[Senate Hearing 117-101]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 117-101

                    MODERNIZING THE STATE DEPARTMENT
                          FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                         SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE
                          DEPARTMENT AND USAID
                       MANAGEMENT, INTERNATIONAL
                       OPERATIONS, AND BILATERAL
                       INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JULY 20, 2021

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
       
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]       


                  Available via http://www.govinfo.gov

                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
46-167 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2021                     
          
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

                 COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS        

             ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey, Chairman        
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland         JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire        MARCO RUBIO, Florida
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut      MITT ROMNEY, Utah
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts      RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 TODD YOUNG, Indiana
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey           JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii                 TED CRUZ, Texas
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland           MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
                                     BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
                 Jessica Lewis, Staff Director        
        Christopher M. Socha, Republican Staff Director        
                    John Dutton, Chief Clerk        




           SUBCOMMITTEE ON STATE DEPARTMENT AND USAID        
           MANAGEMENT, INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS, AND        
              BILATERAL INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT        

             BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland, Chairman        
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii                 RAND PAUL, Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut      TED CRUZ, Texas
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts      RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
                                     MARCO RUBIO, Florida

                              (ii)        

  
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., U.S. Senator From Maryland.............     1

Hagerty, Hon. Bill, U.S. Senator From Tennessee..................     2

Biegun, Hon. Stephen, Former Deputy Secretary of State From 
  Washington, DC.................................................     5
    Prepared Statement...........................................     7

Ries, Hon. Marcie, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of 
  Bulgaria and the Republic of Albania From Washington, DC.......     9
    Prepared Statement...........................................    11

Slaughter, Dr. Anne-Marie, Chief Executive Officer of New America 
  From Washington, DC............................................    15
    Prepared Statement...........................................    17

                                 (iii)

 
 MODERNIZING THE STATE DEPARTMENT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

                              ----------                              

                                        TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2021

                               U.S. Senate,
        Subcommittee on State Department and USAID 
Management, International Operations, and Bilateral 
                         International Development,
                            Committee on Foreign Relations,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m. in 
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ben Cardin, 
chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Cardin [presiding], Kaine, Murphy, 
Markey, Hagerty, Paul, Cruz, Schatz, Johnson, and Rubio.

         OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM MARYLAND

    Senator Cardin. Welcome to the first hearing of the 
subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations on the State 
Department and USAID management, international operations, and 
bilateral international development. This is our first hearing. 
First, I want to thank our ranking member Hagerty, for his 
cooperation and help in putting together this hearing. We are 
going to rely very heavily on our ranking member considering 
his experience as a former ambassador to Japan, and his private 
sector experience. So, Mr. Ranking Member, I am looking forward 
to working with you and thank you very much for your help and 
cooperation and the work of this subcommittee.
    We have a very important responsibility in this 
subcommittee, and I want to thank both Senator Menendez and 
Senator Risch for recognizing the importance of this 
subcommittee and encouraging us to hold oversight hearings in 
regards to the areas of our responsibility, which include the 
State Department, USAID, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, 
Peace Corps, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. So our 
responsibility is oversight their important issues such as 
diversity, recruitment, retention, economics and security 
dealing with our workforce that we need to be knowledgeable and 
see the current status and what we can do better. We have to 
work in a way to build the foundation for the reauthorization 
of the State Department's law.
    It used to be a regular process for this committee, the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to recommend to the full 
Senate a reauthorization bill for the State Department. We have 
not done that for a number of years. I know our leadership on 
this committee would like to see that process reinstated. I 
hope that this subcommittee can provide some of the foundation 
for the reauthorization of the State Department itself.
    We need to address U.S. diplomacy in the 21st Century. 
President Biden has made it very clear that our foreign policy 
will be grounded in our values; democratic institutions, good 
governance, anti-corruption, and advancement of human rights. 
This is our first hearing and our topic could not be more-
timely; modernizing the State Department for the 21st Century. 
We have a great panel of witnesses that can really help us get 
started on this task.
    We need a strong and high performing State Department to 
meet the challenges of the 21st Century. We have serious 
challenges on the rise of authoritarianism and the decline of 
Free States. We have the challenge in supporting American 
businesses globally on a fair playing field. We have the issues 
of climate change, we have negotiating ends of conflicts and 
preventing conflicts from occurring. We are and need to be the 
leader in the global response to the pandemic. We must assist 
American citizens throughout the world, and this goes on and on 
and on, the important work of the State Department in the 21st 
Century.
    The challenges within the State Department include 
diversity, inclusion, flexibility, efficiency, and 
accountability of our workforce. I think we have gotten off to 
a good start under the Biden administration, in the budget that 
he has submitted to us. It would be, if passed by Congress, the 
largest increase in personnel in over a decade.
    I will conclude my opening comments by quoting from the 
President what he said when he was a candidate, ``Vow to 
rebuild a modern, agile U.S. Department of State, investing, 
and re-empowering the finest diplomatic core in the world, and 
leveraging the full talent and richness of America's 
diversity.'' He then stated that he pledged in his speech to 
the State Department to restore the health and morale of our 
foreign policy institutions. So I think we are off to a good 
start, and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. First, 
let me yield to the ranking member, Senator Hagerty.

                STATEMENT OF HON. BILL HAGERTY, 
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE

