
that they feel like they are continuing to grow in their job.
Could you share with us how that fits in with where you are in
terms of the employees that you are trying to bring on?
Ms. Powell. This is an incredibly important piece. We
thought we were capturing that back with the Diplomatic
Readiness Initiative under Secretary Powell, as mentioned. Many
of those positions have been required to go to Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Pakistan. We now believe that for fiscal years 2009
and 2010, we need approximately 500 positions to be put into
the float that will allow people to do language training. We
had 300 in 2009 and there will be an additional 200 in 2010.
Some of this may change as we look at specific positions in
this review that we are undergoing right now as to which
positions may need to be upgraded, what perhaps at the current
level is a two-two level, perhaps needs to be a three-three
level. With the additional resources, we will have the ability
to do that. Some positions weren't designated previously, and
we are looking at the ones where we have not been able to meet
the necessary level. But we believe these are the ballpark
numbers. They will be adjusted as we get the precise
assignments.
I would comment that in the course of my career, the shift
away from the Romance languages where we did 20 weeks and you
could be at a level where you could conduct visa interviews and
perhaps 36 weeks got you to a very professional level, those
positions, many of them still exist, but many more have been
created in the harder languages, where you need a minimum of 44
weeks and quite often 88 weeks to achieve minimum professional
capabilities. And so the float will take into account that mix,
as well, that these are much longer training periods than for
the Romance languages.
Senator Voinovich. Could I ask one more question, Senator
Akaka----
Senator Akaka. Go ahead.
Senator Voinovich [continuing]. Following up on that. What
effort is the State Department making to get out across the
country the need for language proficiency to the universities
so there is some kind of an incentive say, here are languages
that we really need and if you don't have courses in those
languages, you ought to think about it. This will prepare your
folks that like to go to the private sector as well. We should
give them some kind of incentive to set up departments, or in
the alternative, where they have them, to go out and recruit
some folks to do that.
I know I am very much involved in the nuclear industry and
we have been working for the last 7 years to get the
universities to start to improve upon their engineering schools
so that we have got the people that we are going to need as we
increase the number of nuclear power plants in the country, and
it is working, because if you get it, you have got a job. I
think that is a big incentive.
Ms. Powell. I would agree, and we are working at it
actually from two angles using the same group of people. The
State Department has a group of people that we call diplomats
in residence, who are our main recruiters on college campuses,
but they also work with the political science departments and
the deans and others to identify those skills that are going to
be important for people to be able to pass the Foreign Service
Test.
We have also used an enormous amount of the new media to
reach a group of people that use Twitter and Facebook and the
Web pages and the blogs to let them know that we have a program
that has identified groups of languages--Arabic, Chinese, Indic
languages, Iranian languages, Korean, Russian, Turkic
languages, Urdu, Uzbek, and Japanese--and that if you come in
with a verifiable ability to speak those languages, you get a
plus-up on your score in the oral examination. This is a huge
incentive. I think that people who want to join the Foreign
Service are going to be looking at universities where they can
get that training.
We are also looking at that pool of people that allow us to
bring people in that we don't have to train for these long
periods of time if they have already got a basic understanding.
We have also required that they serve one tour as junior
officers and then a subsequent tour in one of the places where
they can use that particular language.
Senator Voinovich. Great. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich.
According to one of the GAO reports being discussed today,
Foreign Service Officers interviewed said that instructors at
the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) were not well equipped for
training beyond the general professional proficiency level.
Additionally, my staff reported that Foreign Service Officers
they interviewed at overseas posts were concerned about not
having the opportunities to continue language training while
they were at post and that their training at FSI did not fully
prepare them for their job.
Do you have recommendations for how the State Department
could improve its foreign language training programs? Mr. Ford.
Mr. Ford. Yes. There are a couple of issues here that we
think would bear some further examination by the Department.
With regard to the training, the issue is whether or not--when
we conducted interviews overseas, a lot of the officers there
felt that they would like to get additional training but that
they were--in many cases, their duties took them away from the
opportunities to get training. Some of them on their own dime
would go out and hire local folks there to learn the language,
but in many cases, they indicated that the post didn't have
sort of a training program that they could use to further their
skill from what they had learned at FSI. So that was one issue.
A second issue had to do with the proficiency levels that
officers felt they needed to fulfill their responsibilities at
the post, and several of them felt that the level of their
proficiency that they had obtained from FSI was not sufficient
for them to carry out their job as best as they could. For
example, a public affairs officer in one of the posts we met
with indicated they would like to have a proficiency level up
to a four, which is just below fluent, in order to be able to
effectively communicate with local government officials and
local government people that they were trying to influence
through our public diplomacy mechanisms, that they don't have
that level of training at FSI in general.
So we didn't recommend in our report that the State
Department specifically enhance its training overseas, but I
can say based on the anecdotal information we obtained from a
number of officers overseas, it is something they should look
into in our view. We also think they ought to look into the
whole question of proficiency levels for their officers
overseas because we had a lot of feedback from officers that
they didn't think that the proficiency levels they had were
adequate for them to really effectively carry out their job.
Senator Akaka. Do you wish to comment?
Ms. Powell. Mr. Chairman, just a couple of comments. I
think this is where we find these trade-offs that we have been
forced to make over the past few years, that all of us, I
think, who have studied hard languages or any language would
like to have a higher level of proficiency. We wish we had had
more time. But we also have to recognize at the same time that
we have to fill these positions and we have to get the work
done. So it is a constant balancing act.
I am not familiar with all of the posts that the GAO teams
went to. It is my hope that most of them had post language
programs. We certainly encourage every embassy where English is
not spoken to have a post language program in which they can
enhance their skills. Those who didn't have training before
they went to post can get the basics. And certainly, again, you
are trading off because you have got a full-time job and you
are trying to squeeze in an hour of language a day or several
times a week.
