Sunday, December 27, 2020
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Friday, December 4, 2020
Tuesday, December 1, 2020
Philippine Newspaper runs my column
When I was asked to write an occasional column for a newspaper in Bacalod, Philippines, I'd never heard of Negros Now, a paper in Negros Occidente. I agreed because Gigi Estrella (Gigi Star) a radio personality and friend of mine, twisted my arm. Little did I know it would be the print version as well as online, or that they would make a big deal of it. Just got some images of print editions recently, including my latest, which I just posted.
Guess in addition to a western author I'm now officially a newspaper columnist.
Don't let others hold you back
Don’t let others hold you back
- Negros Weekly
- Posted on: November 30, 2020
I was just 16 when I graduated from high school. I had taught myself to draw and paint and had dreams of being a commercial artist. Unfortunately, in the Texas of 1962, such jobs for people of color were in short supply—meaning, they didn’t exist.
I was also determined to be a writer. I’d always loved reading and had wone a national short story writing contest when I was 13.
Of course, you know the story. It was Texas, and, according to the lady at the employment bureau in Houston, there were no jobs like that for ‘you people.’
Now, I’ll bet you’re thinking this disappointed and discouraged me. Well, you’d be wrong. It angered me and made me even more determined. I realized, though, that Texas was not the place where I could make my dreams come true. I remembered something my grandmother used to tell me. If things aren’t working out for you in one place, move. So, that’s what I did.
I set out to get as far away from Texas as I could. I waited until four days after my 17th birthday and joined the army. Six months later I was far away from Texas, Augsburg, Germany to be precise, up to my shoulders in the deepest snow I’d ever seen in my life, and on the first steps of a 20-year career in the U.S. Army.
How, you might ask, did this help me to realize my dream? I’ll tell you. I did my soldierly duty by day but wrote, drew, and painted at night. By the time my first tour in Germany ended in 1964, I’d been published several poems and articles in Stars and Stripe, the newspaper for American GIs serving overseas. After seeing my byline in such a widely-circulated paper the die was cast. I knew I could do it.
Over the years that followed, with assignments in the United States, getting a commission as a second lieutenant, and subsequent assignments in Germany again, in Panama, Vietnam, Korea and several places in the United States, I got articles, photographs, cartoons and other pictures published in magazines and newspapers from Germany to Korea, and even began making money from it. A couple of months I even made more royalties than my army pay.
By the time I retired from the army in 1982, and became a diplomat, I could honestly say that I was an artist, a photographer and a writer, and I had the clippings to prove it. I published my first book in 2008, and since then have published a total of over 200 works of fiction and nonfiction, including several that are, at the moment, in Amazon’s Top 100 sellers in their genre.
Why am I telling you all this? Simple. This is a bit of life advice. I rarely use such absolute terms as ‘always’ and ‘never,’ but this is an exception. Listen and pay close attention. Never, and I do mean NEVER, let other people hold you back from striving for your dreams.
There are all too many people who will tell you what you can’t do, and precious few who will encourage you, other than maybe your mother, and even mothers will sometimes be a part of that naysaying chorus.
There is, however, only ONE person who can really decide how far you can go. YOU! Never forget that. ALWAYS hold onto your dreams, because every great discovery, every victory started as a dream.
We put men on the moon because someone had a dream that it could be done. We cured polio because people like Jonas Salk had the audacity to dream that it could be done.
Achieving your dreams require patience and tenacity. The patience to work at it day after day, and the tenacity to stick with it after you’ve failed a few dozen times. Achieving your dreams requires imagination and creativity. When one thing doesn’t work, try another, or try something in a different way.
Achieving your dreams requires courage, the courage to go where others dare not go and to do the things that others dare not do. I’ll give you an example. I write westerns. The sort-of, old fashioned cowboys and outlaws with lots of horses and shoot outs.
The number of writers of color writing in the western genre can probably be counted on one hand, and when I decided to write my first one, my family looked at me like I’d just grown a second head. I was intrigued by the prospect, though, and as a student of history, I knew some things about those spaghetti westerns that many don’t know—I knew that they were historically inaccurate.
I decided to write westerns that were an accurate representation of the history and were good stories at the same time. Except for my friend and publicist, Nick Wales, a Brit who has the same rebellious attitude I have, everyone said that I was wasting my time.