    Senator Hagerty. Well, Chairman Cardin, I want to thank you 
for holding this hearing and I want to thank you so much for 
inviting me to participate today. I would be remiss if I did 
not take this wonderful opportunity the first time I have had 
to do it publicly to thank you for voting to confirm me about a 
little more than 4 years ago to serve as a diplomat here in 
this very body. It was the greatest honor of a lifetime to 
represent our great Nation overseas. We were fortunate to have 
several people the rank of ambassador with us today, and I 
think they share that same sense of honor.
    I also would like to complement you, Mr. Chairman, on your 
support for me when I served as an American diplomat. It was 
particularly meaningful to have your help convening the 
resources I needed to be effective in my job as ambassador. As 
I think about the effort that you helped me undertake when we 
were trying to fix an important process that advances America's 
interest overseas with respect to foreign military sales, your 
team came together and helped me put the resources in place and 
helped to build a modernization infrastructure to fix a very 
important process within our State Department, within our 
Federal Government. I particularly appreciate that engagement 
and that insight as a foundation for what we are trying to 
accomplish today, so thank you very much.
    To the topic of modernizing the State Department for the 
21st Century, I could not ask for a better leader and colleague 
to work on this. I would also like to recognize our three 
witnesses, who have graciously agreed to join us today, and I 
want to thank each of you for your service. We certainly look 
forward to hearing from you. As former ambassador of Japan, I 
had the privilege to serve alongside some of the brightest and 
the most capable men and women of the State Department. Because 
of their work and sacrifice, the U.S.-Japan Alliance remains 
the cornerstone of peace and prosperity throughout the Asia 
Pacific region.
    I remember within weeks of arriving in Tokyo, the North 
Korean regime tested the resolve of the United States and the 
entire world by launching multiple ballistic missiles over 
Japan. Then Deputy Secretary Bing was very active in dealing 
with that from here in Washington, and it was an interesting 
perspective for me and my family to be there as 
intercontinental ballistic missiles are being launched 
overhead.
    At that point when I arrived my very first day I asked the 
team at Mission Japan to remember the reasons they joined the 
United States Department of State, to bring their very best 
performance to bear because our Nation needed their service. 
Our Nation needed our talents and our very best performance, 
and I would say our team pulled together and delivered just 
that. I could not have been more proud to see my team step up 
when our country needed them, when our Nation needed them, and 
when I need them to deliver. So I am deeply appreciative of 
what the men and women of the State Department are capable of 
doing and I have seen it in action.
    What we are here to discuss today is not about the 
commitment of the people of the State Department, rather the 
task at hand is to identify the aspects of the State Department 
that require urgent reform, and determine the best way forward 
to achieve that goal. We should be bold in re-imagining the 
State Department, and this should be guided by some very basic 
foundational questions. To name just a few, what is the purpose 
of embassies in the 21st century? How can the State Department 
attract, retain, and train the best talent? What kind of 
infrastructure does the State Department need at home and 
abroad in the 21st Century?
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how we can 
reimagine American diplomat for the 21st century. These are big 
issues that will not be resolved overnight, but we need to ask 
these big questions. I look forward to working with Senator 
Cardin in a constructive manner to identify and take concrete 
tangible steps towards creating a new and modern State 
Department. I see three critical milestones that we should 
strive towards.
    First, Congress as the ultimate objective should pass new 
legislation to modernize the Foreign Service Act of 1980. 
Forty-one years have passed since the last major restructuring 
of the State Department, and we should seek to update and 
enhance the State Department for the 21st Century. Second, as 
part of that effort to pass new legislation, Congress should 
form a bipartisan commission to examine every aspect of 
American diplomacy, drawing on the expertise of a wide group of 
people with relevant experience and insight to advise our 
subcommittee. Third, this committee should continue to hold a 
series of hearings on this subject.
    I look forward today to hearing from the witnesses, their 
ideas as to what Congress and the executive branch can 
undertake as we modernize the State Department for the 21st 
century. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Cardin. Well, thank you for your opening statement. 
I will just point out it was my pleasure to support your 
nomination, but Senator Alexander insisted that I support you--
and I can never say no to Senator Alexander.
    Senator Hagerty. I understand.
    Senator Cardin. You have a good friend in our former 
colleague.
    Senator Hagerty. Thank you.
    Senator Cardin. We are very fortunate to have three real 
experts on the State Department, and we thank you all. Two are 
here in person, one is here by Webex. I will introduce you in 
the order that we asked you to give your presentations. Your 
full statements will be made part of the record, and you will 
be able to proceed as you wish. First is Stephen Biegun.
    It is good to have you back. Mr. Biegun has had three 
decades of international affairs experience, most recently 
elevating to the Deputy Secretary of State. He worked very 
closely with our committee, and I appreciated the conversations 
we had when you were Deputy Secretary of State. I always found 
them to be very candid and very informative. Mr. Biegun also 
has experience on the Hill in the foreign policy specialist for 
Chief of Staff, and for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 
and as a national security advisor for Senate Majority Leader 
Bill Frist.
    Our second witness will be Marcie Ries. Ambassador Ries, 
who was Chief Admission at Pristina in 2003 and 2004, Albania 
2004-2007, Bulgaria 2012 through 2015. So she has been, you 
have been Chief Admission in three locations. That is quite an 
accomplishment. I just got back from a visit to Bulgaria and I 
could see firsthand the fruits of your work while you were 
ambassador. I think we have made progress and we had a very 
productive meeting under the umbrella of the OSCE.
    Ambassador Ries was also on the negotiating team that 
negotiated the 2010 START Treaty with Russia. She was a 
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasia 
Affairs 2008 through 2009, was on the House Foreign Affairs 
Committee as staff chair, and senior fellow Future of Diplomacy 
Project that the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for 
Science and International Affairs. That is a long title. She 
co-authored a U.S. diplomatic service for the 21st century, 
which is very timely for our discussions today.
    Our third witness will be coming to us vis a via the 
internet, and that is Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter. She is the CEO 
of New America, Director of Policy Planning at the State 
Department from 2009 to 2011, and received a very prestigious 
Secretary's Distinguished Service Award for her diplomacy and 
work.
    So we have three very distinguished panelists, and we will 
start with Mr. Biegun.

 STATEMENT OF HON. STEPHEN BIEGUN, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF 
                   STATE FROM WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. Biegun. Thank you, Chairman Cardin, and Ranking Member 
Hagerty, and distinguished members of the committee. It is a 
great honor to be here with you today to talk about this 
important topic.
    One week from today will mark the 232nd anniversary of the 
founding of the State Department, an important institution 
which has played a central role in shaping the policies of our 
Nation, and shaping the outcome of events in the world. The 
organization and structure of the State Department, much less 
its role in the affairs of our country, has never been set in 
stone.
    Our founding fathers contended with this important topic in 
the early days of the republic. Congress required Secretary of 
State John Quincy Adams, our eighth Secretary of State, in 
addition to his work leading the diplomatic corps to also 
oversee the census and the patent office, to monitor laws of 
various states of the union, and to produce a report on the 
viability of national standards for weights and measures. John 
Quincy Adams did all of this with a staff of 10.
    Adams would eventually install a management structure and a 
system that would be adapted and revamped and changed on the 
margins over the years, and would serve the State Department 
all the way through the 21st Century. For the Department, its 
greatest asset has always been its people; their intelligence, 
commitment, and when called upon their bravery in the service 
of the American people. It is my great honor to have worked 
alongside those talented individuals at the State Department 
over the past 3 years.
    I am pleased to be on a panel with two distinguished 
colleagues. Professor Slaughter's leadership in launching the 
State Department's first Quadrennial Diplomacy Review, the 
QDDR, while she served as Director of Policy and Planning, was 
particularly important in highlighting the growing role of our 
embassies as platforms for inner agency cooperation. In 
Ambassador Ries recent report which you referenced, Mr. 
Chairman, done with Ambassador Nick Burns and Mark Grossman on 
the future of the foreign service is an important contribution 
to charting away ahead for the diplomatic core by some of our 
most distinguished alumni from the State Department.
    Throughout my time in the Department, we strove together to 
make the world more free, more prosperous, and more democratic. 
As I told the Department's 76,000 person workforce, Foreign 
Service, civil service, and locally employed staff in my first 
communication as Deputy Secretary of State, America's greatest 
strength has always been what the late Senator John McCain 
described as its hopeful vision of human progress.
    Change is needed, desperately and urgently so, if the 
Department is going to continue to reflect the interest of the 
United States of America and the interests of the people in the 
employ of the Department of State. For my part, I have 
approached this question on how to design and create a modern 
State Department from the lessons I have learned about people, 
process, and policy during more than three decades in 
government, the private sector, and the non-governmental 
community.
    I have seen the State Department most recently from within 
as State Department Secretary of State, but I have also seen it 
from the vantage point of the White House National Security 
Council from the perspective of a major global cooperation 
working for the State Department in markets around the world, 
from the perspective of several non-governmental organizations 
that have been engaged in advancing U.S. values overseas. Most 
importantly from here, from the oversight perspective in the 
Congress as a staff member of this committee.
    My call for reform is not intended to be a criticism of the 
people working at the Department. There is no question in my 
mind that the American people owe a deep gratitude for the 
myriad acts of sacrifice by State Department personnel. During 
my recent tenure at state, I witnessed how officers in 
Washington and around the world helped repatriate more than 
100,000 American citizens, who are trapped abroad in COVID-19 
hotspots.
    I saw brave men and women who stayed at their posts in 
desperate conditions during this terrible pandemic. Who took 
assignments in war zones like Iraq where all too frequent 
attacks on our embassy buildings served as a constant risk to 
our diplomats. I have seen our teams deployed to South America, 
Africa, the Middle East, and the Korean Peninsula in attempt to 
end conflicts or limit the spread of weapons of mass 
destruction.
    I have seen our people lead and show the best of America in 
globally aiding against famine and disease, and helping 
refugees and those who live under dictatorships. There is much 
in the efforts of the State Department team for our government 
and our people to be proud of, but these same able public 
servants, if they were with us today, would likely be the most 
demanding among the voices calling for modernization and 
reforms of the Department.
    This need for reform is seen in the stultifying effect of 
layers of bureaucracy that suffocate and discourage our 
diplomats. While immense improvements have been made in 
infrastructure of the Department, it is in my view too costly, 
too slow to be executed, and still incapable of protecting our 
electronic communications. The footprint of the Department 
leads close scrutiny as well. How do we perform at our most 
agile? Do we need fortress-like embassies, sometimes from which 
our diplomats cannot even venture in the face of local threats? 
Finally, how can the Department partner with other instruments 
of American power and influence in the world as a force 
multiplier, including civil society groups and the enormous 
reach of the U.S. private sector?
    So, Mr. Chairman, Senator Hagerty, for a number of reasons 
which I will be pleased to elaborate further in our questions 
and answers, I strongly believe that the leadership needs to 
come from here, the United States Congress, in order to provoke 
and promote the kind of change that needs to occur. There are 
many worthy areas of review to ensure the 21st century State 
Department is fit, agile, and prepared to serve its critical 
role in the world. I looked forward to discussing this further 
with you today. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Biegun follows:]

