Personnel Shortfall Slows State Department

Perhaps contrary to conventional wisdom, this is not a turf war the current defense secretary wants to win. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates favors stronger State Department funding.

State Department "programs are not well understood or appreciated by the wider American public, and do not have a ready-made political constituency that major weapons systems or public works projects enjoy," he said. "As a result, the slashing of the president's international affairs budget request has too often become an annual Washington ritual -- right up there with the blooming of the cherry blossoms and the Redskin's opening game."

Basically, he's saying that compared with the Pentagon, State is the Rodney Dangerfield in international matters -- it gets no, or certainly too little, respect.

"It's really frustrating for the foreign service," said John Naland, president of the American Foreign Service Association and an active-duty career foreign service officer.

That frustration goes beyond personnel shortages, to the lack of training for those who are hired, Naland said. He pointed to generals who get advanced degrees, including doctorates, on the Pentagon's tab. "Except for language training, our training is woefully inadequate," said Naland, who goes to Iraq next year.

Reduced budget and staff have made selling the U.S. abroad -- an important part of State's mission -- tough work these days. "According to international public opinion surveys there is extensive dissatisfaction with many U.S. global policies," the report says. Of course the nation's reputation abroad took such a big hit with the war in Iraq that an army of diplomats would need a magic wand to help reverse the discontent.

The diplomacy academy says the public diplomacy staff, which attempts to influence foreign audiences, now is 24 percent smaller than in 1986 and "needs a major infusion of new resources."

That's a widely held view in the foreign affairs crowd.

At a Senate hearing on public diplomacy last month, Scott H. DeLisi, the department's director of career development and assignments, counted places on his fingers as he said the United States needs to do "more in China, in India, in the Middle East, in parts of Africa, in Indonesia." He was less diplomatic than others on his panel who also testified about the shortage of public diplomacy personnel.

"It's frightening," DeLisi said.

The report Academy's can be found online at http://www.academyofdiplomacy.org/publications/FAB_report_2008.pdf.

Contact Joe Davidson at federaldiary@washpost.com.