I ignored them, and now, after eight years, I’m not only recognized as a true writer of entertaining westerns, I have the honor of having had six books at the same time in the Amazon Top 20 sellers in the western genre. That doesn’t happen too often, and if I’d listened to the naysayers it wouldn’t have happened.
So, go out there and find your dream. What are you waiting for?
Friday, November 27, 2020
Monday, November 23, 2020
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Thursday, November 12, 2020
Monday, November 2, 2020
Sunday, November 1, 2020
The Everyday Importance of International Relations: Walk a Mile in Your Own Shoes
The Everyday Importance of International Relations: Walk a Mile in Your Own Shoes
by Charles Ray
When I served as the U.S. Department of States Diplomat in Residence at the University of Houston (TX) during the 2005-2006 academic year, in addition to recruiting and mentoring college students interested in taking the Foreign Service Exam, I did a lot of speaking on diplomacy and foreign relations in southeast and south Texas. One of the audiences I particularly liked talking to was high school students, the most interesting and challenging I’ve faced in my 30-year diplomatic career.
The principal of a Catholic school in Missouri City, a town just outside Houston, asked me to do a talk to her ninth graders on international relations. She asked that I try to relate it to them rather than giving the standard State Department lecture, which frankly is targeted to an older audience.
Up to this point in my career, my contacts with American teenagers had been almost exclusively with my own kids and the children of my Foreign Service colleagues. I went home that night to the house I’d rented near Houston’s Astrodome, wondering how I would be able to find a way to communicate to this audience ‘in its language.’
As I sat at my computer staring at a blank screen, an image came into my mind of the twelfth graders I’d spoken to at another school. For some reason, my mind focused on the fact that an overwhelming majority of them were wearing expensive running shoes; Nikes, Adidas, and the like. Why that came to mind, I don’t know, but it reminded me of my tours in Cambodia and Vietnam, two countries where a lot of the shoes and other athletic gear for companies like Nike, Adidas, and the Gap are manufactured. Then, it hit me. I knew how to make international affairs relatable to an American teenager, and in doing so, make it more understandable for adults as well
While many Americans think that foreign political, economic, and social events have little bearing on their lives, a look at our everyday economy tells a different story.
Our Economic Dependence
Who, when reading or hearing about instability in the Middle East or the price of a barrel of oil, thinks of his or her shoes? Those expensive Nike, Adidas or Reebok athletic shoes, believe it or not, are made of a large number of petroleum-based polyurethane products, and glued together with an adhesive that is also a petroleum-based product.
The factory machines that are used to make them are run by electricity that is often provided by diesel-powered generators. The trucks and ships that transport them depend upon petroleum products.
But it doesn’t stop with your feet.
Do you have any idea how many products you use daily, and often take for granted, are made from petroleum products? Hair cream, styling gel, chap sticks, moisturizing lotions, varnish, glue, furniture, car seats, surf boards, and yes, condoms, just to name a few.
If oil gets too expensive, or the supply is disrupted, it is not just driving your car that’s affected. When we talk about dependency on foreign oil, we tend to look just at developing more fuel-efficient cars. What about all the plastic products we use and discard every day?
What about some of the other ‘foreign’ issues that impact our daily lives?
Viruses Can Spread Around the Globe Quickly
We all know that AIDS is a terrible disease. It has been brought under control in the U.S., but is still decimating populations in the developing world. And the current COVID-19 pandemic is orders of magnitude worse. Both show the interrelatedness of the world we live in. Originating in Wuhan, China, within months COVID had appeared worldwide, affecting every continent except Antarctica and disrupting the world economy. A hitherto unknown disease that mutated to enable animal-to-human and then human-to-human transmission, originating in a distant foreign city, is suddenly on our TV screens, complete with daily casualty counts, much like the Vietnam War was in another era. Air travel makes the spread of a deadly virus from the most remote area to world capitals a matter of hours.
But, let’s go back to those athletic shoes. They are most likely assembled in a factory in a country like Vietnam. Most of the workers are young rural women who are between 18 and 25. COVID-19, which caused industries in many countries to shut their doors, has a direct impact on your ability to buy those shoes. The factories can’t make them, and because of border closings and suspension of air traffic between countries, those that have already been manufactured, can’t be shipped. The result: the outbreak of a disease in a country an ocean away impacts your ability to purchase the goods you desire, even if that disease never makes it to our shores.
COVID-19 and other infectious diseases are not just humanitarian and health issues. They have real economic consequences for all of us.