The Foreign Service Institute has really taken up the
technical challenge over the past few years and greatly
enhanced what it can offer online now. This is to our employees
and to their eligible family members, and this has been a big
benefit for particularly getting a jump on an assignment. If
you know that you are going to Peshawar on your next
assignment, you can begin to study Urdu on your own at your
previous post or you can brush up on it if you had it earlier.
These are available to all employees.
As I noted, part of the Diplomacy 3.0 exercise that we are
engaged in right now is to ask each of our regional bureaus to
look at their designated language positions, identify those
where a higher proficiency might be warranted now that we have
the potential for providing that training without taking the
position out of the job market. So I think we will see some of
them upgraded as a result of the float being created.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador, you testified that the State
Department is seeking additional incentives and allowances to
help fill hardship posts. Please elaborate on what incentives
you need, including whether Congressional action is needed to
help you do that.
Ms. Powell. The reference was to some of the other things
other than just the hardship allowance. We found, for example,
in filling our positions in Afghanistan and Iraq that many
people have been attracted to these because we have linked that
assignment to a follow-on assignment. They know when they bid
on this job that they are then going to go on to a designated
position. That has been important. We are finding that the
student loan program for some of our younger officers, where if
they serve at a 20 percent or higher differential post, the
repayment of some of their student loans is a major incentive.
The other thing that I was referring to was that I think
many of these are intangible. We find still a huge number of
people who are doing this out of a sense of patriotism and
duty, a real feeling in hardship posts that you are making a
difference and people very much appreciate that. I, for one,
like the sense of community that comes at some of these smaller
posts and I, in my career, sought those kinds of posts.
Many of them do it because they have additional
responsibilities, and I recognize there is a trade-off here.
This is the experience factor. But if you want to stretch
yourself and have a greater sense of responsibility, you can do
it at the hardship posts in many cases. For many of them, it is
pursuing an area of expertise. In my own case, South Asia. All
of our South Asian posts are hardship posts, so it required me
to serve at those posts.
I think as we look at the incentives, we are going to have
to factor in these things that are also spurring people to take
these assignments. They look to the hardship pay in many cases
as a way of offsetting--or the danger pay--those instances
where they have been ill as a result of living in a very
polluted environment. They have wondered if the motorcycle
coming up along the motorcade is going to be the one with the
bomb in it or not. All of those things are seen as being
compensated for by our differential payments, but may not have
been the incentive for many people.
Senator Akaka. Senator Voinovich, any further questions?
Senator Voinovich. Yes. Ambassador Powell, GAO found that
the State Department's designated language proficiency
requirements do not necessarily reflect the actual language
needs of its overseas posts. They reported officers who met the
requirement for their position frequently stated their
proficiency level is not always enough for them to do their
jobs. They have described some of the folks saying, it is
enough to get by. Frankly, I ask the same question wherever I
go and that is what I get. I am not proficient, but I have
enough to get by.
Has the Department really looked at this? In many
instances, when I meet people from other countries, I find they
are very proficient in English. These countries are very
fortunate in that they start kids in kindergarten, first grade,
in English language instruction. It seems to me as you look at
the number of overseas posts there may be certain areas where
States will need more skilled people where English proficiency
is low.
And then it seems to me that in those areas with higher
rates of English proficiency that you would have fewer language
speakers, hopefully, one position would be the ambassador or
the consul general because I think so often you miss the
nuances of things if you don't have somebody that really has
the language skills. Have you done that kind of an analysis?
Ms. Powell. There is an annual review that begins at post
level. I have been on the other end of it and looking at which
positions in my missions I felt needed to be language
designated. I have always had a consultative process with those
officers who had studied, whether they had enough, whether they
thought that they had wasted their time and the government's
money in acquiring the language. Quite often, there is a give
and take on this. But it is an annual review. It is then
brought back to the Department. Each of the regional bureaus
responsible for the missions abroad presents HR with a
consolidated list.
As I mentioned, we are trying to do a much deeper dig this
year, asking the posts and the bureaus to really look at this
and see if they need to expand the number of positions, if they
need to up the level.
At the same time, we are also taking a look at a new
concept in language as to whether or not we need to have the
same reading and speaking skills at the same level. I know in
my own case, if I had spent a little more time learning to
speak Urdu, I think I would have been more effective than all
of the time I spent learning to read it. I didn't really need
the reading level unless I was going to get to the four or five
level. I had people on my staff who could help me with the
reading. The speaking, I spent an incredible amount of time
learning to read at the three level that might have been better
used to get me to the four level on the speaking side.
We are taking a look at that concept. It is a new one. We
would need to look at the compensation and how you determine
which positions--in some of our consular positions, it is very
important that you be able to read because you have got to look
at the documents that people bring. But for a political
officer, it may not be quite as important to have the reading
skills that are very difficult to acquire. So that is another
area that we are looking at right now. It would be part of our
strategic review as recommended by the GAO. It would include
that as part of it.
Senator Voinovich. I call that working harder and smarter
and doing more with less.
This is just an interest of mine. I would think from a
public diplomacy point of view that having people that are
proficient in the language of the country in which they are
located is a very positive thing, in addition to being able to
communicate better, but just in terms of flattering
individuals, that you paid enough attention to their country
that you have someone that could speak the language.
I studied Russian for 3 years in undergraduate school and I
still remember a little bit of it. It is amazing how just a few
words make a big difference with some folks.
But would you care to comment on that aspect of it in terms
of, people being a little bit more receptive because you think
enough of them to have someone that can speak the language?
And the other issue that I would like to raise, and
probably you won't respond to it, but I have always been
concerned that we send these political ambassadors all over the
world and in most cases none of them speak the language of the
country. I thought it might be a good idea that maybe you would
put a qualification out there, if anybody wants to be a
political ambassador, that they had better know the language of
the country.
I will never forget, we had someone in Ohio that could
speak--what is it in the Netherlands, Dutch? Yes. A really good
guy, and somebody else got the job and he was really offended.
He could have made a good ambassador. If you would care to
comment on that and the other question.
