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53–842 PDF 2010

S. Hrg. 111–404 

A REVIEW OF U.S. DIPLOMATIC READINESS: 

ADDRESSING THE STAFFING AND FOREIGN 

LANGUAGE CHALLENGES FACING 

THE FOREIGN SERVICE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, 

THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE 

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009 

Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL 

WORKFORCE, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

LISA M. POWELL, Staff Director 

JOEL C. SPANGENBERG, Professional Staff Member 

JESSICA K. NAGASAKO, Professional Staff Member 

JENNIFER A. HEMINGWAY, Minority Staff Director 

THOMAS A. BISHOP, Minority Professional Staff Member 

BENJAMIN B. RHODESIDE, Chief Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 1 

Senator Voinovich ............................................................................................. 3 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2009 

Nancy J. Powell, Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of 

Human Resources, Department of State ............................................................ 5 

Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. Government 

Accountability Office ............................................................................................ 7 

Ronald E. Neumann, President, American Academy of Diplomacy .................... 18 

Susan R. Johnson, President, American Foreign Service Association ................ 20 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Ford, Jess T.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 39 

Johnson, Susan R.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 20 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 55 

Neumann, Ronald E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 18 

Prepared statement by Hon. Thomas D. Boyatt ............................................ 50 

Powell, Nancy J.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33 

APPENDIX 

Background .............................................................................................................. 62 

GAO Report titled ‘‘Department of State, Additional Steps Needed to Address 

Continuing Staffing and Experience Gaps at Hardship Posts,’’ GAO–09– 

874, September 2009 ............................................................................................ 68 

GAO Report titled ‘‘Department of State, Comprehensive Plan Needed to 

Address Persistent Foreign Language Shortfalls, GAO–09–955, September 

2009 ....................................................................................................................... 116

Responses to questions submitted for the Record: 

Ms. Powell ......................................................................................................... 156 

Mr. Ford ............................................................................................................ 172 

Ms. Johnson ...................................................................................................... 173 

(1) 

A REVIEW OF U.S. DIPLOMATIC READINESS: 

ADDRESSING THE STAFFING AND FOREIGN 

LANGUAGE CHALLENGES FACING 

THE FOREIGN SERVICE 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2009 

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT

MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE,

AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:34 p.m., in room 

SD–342 Dirksen, Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. Akaka, 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Akaka and Voinovich. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. I call this hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the 

District of Columbia to order. 

I want to welcome our witnesses. I look forward to a good hearing today, and thank you very much for being here. 

Today’s hearing, ‘‘A Review of U.S. Diplomatic Readiness: Addressing the Staffing and Foreign Language Challenges Facing the 

Foreign Service,’’ will examine the results of two Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviews of diplomatic readiness at the 

State Department. 

Diplomatic readiness means having the right people, with the 

right skills, in the right place, at the right time, to carry out America’s foreign policy. And before I continue, I just want to say, while 

I was saying that, I couldn’t help but think about anybody but Senator Voinovich, because this is his statement. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I stole it from David Walker. [Laughter.] 

Senator AKAKA. GAO’s reports make it clear. The State Department’s diplomatic readiness has been consumed by current operations and now it must focus on rebuilding its capabilities. 

The State Department struggles in particular with staffing and 

experience gaps at hardship posts. Mid-level gaps in public diplomacy are especially acute. GAO found that an ongoing shortage of 

Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) has led to an over-reliance on junior officers working in positions meant for more senior officers. This 

undermines diplomatic readiness as junior officers handle duties 

2 

without adequate preparation and experience and senior diplomatic 

leaders spend more time assisting junior officers. 

I urge the Department to follow GAO’s recommendation to fill 

hardship post positions with at-grade officers and thoroughly 

evaluate the incentives that it offers to FSOs considering these assignments. 

Foreign language gaps aggravate the staffing shortfalls and are 

limiting the effectiveness of U.S. diplomacy. According to GAO, 73 

percent of Foreign Service Officers serving in Afghanistan and 57 

percent of FSOs serving in Iraq do not meet the language proficiency requirements of their positions. One number that especially troubles me for strategic reasons is the 40 percent language 

shortfall among FSOs serving in the Near East and South and 

Central Asia. 

This is the third time this decade that GAO has recommended 

that the State Department take a strategic and systematic approach to addressing its language shortcomings. I believe the Department needs to fully commit to a strategic effort that involves 

its senior leadership and produces the meaningful performance 

measures and objective language proficiency analysis that GAO has 

called for. 

The State Department is not alone in its struggle for language 

proficiency. As a Nation, the United States lags far behind other 

nations in foreign language proficiency, with less than 10 percent 

of its citizens being able to speak another language fluently. While 

the State Department needs a strategy for addressing its language 

shortfalls, the Nation as a whole needs one too. We need more 

Americans both inside and outside of government to have the language skills that will support our national security and economic 

stability. 

Earlier this year, I reintroduced the National Foreign Language 

Coordination Act to address our government-wide language gaps. 

This bill would require the appointment of a National Language 

Advisor, the formation of a National Foreign Language Coordination Council, and the development of a National Foreign Language 

Strategy. Leadership in this effort must be comprehensive, as not 

one sector of government, industry, or academia has all of the 

needs for language and cultural competency or all of the solutions. 

The Obama Administration and the State Department understand the need and have requested funding for hundreds of additional Foreign Service Officers. This growth in officers will provide 

sufficient staff and resources to allow for long-term foreign language training and other professional development without interfering with the Department’s operations. 

But as we saw earlier this decade, with the former Secretary of 

State Colin Powell’s Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, these personnel and training gains can be quickly depleted if the strategic 

situation changes and long-term strategic workforce planning and 

resourcing are not firmly in place. 

I look forward to hearing more about the issues affecting diplomatic readiness. We are fortunate that momentum is on our side 

and that there is a broad consensus that our Foreign Service needs 

to be supported. 

3 

Let me now call on Senator Voinovich for his opening statement. 

Senator Voinovich. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH 

Senator VOINOVICH. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I am deeply 

grateful that you are holding this hearing, as you have held hearings since you have been the Chairman of this Subcommittee. 

I have been very concerned about the management of the State 

Department. I was a member of the Foreign Relations Committee 

and got involved with Colin Powell and Dick Armitage about the 

management of the Department, the human capital challenges that 

it faced, and the concern I had for the esprit de corps within the 

Department. 

When Secretary Rice took over, I was very concerned whether or 

not we would continue the effort that was made by Colin Powell 

and by Armitage, and unfortunately, it wasn’t. I think we fell behind on some of the things that should have been done, and at the 

same time we were doing that, our public diplomacy also hit its 

lowest level. 

I think with the election of President Obama, we have a new 

lease on life in terms of our public diplomacy, but our smart power 

must be supported by the infrastructure in the State Department. 

So I just thank you, Senator Akaka, for what you have done. 

Last year, this Subcomittee held several hearings examining the 

impact of chronic understaffing. At that time, one out of every five 

employees held a job designated for a more experienced person. 

The State Department had identified a training and readiness gap 

of 1,030 positions, about 15 percent of its workforce. 

After that hearing, Congress received the American Academy of 

Diplomacy’s report, ‘‘A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future,’’ 

which found that the State Department lacked the people, competencies, and funding to meet the U.S. foreign policy demands effectively. And that report, which we shared with Secretary Clinton 

before her confirmation, called for an increase of more than 4,000 

employees in the Department by 2014, accompanied by a significant investment in training. As Secretary Gates observed, we faced 

a situation that no longer could be ignored because of our reliance 

on hard power. 

The Commission on Smart Power emphasized the fact that our 

success in public diplomacy depends in large part upon building 

long-term people-to-people relationships. Nine months into office, 

the Administration, through the leadership of Secretary Clinton 

and General Jones, has rightly focused on strengthening our smart 

power. Our best military strategies will do little to meet new realities and emerging challenges without the personnel to improve our 

global posture through diplomacy. 

Congress heard the message and I believe will continue its effort 

to provide for an increase in personnel and enact a permanent solution to the pay gap facing junior employees assigned to overseas 

posts. I applaud Secretary Clinton’s efforts to rebuild our diplomatic corps and know our Nation will benefit from the men and 

women who have joined the Foreign Service, motivated by the 

ideals of public service. I am pleased she recognized the importance 

4 

of the Deputy Secretary for Management Position, and I am encouraged by Jack Lew’s efforts. 

I would like to say, Senator Akaka, I was with Ben Cardin and 

went to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe 

(OSCE) meeting in Lithuania, and then I traveled for a day up to 

Latvia. It is just unbelievable how happy the people in the State 

Department are that we finally recognized the locality pay situation that they face and I think it is really important that we understand how important it has been to them and try to make sure that 

we talk to the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry, about enacting a permanent solution. 

So many of the challenges that we face are ones we had not anticipated. However, additional resources are a part of the solution. 

Our increased investment and growing overseas presence requires 

more careful attention to be given to the type of strategic planning 

required to make measurable progress in our diplomatic readiness. 

Although it may be tempting to rush personnel to post, the opportunity to rebuild the Foreign Service doesn’t come along too often. 

Otherwise, we diminish our ability to foster democratic principles 

that will affect both our children and our grandchildren. 

Each of us are gathered in this room today because we know that 

strengthening our diplomatic corps is critical to ensuring American 

national security and economic vitality. While some might tire at 

the thought of crafting a remedial strategic plan, we all know that 

which gets measured gets done. I am hoping, Mr. Chairman, that 

we get a plan from the State Department with some measurable 

goals and, of course, metrics, so that there is no difference of opinion between the Government Accountability Office folks and the 

State Department—which we have seen too often. We come to a 

meeting and the Government Accountability Office says one thing, 

the State Department says another, and I always say to them, why 

don’t you just get your heads together and try to work something 

out, agree on a plan, agree on the goals, agree on the metrics, and 

we can make music. 