We Are Not Immune from Political Events Abroad
Political upheaval can also create problems for the average American, even when it’s in a remote country that many Americans would be hard-pressed to find on a map.
On January 28, 2003, after weeks of back and forth insults between Thailand and Cambodia over the alleged statements made by a Thai soap opera star that were considered insulting to Cambodians, young Cambodians took to the streets of Phnom Penh, burning the Thai embassy and most Thai-owned businesses in the city.
The already frosty relations between these two historical rivals took a sharp dip, and military forces were alerted on both sides. Borders were closed for nearly a week. Cambodia’s billion-dollar-a-year garment industry ships mainly to the U.S., to customers like the GAP and other top sportswear companies. Needless to say, garment buyers sweated that week, fearing that relations would not improve and they would be left unable to fill post-Christmas orders. Now, most Americans probably never heard about the anti-Thai riots in Cambodia, but I’ll bet you that every executive of GAP in San Francisco knew every detail, and followed events assiduously.
Let’s go back a bit farther in time, and talk about another obscure country that, unknown to the average American, had a potentially negative impact on America’s economy. Sierra Leone, in West Africa, is one of the poorest countries in the world. Despite a connection with the U.S. that dates back to the 1600s, most Americans know nothing about it. From Sierra Leon’s Bunce Island slave fort, slaves were shipped to work the rice plantations of South Carolina and Georgia. Many Sea Island, Georgia residents today can trace their ancestry directly to tribes in Sierra Leone. Furthermore, one of the first naval battles of the American Revolution was fought there when a French warship shelled British positions.
Not knowing this history can be forgiven, but do you know what titanium is? It’s a strong, light metal that is used in manufacturing high performance aircraft. Titanium dioxide is also the component of white paints and dyes; the white dye used in your shoes contains titanium, as do some wax papers. In Sierra Leone, an American company mined the element rutile, which is titanium dioxide in its natural form. Up until 1994, Sierra Leone produced 25 percent of the world’s supply. It was also, unfortunately, ruled at the time by an inept military junta and in the midst of a brutal war financed by the ruler of its neighbor, Liberia, none of which the average American knew much about. Expansion of the rebel war caused the company to suspend operations, drastically impacting the supply and price of titanium worldwide. Now, we can all do without white shoes, but what about the jet engine of the plane that flies the shoes from the factory, or the wax paper you use in your kitchen?
Feeling the Impact of Events Half a World Away
What we drive, wear, eat, and play with, our safety and security, the amount of money we have in our paycheck, all are impacted at times by events half a world or more away.
The next time you go shopping, check the ‘made-in’ labels on products in your favorite stores. Whether its Target or Dillards, there’s a more than fifty percent chance that a majority of the labels will say ‘Made in China’, or some other country. The vast majority will be made somewhere other than the United States. I wear a flag pin on my lapel that has a slogan, ‘Aberdeen – All American City,’ which was given to by the mayor during an official visit years ago. The plastic wrapping that it was in (another petroleum product) had a little white label with the words ‘Made in China.’
Most people have a credit card and a computer. The next time you have a problem with either, you’re likely to call the ‘Help Line,’ and chances are you’ll find yourself talking to someone in southern India rather than southern Indiana.
Your ‘American’ car was probably assembled in a plant in Mexico, and of course, the gas to propel that car is most likely to have been imported from abroad.
Clearly, foreign events — social, economic, and political –are not just remote happenings that we can afford to ignore. Ignorance of these events will not protect us from their negative effects.
Some would say the solution is to produce everything we need right here in the U.S. It sounds seductive as a political slogan, but is it practical, or even possible? Like it or not, we live in a globalized world, and there is no vaccine against globalization. Rather than ignore it, or blindly oppose it, we need to learn to live with it. And, to learn to live with it, we need to educate ourselves. We all need to learn that international relations matter in our daily lives.
Whether you’re a teenager wondering when the new line of sneakers will be on the shelves, a day laborer wondering how you’ll make next month’s rent, or a day trader tracking the ups and downs of the stock market, it helps to be aware of the impact faraway events can have on your daily existence. A virus won’t be stopped by border walls, and the negative economic impacts of events half a world away don’t need visas to enter our country and turn our lives upside down. While many of these events can’t be prevented, recognizing their potential to affect us, being aware of the interrelatedness of the global society, enables us to mitigate some of their impact.
We need to walk a mile in our own shoes to get a better understanding of our place in the world.