              Prepared Statement of Mr. Stephen E. Biegun

    Chairman Cardin, Ranking Member Hagerty, and distinguished members 
of this Subcommittee: I am honored to appear before you today to 
discuss the important topic of modernizing the State Department for the 
21st Century.
    One week from today will mark the 232nd anniversary of the founding 
of this historic institution, which has played a central role in 
shaping the policies of our Nation, and shaping the outcome of world 
events. The organization and structure of the State Department, much 
less its role in the affairs of the country, has never been set in 
stone. Our Founding Fathers contended with this important topic in the 
early days of the Republic. Congress required Secretary of State John 
Quincy Adams, our eighth Secretary of State, to--in addition to leading 
the diplomatic corps--also oversee the census and the Patent Office, 
monitor the laws of various states on the Union, and produce a report 
on the viability of national standards for weights and measures. All 
with a staff of ten! Adams would eventually install a management 
structure and system that would be adapted and revamped over the years, 
and would serve the State Department into the 21st century. I find 
confidence in knowing that our institutions are capable of evolving and 
improving over time.
    For the State Department, its greatest asset has always been its 
people--their intelligence, commitment, and when called upon, their 
bravery, in the service of the American people. It was my great honor 
to work alongside those talented and dedicated public servants of the 
State Department. I am also honored to be on this panel with my two 
distinguished colleagues. Professor Slaughter's leadership in launching 
the State Department's first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development 
Review or QDDR while she served as the Director of Policy Planning was 
particularly important in highlighting the growing role of our 
embassies as platforms for interagency coordination. And Ambassador 
Ries's recent report with Nick Burns and Marc Grossman on The Future of 
the Foreign Service is an important contribution to charting a way 
ahead for our diplomatic corps by some of its most distinguished 
alumni. Throughout my time in the Department we strove, together, to 
make the world more free, more prosperous, and more democratic. As I 
told the Department's 76,000-person workforce--Foreign Service, Civil 
Service, and locally employed staff--in my first communication as 
Deputy Secretary of State, America's greatest strength has always been 
its hopeful vision of human progress.
    But change is desperately, urgently needed if the Department is to 
continue to serve the interests of the United States of America, and 
the interests of the people in the employ of the Department of State. 
For my part, I approach the question of how to design and create a 
modern State Department from the lessons I have learned about people, 
process, and policy during my more than three decades in government, 
the private sector, and the non-governmental community. I have seen the 
Department most recently from within, as the Deputy Secretary of State, 
but also from the vantage of the White House National Security Council, 
from the perspective of a major, global, American corporation that 
worked closely with markets around the world, from the perspective of 
several non-governmental entities engaged in advancing U.S. values 
overseas, and most importantly, from the oversight perspective of the 
Congress--to include as a staff member on this Committee.
    My call for reform is not intended to be a criticism of the people 
working at the Department. There is no question in my mind that the 
American people owe a deep gratitude for myriad acts of sacrifice by 
State Department personnel. During my recent tenure at State, I 
witnessed how officers in Washington and around the world helped more 
than 100,000 Americans return home from COVID-19 hotspots, and the 
expertise and stamina they brought to bear in relentless negotiations 
to bring peace to conflicts. I saw brave men and women who stayed at 
their posts in desperate conditions during this terrible pandemic, who 
took assignments in warzones like Iraq, where all too frequent attacks 
on our Embassy served as a constant risk to our diplomats. I have seen 
our teams deploy to South America, Africa, the Middle East and the 
Korean Peninsula in attempt to end conflicts or limit the spread of 
dangerous weapons of mass destruction. And I have seen our people lead 
and show the best of our Nation in globally aiding against famine and 
disease, helping refugees, and those who live under dictatorships. 
There is much in the efforts of the State Department team for our 
government and our people to be proud. But, those same, able public 
servants, if they were with us today, would likely be the most 
demanding of the voices calling for the modernization and reform of the 
Department.
    This need for reform is seen in the stultifying effect of layers of 
bureaucracy that suffocate and discourage our diplomats. While immense 
improvements have been made in the infrastructure of the Department, it 
is in my view too costly, too slow to be executed, and still incapable 
of protecting the security of our electronic communications. The 
footprint of the Department needs close scrutiny as well. How do we 
perform at our most agile? Do we need fortress-like Embassies--
sometimes from which our diplomats cannot even venture in the face of 
local threats? And finally, how can the Department partner with the 
other instruments of American power and influence in the world as a 
force multiplier, including civil society groups and the enormous reach 
of the U.S. private sector? All of these are among the many worthy 
areas of review to ensure the Department is fit, agile and prepared to 
serve its critical role in the world. And that review needs to come 
from here, the United States Congress.
    In the post-World War II era, Congress led the way in supporting 
several important organizational reforms of the State Department, 
particularly in the 1980's and 90's, relating to embassy security; 
post-Cold War integration of U.S. Information Agency, Arms Control and 
Disarmament Agency, and integrating USAID more closely into the 
Department's organization; the creation of several additional bureaus 
and offices focused on transnational challenges like the environment, 
trafficking in persons, and religious freedom; and the creation of a 
State Department-led campaign against HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis 
that turned the global tide on the AIDS epidemic. But these structural 
changes to the State Department have tended to be additive or around 
the margins and not part of a comprehensive in-depth review of the 
Department's mission and role in today's world. Much has changed since 
adoption of the 1980 Foreign Service Act, the last time major 
restructuring of the State Department's diplomatic corps took place. 
Not everything should be tossed aside, but a zero-based review should 
have a broad mandate to look at every element of the Department from 
its mission to its budget and structure to its management and personnel 
practices.
    There is much that functions well at the State Department, and it 
is important to state at the outset that these aspects must not be lost 
as you set out to modernize the State Department. Our diplomats deserve 
to have the tools, skills, and resources to work on our behalf to 
advocate for American values and interests in today's world. But I hope 
you agree, Senators, that simply adding resources without a thoughtful 
review of the Department's mission, organization, personnel systems, 
and effectiveness will not meet the moment. As President Biden 
accurately states in the 2021 Interim National Security Strategic 
Guidance, our world is at an inflection point. Global dynamics have 
shifted, and new emerging challenges demand our immediate attention. We 
see authoritarianism on the march in some corners of the world, and 
increased strategic competition that will shape the next century and 
our Nation's prosperity.
    For this reason, I believe that Congress should move now to form a 
bipartisan commission to formally examine ways to modernize the State 
Department for the 21st century. In a Foreign Affairs article last 
year, Ambassadors Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Bill Burns wrote about 
the transformation of diplomacy and acknowledged that many of the 
reforms that are necessary for the State Department were considered too 
hard when they were in the position to lead. Their admission reflects 
the reality that institutional and cultural change is difficult and 
often set aside when confronted with pressing policy challenges or when 
those in the senior leadership positions have benefitted from the 
system they are asked to review and reform. A high-level commission 
should examine every aspect of U.S. diplomacy, not shying away from 
dealing with challenges, to include a review of:

   Our State Department organization in Washington,

   Our overseas organization and presence,

   The structure and qualities of our diplomatic corps,

   Civil service recruitment and retention,

   Barriers to recruitment, promotion, and retention of a 
        diverse and inclusive workforce,

   Investment in the professional development of the 
        Department's personnel,

   The role of security of our embassies and people on the 
        diplomatic mission,

   Infrastructure in all its forms to include information 
        technology, transportation, and the Department's sprawling 
        global real estate,

   Diplomacy's inextricable links with defense, development, 
        commercial, health, law enforcement, and other core American 
        interests,

   Core legislation that authorize U.S. diplomacy: the State 
        Department Basic Authorities Act, the Foreign Service Act of 
        1980, and

   Treaties that impact our overseas presence: Vienna 
        Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Vienna Convention on 
        Consular Relations, and other important frameworks developed 
        largely in the 1960s.

    As you can see from this list, the task is too complex, and in some 
case has too many vested interests and fixed viewpoints, to come from 
within. At the same time, previous efforts have failed when detached 
from the institution and its realities. Such a commission must rely in 
part on the individuals who have worked from within and have experience 
with the daily work of diplomacy and living and serving our country 
overseas. As the Deputy Secretary I engaged our workforce and thought 
about my work in three general lines of effort around people, policy, 
and process. I talked regularly with affinity groups representing 
diverse elements of the Department's workforce. When I traveled 
overseas, I tried to meet with officers on their way up to hear what 
they were thinking about and the changes they sought. I also talked 
routinely with the leaders of American Foreign Service Association and 
of course with management. To a person, these professionals talked 
about change in the context of an institution they loved and sought to 
improve.
    Let me close by sharing just a few of the thoughts I heard while 
listening to the mid-career officers--those closer to the day they 
entered the Department than to the day they will receive their 
retirement from the Department. These officers talked to me about: the 
pace of rotations, the flexibilities for remote work for partners and 
spouses, the transparency of opportunities, barriers to diversity and 
inclusion, the promotion of Department internships overseas to more 
diverse (less wealthy) students, increased access to the Department's 
oral entrance exams, accountability for bad-behaving managers, the 
attrition of parents as the challenges of their career and family 
became more challenging to balance, an overhaul of the community 
liaison offices overseas that had origins as a program for a trailing 
homemaker wife but now must serve dual-income couples and partners, 
improved flexibilities for family member careers that can be hindered 
by local tax and security rules, nationwide recruitment of Foreign 
Service Officers outside non-traditional schools, the Department's 
antiquated rules on security restrictions.
    This small snapshot speaks to a need to also review and adapt the 
Department to support today's modern workforce. If the global pandemic 
has taught us something positive, it is that we can adapt and create 
flexibilities and reimagine our workforce. I am pleased to be part of 
that discussion today, and hope this is the start of an in-depth, 
serious, and results oriented approach.
    Thank you.

    Senator Cardin. Thank you very much for your testimony. We 
will now hear from Ambassador Ries.

 STATEMENT OF HON. MARCIE RIES, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE 
     REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA AND THE REPUBLIC OF ALBANIA FROM 
                         WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Ries. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Hagerty, 
distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for the 
invitation to testify this afternoon. This subcommittee's 
inquiry into modernizing the State Department is a welcome 
initiative, and I am honored to have been invited to 
participate.
    In November 2020, the Kennedy School's Belfer Center issued 
a report entitled, ``A U.S. Diplomatic Service for the 21st 
Century.'' I was one of three retired Foreign Service co-
authors. The impetus for the project was our concern that the 
Foreign Service was facing a profound crisis that had developed 
over years and multiple administrations. Our career diplomats 
lacked the support, funding, training, career flexibility, and 
leadership development opportunities they needed. Worse, this 
was happening at the very time the United States was facing 
complex challenges globally requiring vigorous, sophisticated 
diplomacy. To develop our ideas, we sought the advice of a wide 
cross section of serving and former officials, members of 
Congress from both parties, staff, outside experts, and 
concerned Americans.
    Our conclusion was just as the Nation invested time and 
resources in an ambitious program of reform for both its 
military and intelligence agencies in recent years, a serious 
reform program was now urgently needed for the Foreign Service. 
In our report, we suggest the President and the Congress launch 
the initiative by defining a new mission and mandate aimed at 
restoring the State Department's lead role in executing foreign 
policy and re-affirming ambassador's roles as the President's 
personal representatives. Second, we recommend that Congress 
pass a new Foreign Service act. In discussions with Pentagon 
leaders, they counseled significant changes be included in 
legislation as was done for the military in the Goldwater-
Nichols Act.
    Third, we acknowledge deep reform will require the active 
participation and support of the Foreign Service, including by 
critically examining their own culture, to find ways to 
incentive innovation, responsible risk taking, inclusive 
management, and visionary leadership. Much has been written 
about the chronic failure to improve diversity and inclusion in 
the Service despite efforts over decades. Our report recommends 
radical change in the way the United States recruits, educates, 
assigns, and promotes members of the Foreign Service. Our 
proposal for an ROTC-like program to expand recruitment of 
minorities and other members of underserved communities as well 
as our call for regular publication of personnel statistics are 
two of our ideas in which Congress would play a key role.
    We also recommend expanding education and training to a 
career-long process, as is the case for other competent 
diplomatic services and for our own military. Our Foreign 
Service Institute has made a start on a sequence of required 
courses. This should be expanded to significant blocks of 
training lasting several months at career thresholds. For such 
a stepped program of professionalizations to succeed, we 
concluded a 15 percent personnel training float would be 
needed, another area for potential congressional action. We 
also recommended an overhaul of the personnel system to make it 
more flexible, transparent, and oriented to family needs.
    Two of our specific ideas were eliminating the division of 
Foreign Service officers into functional cones, and a rigorous 
examination of overseas staffing with a view to better 
alignment of positions with current needs. To retain the best 
officers and prepare them for leadership, we must give them the 
opportunity to serve at progressively senior levels. The 
thought is not to eliminate political appointee ambassadors, 
many of whom have served with distinction. Rather, we propose 
to bolster non-partisanship and strengthen the service by 
increasing the proportion of career professionals and 
leadership positions in Washington, and filling a greater 
number of ambassadorships with career diplomats.
    We also offered two ideas aimed at giving our diplomacy 
added agility, both of which would require congressional 
support. The first would be a limited and well-defined mid-
level entry program designed to address the need for new skills 
or knowledge areas. The second, a diplomatic reserve corps, 
would be aimed at giving the State Department the ability to 
surge to respond to unforeseen contingencies such as natural 
disasters. Finally, we suggest that giving this service a new 
modern name would send a powerful signal of transformation. Our 
suggestion is the United States Diplomatic Service because it 
puts the United States first, it correctly labels all employees 
diplomats, and it describes what our diplomats contribute, 
service to our Nation.
    Thank you of your attention, and I would be pleased to 
respond to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Ries follows:]