So I am hoping that as a result of this hearing, that we will 

maybe see that plan so that 6 months from now, the Chairman of 

this Subcomittee and I, can see how the State Department is doing, 

and also during that period of time have you give us a chance to 

see, if there are some things that we can do to help. That is what 

we are here for. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. 

And now, I want to again welcome our panel and to introduce 

you. Nancy J. Powell, who is the Director General of the Foreign 

Service and Director of Human Resources at the Department of 

State, and Jess T. Ford, the Director of International Affairs and 

Trade at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

It is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear in all witnesses 

and I would ask you to please stand and raise your right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give 

the Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth, so help you, God? 

Ms. POWELL. I do. 

Mr. FORD. I do. 

5 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Powell appears in the Appendix on page 33. 

1The GAO reports referred to appear in the Appendix on pages 68 and 116 respectively. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Let it be noted for the record that 

the witnesses answered in the affirmative. 

Before we start, I want you to know that your full written statements will be part of the record. I would also like to remind you 

to please limit your oral remarks to 5 minutes. 

Ms. Powell, will you please proceed with your statement? 

TESTIMONY OF NANCY J. POWELL,1 DIRECTOR GENERAL OF 

THE FOREIGN SERVICE AND DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES, DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ms. POWELL. Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Voinovich, 

thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to address the Department of State’s efforts to meet the staffing and foreign language challenges we face as we strive to meet our Nation’s 

foreign policy objectives. 

I appreciate your interest in the issues raised by the two GAO 

reports we are considering today. The Bureau of Human Resources 

worked closely with the GAO teams over a period of months and 

welcomed their recommendations. The Bureau has the critical responsibility of strengthening American diplomacy through our people.1

As you stated, our principal task is ensuring that we have the 

right people with the right skills in the right places at the right 

time. We are very grateful that Congress has appropriated funds 

to improve our ability to accomplish this mission in a highly dynamic global environment. I am confident that these resources 

have set us on the right path to address the diplomatic challenges 

of today and tomorrow. That said, we have much catching up to do, 

as reflected in some of the GAO’s findings. 

We know that we must continue to reach out beyond the embassy to influence public opinion and expand our diplomatic presence where our interests are most at stake. We have increased the 

number of positions at difficult, potentially dangerous posts that 

are essential to our foreign policy objectives. We have also increased the language designated positions by 33 percent since 

2002. 

While our mission has grown considerably over the past 10 years, 

our staffing has not kept pace. Due to a lack of resources, we have 

had to make difficult decisions as to which positions to fill and 

which to leave vacant, whether to leave a position empty for the 

months it takes to train a fully language qualified officer or sacrifice part of or all of the language training. These have not been 

easy choices. We prioritize as dictated by our foreign policy goals. 

As a result, we have fully staffed high priority posts, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, but have not been able to meet all the needs 

of other posts or even of our Washington headquarters. 

Fortunately, that is beginning to change. With the additional hiring authorized by Congress, we launched Diplomacy 3.0 in March 

2009 and expect to bring on board 1,200 new Foreign Service and 

civil service employees above attrition in fiscal year 2009. With 

your continued support, we will hire another 1,200 more in fiscal 

6 

year 2010. This is the first step in achieving a downpayment on 

Secretary Clinton’s goal to increase the size of the Foreign Service 

by 25 percent by 2013. 

Our professionals are working to ensure that these new employees will be fully prepared to meet the challenges at hand and 

trained to pursue their work as effectively as possible. As these 

much-needed new hires, and those yet to come, are trained and 

move into positions, the system should come into alignment and 

the gaps in diplomatic staffing should be reduced. That is our goal, 

and, I am sure, yours, as well. 

Many of the issues raised by GAO are directly related to these 

staffing shortages. Additional staffing will enable us to begin filling 

vacancies at posts as well as ensure our employees can complete 

the training they need to most effectively fulfill our mission. 

Approximately two-thirds of our Foreign Service posts are now 

designated as hardship posts, a considerable increase from 32 years 

ago when I joined the Foreign Service. In addition, more than 900 

positions are designated as unaccompanied or limited accompanied 

for reasons of hardship or danger, an increase from just 200 such 

positions in 2001. 

With insufficient officers to fully staff all of our posts, we have 

had to prioritize which positions to fill and which to leave vacant. 

We value service at hardship posts, and I am proud to say that our 

dedicated employees continue to step forward. We agree with GAO 

that we can better assess the impact of our individual incentives 

and allowances and are seeking more effective methods to do so. I 

would like to emphasize that many of these incentives may not be 

quantifiable, but we will be working to try to take a look at all of 

them. 

We appreciate that GAO acknowledged our success in staffing Afghanistan and Iraq, the two unaccompanied posts that are among 

our highest foreign policy priorities. We also agree with GAO that 

the Department should link all of its efforts to meet foreign language requirements. We are in the process with a working group 

that I have established in the last 2 weeks to put together a more 

strategic look at the language staffing needs and our training capabilities. 

It is appropriate that we are reviewing these two GAO reports 

together, and they come at a most welcome time. The new State 

Human Resources (HR) Department leadership team looks forward 

to using these reports to help guide our efforts to address our staffing and readiness challenges. 

On behalf of the State Department, I want to again thank the 

Congress for the resources provided through Diplomacy 3.0 that 

are beginning to allow us to address our human resource needs and 

encourage you to continue that with the 2010 budget. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ambassador Powell. 

Mr. Ford, will you please proceed with your statement? 

7 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Ford appears in the Appendix on page 39. 

TESTIMONY OF JESS T. FORD,1 DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL 

AFFAIRS AND TRADE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY 

OFFICE 

Mr. FORD. Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, I 

am pleased to be here today to discuss U.S. diplomatic readiness, 

in particular, the staffing and foreign language challenges facing 

the Foreign Service. 

The State Department faces an ongoing challenge in ensuring 

that it has the right people with the right skills in the right places 

overseas. In particular, the State Department has had a long, difficult time of staffing its hardship posts, many in places that are 

difficult to work, such as Beirut and Lagos, Nigeria, where conditions are difficult, sometimes dangerous, and living conditions can 

be extreme. But many of them also need a full complement of staff 

because they are part of our foreign policy priorities. 

The State Department has also faced persistent shortages with 

staff in critical language areas, despite the importance of foreign 

language proficiency in advancing U.S. foreign policy and economic 

interests overseas. 

My statement today is based on two GAO reports which were 

issued 2 days ago. I am going to briefly summarize them. 

We found that despite a number of steps taken over the years, 

the State Department continues to face a persistent staffing and 

experience gap at hardship posts, as well as notable shortfalls in 

foreign language capabilities. A common element of these problems 

has been a longstanding staffing and experience deficit which has 

both contributed to the gaps at hardship posts and fueled the language shortfall by limiting the number of staff available for language training. 

The State Department has undertaken several initiatives to address these shortfalls, including multiple staffing increases intended to fill the gaps. However, the Department has not undertaken these initiatives in a comprehensive and strategic manner. 

As a result, it is unclear when the staffing and skill gaps that will 

put our diplomatic readiness at risk will close. 

I am going to cite some of the numbers in our reports. As of September 2008, the State Department had a 17 percent average vacancy rate at its greatest hardship posts overseas. Posts in this category include such places as Peshawar, Pakistan, and Shenyang, 

China. This 17 percent vacancy rate was nearly double the average 

vacancy rate at posts with no hardship differential. 

About 34 percent of mid-level generalist positions at the posts 

with the greatest hardship are filled with officers at grades below 

the requirement. For example, over 40 percent of the officers’ positions in Iraq and Afghanistan were filled by Foreign Service Officers at grades below the assignment requirements. 

In the area of foreign language, 31 percent of Foreign Service Officers did not meet the foreign language requirement for their position. Forty percent of them in Near East, South, and Central Asia 

did not meet the requirement. As you noted in your opening statement, 73 percent in Afghanistan and 57 percent in Iraq did not 

meet the language requirement. Over half of the State DepartVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:59 May 07, 2010 Jkt 053842 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\53842.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
8 

ment’s Foreign Service specialists do not meet the foreign language 

requirement, and that is 740 people. 

Mr. Chairman, this has serious implications for our diplomatic 

readiness. During our overseas field work and in conversations 

with a number of former and current senior officials at the State 

Department, we found that staffing inexperience and foreign language gaps diminish diplomatic readiness in several ways, including decreasing our ability to get good reporting coverage, loss of institutional knowledge, and general experience in conducting our 

foreign policy overseas. 

To cite a couple of examples, in Russia, there was a vacant position there because the officer left for a tour in Afghanistan, and as 

a consequence, according to officials there, the vacancy slowed negotiations between the Russians and the U.S. Government, and the 

Russians regarding military transit to Afghanistan. Consular officials in other posts we visited cited language skill gaps that indicated that they were not sure whether they made appropriate adjudication decisions on visas. We had a number of other examples 

which we cited in our reports, but I won’t go into them now. 

Mr. Chairman, the State Department is taking actions to address 

many of these gaps. You have just heard the Director General talk 

about some of the things that they are doing to address issues in 

our report, so I am not going to go over those, but there are two 

key findings in our report that I want to touch on. 

First, we believe the State Department needs to systematically 

evaluate its incentive programs to staff hardship posts. The financial incentives cost millions of dollars every year, but the State Department has not evaluated whether these financial incentives 

have been effective. We cited in our report that the State Department did not comply with a 2005 Congressional requirement to report on the effectiveness of increasing hardship and danger pay to 

fill difficult positions. The State Department has also not evaluated 

its non-financial incentives, such as promotion consideration and 

shorter tours of assignments. Without full evaluation of hardship 

incentives, the Department cannot obtain valuable insights that 

could help them guide resource decisions and address some of the 

gaps that I cited earlier. 