Thursday, October 8, 2020
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Use of the Military in Civilian Law Enforcement
https://www.facebook.com/charles.ray.7334/videos/10158742313387904. Video of a Webinar with the Longboat Key Democrat Club.
Thursday, July 30, 2020
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Sunday, June 21, 2020
Op-Ed in Fayetteville Observer on changing Fort Bragg's name.
Retired
ambassador, veteran: Time to change Fort Bragg’s name
Only
support from Confederate president Jefferson Davis kept Braxton Bragg from
being cashiered from the Confederate army. The name is insulting to soldiers of
color, sure – but it is also insulting to those who think an army’s job is to
win.
I served 20 years in the U.S. Army. I had
several tours at Fort Bragg while in uniform, where I trained for deployment to
my two tours in Vietnam, and many more official visits during my 30 years in
the U.S. Foreign Service and since my retirement. My service taught me we
should pull our society together whenever possible. As such, I believe that it
is long past time to change the name of Fort Bragg, named in honor of
Confederate General Braxton Bragg.
The Secretaries of Defense and Army are right
to be open to bipartisan discussions on this change (a change from the army’s
position in 2017, when the response was that such a move would be
“controversial and divisive”). At the risk of offending many North Carolinians
— whom, for the record, I regard with esteem and who live in a state I love —
those who oppose the change because it betrays our ’“rich history and tradition
of honor and victory,” I say “poppycock.” I lived for years in Fayetteville and
became a part of the local community. I do not want to offend any of my former
neighbors. Yet sometimes the case for the status quo is simply wrong.
History is important, but not every element of
history deserves adulation. It is important we view history in its proper
perspective, take into account the facts behind the events, and assess those
facts with an open mind.
Why we
have a “Fort Bragg”
First, we must understand why Fort Bragg, and
10 other army posts in the south were named for Confederate generals in the
first place.
These posts were constructed prior to World
War II. The Army needed to obtain large tracts of land, so they bowed to
pressure from local officials. This was at the height of the Jim Crow era, and
the Army itself was segregated at the time. The feelings of Black Americans –
like me – weren’t considered when agreeing to name a federal installation after
an individual who had taken up arms against the federal government. And who
often supported slavery.
To those who say that these designations
represent our traditions of honor and victory, I would point out that, in the
case of Bragg, the fort was named for a general who was considered one of the
most bumbling commanders in the war, even by his own side. He was removed from
his command after a rout at the Battle of Chattanooga. Only support from
Confederate president Jefferson Davis kept him from being cashiered from the
Confederate army. The name is insulting to soldiers of color, sure – but it is
also insulting to those who think an army’s job is to win.
The same can be said of other bases. Fort Hood
in Texas, for example, is named for John Bell Hood, who was not a native Texan,
and whose reckless decisions sped the fall of Atlanta.
Forget moral standing. Over 43% of military
personnel are racial and ethnic minorities. The day minorities do not feel they
have a place in our military is the day our greatest weakness is exposed. As
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, I worked on cases of African-American
POWs and MIA who, despite torture and deprivation, lived up to the Code of
Conduct: “I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions,
and dedicated to the principles that made my country free.”
They learned this code while training at bases
named for Confederates who betrayed our country.
Let me be blunt – Americans who care about
America’s military must press the President to reconsider his decision. If he
does not, they must vote for someone who will.
Ultimately, this is about all Americans. If we
truly wish to honor our nation’s military, and show a commitment to our values
of Duty, Honor, Country, as outlined by General Douglas MacArthur in his 1962
address to West Point Cadets, the right thing to do is name these bases for
those who have served the nation, not fought against it.
Thursday, June 11, 2020
Sunday, June 7, 2020
Saturday, May 16, 2020
The Sociopaths Among Us
According
to the American Psychiatric Association, approximately three to five percent of
the American are sociopaths, with three of every 100 males and one of every 100
females exhibiting sociopathic tendencies. Harvard psychologist, Dr. Martha
Stout, in her book The Sociopath Next Door, estimates that one in 25
Americans is a sociopath, or has an anti-social personality disorder.
Chew on those statistics for a moment
while I describe, from a layman’s point of view, just what a sociopath is, and
how you can recognize when you encounter or observe one in action.
One of the most prominent traits of a
sociopath is a flagrant disregard for the rights of others. Dominating or
prevailing over others is a driving force in a sociopath’s life. They lack
empathy and conscience, and enjoy the feeling of power and control over others.