Ms. Powell. Let me take the first one first. Certainly, the
ability to--even if what we call a courtesy level, of being
able to say the greetings, to say thank you, will open an
incredible number of doors and ears to you. Obviously, if you
can do it at a more senior and professional level--I just
watched a former Peace Corps volunteer who came and worked with
us in Nepal who was able to conduct radio interviews, explain
complex visa regulations in Nepali. It made all the difference
in the world. But even my ability just to say a few sentences,
to be able to talk to people.
I think we are seeing a world in which we are going in two
directions. The number of English speakers is expanding
enormously. The ability of people around the world to use the
Web, to use CNN, and the English language media has expanded
greatly. At the same time, we have a desire not to be just
communicating with those people who only have English language
skills and the desire to reach out to the population that may
not be comfortable in English or have access to a television
that has CNN on it. So it is a constant balancing act of using
our resources appropriately to reach those audiences that don't
have English, but also using those technical means where you
can use English and we don't have to train someone in very
complicated foreign languages.
I would say on the presidential appointees, they are
presidential appointees. My responsibility is to help get them
ready. We certainly, to the extent possible, offer them
language training before they go to post. Obviously, most of
them don't have the length of time. But I think--I get a weekly
update of which ones are in language training. Many of them
take advantage of it while they are waiting for their Senate
confirmation process, their security papers to clear, and I
think have those courtesy levels by the time they get to post
if they at all can do it.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich.
I want to thank our panelists for your responses. Your
responses have been valuable to us this afternoon. I want to
say that we want to try to address this as quickly as we can.
So again, thank you so much for being here. We may have
some additional questions for you and some comments from other
Members that we will include in the record. Thank you.
I would ask our second panel to please come forward.
[Pause.]
I want to welcome the second panel of witnesses. They are
Ronald E. Neumann, President of the American Academy of
Diplomacy, and Susan Johnson, President of the American Foreign
Service Association.
As it is the custom of the Subcommittee to swear in all
witnesses, will you please rise and raise your right hand?
Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give the
Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Neumann. I do.
Ms. Johnson. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Let the record note that the
witnesses responded in the affirmative.
Before we start, I want you to know that your full written
statements will be made a part of the record and to remind you
to limit your oral remarks to 5 minutes.
So, Ambassador Neumann, will you please proceed with your
statement?
TESTIMONY OF RONALD E. NEUMANN,\1\ PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ACADEMY
OF DIPLOMACY
Mr. Neumann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Voinovich.
I have submitted the testimony of my colleague, Ambassador Tom
Boyatt, and he and I agreed that I speak for us both.
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\1\ The prepared statement by Hon. Thomas D. Boyatt submitted by
Mr. Neumann appears in the Appendix on page 50.
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Our report of last October, ``A Foreign Affairs Budget for
the Future,'' clarified the dire shortages in human and
financial resources faced by the foreign affairs agencies. My
colleagues and I would like to thank you, Senator Akaka and
Senator Voinovich, for your interest, support, and direct
participation in carrying out that study. We are likewise
grateful to Joel Spangenberg and Jennifer Hemingway for their
advice and participation in that.
Progress has been made in the last 2 years by both
Democrats and Republicans in fixing the problems we documented.
Your support and that of the Subcommittee, has been critical to
this process and will be vital in the months ahead.
I now turn to questions you asked us. First, you asked
about experience gaps. We believe elimination of staffing gaps
and the filling of vacancies is the first priority in using
increased personnel, but cannot alone solve the experience
gaps. These are more complicated. We know the Director General
and her staff are working on how to bridge the gap between
recruitment at the bottom and building the necessary levels of
expertise. We hope the Congress will support creative
solutions, such as utilizing retired officers. I recognize that
there are concerns about allowing retired officers to double-
dip, and that is why I suggest that flexibility could be time
limited to focus specifically on immediate needs until
experience can be expanded to meet numbers in the professional
service.
In particular, I want to note a specific idea that
Ambassador Boyatt and I expressly endorse but neglected to
include in our prepared testimony, and that is the expansion of
the definition of personnel under Section 1603(5) of the
Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act of
2008, which is--I won't bother with the full public title. As
currently legislated, only civil service and Foreign Service
can be members of the Civilian Response Corps (CRC). This
limitation prevents our partner agencies, USAID in particular,
from recruiting personnel service contractors (PSCs) and
Foreign Service nationals as members of the stand-by component.
Both PSCs and FSNs have extensive experience in
stabilization crises that would be of tremendous value to the
CRC. By expanding 1603 to add FSNs and PSCs to the definition,
we will be able to realize a more robust stand-by component.
You have my full testimony, but in closing, let me focus
particularly on the Academy's recommendations of language
positions which occupied so much of the first panel and your
discussion. The situation is awful, as the GAO is independently
documenting, and it is going to take time to repair. We
strongly need new positions. We have for years faced the choice
of losing capacity in current operations to train or maintain
current operations and losing future capacity.
That is why we have recommended a training float and why
the progress made this year must be sustained in the future. I
think as we look at this over time, we are going to have to go
beyond language skills, as well, and look at the broader gamut
of professional training, which our military colleagues do so
well, and we, never having had the opportunity to do any,
don't.
But on language skills, Mr. Chairman and Senator Voinovich,
the skills and capacity we discuss are not simply esoteric
demands of the striped-pants set. They are basic to our ability
to serve the Nation and sometimes to survival itself.
Ambassador Boyatt recounted in his prepared testimony how
language was critical to his mission and keeping him alive in
Cyprus. I would like to end with an anecdote from Iraq.
I had probably the last conversation with the Iraqi sheiks
in Fallujah before the very bloody second battle of that name.
I had the Marine Division Commander's interpreter, the best we
had, and I stopped him three times because he was leaving out a
critical point that he just didn't understand. Fortunately, my
Arabic was sufficient to note the lack. I wonder how many
people we have killed because we think we have told them
something that they, in fact, have never heard.