The second major issue in our language report is that the State 

Department has not developed a comprehensive, strategic approach 

to dealing with its foreign language requirements. The State Department’s workforce and other planning documents are not linked 

to each other and do not contain measurable goals, objectives, resource requirements, or milestones for reducing the foreign language gap. Moreover, as with the case of hardship post staffing, the 

State Department has not assessed the Foreign Language Incentive Programs to determine whether they are attracting sufficient 

staff to meet their foreign language needs. 

We made several recommendations in our report to address these 

two problems. Mr. Chairman, I am going to stop here and would 

be happy to answer any of your questions. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Ford. 

Ambassador Powell, the American Academy of Diplomacy recommends that the State Department’s priorities for allocating all 

new personnel should be to first fill existing gaps and vacancies 

9 

and then move forward with establishing training positions. How 

does the Department plan on allocating its increased number of 

Foreign Service Officers? 

Ms. POWELL. Mr. Chairman, with the Diplomacy 3.0 personnel 

that have come in during this fiscal year, we have taken care of 

the gaps and vacancies that were appropriate at that level for our 

entry-level people. The positions that had been frozen are being 

thawed this year. They will not be frozen. Where an entry-level 

person or an arrangement could be made for a mid-level person to 

take a more senior position, we have moved it down, and we have 

been able to use the new hires this year to close most of those gaps 

at those levels. 

Second, we are now in the process, since I came on board, of looking at new positions that will be created for the entrants coming 

in, starting in January next year. We are in the process of working 

with our posts, with our regional bureaus, and with others in the 

State Department to take the Secretary’s foreign policy priorities, 

to take the needs that had been identified in our planning documents over the past 3 years, and to take a look at our training 

needs, particularly for language, and then ask each of these participants in the process to present us with their list of proposed positions based on the fact that in January, there will be approximately 200 positions, and then in June, there will be approximately 300 positions. 

We will be reviewing the first tranche of those to see if they have 

met those criteria starting right after the first of October. We hope 

to have those assignments made in early January with the class 

that is coming in at that time, and then throughout the fiscal year 

2010. 

Senator AKAKA. Ambassador, in your response to GAO’s report 

findings, the State Department indicated that it will begin to close 

language gaps in 2011. Also, according to your written testimony, 

the State Department plans on significantly reducing its mid-level 

experience gap by 2012. How long will it take before the State Department can expect to fully eliminate both its language and midlevel experience gaps, and does the Department have a strategy in 

place to do so? 

Ms. POWELL. This is what we are trying to develop with Diplomacy 3.0 as we create these new positions. I don’t have a precise 

answer to your question, partially because one of the things we are 

dealing with is the group from the mid-1990s when we had very 

little hiring. We were below attrition. That is going to continue to 

follow through their careers. That right now is at the mid-level. It 

will continue to go. 

We anticipate that those who have followed over the past few 

years will be entering into the mid-level years, as indicated in the 

testimony and in the response, starting in 2012 in particular. 

Using the training float or the training positions that we anticipate 

being created starting this next year with fiscal year 2010 money 

and positions, many of those people will not reach post for approximately a year. They are going into hard language training. Some 

of the mid-level training is, in fact, for 2 years. So you will see improvements in the numbers, but it is going to take some time beVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:59 May 07, 2010 Jkt 053842 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\53842.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
10 

cause of the length of training for our hard and super-hard languages. 

Senator AKAKA. Ambassador, in 2006, the Bush Administration 

launched the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) in response to the findings of the Department of Defense National Language Conference. NSLI was to shore up our national security language needs by coordinating efforts through the Departments of 

State, Defense, and Education, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. While I support the intent of NSLI, I felt that 

it was too limited to be truly effective. 

Can you tell me if NSLI is continuing in this Administration and 

if coordination among agencies is being expanded to address the 

government’s language needs? 

Ms. POWELL. Mr. Chairman, this is the first time I have heard 

of NSLI. I will have to go back and get you details. I apologize, but 

it is something I don’t know the answer to. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Will you please do that? 

Ms. POWELL. I will do that. 

Senator AKAKA. Yes. Ambassador, we will look forward to that. 

Mr. Ford, in your report on the State Department’s language capabilities, you state that there is a widely-held perception among 

FSOs that the State Department does not adequately account for 

time spent in language training when evaluating officers for promotion. This could inhibit the improvement of the State Department’s language capabilities. Could you please elaborate on this 

perception and steps the Department could take to correct it? 

Mr. FORD. Sure. The issue you are referring to, in our conversations with a number of senior former and current State Department officials and with the number of officers we met overseas at 

all different levels, including junior officers, there is a perception 

that going away for training for a year or possibly 2 years, in the 

case of the very difficult languages, is not an incentive for promotion, that the Department tends to value people who are on the 

job doing their jobs and doesn’t give as much credit to people who 

are in training. 

The fact of the matter is, we have not seen any good data from 

the Department to verify or refute that perception. I can tell you 

that perception exists among several Foreign Service Officers that 

we met with in the course of doing our work, but we haven’t seen 

good data from the Department about whether or not, in fact, in 

their promotion consideration process, people that have, in fact, 

gone away from training have been fairly treated compared to 

those who were serving in their positions overseas. 

So, yes, the perception is real, but I can’t tell you whether or not 

the data would suggest that it is real, that, in fact, they are being 

treated fairly or not. 

Senator AKAKA. Before I call for questions from Senator Voinovich, let me finish this question by asking Ambassador Powell, I 

understand that the Department disputed this finding. Would you 

like an opportunity to address this issue as well as what you are 

doing to encourage language training? 

Ms. POWELL. Mr. Chairman, I would agree that the perception 

persists. I am hoping that as we finish our promotion cycle—we are 

almost done with it this month—that I will be able to come back 

11 

to you with data that establishes a baseline for us to look at as to 

how many people who are in training got promoted. 

I think there are two things to be considered with this. Most Foreign Service officers who are doing language training understand 

that they are going to be better officers and be able to perform better as a result of that. That certainly is documented when they get 

to their assignment. It is part of the precepts of our promotion 

process of how well and effectively they use their language capabilities. I think our promotion panels take that precept very seriously as they look at it. But I cannot cite for you today statistics 

to back that up. That would be my perception in terms of the performance that is enhanced by people who have spent time in language training. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you, Ambassador. Senator Voinovich. 

Senator VOINOVICH. In my opening statement, I talked about 

having a strategic plan with milestones and metrics to respond to 

the recommendation of GAO. The GAO works for the Legislative 

Branch of the Federal Government. We ask them to go out and do 

reports and I would like to have in writing a response back from 

the Department in regard to the recommendations that they have, 

and if there are some that you feel that aren’t relevant or are not 

correct, I would like to know that. But more important, the ones 

that you do agree on and what you intend to do about moving forward with them. 

I would also like to know to what extent are human capital needs 

included in the Department’s ongoing quadrennial diplomacy and 

development review. One of the things we found out over the years 

is that in too many instances, human capital just wasn’t even mentioned. Ambassador Powell. 

Ms. POWELL. In our formal response to the GAO draft we agreed 

with the recommendations and have already started to work on the 

language designated one. We have started a working group to examine the issues that we need to plan strategically and, as I mentioned, we are obviously including this as a very important part of 

our Diplomacy 3.0. We will put the metrics into that and provide 

those in our more formal response as a follow-up to the GAO report 

and in our own planning. 

We have been examining the alternatives for looking particularly 

at the incentives, both for language and for hardship, which was 

documented in the GAO report. We have been using the Office of 

Personnel Management (OPM) survey and our own internal employee satisfaction surveys in alternating years as a measure of 

that. The conclusion that we have come to, I think, which was 

backed up by the GAO, is that those are not sufficiently detailed. 

We are looking at what impact the annual OPM survey is going to 

have on our own survey, the possibility that we may need to devote 

resources to a study of this in particular, defining in much greater 

detail what the incentives are and what seems to influence people 

most. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. As Senator Akaka and I support 

a permanent legislative remedy to address the locality pay gap for 

folks overseas, a byproduct of this increase in basic pay is an increase in the cost of existing incentives, such as hardship differentials, which are computed as a percentage of base pay. I know that 

12 

Congress is committed to growing our diplomatic strength, but we 

need reassurance that our limited dollars produce positive gains. 

What is the cost impact of overseas locality pay to the State Department’s budget? Is the State Department reconsidering its existing incentives? And when will the State Department complete its 

review of the effectiveness of increasing hardship and danger pay 

incentives? 

Ms. POWELL. I would say two things. First of all, a very big 

thank you to all of those who supported the efforts to work with 

us on locality pay and all of those who have been involved in it. 

I have just come back from a 25 percent differential post when 

there was no locality pay for the employees under my supervision. 

They, in essence, got a 2 percent differential for serving in a 25 

percent hardship post. This goes a long way in addressing that. 

They were all there as volunteers, no one was complaining, but it 

was obviously noted by people. 

We will be using the study, particularly using our look at our 

hardship statistics. I will take back your interest in having a review of what the locality pay difference will make on our budget. 

I don’t have those figures with me. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I know I have talked to Senator Kerry about 

getting something permanent. 

The other thing that I would like as part of this overall response 

to GAO would be to capture in writing the costs and the budget 

implications of what it is that you want to do, so again we have 

some kind of idea of what commitments are we going to have to 

make in order—continued commitments to move forward with this 

new approach that we are making. I think, too often, what happens 

during the budget period is that people hold back on expressing 

themselves as to the money that they are going to need to do their 

work, and I think that it might be real good to look down the road 

a year, 2 years, 3 years, maybe 4 years to get it down on paper 

about what it is that you folks really think you are going to need 

to get the job done so that gets widely disseminated so everybody 

gets an understanding that if we are going to do the job that we 

have asked you to do, that we are going to come back with the 

money to pay for it. 