          Prepared Statement of Ambassador (Ret.) Marcie Ries

    Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Hagerty, thank you for the 
invitation to testify today. This subcommittee's inquiry into 
``Modernizing the State Department for the 21st century'' is a welcome 
initiative, and I am honored to have been invited to participate.
    In November 2020, the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for 
Science and International Affairs published a report entitled ``A U.S. 
Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century,'' for which I was one of three 
co-authors. Let me begin by recounting a little of the background to 
the project.
    Going back to 2019, several retired members of the Foreign Service 
who together had almost a century of service got together to discuss 
the state of the Foreign Service and the need for far-reaching reforms. 
Finding a commonality of purpose, we decided to solicit ideas from a 
broad spectrum of practitioners, stakeholders, and representatives of 
other foreign affairs agencies on what should be done to reform and 
rebuild the Foreign Service.
    An element in our thinking was that both the military and the 
intelligence community have undertaken major reforms in recent years, 
whereas the last major piece of legislation governing the Foreign 
Service was 40 years ago in the form of the Foreign Service Act of 
1980.
    Initially the project, which was located at the Harvard Kennedy 
School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, was to 
consist of a handful of conferences in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 
West Coast and elsewhere in the United States to gather information and 
ideas. However, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic compelled us to 
rethink our plans. Instead of in-person conferences, we switched to 
virtual meetings. The imperative for virtual gatherings probably 
enabled us to interact with more people and gather a wider range of 
opinions and viewpoints.
    Ultimately, we held 40 meetings with over 200 participants, 
including current and former Foreign Service officers, former officials 
in partner agencies, as well as from the National Security Council, the 
intelligence community and uniformed military and civilian leadership 
at the Pentagon. We held sessions with serving officials of the Trump 
administration, members of the Biden transition team, and Members of 
Congress and staff of both parties. We also had discussions with former 
top leaders, including former Secretaries of State, two former Chairmen 
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and leaders of the intelligence 
community. Finally, we solicited ideas from the interested public via 
virtual meetings with think tanks, business people, academics, and with 
World Affairs Councils both at a national meeting and with individual 
chapters in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas; Peoria, Illinois; Nashville, 
Tennessee; Cleveland, Ohio; and Boston, Massachusetts, for a total of 
800 interested Americans.
    Our conclusion was that the Foreign Service was facing a crisis 
that has been developing over multiple years and through successive 
administrations. Specifically, we assessed our career diplomats lacked 
the support, funding, training, flexibility, and leadership development 
opportunities they needed to be as effective as they should be in 
policy development at home and in representing and assisting the 
American people abroad.
    More concerning, this is happening at the same time the United 
States is facing especially complex challenges that require vigorous 
diplomacy to address.
    Morale in the Foreign Service was low, we were told. The failure of 
the State Department to make progress on recruiting, retaining, and 
promoting a diverse workforce, despite years of effort to do so, was a 
contributing factor.
    After a period of reflection and analysis, we concluded that just 
as the Nation invested time and resources in ambitious programs to 
renew both its military and intelligence agencies in recent years, the 
same should be done for our Foreign Service. A non-partisan initiative 
should be launched immediately by the President and the Congress to 
revive, reform, rebuild, and reimagine the Foreign Service of the 
United States.
    Our report includes 10 specific actions that we considered were key 
to giving the Nation the diplomatic capability it will need to 
successfully navigate the foreign policy challenges of the next 
decades.
    Our first recommendation is that the President and the Congress 
redefine the Foreign Service's mission and mandate. Specifically, we 
proposed formally designating the State Department as the lead U.S. 
Government agency in executing relations with every country and 
international organization on the full range of diplomatic, political, 
security and other issues.
    Underlying this recommendation was the idea that the State 
Department should have a major, designated role in formulating U.S. 
foreign policy along with other Cabinet agencies and the National 
Security Council but take the lead role in implementing those policies.
    In addition, the President should reaffirm and reinforce the role 
of all Ambassadors as his personal representatives. This is essential 
to the proper and successful functioning of our embassies abroad, which 
often have representatives of many government agencies.
    At the beginning of his or her mission, all ambassadors receive a 
letter from the President describing their responsibilities and 
authorities over U.S. policies and personnel. Our embassies work very 
well when the role of the Ambassador is well understood and respected 
by all under their authority. Confusion in this regard can lead to 
internal disarray or, worse, confusing signals to foreign counterparts.
    Our second recommendation, closely related to the first, is to 
suggest that Congress pass a new Foreign Service Act. In our 
discussions with Pentagon leaders, they strongly recommended that 
significant changes be included in legislation as was done for the 
military in the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 and for the intelligence 
community in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act of 
2004.
    Forty years on from the Foreign Service Act of 1980, the United 
States faces many new challenges that call for highly sophisticated and 
complex diplomacy, including great power rivalry with China and Russia, 
the global pandemic, the continuing threat of terrorism, the 
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the systems to deliver 
them, and all of this in an era of instant communication and much 
disinformation. There are also an array of challenges brought on by new 
developments in science and technology including cyber, biotech, 
artificial intelligence, internet commerce and data flows, and social 
media. The globalized economy has benefitted some and left others 
behind in tandem with huge changes in technology, fueling political 
challenges in the world.
    We used to train our diplomats to focus on observing geo-political 
developments, advocating for U.S. interests, and reporting back to 
Washington. But in our increasingly complex world, they need an ever-
evolving knowledge set and new tools and partners to address these new 
challenges with the strongest possible hand.
    Not everyone agrees that a new Foreign Service Act is needed. 
Indeed, our report emphasizes that a new Act should preserve what was 
positive and remains fundamental in the previous Acts, including the 
vital leadership role of Ambassadors, the requirement that the Service 
be based on merit principles with admission through impartial and 
rigorous examination, ratings and rank orderings by peer promotion 
boards, worldwide availability, and the separation of those who do not 
meet standards of performance. The report argues for preserving 
provisions related to distinctive pay and benefits for those willing to 
meet the demands and risks of serving their country overseas, a 
separate and fully funded retirement system; and recognition of the 
role of the American Foreign Service Association in the employee-
management system.
    Another important piece of advice we heard from leaders in the 
private sector--as well as our government colleagues--is that 
transformational change cannot be achieved without vigorous internal 
self-examination.
    This led us to our third recommendation which was the need to 
change our own Foreign Service culture.
    There is much to commend about Foreign Service culture, including a 
deep, patriotic commitment to country and to service to that country, 
even if it involves, at times, personal risk. Our partners and 
families, too, often must make sacrifices in their personal lives and 
livelihoods. Foreign Service officers are committed to upholding their 
oath and the best diplomats are extremely hard-working and highly 
professional.
    Yet, there are some aspects of the culture that can make our 
diplomats lives more difficult and the changes we propose challenging 
to achieve. These include, for instance, a belief that additional 
training and professional education are dispensable and a costly 
diversion from career advancement, coupled with a conviction the 
``learn by doing'' model is sufficient. There is insufficient value 
attached to strategic thinking and to technical and scientific 
expertise, to planning, and to program management.
    A more fundamental problem is the debilitating lack of diversity 
and the absence of an institutional culture of inclusion in the Foreign 
Service. Our fourth recommendation is that this problem be addressed 
urgently and as a matter of priority by Department leadership.
    The issue that came up most frequently in our meetings and 
roundtables was the problems engendered by the lack of a diverse work 
force and failure to provide an atmosphere of inclusion for differences 
in race, gender, identity, and different kinds of skills and thought. 
Business leaders pointed to the wealth of research showing that a 
diverse workforce is likely to be more productive and more efficient. 
This would seem to be especially true in the Foreign Service where 
people of diverse backgrounds can make an important contribution to our 
