In my non-work world, one question I get asked semi-frequently is, "What is the foreign service? I thought you worked for USAID?" Or, more simply: "What is it you do again?"
In order to put to rest these questions, I thought I'd use the newly-rediscovered blog to provide a bit of an explanation of what I do, and why your taxes go to pay my federal salary (thank you very much, by the way).
So I work for USAID, which stands for the United States Agency for International Development (our fairly lame website is here: www.usaid.gov). Normally, when people think about U.S. foreign policy (if they do at all), then they normally think of the State Department. But in reality, our foreign policy is based on the "Three D's" -- diplomacy (which State Department takes care of), defense (the Pentagon), and development (USAID). In other words, the way our government interacts with other countries is through some combination of those 3 D's.
The "foreign service" is a reference to a specific type of employee, regardless of which specific government agency you work for. The formal definition (at least the one I found on the web) is: "Members of the Foreign Service can be sent to any embassy, consulate, or other diplomatic mission anywhere in the world, at any time, to serve the diplomatic needs of the United States." It's a little bit like being in the military: whether you are in the Navy or Army or Air Force or Marines, you're part of the military, and have ranks, a certain mission, etc..
In terms of numbers, the vast majority of foreign service officers ("FSO's") are part of the State Department. They represent the elite of the Department -- about 11,500 out of the Department's 50,000 or so total worldwide staff (the rest are civil servants, contract employees, etc.). USAID also is authorized to have a relatively small number of FSOs -- about 1,800 the last time I checked (out of a total workforce of around 10,000 worldwide, I'm guessing, including American and local staff). As with State, the FSOs get certain privileges versus civil servants and other employees (for example, FSOs can retire with a pension after 20 years, rather than 30, and most key leadership positions in the Agency are reserved for FSOs, etc. -- the logic behind that is that USAID is, by definition, a "foreign affairs agency"). So the picture looks something like this:
So what does a USAID "foreign service officer" actually do?
Option #1: This is what we'd love to think our job is like.
Option #2: This is what my job mostly is like.
The truth of the matter is that my job essentially is to lead a team of people to design and implement projects to make corrupt countries less corrupt, to try and protect free media, to help civic and human rights groups, and to improve the relationship between governments and populations. The idea is that if this all works out, countries won't melt down into civil war or strife, the U.S. won't get sucked in to more endless (and endlessly expensive) military adventures, and everybody's happy. So, compared to the war in Iraq, USAID is a pretty good deal for the US taxpayer.
In terms of my day to day routine, my work consists of a mixture of boring office work, and more exciting other stuff which I could tell you about but then I'd have to kill you. An example of our highly classified work:
In order to put to rest these questions, I thought I'd use the newly-rediscovered blog to provide a bit of an explanation of what I do, and why your taxes go to pay my federal salary (thank you very much, by the way).
So I work for USAID, which stands for the United States Agency for International Development (our fairly lame website is here: www.usaid.gov). Normally, when people think about U.S. foreign policy (if they do at all), then they normally think of the State Department. But in reality, our foreign policy is based on the "Three D's" -- diplomacy (which State Department takes care of), defense (the Pentagon), and development (USAID). In other words, the way our government interacts with other countries is through some combination of those 3 D's.
The "foreign service" is a reference to a specific type of employee, regardless of which specific government agency you work for. The formal definition (at least the one I found on the web) is: "Members of the Foreign Service can be sent to any embassy, consulate, or other diplomatic mission anywhere in the world, at any time, to serve the diplomatic needs of the United States." It's a little bit like being in the military: whether you are in the Navy or Army or Air Force or Marines, you're part of the military, and have ranks, a certain mission, etc..
In terms of numbers, the vast majority of foreign service officers ("FSO's") are part of the State Department. They represent the elite of the Department -- about 11,500 out of the Department's 50,000 or so total worldwide staff (the rest are civil servants, contract employees, etc.). USAID also is authorized to have a relatively small number of FSOs -- about 1,800 the last time I checked (out of a total workforce of around 10,000 worldwide, I'm guessing, including American and local staff). As with State, the FSOs get certain privileges versus civil servants and other employees (for example, FSOs can retire with a pension after 20 years, rather than 30, and most key leadership positions in the Agency are reserved for FSOs, etc. -- the logic behind that is that USAID is, by definition, a "foreign affairs agency"). So the picture looks something like this:
Option #1: This is what we'd love to think our job is like.
Option #2: This is what my job mostly is like.
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| This is me, sitting in the Kabul embassy in 2003, with the windows blocked out by black "bullet curtains" to prevent grateful Afghans from firing at me. |
In terms of my day to day routine, my work consists of a mixture of boring office work, and more exciting other stuff which I could tell you about but then I'd have to kill you. An example of our highly classified work:
Aquabus