One of the things that came up in one of our last hearings was 

the issue of the float. Could you give us a little insight into that? 

My understanding is that you have got to have enough people so 

that you can give some time off to folks so that they can go out and 

get the training and upgrade their skills so that they feel like they 

are continuing to grow in their job. Could you share with us how 

that fits in with where you are in terms of the employees that you 

are trying to bring on? 

Ms. POWELL. This is an incredibly important piece. We thought 

we were capturing that back with the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative under Secretary Powell, as mentioned. Many of those positions 

have been required to go to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. We 

now believe that for fiscal years 2009 and 2010, we need approximately 500 positions to be put into the float that will allow people 

to do language training. We had 300 in 2009 and there will be an 

additional 200 in 2010. 

13 

Some of this may change as we look at specific positions in this 

review that we are undergoing right now as to which positions may 

need to be upgraded, what perhaps at the current level is a twotwo level, perhaps needs to be a three-three level. With the additional resources, we will have the ability to do that. Some positions 

weren’t designated previously, and we are looking at the ones 

where we have not been able to meet the necessary level. But we 

believe these are the ballpark numbers. They will be adjusted as 

we get the precise assignments. 

I would comment that in the course of my career, the shift away 

from the Romance languages where we did 20 weeks and you could 

be at a level where you could conduct visa interviews and perhaps 

36 weeks got you to a very professional level, those positions, many 

of them still exist, but many more have been created in the harder 

languages, where you need a minimum of 44 weeks and quite often 

88 weeks to achieve minimum professional capabilities. And so the 

float will take into account that mix, as well, that these are much 

longer training periods than for the Romance languages. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Could I ask one more question, Senator 

Akaka—— 

Senator AKAKA. Go ahead. 

Senator VOINOVICH [continuing]. Following up on that. What effort is the State Department making to get out across the country 

the need for language proficiency to the universities so there is 

some kind of an incentive say, here are languages that we really 

need and if you don’t have courses in those languages, you ought 

to think about it. This will prepare your folks that like to go to the 

private sector as well. We should give them some kind of incentive 

to set up departments, or in the alternative, where they have them, 

to go out and recruit some folks to do that. 

I know I am very much involved in the nuclear industry and we 

have been working for the last 7 years to get the universities to 

start to improve upon their engineering schools so that we have got 

the people that we are going to need as we increase the number 

of nuclear power plants in the country, and it is working, because 

if you get it, you have got a job. I think that is a big incentive. 

Ms. POWELL. I would agree, and we are working at it actually 

from two angles using the same group of people. The State Department has a group of people that we call diplomats in residence, 

who are our main recruiters on college campuses, but they also 

work with the political science departments and the deans and others to identify those skills that are going to be important for people 

to be able to pass the Foreign Service Test. 

We have also used an enormous amount of the new media to 

reach a group of people that use Twitter and Facebook and the 

Web pages and the blogs to let them know that we have a program 

that has identified groups of languages—Arabic, Chinese, Indic languages, Iranian languages, Korean, Russian, Turkic languages, 

Urdu, Uzbek, and Japanese—and that if you come in with a 

verifiable ability to speak those languages, you get a plus-up on 

your score in the oral examination. This is a huge incentive. I think 

that people who want to join the Foreign Service are going to be 

looking at universities where they can get that training. 

14 

We are also looking at that pool of people that allow us to bring 

people in that we don’t have to train for these long periods of time 

if they have already got a basic understanding. We have also required that they serve one tour as junior officers and then a subsequent tour in one of the places where they can use that particular 

language. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Great. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. 

According to one of the GAO reports being discussed today, Foreign Service Officers interviewed said that instructors at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) were not well equipped for training beyond the general professional proficiency level. Additionally, my 

staff reported that Foreign Service Officers they interviewed at 

overseas posts were concerned about not having the opportunities 

to continue language training while they were at post and that 

their training at FSI did not fully prepare them for their job. 

Do you have recommendations for how the State Department 

could improve its foreign language training programs? Mr. Ford. 

Mr. FORD. Yes. There are a couple of issues here that we think 

would bear some further examination by the Department. With regard to the training, the issue is whether or not—when we conducted interviews overseas, a lot of the officers there felt that they 

would like to get additional training but that they were—in many 

cases, their duties took them away from the opportunities to get 

training. Some of them on their own dime would go out and hire 

local folks there to learn the language, but in many cases, they indicated that the post didn’t have sort of a training program that 

they could use to further their skill from what they had learned at 

FSI. So that was one issue. 

A second issue had to do with the proficiency levels that officers 

felt they needed to fulfill their responsibilities at the post, and several of them felt that the level of their proficiency that they had 

obtained from FSI was not sufficient for them to carry out their job 

as best as they could. For example, a public affairs officer in one 

of the posts we met with indicated they would like to have a proficiency level up to a four, which is just below fluent, in order to 

be able to effectively communicate with local government officials 

and local government people that they were trying to influence 

through our public diplomacy mechanisms, that they don’t have 

that level of training at FSI in general. 

So we didn’t recommend in our report that the State Department 

specifically enhance its training overseas, but I can say based on 

the anecdotal information we obtained from a number of officers 

overseas, it is something they should look into in our view. We also 

think they ought to look into the whole question of proficiency levels for their officers overseas because we had a lot of feedback from 

officers that they didn’t think that the proficiency levels they had 

were adequate for them to really effectively carry out their job. 

Senator AKAKA. Do you wish to comment? 

Ms. POWELL. Mr. Chairman, just a couple of comments. I think 

this is where we find these trade-offs that we have been forced to 

make over the past few years, that all of us, I think, who have 

studied hard languages or any language would like to have a higher level of proficiency. We wish we had had more time. But we also 

15 

have to recognize at the same time that we have to fill these positions and we have to get the work done. So it is a constant balancing act. 

I am not familiar with all of the posts that the GAO teams went 

to. It is my hope that most of them had post language programs. 

We certainly encourage every embassy where English is not spoken 

to have a post language program in which they can enhance their 

skills. Those who didn’t have training before they went to post can 

get the basics. And certainly, again, you are trading off because you 

have got a full-time job and you are trying to squeeze in an hour 

of language a day or several times a week. 

The Foreign Service Institute has really taken up the technical 

challenge over the past few years and greatly enhanced what it can 

offer online now. This is to our employees and to their eligible family members, and this has been a big benefit for particularly getting a jump on an assignment. If you know that you are going to 

Peshawar on your next assignment, you can begin to study Urdu 

on your own at your previous post or you can brush up on it if you 

had it earlier. These are available to all employees. 

As I noted, part of the Diplomacy 3.0 exercise that we are engaged in right now is to ask each of our regional bureaus to look 

at their designated language positions, identify those where a higher proficiency might be warranted now that we have the potential 

for providing that training without taking the position out of the 

job market. So I think we will see some of them upgraded as a result of the float being created. 

Senator AKAKA. Ambassador, you testified that the State Department is seeking additional incentives and allowances to help fill 

hardship posts. Please elaborate on what incentives you need, including whether Congressional action is needed to help you do that. 

Ms. POWELL. The reference was to some of the other things other 

than just the hardship allowance. We found, for example, in filling 

our positions in Afghanistan and Iraq that many people have been 

attracted to these because we have linked that assignment to a follow-on assignment. They know when they bid on this job that they 

are then going to go on to a designated position. That has been important. We are finding that the student loan program for some of 

our younger officers, where if they serve at a 20 percent or higher 

differential post, the repayment of some of their student loans is 

a major incentive. 

The other thing that I was referring to was that I think many 

of these are intangible. We find still a huge number of people who 

are doing this out of a sense of patriotism and duty, a real feeling 

in hardship posts that you are making a difference and people very 

much appreciate that. I, for one, like the sense of community that 

comes at some of these smaller posts and I, in my career, sought 

those kinds of posts. 

Many of them do it because they have additional responsibilities, 

and I recognize there is a trade-off here. This is the experience factor. But if you want to stretch yourself and have a greater sense 

of responsibility, you can do it at the hardship posts in many cases. 

For many of them, it is pursuing an area of expertise. In my own 

case, South Asia. All of our South Asian posts are hardship posts, 

so it required me to serve at those posts. 

16 

I think as we look at the incentives, we are going to have to factor in these things that are also spurring people to take these assignments. They look to the hardship pay in many cases as a way 

of offsetting—or the danger pay—those instances where they have 

been ill as a result of living in a very polluted environment. They 

have wondered if the motorcycle coming up along the motorcade is 

going to be the one with the bomb in it or not. All of those things 

are seen as being compensated for by our differential payments, 

but may not have been the incentive for many people. 

Senator AKAKA. Senator Voinovich, any further questions? 

Senator VOINOVICH. Yes. Ambassador Powell, GAO found that 

the State Department’s designated language proficiency requirements do not necessarily reflect the actual language needs of its 

overseas posts. They reported officers who met the requirement for 

their position frequently stated their proficiency level is not always 

enough for them to do their jobs. They have described some of the 

folks saying, it is enough to get by. Frankly, I ask the same question wherever I go and that is what I get. I am not proficient, but 

I have enough to get by. 

Has the Department really looked at this? In many instances, 

when I meet people from other countries, I find they are very proficient in English. These countries are very fortunate in that they 

start kids in kindergarten, first grade, in English language instruction. It seems to me as you look at the number of overseas posts 

there may be certain areas where States will need more skilled 

people where English proficiency is low. 

And then it seems to me that in those areas with higher rates 

of English proficiency that you would have fewer language speakers, hopefully, one position would be the ambassador or the consul 

general because I think so often you miss the nuances of things if 

you don’t have somebody that really has the language skills. Have 

you done that kind of an analysis? 