understanding of the cultures with whom our diplomats must interact to 
be successful.
    Clearly the high-performing, reformed, and rebuilt Foreign Service 
we are aiming for cannot succeed without a vigorous plan to make the 
Service more diverse and inclusive.
    The former and current State Department leadership have made a 
start by convening discussions of the problem, including consulting the 
very active ``affinity groups'' and appointing a Chief Diversity 
Officer who reports to the Secretary. Amongst the nominees for high-
level positions in the Department and as ambassadors there appears to 
be a commendable commitment to increasing diversity.
    However, much more needs to be done at every level, including 
recruitment, retention, assignments, and promotion. Our report provides 
many specific recommendations for each. For example, in the area of 
recruitment, our interlocutors commended the Payne, Rangel and 
Pickering fellowships but thought more needed to be done, including 
much broader and deeper outreach to institutions and students from 
around the country, starting even at the high school level.
    This led to our proposal for an ROTC-like program for the Foreign 
Service similar to the programs the military has at multiple colleges 
and universities to attract recruits and give them a head start on 
their service. We also suggested creating paid internships in order to 
extend the opportunity to preview a foreign service career to those who 
cannot afford to pay their own way, much less forgo a summer job while 
also paying for education.
    Based on our discussions of the problem of retention, we strongly 
recommend that measures be taken to make leaders at every level 
accountable for creating an inclusive environment in their work units 
from the smallest to the Department as a whole. This means inculcating 
in our managers from their first time supervising the notion that part 
of their responsibility is recruiting, carefully managing, mentoring, 
and preparing for higher levels of responsibility a diverse work force 
and that in appraising their performance, their success will be 
measured.
    As we said in our report, ``Good intentions are no longer 
sufficient. Tangible action by each officer must now be the norm.''
    We also mentioned the importance of transparency. Publishing 
statistics for all to see will both encourage progress and serve as a 
concrete indicator of whether there has been real improvement.
    Our fifth recommendation is that professional education and 
training should be viewed as a career-long commitment. Having a 
diplomatic service that is at the top of its game is a necessity for 
the United States in a world of increasingly complex challenges, new 
technologies, and new frontiers such as the arctic and space. We were 
reminded by a military colleague that the Foreign Service does not have 
tanks, ships, or fighter aircraft: its most valuable assets and the 
source of its greatest strength are the people who seek to serve as 
America's diplomats. They need and deserve professional education and 
training to thoroughly equip them for the breadth of management and 
policy challenges they face in conducting America's diplomacy and 
leading American embassies abroad.
    Currently, there are few opportunities for study at outside 
academic institutions or to earn degrees. We noted in our report that 
the Harvard Kennedy School last year had over 50 military and 
intelligence officers enrolled and just two foreign service officers.
    Both the American military and diplomats in other, friendly, or 
rival, diplomatic services receive significantly more training upon 
entry and throughout their careers than American diplomats. Chinese 
junior diplomats, for example, receive 6 months training upon entry 
focused on learning about their Ministry and Chinese diplomacy. About 
10 years ago, the French introduced significant mid-career training 
which mixes leadership and management with current broad issue-areas. 
Former Secretary Powell told us that he spent about 7 years total in 
training, while most Foreign Service Officers, even including language 
training, have had far less.
    Our Foreign Service Institute has made a significant start on 
providing a sequence of required courses at intervals throughout a 
career. This should be expanded so that all officers receive 
significant blocks of training lasting several months at four points in 
their careers--upon entry, before promotion to mid-level, at the level 
at which they choose to become a senior officer or retire, and when 
they become senior officers. These should include leadership and 
management skills, but such training should also address current and 
emergent policy issues and strategic thinking, diplomatic skills, and 
tradecraft.
    For such a program to succeed, there would need to be a significant 
change both in service culture to one that sees education as a 
stepping-stone to advancement and by management to weigh more heavily 
knowledge and technical skills, including strong language skills, in 
assignments and promotions.
    There would also need to be more resources devoted to education, 
and more officers for the Service.
    For career-long education to succeed, it would have to be supported 
by a ``training float'' to provide job coverage while officers are in 
training or transitioning. Once authorized and funded, it would be 
critical to ``protect'' these positions for the educational purpose 
described, and not allow them to be usurped to fill ordinary personnel 
vacancies. To avoid this outcome, we suggested a simultaneous objective 
look at staffing worldwide, including persistent and projected 
vacancies. Our supposition was that an additional plus-up would be 
needed to fill those positions.
    Our sixth recommendation is to undertake a determined effort to 
make the personnel system more modern and flexible.
    A first step should be making a serious, global assessment of 
staffing, with the presumption that the majority of foreign service 
officers and specialists should be overseas and that the mega-embassies 
associated with the land wars of the 2000's and other enormous outposts 
of U.S. Government presence abroad should be reduced in size.
    More priority should be put on family needs, including spousal and 
partner employment.
    The perception that the assignment and promotion processes still 
rely on an ``old boys' network'' must be addressed and processes put 
into place that are perceived as valuing professionalism and 
transparent and fair for all.
    The underlying assumption of these proposals is that effective 
diplomacy requires a cadre of practitioners who have been rigorously 
selected, developed deep knowledge and professional skills via years as 
practicing diplomats and are committed to a full career of worldwide 
service.
    Nonetheless, it is a reality that the Service needs the means to 
acquire specific expertise in new scientific and technical fields such 
as cyber, artificial intelligence, data analytics and financial 
technologies.
    This led to our seventh recommendation: a mid-level entry program 
with very specific and rigorous requirements for entry.
    In fact, previous legislation, including both the Foreign Service 
Acts of 1946 and of 1980 have included provisions for mid-level entry. 
The former was used in the 1950s to bring more women into the Service.
    In exchanges with currently serving officers, the concept of mid-
level entry came in for considerable criticism on the grounds that 
promotion was currently slow in the mid-levels and that adding a new 
cohort to the mix would exacerbate the problem. These concerns argue 
for a program that is clearly defined, introduced slowly and which is 
used only for the purposes for which it was designed.
    Our eighth recommendation is to establish a diplomatic reserve 
corps which would augment Foreign Service capabilities. A diplomatic 
reserve corps would allow the Foreign Service and the State Department 
to surge to meet unexpected requirements for additional personnel to 
respond to natural disasters, pandemics, or conflict situations. Like 
military reservists, diplomatic reservists would have regular service 
obligations aimed at maintaining or developing specific skills and 
would be prepared to be deployed on short notice.
    In normal times the Diplomatic Reserve Corps, like its military 
counterparts, would provide people to fill specific needs that the 
regular organization might be unable to meet, including at the State 
Department in Washington, DC.
    Having a Reserve Corps would have the additional advantage of 
giving more Americans the opportunity to serve and would forge a direct 
connection to citizens and communities who might not otherwise be aware 
of the activities of United States diplomats.
    We cannot hope to cultivate and retain the best officers if we do 
not give them the opportunity to serve at progressively senior levels.
    Our ninth recommendation is that the State Department and the 
Foreign Service would be stronger and more non-partisan if the number 
of senior Washington and ambassadorial assignments for career 
professionals were expanded. At the time our report was written there 
were more political appointees serving at State than in any other 
cabinet department. To bring the State Department more in line with 
other cabinet agencies, we proposed setting goals for the numbers of 
career professionals in the top leadership positions in Washington and 
appointing career professionals to 90 percent of all ambassadorial 
positions by 2025.
    This approach would bring the Foreign Service in line with the 
military, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security 
Agency in terms of the ratio of non-career to career employees at 
senior levels.
    Finally, our 10th recommendation is to give to the Foreign Service 
a new, more modern name. Most of our project participants agreed it 
would be appropriate and it would give a strong signal of significant 
transformation.
    We propose ``The United States Diplomatic Service'' as it puts the 
United States first, it correctly labels all employees diplomats, and 
it describes what all are engaged in--service to their country.
    Thank you, and I would be pleased to respond to your questions.