We have to have the language skills to fill this gap, and
this is going to take time.
Mr. Chairman and Senator Voinovich, thank you both very
much for the opportunity to record my views on these critical
matters you are discussing today. Your support over the last 3
years as the Foreign Affairs Council and the Academy have
worked to overcome the problems of an understaffed and
dangerously weakened diplomatic capacity have been enormously
appreciated and served this Nation very well and I will be
pleased to take your questions.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ambassador Neumann.
And now, Susan Johnson, will you please proceed with your
statement?
TESTIMONY OF SUSAN R. JOHNSON,\1\ PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FOREIGN
SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member Voinovich. On behalf of the American Foreign Service
Association (AFSA) and the employees of all of our member
agencies, I both welcome and thank you for this opportunity to
speak before this Subcommittee on the subject of diplomatic
readiness and Foreign Service staffing and language challenges.
We deeply appreciate your interest in these issues. And on
behalf of our members and all affected, I would like to thank
you again for your support for ending the overseas
comparability pay inequity.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson appears in the Appendix
on page 55.
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Diplomatic readiness goes to the very heart of building the
strong professional Foreign Service the United States needs to
play an active role and effective role in the 21st Century.
There is a pressing need for clearer recognition that diplomacy
is an indispensable instrument of national security. As
Secretary Clinton has often said, if we don't invest in
diplomacy and development, we will end up paying a lot more for
conflicts and their consequences.
AFSA welcomed and strongly supports the recommendations in
the foreign affairs budget for the future. AFSA has long held
that the Foreign Service is underfunded and lacks the people
and resources to perform its mission effectively. The serious
staffing gaps that we face today reflect the consequences of
neglect, on the one hand, and expanded mission on the other.
The tremendous increase in the scope of the Service's mission
caused by the critical staffing demands in Iraq and Afghanistan
has brought the situation to a head. Hiring at the State
Department and USAID is finally on the upswing, but this
momentum will need to be sustained and steps taken to ensure
that this sudden and massive intake of new personnel is well
managed.
I would like to underscore that AFSA sees a strong case for
expanding our Foreign Commercial and Agricultural Services, as
well. Their critical functions are often overlooked and should
not be.
AFSA strongly agrees with the recommendations in the two
Government Accountability Office reports that this hearing is
focused on. Staffing shortages are at the root of the problems
of unfilled positions and experience gaps and are a strong
contributing factor to the language proficiency deficiencies
the reports identify. These problems combine to undermine our
diplomatic readiness and effectiveness.
We believe that training in critical need and other hard
languages should be more closely linked to assignment patterns
and career planning. Language proficiencies should enhance,
rather than undermine, prospects for promotion. We also urge
that basic language training be provided to all Foreign Service
personnel assigned overseas, including specialists, to enable
them to function more effectively, as well, even in non-
language designated positions.
The Department of State has made good faith efforts over
the years to identify the right language designated positions
and the right levels, but AFSA believes that a comprehensive
review of language designated positions is long overdue. It
should be undertaken now in light of new global realities and
our strategic priorities. It is important to get this right.
AFSA, therefore, strongly supports the GAO recommendations
for a full review of the ratings system and identification of
language designated positions. We also endorse the GAO
recommendations on staffing and experience gaps at hardship
posts. We consider the recommendation that the Department
develop and implement a plan to evaluate incentives for
hardship post assignments to be particularly important, and
AFSA would like to participate in some way in an effort to
evaluate existing incentives and to identify others.
The results of AFSA's last electronic opinion poll of its
members, published in January 2008, suggests that extra pay and
benefits are certainly a factor contributing to willingness to
serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, but so are patriotism and duty,
career enhancement, adventure and challenge, and a host of
other factors that Director General Powell, Ambassador Powell,
identified and spoke to.
It is worth noting that the poll data revealed a widespread
perception that the Foreign Service is less and less family
friendly, suggesting that incentives to address this deficiency
would be well received. And I have in mind here looking again
to the military model of Military OneSource, the support given
to family members here that are our colleagues in the military
enjoy. Often, that is a concern when people are considering
assignments to unaccompanied posts for one or more years.
The quality and effectiveness of U.S. diplomacy will surely
be impaired if language and staffing gaps are not addressed
seriously and persistently, and AFSA welcomes your interest and
supports all efforts to do so.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify and for your
support. We appreciate very much your leadership on these
issues, and I will be happy to answer any questions you may
have. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ms. Johnson.
As you know, I asked Ambassador Powell how the State
Department plans to allocate its new FSOs. Could you please
respond to the State Department's plans for allocating its new
FSOs?
Mr. Neumann. Go ahead.
Ms. Johnson. Well, I would like very much to be able to
respond to that in more detail. I do not yet know a lot about
the State Department's plans and hope that they will become
more transparent or have more detail to them. Right now, I know
little more than we heard the Director General say today.
We are, as the American Academy of Diplomacy (AAD) and as
Ambassador Neumann mentioned in his testimony now, we are
particularly concerned with the experience gap and what kind of
a strategy or what plans the Department may have for addressing
that.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador Neumann.
Mr. Neumann. We also have a bit of a knowledge gap here,
but as we indicated in Ambassador Boyatt's written testimony,
we agree that the first priority is to plug the immediate gaps.
That is a hemorrhage that has to be dealt with.
We have recommended a balanced approach to proceeding, as
much as one can, with staffing positions, or with the new
positions in training in long-term training in creation of new
positions. There are several different needs. Obviously, the
Response Corps is another piece of this and we have got to be
able to move simultaneously on all of them.
To that end, we have recommended, and this seems to be very
much in consonance with your own thinking, that the State
Department prepare a plan for the out years as to how the
additional positions that are going to come on board, funding
permitting and future requests being made, how those positions
would be worked in so that one can see what the picture over
several years would look like and then be able both to judge
how much progress you are making on individual pieces of that,
but at the same time, that would act, in our view, as a way of
validating the total requirement for the additional positions.