Ms. POWELL. There is an annual review that begins at post level. 

I have been on the other end of it and looking at which positions 

in my missions I felt needed to be language designated. I have always had a consultative process with those officers who had studied, whether they had enough, whether they thought that they had 

wasted their time and the government’s money in acquiring the 

language. Quite often, there is a give and take on this. But it is 

an annual review. It is then brought back to the Department. Each 

of the regional bureaus responsible for the missions abroad presents HR with a consolidated list. 

As I mentioned, we are trying to do a much deeper dig this year, 

asking the posts and the bureaus to really look at this and see if 

they need to expand the number of positions, if they need to up the 

level. 

At the same time, we are also taking a look at a new concept in 

language as to whether or not we need to have the same reading 

and speaking skills at the same level. I know in my own case, if 

I had spent a little more time learning to speak Urdu, I think I 

would have been more effective than all of the time I spent learning to read it. I didn’t really need the reading level unless I was 

going to get to the four or five level. I had people on my staff who 

could help me with the reading. The speaking, I spent an incredible 

17 

amount of time learning to read at the three level that might have 

been better used to get me to the four level on the speaking side. 

We are taking a look at that concept. It is a new one. We would 

need to look at the compensation and how you determine which positions—in some of our consular positions, it is very important that 

you be able to read because you have got to look at the documents 

that people bring. But for a political officer, it may not be quite as 

important to have the reading skills that are very difficult to acquire. So that is another area that we are looking at right now. It 

would be part of our strategic review as recommended by the GAO. 

It would include that as part of it. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I call that working harder and smarter and 

doing more with less. 

This is just an interest of mine. I would think from a public diplomacy point of view that having people that are proficient in the 

language of the country in which they are located is a very positive 

thing, in addition to being able to communicate better, but just in 

terms of flattering individuals, that you paid enough attention to 

their country that you have someone that could speak the language. 

I studied Russian for 3 years in undergraduate school and I still 

remember a little bit of it. It is amazing how just a few words 

make a big difference with some folks. 

But would you care to comment on that aspect of it in terms of, 

people being a little bit more receptive because you think enough 

of them to have someone that can speak the language? 

And the other issue that I would like to raise, and probably you 

won’t respond to it, but I have always been concerned that we send 

these political ambassadors all over the world and in most cases 

none of them speak the language of the country. I thought it might 

be a good idea that maybe you would put a qualification out there, 

if anybody wants to be a political ambassador, that they had better 

know the language of the country. 

I will never forget, we had someone in Ohio that could speak— 

what is it in the Netherlands, Dutch? Yes. A really good guy, and 

somebody else got the job and he was really offended. He could 

have made a good ambassador. If you would care to comment on 

that and the other question. 

Ms. POWELL. Let me take the first one first. Certainly, the ability 

to—even if what we call a courtesy level, of being able to say the 

greetings, to say thank you, will open an incredible number of 

doors and ears to you. Obviously, if you can do it at a more senior 

and professional level—I just watched a former Peace Corps volunteer who came and worked with us in Nepal who was able to conduct radio interviews, explain complex visa regulations in Nepali. 

It made all the difference in the world. But even my ability just 

to say a few sentences, to be able to talk to people. 

I think we are seeing a world in which we are going in two directions. The number of English speakers is expanding enormously. 

The ability of people around the world to use the Web, to use CNN, 

and the English language media has expanded greatly. At the same 

time, we have a desire not to be just communicating with those 

people who only have English language skills and the desire to 

reach out to the population that may not be comfortable in English 

18 

1The prepared statement by Hon. Thomas D. Boyatt submitted by Mr. Neumann appears in 

the Appendix on page 50. 

or have access to a television that has CNN on it. So it is a constant balancing act of using our resources appropriately to reach 

those audiences that don’t have English, but also using those technical means where you can use English and we don’t have to train 

someone in very complicated foreign languages. 

I would say on the presidential appointees, they are presidential 

appointees. My responsibility is to help get them ready. We certainly, to the extent possible, offer them language training before 

they go to post. Obviously, most of them don’t have the length of 

time. But I think—I get a weekly update of which ones are in language training. Many of them take advantage of it while they are 

waiting for their Senate confirmation process, their security papers 

to clear, and I think have those courtesy levels by the time they 

get to post if they at all can do it. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. 

I want to thank our panelists for your responses. Your responses 

have been valuable to us this afternoon. I want to say that we 

want to try to address this as quickly as we can. 

So again, thank you so much for being here. We may have some 

additional questions for you and some comments from other Members that we will include in the record. Thank you. 

I would ask our second panel to please come forward. 

[Pause.] 

I want to welcome the second panel of witnesses. They are Ronald E. Neumann, President of the American Academy of Diplomacy, 

and Susan Johnson, President of the American Foreign Service Association. 

As it is the custom of the Subcommittee to swear in all witnesses, will you please rise and raise your right hand? 

Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give the Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 

so help you, God? 

Mr. NEUMANN. I do. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I do. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Let the record note that the witnesses responded in the affirmative. 

Before we start, I want you to know that your full written statements will be made a part of the record and to remind you to limit 

your oral remarks to 5 minutes. 

So, Ambassador Neumann, will you please proceed with your 

statement? 

TESTIMONY OF RONALD E. NEUMANN,1 PRESIDENT, 

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DIPLOMACY 

Mr. NEUMANN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Voinovich. I have submitted the testimony of my colleague, Ambassador 

Tom Boyatt, and he and I agreed that I speak for us both. 

Our report of last October, ‘‘A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future,’’ clarified the dire shortages in human and financial resources 

faced by the foreign affairs agencies. My colleagues and I would 

19 

like to thank you, Senator Akaka and Senator Voinovich, for your 

interest, support, and direct participation in carrying out that 

study. We are likewise grateful to Joel Spangenberg and Jennifer 

Hemingway for their advice and participation in that. 

Progress has been made in the last 2 years by both Democrats 

and Republicans in fixing the problems we documented. Your support and that of the Subcommittee, has been critical to this process 

and will be vital in the months ahead. 

I now turn to questions you asked us. First, you asked about experience gaps. We believe elimination of staffing gaps and the filling of vacancies is the first priority in using increased personnel, 

but cannot alone solve the experience gaps. These are more complicated. We know the Director General and her staff are working 

on how to bridge the gap between recruitment at the bottom and 

building the necessary levels of expertise. We hope the Congress 

will support creative solutions, such as utilizing retired officers. I 

recognize that there are concerns about allowing retired officers to 

double-dip, and that is why I suggest that flexibility could be time 

limited to focus specifically on immediate needs until experience 

can be expanded to meet numbers in the professional service. 

In particular, I want to note a specific idea that Ambassador 

Boyatt and I expressly endorse but neglected to include in our prepared testimony, and that is the expansion of the definition of personnel under Section 1603(5) of the Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act of 2008, which is—I won’t bother 

with the full public title. As currently legislated, only civil service 

and Foreign Service can be members of the Civilian Response 

Corps (CRC). This limitation prevents our partner agencies, USAID 

in particular, from recruiting personnel service contractors (PSCs) 

and Foreign Service nationals as members of the stand-by component. 

Both PSCs and FSNs have extensive experience in stabilization 

crises that would be of tremendous value to the CRC. By expanding 

1603 to add FSNs and PSCs to the definition, we will be able to 

realize a more robust stand-by component. 

You have my full testimony, but in closing, let me focus particularly on the Academy’s recommendations of language positions 

which occupied so much of the first panel and your discussion. The 

situation is awful, as the GAO is independently documenting, and 

it is going to take time to repair. We strongly need new positions. 

We have for years faced the choice of losing capacity in current operations to train or maintain current operations and losing future 

capacity. 

That is why we have recommended a training float and why the 

progress made this year must be sustained in the future. I think 

as we look at this over time, we are going to have to go beyond language skills, as well, and look at the broader gamut of professional 

training, which our military colleagues do so well, and we, never 

having had the opportunity to do any, don’t. 

But on language skills, Mr. Chairman and Senator Voinovich, 

the skills and capacity we discuss are not simply esoteric demands 

of the striped-pants set. They are basic to our ability to serve the 

Nation and sometimes to survival itself. Ambassador Boyatt recounted in his prepared testimony how language was critical to his 

20 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson appears in the Appendix on page 55. 

mission and keeping him alive in Cyprus. I would like to end with 

an anecdote from Iraq. 

I had probably the last conversation with the Iraqi sheiks in 

Fallujah before the very bloody second battle of that name. I had 

the Marine Division Commander’s interpreter, the best we had, 

and I stopped him three times because he was leaving out a critical 

point that he just didn’t understand. Fortunately, my Arabic was 

sufficient to note the lack. I wonder how many people we have 

killed because we think we have told them something that they, in 

fact, have never heard. 

We have to have the language skills to fill this gap, and this is 

going to take time. 

Mr. Chairman and Senator Voinovich, thank you both very much 

for the opportunity to record my views on these critical matters you 

are discussing today. Your support over the last 3 years as the Foreign Affairs Council and the Academy have worked to overcome the 

problems of an understaffed and dangerously weakened diplomatic 

capacity have been enormously appreciated and served this Nation 

very well and I will be pleased to take your questions. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ambassador Neumann. 

And now, Susan Johnson, will you please proceed with your 

statement? 

TESTIMONY OF SUSAN R. JOHNSON,1 PRESIDENT, AMERICAN 

FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking 

Member Voinovich. On behalf of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) and the employees of all of our member agencies, 

I both welcome and thank you for this opportunity to speak before 

this Subcommittee on the subject of diplomatic readiness and Foreign Service staffing and language challenges. We deeply appreciate your interest in these issues. And on behalf of our members 

and all affected, I would like to thank you again for your support 

for ending the overseas comparability pay inequity. 