    Senator Cardin. Thank you very much, Madam Ambassador. We 
will now hear from, on the internet, Dr. Slaughter.

STATEMENT OF DR. ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER 
               OF NEW AMERICA FROM WASHINGTON, DC

    Dr. Slaughter. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Hagerty and 
members of the committee, I am honored to be able to testify 
before you today, even if it is long distance and virtual and I 
do not have the little thing to tell me when my 5 minutes are 
up, so I will pay attention to my own clock.
    I am very pleased to be able to talk about such an 
important subject. I want to take Senator Hagerty's invitation 
to be bold and to start by asking you to imagine what a core of 
representatives really bringing the best of our country 
together could look like in representing us around the world. 
Imagine these representatives trained and sworn to advance U.S. 
interests around the world, staffing embassies and missions, or 
trade and cultural offices, who reflect the world and speak the 
world's languages fluently.
    So imagine African Americans in Africa, Asians seeing Asian 
Americans, Latin Americans seeing Hispanic Americans just as 
Europeans have long seen European Americans, and Anglo-Saxons 
having seen Anglo-Saxon Americans; people who look and often 
sound like themselves but were unmistakably American. This is 
not simply about identity being destined, that you come from a 
certain country and you should be sent to that region. Quite 
the contrary, we need many more African Americans who are 
fluent in Mandarin posted all over China, Arab Americans 
speaking Russian posted from Moscow to Vladivostok, or indeed 
Hispanic Americans speaking Swahili or Swedish posted to Africa 
or Europe.
    We are becoming a plurality country, a country that can 
reflect and connect the world. If you look at the deepest ties 
between nations, the biggest flows of trade and investment and 
cultural exchanges, they are between the United States and 
Europe. That is because most of us came from Europe for a long 
time, but we can now have those relations around the world. 
That diversity is a huge advantage in our competition with 
other nations.
    Note that I keep talking about representatives rather than 
diplomats. I am so pleased to be able to testify next to two 
public servants whom I deeply respect, and I have enormous 
regard for diplomats. I think actually we need more than 
diplomats. We need people from business, from the civic sector, 
from education, from sports, from the arts, from religion. We 
need the full range of American talent representing us abroad. 
As I think we all agree, the current Foreign Service was 
created in 1925 as a merger of the consular service and the 
diplomatic service, and although it has been reformed several 
times over the 20th century, we are all talking about a new 
Foreign Service Act.
    I would go further than that. I would ask this committee to 
consider an overhaul of Foreign Service that instead creates a 
new global service open to anyone who is interested in serving 
the country as an official representative abroad. Anyone who is 
willing to sign up for a 7 to 10 year tour, or possibly a 5 
year renewable tour at any point in their career as opposed to 
the current assumption that you sign up for 30 years, making 
your way up a very steep ladder in a trajectory that honestly 
our young people just do not even recognize in any profession 
anymore.
    At best they think of 5- to 10-year chunks of time. So we 
could be bringing people to represent us abroad from every 
different sector, many of who already bring linguistic skills 
and tremendous cultural knowledge as well as knowledge from 
many different sectors. I think such a service would indeed 
allow us to recruit the very best from across the country and 
to look like the country. But also, again, it should bring 
together the skillset needed to put together important public, 
private, and civic partnerships, which is how we are going to 
solve problems in this century.
    We would still of course have rigorous selection criteria 
into this global service, and we would overhaul the Foreign 
Service examination or global service examination and training. 
Again, what we would focus on is how to empower this range of 
global representatives to represent us but also to work not 
only with the diplomats of other nations but the very big 
sectors of other nations as well.
    I know these are grand schemes. You wanted the bold 
suggestions. I think we should really think about what we would 
create if we were starting from scratch in this century and how 
we can best harness the tremendous talent in our country. How 
do we get this done?
    Senator Hagerty, you anticipated me. There is a well-
established playbook here, which is the playbook that was 
followed for the Goldwater-Nichols Commission and then the 
Goldwater-Nichols Act. Congress needs to appoint a commission, 
a bipartisan commission empowered certainly to work with the 
Foreign Service and the Foreign Service union, but also to 
think much more broadly and boldly about where we need to go.
    I would also conclude by encouraging this committee to hold 
hearings but to work as fast as possible. The Administration's 
foreign policy team has many pressing challenges, and this kind 
of structural reform is often at the bottom of the list. 
Indeed, as former deputy Secretary Biegun said, in the end our 
most important asset is our people. We need to be able to 
attract the best people, promote the best people, and again 
reflect the country we are and we are becoming. I hope every 
much that this subcommittee will be able to recommend some 
really bold changes to create a global service that will 
include diplomats, but also development experts and people who 
are knowledgeable in the business sector, the civic sector, and 
many other sectors as well. I look forward to answering your 
questions and I thank you for your time.
    [The prepared statement of Dr. Slaughter follows:]