Personally, I think many of my colleagues are concerned
that next year or the year after, as deficit shock really
strikes in the Congress, that it may be much more difficult
than it has been in this year and last year to maintain the
pace and to finish the process of rebuilding the Department's
and AID's personnel. If we don't do that, then I believe what
will happen will be a repeat of what we have seen before. We
will not correct institutional problems. We will start pulling
apart whatever corrections we have made in order to fill
individual gaps, and so we will have a better situation, but
not a repaired one.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. The vacancies and experience gaps
at hardship posts need immediate attention to ensure that
diplomacy can be carried out effectively. What recommendations
would you make to the State Department in immediately
addressing these challenges? Ambassador Neumann.
Mr. Neumann. I will have a first crack, but Ms. Johnson is
part of the active service and I defer to them. But many of the
gaps are not a function of incentives or steps but of the
simple lack of personnel. And so some of those probably can't
be filled immediately, no matter what your plan is. But that
takes me back to the question of utilizing retired officers,
when actually employees (WAEs), and the like, because many of
the gaps are not simply at the junior positions or they are
unrealistically junior because positions have been down-rated
in order to try to fill them, and then even so, not filled. So
there is a knowledge gap that multiplies the effect of the
staffing gap.
We are very handicapped in the use of retired officers for
reasons which I understand. People are drawing a pension and
there is a question of drawing two checks. But what we are
getting now is a double-negative. On the one hand, we lack the
ability to use the experience. On the other hand, in critical
places, we pay contractors a substantial overhead in order to
pay the people the money that we don't want to pay them
ourselves so that we can still hire them to use them in some
way. So the taxpayer is not really benefitting, but the Nation
is hurting.
I think we need to examine seriously the limitations on how
we can use retired officers. I also believe personally--not
speaking for the Academy because we haven't looked at it--that
the State Department needs to complete something which has been
discussed in the past, and that is a global register for WAEs,
for retired officers willing to serve, rather than the Bureau-
maintained rosters now, which simply don't give you the most
efficient handle on grabbing people.
Senator Akaka. Ms. Johnson.
Ms. Johnson. Well, I would like to thank Ambassador
Neumann, because he has answered a lot of the things and made a
point that I certainly would like to strongly endorse. We think
that this is a way that should be seriously considered in terms
of meeting the mid-level staffing gaps.
As Ambassador Neumann said, we simply do not have the mid-
level officers, and that is partly because of the consequences
of the under-attrition level hiring in the mid-1990s. There is
no easy way out except perhaps to look at the solution that he
just mentioned, which is to bring back retirees to serve in
those positions until this new influx of entry-level folk have
gotten the required experience.
And I would like to say with regard to your earlier
question, one concern that we are already hearing from the new
entrants is they are concerned about cutbacks in training, and
the initial training that they get at FSI, which is being cut
back from 7 weeks to 5 weeks, and they thought 7 weeks was a
bare minimum. So I think this is a concern that the brand new
entry-level personnel is already expressing to us.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Ms. Johnson, you stated your
concern that long-term language training could disadvantage
FSOs from potential promotions. Could you please elaborate on
this problem and how AFSA might be able to work with the State
Department to address this issue?
Ms. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I think AFSA
members and I have certainly heard the same sort of feedback
that the GAO officials heard, that Ambassador Powell had also
mentioned that she had heard. There is a widespread perception
that particularly language training for hard languages that
takes a year or two is not an advantage for promotion and in
some cases a disadvantage.
Now, unfortunately, I don't think we have any collected
statistics or numbers that would verify whether that perception
is correct or not, and I think it could be relatively easily
done, to take a look at promotion rates over the threshold or
ambassadorial nominations or any other thing and take a look at
what kind of training they had and did that affect their
promotion levels, and what has happened to people who have
invested in hard language training. But that perception is out
there and we can confirm that from what our members tell us.
Senator Akaka. Another part to that question was how can
AFSA work with the State Department in addressing this problem?
Ms. Johnson. We would be happy to work with the Department
on a study and analyzing and sort of collecting the facts. And
once we know the facts, I think we would be better positioned
to come up with recommendations on effective solutions.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you very much for all of your help
in this area. Ambassador Neumann, thank you for your
leadership. It must be nice to know that after you finished up
your report somebody read it and is taking some action upon it.
You had an opportunity to hear some of the questions of the
previous panel. I wonder if you both would be willing to, in
the event we get this plan that I have asked for in terms of
how they intend to implement the recommendations of GAO, and
many of them are contained in the recommendation of the
American Academy of Diplomacy, to kind of look that over and
give us your two cents on what you think about it.
Mr. Neumann. The short answer, of course, is yes. I just
wanted to tell you, as well, that we feel a sort of godfatherly
responsibility for what the State Department is going to do
with the new positions they have got. Obviously, we are not in
any legal or professional way responsible.
But this has led us in the Academy to think that it may be
time for some serious additional reflection on what it means to
be professional in the 21st Century. We have had a model, which
is sort of a British 19th Century model, that you are going to
get an educated person, send them forth, and anything they
don't already know, they will figure out. It is not adequate, I
think, for the 21st Century, and it isn't just about language
training.
Our military colleagues, I think, have gone well beyond us
in developing the concept of professional training. I think we,
in the diplomatic service, need to be looking at what kinds of
professional development one needs aside from work in the
career. Some of that, obviously, the core of that is language,
but it is more than language. It is how do you deal with the
needs of the 21st Century.
I think this is going to be a lot easier to pontificate
about than it will be to come up with specific recommendations,
and we are only getting ourselves together now. We have not
really had a chance to begin talking to the Department and see
if they would welcome such a study, but we hope that we might
be a bit of a force multiplier, since I know they are pretty
beleaguered in trying to cope with putting out fires as well as
looking at the long term and the future.
So we would very much like to look at their response and
we, resources permitting, would hope that we might contribute
our own views, as well, in a larger context.