Sociopaths are glib, and what they say is
mostly, or in some instances totally, fabricated. They make big promises,
really grandiose promises, with no basis in fact, and no planning or experience
to back them up. They prone to use of extreme language, both positive and
negative. To sociopaths, everything they do or say is HUGE, EXCELLENT, or
PERFECT (and, I put these words in all-caps, because when they write, that’s
what they often do for emphasis).
Sociopaths are consistent only in their
obsession with themselves. They can be ebullient one minute, and venomous the
next, and whenever they’re challenges on their misdeeds, they portray
themselves as victims to play on the sentiments of often naïve observers.
The words and deeds of a sociopath seldom
match. They are, in their own opinion, always blameless for whatever goes
wrong, and NEVER apologize, even when caught in the act.
One of the most critical problems with
sociopaths is that, according to Dr. Matthew J. Edmund, in a February 9, 2017
article in ‘Psychology Today,’ Americans don’t just like sociopaths, they
actually admire them. It seems that love of this type of personality is
hardwired into our national culture. For the amoral person, there are no rules
he or she is bound to obey unless it gives them some advantage. They are enamored
by the feeling of unlimited power over others; they love to dominate, and be
admired, and can become very ugly whenever they sense that they are not being
admired.
So, think about that the next time you’re
walking in your peaceful suburban neighborhood, riding the subway, or watching
some notable bloviating on TV. Do you find yourself attracted and uneasy at the
same time at the behavior of others? If so, you’re probably in the presence,
real or electronic, of a sociopath.
Now, the majority of sociopaths are more
annoying than dangerous, but that depends on what their relationship is to you.
If you’re in a personal relationship with one, neither confrontation or
cowering works. Confronting them is like arguing with a stupid person. They
will pull you down to their level and overwhelm you with their skill. If you
cower, you’re only feeding their ego. The best way is to quietly disengage and
relocate. If, on the other hand, the sociopath has some control over your life
because he or she occupies a position of power, you’re in a world of hurt.
Politicians can theoretically be voted out of office, but that requires a
sufficient number of voters to put their admiration aside and do the sane
thing. If they’re a bureaucrat who has the power over your promotion, pay, or
position, you could try going to human resources, but proving an actionable
case against such people is often impossible. In extremis, you could consider
getting a new job, or if you’re old enough, retiring.
I’d like to be able to say that I have the
answers you need to survive a sociopathic encounter, but until enough people in
the United States wake up and realize that adoration of sociopathy is a
double-edged sword. As long as you’re satisfying a sociopath’s ego, you’ll probably
stay in the good graces, but never forget, things can change on a dime. An
innocent remark or act on your part can trigger a negative reaction, and all
your past adoration will be instantly forgotten.
In closing, something I heard as a child
comes to mind that should never be forgotten: ‘When you sleep with dogs, you
wake up with fleas.”
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Preparing for the next Pandemic
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana – 1905
“Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” – Winston Churchill – 1948
Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), which began in Wuhan, China in December 2019, in just a few short months had become a global pandemic, by mid-May 2020, infecting more than four million people worldwide, and causing over 300,000 deaths. In the United States alone there were over one million confirmed cases and over 85,000 deaths, with cases reported in every state and territory.
COVID-19 has disrupted trade, travel, and economies, forced millions to live in physical isolation from friends and relatives, and put added strains on already strained international relations in ways that not even the last world war did. In some areas, commerce has come to a virtual standstill, unemployment has skyrocketed to levels never seen before, and the social fabric of communities is being frayed.
With the end of this crisis not yet in sight, and a long, arduous recovery ahead, it might seem strange to be thinking about the next pandemic. But, if we are to learn from what will soon be history, and avoid having to repeat it, now is precisely the time when, along with everything else, we should be thinking about how we will deal with it the next time it happens, and, unfortunately, it will happen again.
One of the most critical lessons we should learn from the COVID-19 crisis is that, while quarantines and social distancing are important in limiting or halting the spread of the virus, international cooperation is equally important. Nations must share information across the board; and coordinate actions that impact other countries, such as border closings, travel restrictions, infection rates, treatment methods, and the like.
Such cooperation can be facilitated by active, forward-looking diplomacy, before, during, and after the crisis.
We must first salute those who serve on the nation’s front lines in foreign lands, as representatives of the United States in diplomatic and consular roles, who are currently doing yeoman’s work in offering aid and succor to the legions of Americans who find themselves stranded far from home. But we should remember that it is crucially important that we develop lessons learned from the current crisis, to better equip them to perform their jobs effectively in the next.
