Training goes only to officers assigned to “language-designated” positions — slots that have been officially determined to require language skills. Thus, a diplomat assigned to Washington cannot get advanced Arabic training until he or she is actually assigned to a language-designated job overseas. And then there’s no time to build real competency. This set-up creates a strong disincentive to designate positions as requiring language skills. No embassy wants to restrict its search to the comparatively few officers already qualified in Arabic or, even worse, effectively give up the position for the two years required to train an officer to a level 3 — and carry them on its budget the whole time they sit in language classes.

So no posts are designated above level 3, which means, naturally, that the Foreign Service does not offer training beyond the 3, either. If 3’s want additional language training to improve their skills to a 4, they have to do it on their own time and their own nickel. (The Foreign Service Institute has a pilot “Beyond 3″ program, but it had a mere two people in it as of the latest report.)”

Eight highly qualified Arabists. Jesus Christ ! If that is the state of FSO Arabic fluency with 22 countries using Arabic as their lingua franca how many Urdu, Pashto and Farsi speakers do we have ? Two ? No wonder we can’t penetrate the Iraqi insurgency or sell our foreign policy – our diplomatic corps barely has the linguistic wherewithal to stop at a gas station in Petra and ask for directions.

In case you believe that the article may be overstating things, here’s another view from a retired USG Arabist and analyst who participates on the Small Wars Council discussion board:

“Most outsiders have a very distorted view of how State selects, trains, and assigns personnel to the embassies. As a youngster FAO relatively fresh from DLI Arabic, I went to Sudan as a FAO traiinee. I had zero Sudanese Arabic training and had done a year in Turkey and 6 months in French training before arriving in Khartoum. That said, I found aside from certain individuals like the Ambassador, my Arabic was better than most. The Defense Attache who had gone to State langauage school and claimed a higher pro score than me was basically a “helllo, good morning, goodbye” level speaker. So this does not surprise me.

Even when the language skills are there, embassies are not necessarily keyed into what is really happening around them. Ambassadors set the tone. Too many embassies are viewed as plums because they offer the most pay (COLA, hardship, danger) and you get youngsters sent there to get their feet wet or the “old hands” who stay and stay so their retirement pay gets maxed. The youngsters don’t know how to operate and they mimic what happens among the “old hands. Other embassies get out and see what is happening beyond the “salle d’honneur” at the Foreign Ministry; they actually have a pulse on

events. “

Ouch.

Why then do things not change for the better? Yes, particularly after 9/11 but international incidents originating in the ME did not begin in 2001; we have decades of neglet here. Why ?

The explanation in my view is twofold: political and bureaucratic.

Politicians in the Executive Branch have zero incentive to invest political capital in reforming the State Department. The public isn’t interested in the minutia of Foggy Bottom and barely attends to the broadest outline of foreign policy, absent a presidential election or a military attack. If a President can get the key appointees confirmed, create a few new ” sexy” positions to deal with the crisis du jour and keep State from leaking to the press every five minutes that’s about as far as management priorities go for the average administration.

Politicians in the Legislative Branch also lack any positive incentives to reform State for the same reasons. Congressmen can also gain mileage with the local papers back home by beating up on State’s “wasteful” foreign aid and dragging ambassadors and deputy assistant secretaries into hearings that revolve around appeasing single-issue zealots. Thirdly, Congressional staffers and State’s mandarins have a cozy relationship that both use to their advantage to undermine presidential policies in foreign relations ( not just George W. Bush, any president of either party).

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