Ms. Johnson. The answer, of course, for AFSA is also yes.
We would be pleased to do what we can to take a look at that
and give our two cents.
Senator Voinovich. How long is your term in office?
Ms. Johnson. Two years.
Senator Voinovich. That is good.
Ms. Johnson. I hope that is long enough to at least get
started and see some results.
Senator Voinovich. I am out of here at the end of next
year, so I am trying to get as much stuff done as possible that
you can put in writing and set your milestones and metrics so
you have got something that you can look at, and I think once
it is signed off, then you can continue to market it. What I am
always worried about is when we get started around here, we get
some good ideas, and then interest runs out and it doesn't
happen.
I have had lots of talks with General Jones as far back as
Brussels 2 or 3 years ago about his ideas in terms of smart
power and I think that is the way we need to go. If we are
going to get that done, we are just going to have to follow
through on these recommendations that we have got that have
been made in regard to the State Department.
The issue of annuitants, we got that language passed by the
Senate as part of the FY2010 National Defense Authorization Act
and we are going to do some work and get it accepted by the
House. Ms. Johnson, you could help a great deal on that, your
organization, to kind of lobby them and say that we don't
object to that.
It is interesting that we have been able to get that
language put in. I know, again, I have been working on the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 10 years and that language
has really helped a great deal in terms of their problems,
because they not only have to replace the people who are
retiring, but they have to bring on new people in order to take
on the new responsibilities of these combined license
applications that are coming in. Being able to bring folks back
has been terrific because you are talking about training and
you need the people to train these folks.
So I am hoping that we can get that done. Would you like to
comment on the importance of that?
Ms. Johnson. Well, thank you. Those are all very important
things. AFSA will be happy to lobby with whoever we can on the
House on this issue.
But I wanted to just step back and say that I think we have
all agreed that the United States is facing a particular new
set of challenges and we have to take a new look at our
institutions and what are the requirements for them to be
effective and for the people who staff them. What kind of
training and professional education do they need?
AFSA is both the professional association of the Foreign
Service and its bargaining unit and union, so we have a dual
role and responsibility and we want to strengthen both. And we
think that it is important right now that AFSA and the
management of the State Department forge kind of a constructive
working relationship where we are working together to get some
of these things done. They are not easy and they need unity,
and so we are looking to sort of recalibrate a little bit the
AFSA relationship so that we can be more involved in these
studies and processes as they go along, sort of not necessarily
only afterward, which takes a longer time.
So we are looking at a number of alliances. We certainly
have a close working relationship with the Academy and we want
to maybe be a bridge and bring in some of our fellow
associations, I guess, who share common goals to work with
management as they undertake some of these studies, be able to
give our input as we are doing it, not afterwards and reacting
to it.
Senator Voinovich. That is smart. I think the fact that the
Academy is made up of folks who have had experience within the
State Department, has been very worthwhile. But the key to it
is to try and make sure that your members who are actually out
there have input into some of the changes that are made. I have
observed over the years as mayor, governor, and here, that so
often, the people that really know what needs to be done are
never consulted. Somebody comes in and says, this is what we
think needs to be done, and then--you have a better idea, I
think, of what needs to be done than some new folks that are
coming on board.
So if there is anything I can do to move that along, and I
am sure Senator Akaka feels the same way, I think it is
absolutely essential. How often do you meet with these folks?
Ms. Johnson. Well, we have a particular challenge because
our folks are spread all over the world. I would say 85 percent
of active duty personnel are now members of AFSA, which is
higher than it was, and we are looking at ways right now to
improve communications with them and to be able to mobilize
them on issues that they are concerned about or knowledgeable
about, and we are trying to do that through a number of ways.
One of them is through regular and more frequent surveys
that we can send to them directly through something called AFSA
Net, directly, electronically to their in-box. So we had annual
surveys, but now we are looking to supplement those with some
specific ones on specific issues.
We are looking at a number of others ways. I won't take
your time right now to go into them. But certainly we are
interested in improving communication with our members and
within the Department and looking at ways to use new
technologies to do that more effectively.
Senator Voinovich. Well, we would like to move ahead on a
permanent overseas locality pay fix. I have talked to Senator
Kerry about it. But you know and I know that most of us are so
darn busy that unless somebody kind of puts it right in front
of our nose, we don't pay attention to it. I think it would be
really great if you put together a little program where you
would be contacting the members of the Foreign Relations
Committee and others here to talk about how much good this
change has made in terms of your folks out there in the field
and try to work on that issue and make sure it gets done so
that it is not just a one-shot deal and then you build them up
and then, whoosh, goodbye.
The other thing is this training thing that you talked
about, you are saying you think that they are being
shortchanged. Again, I think that is really very important that
training get done. Again, you get to the issue of you have got
to have the trainers. And if you were able to bring back some
folks on a temporary basis that would be able to come in and do
that, it would, I think, make a big difference.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you. We are concerned with that. As a
matter of fact, I have just requested a number of meetings with
some of the very people that you have mentioned, both to
introduce myself and to talk to them about this issue.
I would like to say something on language training, too.
Our members have given us quite a bit of feedback. I went out
to the board members in preparation for this hearing to ask
them about some of the issues you had raised, and we have 24
people on the board, our governing board of AFSA, and they are
in touch with all the different constituencies. I was surprised
to see how many of them came back passing on expressions of
concern about quality and quantity of language training at FSI,
particularly in Arabic. That seems to be an area where more
focus is needed and we would like to follow up with the
Department on that.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Neumann. Could I add one word on Arabic training, sir,
because that is a language with which I have done battle for
many years. I think the language won, not me. But it has some
particularities that both the Department and, I think, others
will have to look at. There is a need for a level of
grammatical comprehension to get to top levels. The people I
have known over the years who were really good Arabic speakers,
like Robert Ford, our current, or past Ambassador to Algeria
who is now back in Baghdad for his fourth year, had university
language training, and the best people I know in it have gone
to university training.