America’s diplomatic service, at home and abroad, is frankly in need of a massive makeover if the United States is to maintain (or perhaps, regain) its rightful place in the world. We need to revitalize the Foreign Service with efforts to regain the expertise lost with the massive departure of so many senior, experienced people in the last three years; enhance recruitment to build up the junior and mid-level ranks, to include efforts to increase recruitment and retention of women and minorities; and expand and improve training and education to better equip the service to perform in an increasingly interconnected and complex world.
From the Top Down
For the United States, one of the first steps in ensuring effective diplomacy in the next crisis is to recognize that the Department of State and the Foreign and Civil Service personnel who represent the nation’s interests at home and abroad have the necessary resources, training, and leadership support.
We need to start by refilling the hollowed-out State Department’s severely depleted ranks, in both the Foreign and Civil Services. The goal should be to be able to staff all positions, domestically and abroad, with a cadres of Foreign Service Officers, Specialists, and Civil Service personnel who represent the best and brightest of the United States, but who also represent the United States in all its amazing diversity of ethnicity, gender, religion, etc. We must then provide them with the training and education necessary to enable them to do their jobs.
An equally serious challenge, and one that won’t be easily or quickly mitigated, is the replacement of the many experienced mid-level and senior employees who have left, through resignation and retirement. The loss of experience at the middle management and senior leadership levels will complicate the task of rebuilding the level of expertise that will be required, not just to cope with the next pandemic, but in carrying out the routine tasks the State Department is called upon to perform across the board.
We need to take a fresh look at the training needs that this puts on the organization. In addition to the usual tradecraft training, more training in leadership and management, offered at lower grade levels, will be needed to equip less-experienced junior employees to assume duties far above what would normally be expected of them. Ambassadors, DCMs, principal officers, and office directors do not appear overnight. It takes years of training and work experience to develop the expertise to perform effectively in these jobs. Filling the void will require creative, out-of-the-box thinking. Expansion of remote learning, increased training and educational opportunities (facilitated by having a training float built into the staffing levels), and even hiring people from outside the State Department (or enticing some of the recent departures to return) should be given serious consideration. More focus also needs to be put on hiring new people who can keep apace with new technologies.
Dealing with a fast-moving, deadly pandemic also calls for rapid response, which means that more authority must be given to people in the field to take the appropriate and necessary actions to protect the lives of American citizens. Currently, chiefs of mission (COM) must get the approval of the Undersecretary of Management (M) for authorized or ordered departure of mission personnel. While this works fairly well in many situations, often the people on the ground are aware of a developing situation before it gets international attention. Actions to remove Americans (official and private citizens), if they must wait for the Washington bureaucracy to respond, are often too little, too late. In a situation similar to the COVID-19 crisis, consideration should be given to granting the authority to decide on authorized or ordered departures to the COM. This authority, however, must be balanced with the need to keep enough staff at our overseas post to meet critical needs, such as taking care of American citizens, etc.
The Emergency Action Plan (EAP) should be reviewed, to ensure that appropriate procedures, equipment, and authorities are in place for all posts to deal with a pandemic. Because staff of our overseas missions will have to deal with potentially infected people in order to provide assistance to Americans, personal protective equipment (PPE) should be made available to posts as well, along with instructions in its proper use. Such supplies and equipment could either be prepositioned at strategic foreign posts, or held in the U.S. in a central stockpile and shipped by military transport to where it is needed at the first signs of a crisis.
If this seems overreach, consider that the current pandemic is not the first such situation we’ve had to deal with, and it won’t be the last. We need to plan for the next, and the one after that now. Failure to plan is, in essence, planning to fail; something we can ill afford to do.
It is a management truism that people put their efforts into the tasks that they are rewarded for. More emphasis should be given to career training, risk-taking, and leadership skills in the promotion precepts than I feel is currently given. People should not just be encouraged to pursue training opportunities, but rewarded for doing so. I stress again, though, the need for a personnel structure that facilitates such a cultural attitude. Having a training float that allows people to take long-term training without creating vacancies in positions (domestically and abroad), a buffer that will not be wiped out the next time a new requirement is levied on the State Department, such as the requirement to establish the massive missin in Iraq, is essential if the attitude toward long-term training is to be changed.