Diplomatic readiness goes to the very heart of building the 

strong professional Foreign Service the United States needs to play 

an active role and effective role in the 21st Century. There is a 

pressing need for clearer recognition that diplomacy is an indispensable instrument of national security. As Secretary Clinton has 

often said, if we don’t invest in diplomacy and development, we will 

end up paying a lot more for conflicts and their consequences. 

AFSA welcomed and strongly supports the recommendations in 

the foreign affairs budget for the future. AFSA has long held that 

the Foreign Service is underfunded and lacks the people and resources to perform its mission effectively. The serious staffing gaps 

that we face today reflect the consequences of neglect, on the one 

hand, and expanded mission on the other. The tremendous increase 

in the scope of the Service’s mission caused by the critical staffing 

demands in Iraq and Afghanistan has brought the situation to a 

head. Hiring at the State Department and USAID is finally on the 

upswing, but this momentum will need to be sustained and steps 

21 

taken to ensure that this sudden and massive intake of new personnel is well managed. 

I would like to underscore that AFSA sees a strong case for expanding our Foreign Commercial and Agricultural Services, as 

well. Their critical functions are often overlooked and should not 

be. 

AFSA strongly agrees with the recommendations in the two Government Accountability Office reports that this hearing is focused 

on. Staffing shortages are at the root of the problems of unfilled positions and experience gaps and are a strong contributing factor to 

the language proficiency deficiencies the reports identify. These 

problems combine to undermine our diplomatic readiness and effectiveness. 

We believe that training in critical need and other hard languages should be more closely linked to assignment patterns and 

career planning. Language proficiencies should enhance, rather 

than undermine, prospects for promotion. We also urge that basic 

language training be provided to all Foreign Service personnel assigned overseas, including specialists, to enable them to function 

more effectively, as well, even in non-language designated positions. 

The Department of State has made good faith efforts over the 

years to identify the right language designated positions and the 

right levels, but AFSA believes that a comprehensive review of language designated positions is long overdue. It should be undertaken now in light of new global realities and our strategic priorities. It is important to get this right. 

AFSA, therefore, strongly supports the GAO recommendations 

for a full review of the ratings system and identification of language designated positions. We also endorse the GAO recommendations on staffing and experience gaps at hardship posts. We consider the recommendation that the Department develop and implement a plan to evaluate incentives for hardship post assignments 

to be particularly important, and AFSA would like to participate in 

some way in an effort to evaluate existing incentives and to identify others. 

The results of AFSA’s last electronic opinion poll of its members, 

published in January 2008, suggests that extra pay and benefits 

are certainly a factor contributing to willingness to serve in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, but so are patriotism and duty, career enhancement, adventure and challenge, and a host of other factors that Director General Powell, Ambassador Powell, identified and spoke to. 

It is worth noting that the poll data revealed a widespread perception that the Foreign Service is less and less family friendly, 

suggesting that incentives to address this deficiency would be well 

received. And I have in mind here looking again to the military 

model of Military OneSource, the support given to family members 

here that are our colleagues in the military enjoy. Often, that is a 

concern when people are considering assignments to unaccompanied posts for one or more years. 

The quality and effectiveness of U.S. diplomacy will surely be impaired if language and staffing gaps are not addressed seriously 

and persistently, and AFSA welcomes your interest and supports 

all efforts to do so. 

22 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify and for your support. We 

appreciate very much your leadership on these issues, and I will 

be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ms. Johnson. 

As you know, I asked Ambassador Powell how the State Department plans to allocate its new FSOs. Could you please respond to 

the State Department’s plans for allocating its new FSOs? 

Mr. NEUMANN. Go ahead. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, I would like very much to be able to respond 

to that in more detail. I do not yet know a lot about the State Department’s plans and hope that they will become more transparent 

or have more detail to them. Right now, I know little more than 

we heard the Director General say today. 

We are, as the American Academy of Diplomacy (AAD) and as 

Ambassador Neumann mentioned in his testimony now, we are 

particularly concerned with the experience gap and what kind of a 

strategy or what plans the Department may have for addressing 

that. 

Senator AKAKA. Ambassador Neumann. 

Mr. NEUMANN. We also have a bit of a knowledge gap here, but 

as we indicated in Ambassador Boyatt’s written testimony, we 

agree that the first priority is to plug the immediate gaps. That is 

a hemorrhage that has to be dealt with. 

We have recommended a balanced approach to proceeding, as 

much as one can, with staffing positions, or with the new positions 

in training in long-term training in creation of new positions. There 

are several different needs. Obviously, the Response Corps is another piece of this and we have got to be able to move simultaneously on all of them. 

To that end, we have recommended, and this seems to be very 

much in consonance with your own thinking, that the State Department prepare a plan for the out years as to how the additional 

positions that are going to come on board, funding permitting and 

future requests being made, how those positions would be worked 

in so that one can see what the picture over several years would 

look like and then be able both to judge how much progress you 

are making on individual pieces of that, but at the same time, that 

would act, in our view, as a way of validating the total requirement 

for the additional positions. 

Personally, I think many of my colleagues are concerned that 

next year or the year after, as deficit shock really strikes in the 

Congress, that it may be much more difficult than it has been in 

this year and last year to maintain the pace and to finish the process of rebuilding the Department’s and AID’s personnel. If we don’t 

do that, then I believe what will happen will be a repeat of what 

we have seen before. We will not correct institutional problems. We 

will start pulling apart whatever corrections we have made in 

order to fill individual gaps, and so we will have a better situation, 

but not a repaired one. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. The vacancies and experience gaps 

at hardship posts need immediate attention to ensure that diplomacy can be carried out effectively. What recommendations would 

you make to the State Department in immediately addressing 

these challenges? Ambassador Neumann. 

23 

Mr. NEUMANN. I will have a first crack, but Ms. Johnson is part 

of the active service and I defer to them. But many of the gaps are 

not a function of incentives or steps but of the simple lack of personnel. And so some of those probably can’t be filled immediately, 

no matter what your plan is. But that takes me back to the question of utilizing retired officers, when actually employees (WAEs), 

and the like, because many of the gaps are not simply at the junior 

positions or they are unrealistically junior because positions have 

been down-rated in order to try to fill them, and then even so, not 

filled. So there is a knowledge gap that multiplies the effect of the 

staffing gap. 

We are very handicapped in the use of retired officers for reasons 

which I understand. People are drawing a pension and there is a 

question of drawing two checks. But what we are getting now is 

a double-negative. On the one hand, we lack the ability to use the 

experience. On the other hand, in critical places, we pay contractors a substantial overhead in order to pay the people the money 

that we don’t want to pay them ourselves so that we can still hire 

them to use them in some way. So the taxpayer is not really benefitting, but the Nation is hurting. 

I think we need to examine seriously the limitations on how we 

can use retired officers. I also believe personally—not speaking for 

the Academy because we haven’t looked at it—that the State Department needs to complete something which has been discussed in 

the past, and that is a global register for WAEs, for retired officers 

willing to serve, rather than the Bureau-maintained rosters now, 

which simply don’t give you the most efficient handle on grabbing 

people. 

Senator AKAKA. Ms. Johnson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, I would like to thank Ambassador Neumann, 

because he has answered a lot of the things and made a point that 

I certainly would like to strongly endorse. We think that this is a 

way that should be seriously considered in terms of meeting the 

mid-level staffing gaps. 

As Ambassador Neumann said, we simply do not have the midlevel officers, and that is partly because of the consequences of the 

under-attrition level hiring in the mid-1990s. There is no easy way 

out except perhaps to look at the solution that he just mentioned, 

which is to bring back retirees to serve in those positions until this 

new influx of entry-level folk have gotten the required experience. 

And I would like to say with regard to your earlier question, one 

concern that we are already hearing from the new entrants is they 

are concerned about cutbacks in training, and the initial training 

that they get at FSI, which is being cut back from 7 weeks to 5 

weeks, and they thought 7 weeks was a bare minimum. So I think 

this is a concern that the brand new entry-level personnel is already expressing to us. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Ms. Johnson, you stated your concern that long-term language training could disadvantage FSOs 

from potential promotions. Could you please elaborate on this problem and how AFSA might be able to work with the State Department to address this issue? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I think AFSA 

members and I have certainly heard the same sort of feedback that 

24 

the GAO officials heard, that Ambassador Powell had also mentioned that she had heard. There is a widespread perception that 

particularly language training for hard languages that takes a year 

or two is not an advantage for promotion and in some cases a disadvantage. 

Now, unfortunately, I don’t think we have any collected statistics 

or numbers that would verify whether that perception is correct or 

not, and I think it could be relatively easily done, to take a look 

at promotion rates over the threshold or ambassadorial nominations or any other thing and take a look at what kind of training 

they had and did that affect their promotion levels, and what has 

happened to people who have invested in hard language training. 

But that perception is out there and we can confirm that from 

what our members tell us. 

Senator AKAKA. Another part to that question was how can 

AFSA work with the State Department in addressing this problem? 

Ms. JOHNSON. We would be happy to work with the Department 

on a study and analyzing and sort of collecting the facts. And once 

we know the facts, I think we would be better positioned to come 

up with recommendations on effective solutions. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Senator Voinovich. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much for all of your help in 

this area. Ambassador Neumann, thank you for your leadership. It 

must be nice to know that after you finished up your report somebody read it and is taking some action upon it. 

You had an opportunity to hear some of the questions of the previous panel. I wonder if you both would be willing to, in the event 

we get this plan that I have asked for in terms of how they intend 

to implement the recommendations of GAO, and many of them are 

contained in the recommendation of the American Academy of Diplomacy, to kind of look that over and give us your two cents on 

what you think about it. 