We have a structural problem that I don't know if FSI can
fix, which is with a lot of languages, you get to a certain
point and then you go work in the country and your language
gets better. However, in a lot of the Arab world now, elites
speak very good English. If your Arabic isn't fairly good, it
actually deteriorates at post because so many of the elites
speak good English. They would rather speak Arabic with you if
your Arabic is really good, but they don't have the patience if
you are still kind of blundering your way along, as many of us
are.
So the result is we have to go beyond FSI, I think, when we
look at wanting to produce top-quality Arabists. It may be true
of other languages, but I know it is true there, that the basic
theory of our training isn't meeting the reality in the world.
The other thing is, Senator Voinovich, you were talking
about whether you need people--how many people do you need to
speak the language. The only thing I would call to your
attention is you only have the time to learn languages well
when you are a younger officer, not because necessarily--I hope
not because your brain is younger, but the more senior you are,
the more pressed you become, the more you are a short commodity
for the Department that needs to get you to post, the harder it
is to pull you out to do refresher or expansion training, no
matter how much the officer would want it.
And you can play with a language. When I was a younger
officer, I really enjoyed being out and being able to use it.
When I was Ambassador to Afghanistan, I had to be extremely
careful that I was clearly understood in anything I said, no
matter what the context, and that I clearly understood what
people were saying to me. And at that point, it is too serious
to be using conversation as a language enhancement. I could do
that with my language instructor, I could do it in social chit-
chat, but I couldn't afford to be doing it for substantive
subjects as I could when I was a younger officer.
So I think these things drive us to need to look at
different levels of training and at pushing it out even where
the immediate job might not have the same requirement because
we can't get it later.
Thank you for letting me make that personal intervention.
Ms. Johnson. If I could say one thing, also, on language
that a number of our members have raised, and that is in-
country training, in the country that you are going to be
assigned to, to supplement the basis that you get at FSI. I
think a lot of people have found as linguists that they get
better results in shorter periods of time by being able to get
a basis maybe at FSI and then spend 6 months or something in
country not right at the embassy, but studying the language,
perfecting it. Certainly, that has been my experience, that
produces a better level of proficiency.
Senator Voinovich. Send them in 6 months early or something
like that and just put them into the bathtub and immerse them
in language training.
Ms. Johnson. No. They actually would go into a training,
continued language training program in that country. There are
different variations on that country to country, but no, they
would be in a context. But it has multiple advantages because
of not only the language skills. They make a lot of contacts.
They develop a lot of knowledge about the country, so when they
do come into their job, they are markedly more effective than
they would have been had they come immediately into the job
with a lower language level.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you. Thanks, Senator Akaka.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich.
I would like to follow up with Ambassador Neumann and what
he mentioned about an officer not being as proficient in
another language and the foreign person he is speaking with
being proficient in English. Therefore, they might end up
having a discussion in English instead.
Due to the staffing shortage at Foreign Service, officers
are being sent to post before completing their language
training. Due to insufficient training, officers have used
locally-employed staff as translators. What are the risks of an
over-reliance on locally-employed staff to translate for
Foreign Service officers?
Mr. Neumann. I am just smiling because I am going to have
to contain myself to a short answer here for a question I love.
First is that in many countries, your locally-employed
staff has no choice but to report to the local intelligence
people. So you cut off a lot of information. When I first went
to Iran--that was before the revolution, so you can tell how
long ago that was--initially, I was a little lazy and I had
French and I had an interpreter, and then the first Kurdish
rebellion of 1974 got going. All the Kurdish areas of the
Iranian side were in my consular district and I very quickly
realized that I would get so much more working in Farsi, even
bad Farsi, than having an Iranian translator in the room
because the locals had no idea who the translator might report
to besides me, but they were darn suspicious about it. And it
was true. I mean, the amount of information I gathered--some of
which I wasn't supposed to have access to, like our covert
involvement--just ballooned even though I was struggling
sometimes with the language.
When you expand beyond our immediate local employees, at
least some of whom do have very good language skills, then you
get into another whole area of problem that we have seen in
Iraq and Afghanistan, that I have watched repeatedly. We are
using people, often Arab Americans or Afghan Americans, who
have learned Arab or Farsi, or Pashto, as a kind of kitchen
language at home. It is not an educated language, so they are
not--they are either not educated in English at a university
level or they are not educated in their own language, their
native language, at that level.
The result is they are fine for simple interaction, but
when you start getting into more complicated conversations and
concepts, they often don't actually have the educated
vocabulary in one of the two languages, or sometimes in both,
to really handle those concepts.
So there are places to use interpreters. I know Ambassador
Crocker, who has excellent Arabic, used an interpreter a great
deal in Iraq. He used a non-Iraqi interpreter much of the time
to get away from the issue of who the interpreter reported to,
and he could check the interpreter because his Arabic is good.
But he wasn't wholly dependent on the interpreter.
When we start using them as a substitute for doing our own
work, we are just hurting every way you can imagine. And again,
I am sorry, that is kind of a long answer, but it is a really
important question.
Senator Akaka. Ambassador, the State Department has had to
rely on short tours of one year to fill critical FSO positions
in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, GAO identified significant
language shortfalls for the FSOs who serve in these
assignments. As a former Ambassador to Afghanistan, you
probably have had to deal with these types of issues firsthand.
In your view, how should the State Department ensure that it
staffs these posts with FSOs who have the needed language
training and experience?
Mr. Neumann. Yes, I have been there, done that. We have
never managed to do this. Neither we nor the military have ever
done this well. We didn't do it well in Vietnam, where we
recycled people to different jobs.
We have to bridge between the fact that we cannot--I think
we cannot get all the jobs filled at the requisite levels of
knowledge and language and length of time and the fact that we
must break out of this phenomenon of not 8 years' work in
Afghanistan, but one year eight times.