From the Bottom Up
It’s not enough, though, to just change things at the leadership level. It is incumbent upon every member of the Foreign and Civil Service to accept the new reality. We can no longer do ‘business as usual.’ At every level, from newly hired civil service personnel to incoming junior Foreign Service Officer or Specialist, we must be prepared to accept a greater degree of responsibility than has traditionally been the case.
Every new employee must make professional development through training and education a key component of his or her career plan. This would include, in addition to resident courses at NFATC and other institutions, distant learning classes, in the individual’s career field, along with leadership and management courses.
On the job, employees should be creative and innovative in their approach to solving the problems they face, and in this, they should be encouraged and rewarded by their supervisors. Employees must be willing to take managed risks when a situation calls for action, especially employees in leadership positions. As I was told by former Deputy Secretary Rich Armitage, an ambassador is posted to the job to do what needs to be done, not to wait for instructions. That attitude has to become a part of our culture.
The Long Road Ahead
Even if everything previously mentioned was put into place today, we still face a long slog before we reach the level of responsiveness and expertise that will be required to do the job the American people expect of us.
There are no quick fixes. With over 200 Foreign Service officer and specialist positions unfilled, it will take time to hire and train people to make up the deficit, and if recruiting is aimed only at filling vacancies, we’re still left with the undeniable reality that it takes time to grow experienced diplomats, and that task will be made harder by the deficit in mid-level and senior managers to serve as mentors and guides to new hires.
Even with full staffing and a training float, a pandemic will strain the system and quickly deplete resources. Draw downs and illness is likely to reduce the number of persons at our posts who are able to perform their jobs. One possible way to cope with this might be to double-encumber all of the critical positions, by having a principal position incumbent with another individual also assigned to fill the position should the principal be unable to perform, kind of like having a pilot and a copilot of an aircraft.
While it’s possible to make up for some of the grade deficit by hiring people at the appropriate grade, but even this is only marginally effective. It has been tried in the past, and has not been successful due to cultural resistance to those who have not ‘paid their dues’ by coming up through the ranks. Even more experienced people who come in at lower ranks face a certain amount of pushback. My own experience is a case in point. I entered the Foreign Service in 1982 after completing 20 years in the army, having served in a number of command and staff positions. For the first several years of my career, I had to endure snide comments about the ‘military mind,’ and other urban myths about career military personnel. Even with nearly 20 years of management and leadership experience under my belt, I didn’t feel comfortable in my skin as a Foreign Service supervisor for about six years. With the current tenure period, of five years a new hire is likely to be in a position to compete for supervisory positions before he or she has a supervisor who is truly qualified to do the job.
Sound tough? It is, and will be. But we are a tough people, and I’m convinced that we will eventually get it right. It might not be along the lines I’ve suggested in this article, and that’s fine too. The only thing that’s important is that we get it done. We don’t want to test the validity of Winston Churchill’s 1948 paraphrase of George Santayana’s quip, ‘Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”
This is one lesson we must learn, because the world can’t afford a repeat performance.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
The 'Stay-at-Home' Protesters are NOT Patriots
Donald Trump is encouraging protesters
who, defying stay-at-home orders, and ignoring social distancing guidelines,
are gathering in front of some state houses, calling them patriots who are ‘liberating’
the states and the Second Amendment, and blatantly lying on national TV, saying
that the demonstrators are practicing social distancing, when video of the
gatherings show that they are not, that, in fact, few are even wearing masks.
How,
forget the lie, forget that these so-called ‘patriots/ are ignoring Trump’s own
White House guidelines on social distancing, there is one point that must not
be ignored. These people are not patriots.
Many
of them are angry and frustrated at being out of work. This is understandable.
Many more, though, are using the situation to push agendas that have nothing to
do with COVID-19 restrictions, such as gun rights, anti-abortion, etc. They are
claiming Constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, while ignoring the
danger they pose to their communities, ignoring the lawful orders of the
governors, and thumbing their noses at the national guidelines.
Patriots
act to protect the public, not imperil it. Patriots are willing to sacrifice
for the good of the nation, not whine about not being able to engage in their
favorite pastime.
By
encouraging and verbally supporting them, Trump is not supporting Constitutional
rights, he is doing what he frequently does, he’s pandering to his support base,
in order to bolster his re-election chances, or even worse, just because he
likes to create chaos and confusion.
Whatever
the reason, it’s not what the country needs from its chief executive in this
time of crisis. We need vision, healing, and leadership, not lying, whining,
and pandering.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
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