Mr. NEUMANN. The short answer, of course, is yes. I just wanted 

to tell you, as well, that we feel a sort of godfatherly responsibility 

for what the State Department is going to do with the new positions they have got. Obviously, we are not in any legal or professional way responsible. 

But this has led us in the Academy to think that it may be time 

for some serious additional reflection on what it means to be professional in the 21st Century. We have had a model, which is sort 

of a British 19th Century model, that you are going to get an educated person, send them forth, and anything they don’t already 

know, they will figure out. It is not adequate, I think, for the 21st 

Century, and it isn’t just about language training. 

Our military colleagues, I think, have gone well beyond us in developing the concept of professional training. I think we, in the diplomatic service, need to be looking at what kinds of professional development one needs aside from work in the career. Some of that, 

obviously, the core of that is language, but it is more than language. It is how do you deal with the needs of the 21st Century. 

I think this is going to be a lot easier to pontificate about than 

it will be to come up with specific recommendations, and we are 

only getting ourselves together now. We have not really had a 

chance to begin talking to the Department and see if they would 

25 

welcome such a study, but we hope that we might be a bit of a 

force multiplier, since I know they are pretty beleaguered in trying 

to cope with putting out fires as well as looking at the long term 

and the future. 

So we would very much like to look at their response and we, resources permitting, would hope that we might contribute our own 

views, as well, in a larger context. 

Ms. JOHNSON. The answer, of course, for AFSA is also yes. We 

would be pleased to do what we can to take a look at that and give 

our two cents. 

Senator VOINOVICH. How long is your term in office? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Two years. 

Senator VOINOVICH. That is good. 

Ms. JOHNSON. I hope that is long enough to at least get started 

and see some results. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I am out of here at the end of next year, so 

I am trying to get as much stuff done as possible that you can put 

in writing and set your milestones and metrics so you have got 

something that you can look at, and I think once it is signed off, 

then you can continue to market it. What I am always worried 

about is when we get started around here, we get some good ideas, 

and then interest runs out and it doesn’t happen. 

I have had lots of talks with General Jones as far back as Brussels 2 or 3 years ago about his ideas in terms of smart power and 

I think that is the way we need to go. If we are going to get that 

done, we are just going to have to follow through on these recommendations that we have got that have been made in regard to 

the State Department. 

The issue of annuitants, we got that language passed by the Senate as part of the FY2010 National Defense Authorization Act and 

we are going to do some work and get it accepted by the House. 

Ms. Johnson, you could help a great deal on that, your organization, to kind of lobby them and say that we don’t object to that. 

It is interesting that we have been able to get that language put 

in. I know, again, I have been working on the Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission for 10 years and that language has really helped a 

great deal in terms of their problems, because they not only have 

to replace the people who are retiring, but they have to bring on 

new people in order to take on the new responsibilities of these 

combined license applications that are coming in. Being able to 

bring folks back has been terrific because you are talking about 

training and you need the people to train these folks. 

So I am hoping that we can get that done. Would you like to 

comment on the importance of that? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, thank you. Those are all very important 

things. AFSA will be happy to lobby with whoever we can on the 

House on this issue. 

But I wanted to just step back and say that I think we have all 

agreed that the United States is facing a particular new set of challenges and we have to take a new look at our institutions and what 

are the requirements for them to be effective and for the people 

who staff them. What kind of training and professional education 

do they need? 

26 

AFSA is both the professional association of the Foreign Service 

and its bargaining unit and union, so we have a dual role and responsibility and we want to strengthen both. And we think that it 

is important right now that AFSA and the management of the 

State Department forge kind of a constructive working relationship 

where we are working together to get some of these things done. 

They are not easy and they need unity, and so we are looking to 

sort of recalibrate a little bit the AFSA relationship so that we can 

be more involved in these studies and processes as they go along, 

sort of not necessarily only afterward, which takes a longer time. 

So we are looking at a number of alliances. We certainly have 

a close working relationship with the Academy and we want to 

maybe be a bridge and bring in some of our fellow associations, I 

guess, who share common goals to work with management as they 

undertake some of these studies, be able to give our input as we 

are doing it, not afterwards and reacting to it. 

Senator VOINOVICH. That is smart. I think the fact that the 

Academy is made up of folks who have had experience within the 

State Department, has been very worthwhile. But the key to it is 

to try and make sure that your members who are actually out 

there have input into some of the changes that are made. I have 

observed over the years as mayor, governor, and here, that so 

often, the people that really know what needs to be done are never 

consulted. Somebody comes in and says, this is what we think 

needs to be done, and then—you have a better idea, I think, of 

what needs to be done than some new folks that are coming on 

board. 

So if there is anything I can do to move that along, and I am 

sure Senator Akaka feels the same way, I think it is absolutely essential. How often do you meet with these folks? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, we have a particular challenge because our 

folks are spread all over the world. I would say 85 percent of active 

duty personnel are now members of AFSA, which is higher than it 

was, and we are looking at ways right now to improve communications with them and to be able to mobilize them on issues that they 

are concerned about or knowledgeable about, and we are trying to 

do that through a number of ways. 

One of them is through regular and more frequent surveys that 

we can send to them directly through something called AFSA Net, 

directly, electronically to their in-box. So we had annual surveys, 

but now we are looking to supplement those with some specific 

ones on specific issues. 

We are looking at a number of others ways. I won’t take your 

time right now to go into them. But certainly we are interested in 

improving communication with our members and within the Department and looking at ways to use new technologies to do that 

more effectively. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, we would like to move ahead on a permanent overseas locality pay fix. I have talked to Senator Kerry 

about it. But you know and I know that most of us are so darn 

busy that unless somebody kind of puts it right in front of our nose, 

we don’t pay attention to it. I think it would be really great if you 

put together a little program where you would be contacting the 

members of the Foreign Relations Committee and others here to 

27 

talk about how much good this change has made in terms of your 

folks out there in the field and try to work on that issue and make 

sure it gets done so that it is not just a one-shot deal and then you 

build them up and then, whoosh, goodbye. 

The other thing is this training thing that you talked about, you 

are saying you think that they are being shortchanged. Again, I 

think that is really very important that training get done. Again, 

you get to the issue of you have got to have the trainers. And if 

you were able to bring back some folks on a temporary basis that 

would be able to come in and do that, it would, I think, make a 

big difference. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you. We are concerned with that. As a matter of fact, I have just requested a number of meetings with some 

of the very people that you have mentioned, both to introduce myself and to talk to them about this issue. 

I would like to say something on language training, too. Our 

members have given us quite a bit of feedback. I went out to the 

board members in preparation for this hearing to ask them about 

some of the issues you had raised, and we have 24 people on the 

board, our governing board of AFSA, and they are in touch with 

all the different constituencies. I was surprised to see how many 

of them came back passing on expressions of concern about quality 

and quantity of language training at FSI, particularly in Arabic. 

That seems to be an area where more focus is needed and we 

would like to follow up with the Department on that. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. NEUMANN. Could I add one word on Arabic training, sir, because that is a language with which I have done battle for many 

years. I think the language won, not me. But it has some particularities that both the Department and, I think, others will have to 

look at. There is a need for a level of grammatical comprehension 

to get to top levels. The people I have known over the years who 

were really good Arabic speakers, like Robert Ford, our current, or 

past Ambassador to Algeria who is now back in Baghdad for his 

fourth year, had university language training, and the best people 

I know in it have gone to university training. 

We have a structural problem that I don’t know if FSI can fix, 

which is with a lot of languages, you get to a certain point and 

then you go work in the country and your language gets better. 

However, in a lot of the Arab world now, elites speak very good 

English. If your Arabic isn’t fairly good, it actually deteriorates at 

post because so many of the elites speak good English. They would 

rather speak Arabic with you if your Arabic is really good, but they 

don’t have the patience if you are still kind of blundering your way 

along, as many of us are. 

So the result is we have to go beyond FSI, I think, when we look 

at wanting to produce top-quality Arabists. It may be true of other 

languages, but I know it is true there, that the basic theory of our 

training isn’t meeting the reality in the world. 

The other thing is, Senator Voinovich, you were talking about 

whether you need people—how many people do you need to speak 

the language. The only thing I would call to your attention is you 

only have the time to learn languages well when you are a younger 

officer, not because necessarily—I hope not because your brain is 

28 

younger, but the more senior you are, the more pressed you become, the more you are a short commodity for the Department that 

needs to get you to post, the harder it is to pull you out to do refresher or expansion training, no matter how much the officer 

would want it. 

And you can play with a language. When I was a younger officer, 

I really enjoyed being out and being able to use it. When I was Ambassador to Afghanistan, I had to be extremely careful that I was 

clearly understood in anything I said, no matter what the context, 

and that I clearly understood what people were saying to me. And 

at that point, it is too serious to be using conversation as a language enhancement. I could do that with my language instructor, 

I could do it in social chit-chat, but I couldn’t afford to be doing it 

for substantive subjects as I could when I was a younger officer. 

So I think these things drive us to need to look at different levels 

of training and at pushing it out even where the immediate job 

might not have the same requirement because we can’t get it later. 

Thank you for letting me make that personal intervention. 

Ms. JOHNSON. If I could say one thing, also, on language that a 

number of our members have raised, and that is in-country training, in the country that you are going to be assigned to, to supplement the basis that you get at FSI. I think a lot of people have 

found as linguists that they get better results in shorter periods of 

time by being able to get a basis maybe at FSI and then spend 6 

months or something in country not right at the embassy, but 

studying the language, perfecting it. Certainly, that has been my 

experience, that produces a better level of proficiency. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Send them in 6 months early or something 

like that and just put them into the bathtub and immerse them in 

language training. 

Ms. JOHNSON. No. They actually would go into a training, continued language training program in that country. There are different 

variations on that country to country, but no, they would be in a 

context. But it has multiple advantages because of not only the language skills. They make a lot of contacts. They develop a lot of 

knowledge about the country, so when they do come into their job, 

they are markedly more effective than they would have been had 

they come immediately into the job with a lower language level. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. Thanks, Senator Akaka. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Voinovich. 

