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.