I think we have to begin by recognizing that certain jobs--
and some of this--a little bit, I think, may be being done in
the State Department. I am not up to date. I know it is being
done more in the military, recognizing that a certain number of
jobs are going to require levels of both language and
experience in the country--the two come together--which need
longer periods of service.
Once we accept that requirement and go through the process
of designating jobs, I think there are a variety of creative
solutions that can work in combination. People can come back
for repeat tours. Some people can stay. Some jobs can be 2-year
tours. Some people can agree that they will--you can have
linked positions where you have a couple of people who spend,
say, a 3-year tour swapping out with each other so that you
bring back the expertise. You may be swapping them out on 6-
month bases, but over 3 years, you are getting the same two
people in the same job.
In fairness to the Department, it is extremely hard for a
large institution running a complex personnel system to manage
this kind of pre-industrial piecework assignment process, but I
believe it is really essential to our Nation that we confront
this, particularly in a war. It was a huge problem, and the
amount I knew--I had more experience than most in the Foreign
Service, and having first visited Afghanistan almost 40 years
before I ended up there as Ambassador; but I knew a heck of a
lot more by the second year than I did the first year. And I
drew enormously on a very few people that had even more
experience.
So it is a critical, critical need and we need to look at
it and not blink and put meeting it in the ``too hard'' box. We
have got to do better.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Thank you very much. Senator
Voinovich, do you have any further questions?
Senator Voinovich. I have no questions. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Mr. Johnson, according to GAO, several State
Department human resources officials and Foreign Service
Officers expressed their view that the State Department's
designated language proficiency requirements may not reflect
the actual language needs of the posts. For example, officers
learning Arabic may need an advanced professional level instead
of the required general professional level to perform their
jobs. Have your members expressed this same concern, and what
do you recommend the Department do to make sure language
training adequately prepares FSOs for their duties?
Ms. Johnson. Mr. Chairman, we have heard from some members
on this issue, but we haven't gone out recently in a more
comprehensive way, and perhaps this is something we want to
make sure we address in our surveys.
Generally speaking, my own experience has been that the
three-three level, or even the three-plus-three-plus level, is
not sufficient to be able to do your job at some responsible
level in the Department. You can get along. You can talk. You
can have conversation. You can understand people. You cannot
negotiate. You cannot really deal on, let us say, complex or
sensitive matters, I think as Ambassador Neumann was talking
about.
So I, myself, have some questions about the designations
and what we think what they mean. In a number of instances, as
Ambassador Neumann was saying, I think the language designation
for particular jobs in certain countries probably needs to be a
four-four level or something close to that and we have to
really pay attention, because, generally speaking, that three-
three level is not really professional competency.
I learned Russian. I taught myself Russian. I got to a
three-three level. I could do a lot. It was very valuable. I
was a better officer as a result. I could not negotiate and do
complicated issues in Russian, and that applies for other
languages, as well.
So I think that whole system today needs to be recalibrated
in light of today's demands, and different for different
countries, depending what kinds of issues the United States
needs to negotiate with that country. So we have to be a lot
less cookie-cutter and more customized, and as Ambassador
Neumann said, that is not easy, but I think we need to do it.
Senator Akaka. Well, thank you.
I want to ask a final question to both of you. The GAO has
repeatedly recommended that the State Department develop a
comprehensive strategic plan regarding foreign language
capabilities. What elements do you believe should be in the
State Department's foreign language strategic plan?
Ms. Johnson. Well, first of all, we certainly agree, Mr.
Chairman, that it would be valuable to develop that sort of
strategic plan. So we strongly support the GAO recommendation.
Now, as to what elements, and I am just going to sort of
speak right now my own feelings responding to that, I think the
elements can be drawn from several of the comments that we have
made here this afternoon, that the language training--first of
all, our methodology needs to be looked at, and whether it is
all at FSI or whether we draw on universities or in-country
training.
Then we need to look at who we are training for what. What
are we really training this officer to do in that country?
Third, I think we need to look at who we are hiring to do
that training. Maybe we also need to look at the range of
languages that we are training in and at what levels, because
we train in a lot of languages and maybe we need to reconsider
that because there are costs associated with all of this.
So, I mean, there are a number of elements that should be
addressed in a comprehensive strategy and we would be happy to
give further thought to that and get back to you on it or the
GAO or the Department. We would like to be involved in some way
and to assist the Department in doing that study, that kind of
a study.
Mr. Neumann. I agree, Mr. Chairman. I think we need to look
again at what are we trying to do. That is the starting point.
I think we have been hampered over the years because our
resources were so few that when we began to talk about things
like that, we then had to have a kind of procrustean bed
exercise in which we then hammered the result back in to the
resource and the form available.
I think now we are getting to a place where we need to do
an unconstrained review and the results are going to be very
different for different languages, for different countries. We
have always, in my experience, had a great reluctance to
designate language positions at the four-four level because
that drives another whole level of resources that FSI didn't
have.
So I think this exercise probably has to be done really in
two parts. One is what are you trying to accomplish, and then
the how do you accomplish it so we don't get our feet tangled.
It is an excellent idea. I would only add the caution that
it shouldn't become a straightjacket because that needs change.
We close posts. We open posts. Proficiencies change. We get
into wars. So we should do a plan--we should do a strategic
plan. We shouldn't either delude or lock ourselves into the
belief that it is going to be a perfect plan. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Your experience and
your service, as reflected in your responses, have been very
valuable to this Subcommittee and I want to thank you.
We are committed to trying to make a difference in this
area, and it is clear to me that this Administration is firmly
committed to reenergizing U.S. diplomacy and understands the
need to invest in diplomatic readiness. I am hopeful that the
State Department will eliminate its language and experience
gaps with its planned increase in Foreign Service Officer
staffing. It should also commit itself to taking a more
strategic approach to meeting its current requirements and
preparing to respond to new challenges.
We will keep the hearing record open for one week for
additional statements or questions other Members may have. And
again, I want to thank you very much for your part in this
hearing.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:34 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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