I would like to follow up with Ambassador Neumann and what 

he mentioned about an officer not being as proficient in another 

language and the foreign person he is speaking with being proficient in English. Therefore, they might end up having a discussion in English instead. 

Due to the staffing shortage at Foreign Service, officers are being 

sent to post before completing their language training. Due to insufficient training, officers have used locally-employed staff as 

translators. What are the risks of an over-reliance on locally-employed staff to translate for Foreign Service officers? 

Mr. NEUMANN. I am just smiling because I am going to have to 

contain myself to a short answer here for a question I love. 

First is that in many countries, your locally-employed staff has 

no choice but to report to the local intelligence people. So you cut 

29 

off a lot of information. When I first went to Iran—that was before 

the revolution, so you can tell how long ago that was—initially, I 

was a little lazy and I had French and I had an interpreter, and 

then the first Kurdish rebellion of 1974 got going. All the Kurdish 

areas of the Iranian side were in my consular district and I very 

quickly realized that I would get so much more working in Farsi, 

even bad Farsi, than having an Iranian translator in the room because the locals had no idea who the translator might report to besides me, but they were darn suspicious about it. And it was true. 

I mean, the amount of information I gathered—some of which I 

wasn’t supposed to have access to, like our covert involvement— 

just ballooned even though I was struggling sometimes with the 

language. 

When you expand beyond our immediate local employees, at least 

some of whom do have very good language skills, then you get into 

another whole area of problem that we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, that I have watched repeatedly. We are using people, 

often Arab Americans or Afghan Americans, who have learned 

Arab or Farsi, or Pashto, as a kind of kitchen language at home. 

It is not an educated language, so they are not—they are either not 

educated in English at a university level or they are not educated 

in their own language, their native language, at that level. 

The result is they are fine for simple interaction, but when you 

start getting into more complicated conversations and concepts, 

they often don’t actually have the educated vocabulary in one of the 

two languages, or sometimes in both, to really handle those concepts. 

So there are places to use interpreters. I know Ambassador 

Crocker, who has excellent Arabic, used an interpreter a great deal 

in Iraq. He used a non-Iraqi interpreter much of the time to get 

away from the issue of who the interpreter reported to, and he 

could check the interpreter because his Arabic is good. But he 

wasn’t wholly dependent on the interpreter. 

When we start using them as a substitute for doing our own 

work, we are just hurting every way you can imagine. And again, 

I am sorry, that is kind of a long answer, but it is a really important question. 

Senator AKAKA. Ambassador, the State Department has had to 

rely on short tours of one year to fill critical FSO positions in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. However, GAO identified significant language 

shortfalls for the FSOs who serve in these assignments. As a 

former Ambassador to Afghanistan, you probably have had to deal 

with these types of issues firsthand. In your view, how should the 

State Department ensure that it staffs these posts with FSOs who 

have the needed language training and experience? 

Mr. NEUMANN. Yes, I have been there, done that. We have never 

managed to do this. Neither we nor the military have ever done 

this well. We didn’t do it well in Vietnam, where we recycled people 

to different jobs. 

We have to bridge between the fact that we cannot—I think we 

cannot get all the jobs filled at the requisite levels of knowledge 

and language and length of time and the fact that we must break 

out of this phenomenon of not 8 years’ work in Afghanistan, but 

one year eight times. 

30 

I think we have to begin by recognizing that certain jobs—and 

some of this—a little bit, I think, may be being done in the State 

Department. I am not up to date. I know it is being done more in 

the military, recognizing that a certain number of jobs are going to 

require levels of both language and experience in the country—the 

two come together—which need longer periods of service. 

Once we accept that requirement and go through the process of 

designating jobs, I think there are a variety of creative solutions 

that can work in combination. People can come back for repeat 

tours. Some people can stay. Some jobs can be 2-year tours. Some 

people can agree that they will—you can have linked positions 

where you have a couple of people who spend, say, a 3-year tour 

swapping out with each other so that you bring back the expertise. 

You may be swapping them out on 6-month bases, but over 3 years, 

you are getting the same two people in the same job. 

In fairness to the Department, it is extremely hard for a large 

institution running a complex personnel system to manage this 

kind of pre-industrial piecework assignment process, but I believe 

it is really essential to our Nation that we confront this, particularly in a war. It was a huge problem, and the amount I knew— 

I had more experience than most in the Foreign Service, and having first visited Afghanistan almost 40 years before I ended up 

there as Ambassador; but I knew a heck of a lot more by the second year than I did the first year. And I drew enormously on a very 

few people that had even more experience. 

So it is a critical, critical need and we need to look at it and not 

blink and put meeting it in the ‘‘too hard’’ box. We have got to do 

better. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you. Thank you very much. Senator 

Voinovich, do you have any further questions? 

Senator VOINOVICH. I have no questions. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Mr. Johnson, according to GAO, several State 

Department human resources officials and Foreign Service Officers 

expressed their view that the State Department’s designated language proficiency requirements may not reflect the actual language 

needs of the posts. For example, officers learning Arabic may need 

an advanced professional level instead of the required general professional level to perform their jobs. Have your members expressed 

this same concern, and what do you recommend the Department do 

to make sure language training adequately prepares FSOs for their 

duties? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, we have heard from some members 

on this issue, but we haven’t gone out recently in a more comprehensive way, and perhaps this is something we want to make 

sure we address in our surveys. 

Generally speaking, my own experience has been that the threethree level, or even the three-plus-three-plus level, is not sufficient 

to be able to do your job at some responsible level in the Department. You can get along. You can talk. You can have conversation. 

You can understand people. You cannot negotiate. You cannot really deal on, let us say, complex or sensitive matters, I think as Ambassador Neumann was talking about. 

So I, myself, have some questions about the designations and 

what we think what they mean. In a number of instances, as AmVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:59 May 07, 2010 Jkt 053842 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\53842.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
31 

bassador Neumann was saying, I think the language designation 

for particular jobs in certain countries probably needs to be a fourfour level or something close to that and we have to really pay attention, because, generally speaking, that three-three level is not 

really professional competency. 

I learned Russian. I taught myself Russian. I got to a three-three 

level. I could do a lot. It was very valuable. I was a better officer 

as a result. I could not negotiate and do complicated issues in Russian, and that applies for other languages, as well. 

So I think that whole system today needs to be recalibrated in 

light of today’s demands, and different for different countries, depending what kinds of issues the United States needs to negotiate 

with that country. So we have to be a lot less cookie-cutter and 

more customized, and as Ambassador Neumann said, that is not 

easy, but I think we need to do it. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, thank you. 

I want to ask a final question to both of you. The GAO has repeatedly recommended that the State Department develop a comprehensive strategic plan regarding foreign language capabilities. 

What elements do you believe should be in the State Department’s 

foreign language strategic plan? 

Ms. JOHNSON. Well, first of all, we certainly agree, Mr. Chairman, that it would be valuable to develop that sort of strategic 

plan. So we strongly support the GAO recommendation. 

Now, as to what elements, and I am just going to sort of speak 

right now my own feelings responding to that, I think the elements 

can be drawn from several of the comments that we have made 

here this afternoon, that the language training—first of all, our 

methodology needs to be looked at, and whether it is all at FSI or 

whether we draw on universities or in-country training. 

Then we need to look at who we are training for what. What are 

we really training this officer to do in that country? 

Third, I think we need to look at who we are hiring to do that 

training. Maybe we also need to look at the range of languages that 

we are training in and at what levels, because we train in a lot of 

languages and maybe we need to reconsider that because there are 

costs associated with all of this. 

So, I mean, there are a number of elements that should be addressed in a comprehensive strategy and we would be happy to 

give further thought to that and get back to you on it or the GAO 

or the Department. We would like to be involved in some way and 

to assist the Department in doing that study, that kind of a study. 

Mr. NEUMANN. I agree, Mr. Chairman. I think we need to look 

again at what are we trying to do. That is the starting point. I 

think we have been hampered over the years because our resources 

were so few that when we began to talk about things like that, we 

then had to have a kind of procrustean bed exercise in which we 

then hammered the result back in to the resource and the form 

available. 

I think now we are getting to a place where we need to do an 

unconstrained review and the results are going to be very different 

for different languages, for different countries. We have always, in 

my experience, had a great reluctance to designate language posiVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:59 May 07, 2010 Jkt 053842 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\53842.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
32 

tions at the four-four level because that drives another whole level 

of resources that FSI didn’t have. 

So I think this exercise probably has to be done really in two 

parts. One is what are you trying to accomplish, and then the how 

do you accomplish it so we don’t get our feet tangled. 

It is an excellent idea. I would only add the caution that it 

shouldn’t become a straightjacket because that needs change. We 

close posts. We open posts. Proficiencies change. We get into wars. 

So we should do a plan—we should do a strategic plan. We 

shouldn’t either delude or lock ourselves into the belief that it is 

going to be a perfect plan. Thank you. 

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much. Your experience and your 

service, as reflected in your responses, have been very valuable to 

this Subcommittee and I want to thank you. 

We are committed to trying to make a difference in this area, 

and it is clear to me that this Administration is firmly committed 

to reenergizing U.S. diplomacy and understands the need to invest 

in diplomatic readiness. I am hopeful that the State Department 

will eliminate its language and experience gaps with its planned 

increase in Foreign Service Officer staffing. It should also commit 

itself to taking a more strategic approach to meeting its current requirements and preparing to respond to new challenges. 

We will keep the hearing record open for one week for additional 

statements or questions other Members may have. And again, I 

want to thank you very much for your part in this hearing. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:34 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(33) 

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Æ 


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