             Prepared Statement of Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter

    Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Hagerty, thank you for the 
invitation to testify today. I am pleased and honored to be able to 
talk to you about ``Modernizing the State Department for the 21st 
century.''
    Let us begin by looking forward. Imagine how America could be in 
the world. Imagine a corps of official representatives, trained and 
sworn to advance U.S. interests around the globe, staffing embassies, 
missions, trade and cultural offices of all kinds, who reflect the 
world and speak the world's languages fluently. Imagine Africans seeing 
African-Americans, Asians seeing Asian-Americans, Latin Americans 
seeing Latinx Americans, just as Europeans have long seen European 
Americans and Anglo-Saxon countries have seen Anglo-Saxon Americans: as 
people who look and often sound like themselves but who are 
unmistakably American.
    Can we really doubt that the ``special relationship'' between the 
United States and Great Britain is based in part on our close genetic, 
linguistic, and cultural kinship? Is it an accident that the ``Five 
Eyes,'' the three countries in addition to Britain that we are most 
willing to share intelligence with, are Canada, Australia, and New 
Zealand? All branches from the same mother tree?
    Equally important, however, is to demonstrate that identity is not 
destiny. We need far more African-Americans speaking fluent Mandarin 
posted all over China; Arab-Americans speaking Russian posted from 
Moscow to Vladivostok; Hispanic Americans speaking Swahili or Swedish 
posted in Africa and Europe. We are becoming a plurality country that 
will reflect and can connect the world.
    The identity of our official representatives abroad is no small 
thing. It is not a matter of wanting diversity and inclusion because 
those are good things to have and the zeitgeist demands it. The United 
States could do few things more important for its future security and 
prosperity (another is to fund universal early education) than ensure 
that the people who represent America in the world actually look like 
America. Genetic, linguistic, and cultural kinship is obviously not all 
it takes to create enduring bonds between nations. Political systems, 
geography, natural resources, and national values all play key roles. 
Moreover, even countries that appear very similar on the surface, such 
as the U.S. and Canada or Australia, still have plenty of cultural, 
ethical, and political differences. Still, if U.S. representatives 
abroad truly reflected the demography of the United States, we would 
have far greater cultural, linguistic, and historic channels of 
connection with the peoples of other nations
    Note that I keep referring to representatives rather than 
diplomats. I have great respect for diplomats both personally and 
professionally: their trade is to avert, smooth over, and sometimes 
even to resolve arguments, to advance difficult negotiations, and to 
steer without being seen to steer. We need only to look to CIA Director 
William Burns to see a master of the trade and to appreciate the value 
of a diplomatic corps to the country in many situations. Still, 
diplomatic abilities are only one part of the skillset that the Nation 
needs in our relations with other nations in the decades to come.
                 a foreign service for the 21st century
    The current Foreign Service was created in 1925, through a merger 
of the Consular Service and the Diplomatic Service, and reformed 
several times during the 20th century, although its form and the basic 
assumption that diplomacy is a 30-year career with a carefully 
prescribed progression from bottom to top were never changed.\1\ The 
world has moved on, however; young people today typically think about 
their careers in 5 to 10 year chunks. Moreover, it is possible to have 
a global career, in the sense of traveling and living abroad, in many 
different sectors. And the number of Americans who grow up speaking 
their parents' natal language as well as English has steadily increased 
over the last century, changing the recruiting pool for Americans who 
can represent the government abroad.
    A Congressionally mandated overhaul of the Foreign Service could 
create a new Global Service open to anyone interested in serving the 
country as an official representative abroad who is willing to sign up 
for a 7 to 10 year tour, or perhaps a 5 year renewable tour, at any 
stage in their career. Early, mid, or later career individuals could 
bring a tremendous range of skills to the job, as well as languages, 
cultural expertise, and contacts that they developed in other jobs. 
Members of the Global Service could have backgrounds in business, 
technology, civic organizations, education, science, sports, arts, and 
religion.\2\
    Such a service would be far more likely actually to represent the 
actual population of the United States than the Foreign Service. It 
would be possible to recruit people from many different careers at 
different stages in their careers, without requiring them to make a 30-
year commitment to a life of 3-year tours hopscotching between foreign 
countries and Washington. To take only one example, individuals working 
in state or municipal governments in large, medium, and even smaller 
cities could be eligible, particularly those who handling trade, 
climate, security, and other matters that require regional and global 
contacts.
    We would still need rigorous selection criteria, of course, but the 
Foreign Service examination could certainly be overhauled, as could 
training for postings abroad. It might well be that the U.S. approach 
to diplomacy could reduce the endless details of diplomatic protocol 
over time, but we would likely find other countries quickly following 
suit. Much of that protocol is better suited to the 18th century than 
the 21st.
    A great advantage of such a Global Service would be the ability to 
mobilize different kinds of public-private-civic-philanthropic 
partnerships that are now and will increasingly be necessary to tackle 
global problems. These partnerships can also advantage the U.S. in 
great power competition or other foreign policy initiatives. To take 
only one example, when President Obama announced a ``new beginning with 
the Muslim world'' in 2009, he could not offer a governmental Marshall 
Plan. He could, however, have mobilized tremendous resources with the 
systematic ability to work across sectors in at home and in every 
Muslim-majority country.
                            getting it done
    These are grand schemes, perhaps more appropriate for a university 
seminar than a Congressional hearing. Yet they are no grander than the 
reorganization of the U.S. Department of Defense in the Goldwater-
Nichols Act of 1986, strengthening civilian control over the military 
and substantially reducing inter-service rivalry. It took a number of 
years, but it got done.
    The playbook for making major change in Washington is well-
established: appoint a commission. In 1985 the Reagan administration 
appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission led by former Deputy Secretary of 
Defense David Packard to investigate Department of Defense procurement 
and other managerial practices. Years earlier, however, members of 
Congress serving on both the House and the Senate Armed Services 
Committees also sought to investigate a series of botched or mismanaged 
military operations and responses. Both committees launched multi-year 
reviews, supported by work that Senator Sam Nunn commissioned from the 
Center for Strategic and International Studies. These processes 
ultimately converged in the set of reforms that were passed in the 
Goldwater-Nichols Act.
    Congress could come together now and appoint a commission to 
investigate how best to equip the United States for the multi-
stakeholder diplomacy and development needs of the 21st century, 
requiring a report with proposed legislation by the end of 2021. 
Congress could then act on that report in the first half of 2022.
                                why now
    Congressional action is needed urgently. In 2009, the Obama 
administration had a chance to work with Congress to overhaul the 
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to make a host of structural and other 
changes. Senator Levin's office was ready and willing to work with the 
executive branch to get it done. Internal frictions and lack of 
leadership meant that we missed what turned out to be only a 2-year 
window before the midterm elections of 2010. This Congress and this 
Administration should not make that mistake again.
    The Administration's foreign policy team has a host of immediate 
and medium-term challenges. Yet the single most important thing the 
United States can do for decades to come is to ensure that we attract 
the very best talent from across every part of the American population 
to represent us in the world, with the skills and connections necessary 
to engage in new approaches to global problem-solving. As every 
business knows, in times of continual change, plans and policies are 
far less important than people. The workforce in every sector must be 
composed of people who can adapt and respond to new circumstances 
quickly, effectively, and continually.
    The current Foreign Service was created nearly a century ago. It is 
time to take bold action to create a Global Service that will meet U.S. 
needs for the next century, and to create the capabilities that will 
truly give us equal strength and depth in diplomacy, defense, and 
development. The diversity and innovative capacity of the American 
people, reflecting immigration over centuries from the entire world, is 
our greatest strength. It is time we applied that strength to managing 
U.S. relationships with other countries and tackling the problems that 
endanger us all without regard for borders.
    Thank you for your time.

----------------
Notes

    \1\ For an account of the origins of the current Foreign Service, 
see ``The Rogers Act--Short History--Department History--Office of the 
Historian,'' accessed May 12, 2020, https://history.state.gov/
departmenthistory/short-history/rogers.
    \2\ For a more detailed explication of this proposal, see Anne-
Marie Slaughter, ``Reinventing the State Department,'' Democracy 
Journal, https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/reinventing-the-state-
department/.

    Senator Cardin. Well, let me, Dr. Slaughter, thank you for 
your testimony and let me thank all three of our witnesses. You 
have given us some really bold suggestions and ways in which we 
can try to improve our diplomacy around the world. We will 
start 5-minute rounds with Senator Kaine.
    Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Senator Hagerty and 
what a good hearing. Three great witnesses. The Belfer Center 
report has a lot of intriguing suggestions in it. I think the 
U.S. diplomatic corps rather than Foreign Service to put U.S. 
first, put diplomats first or U.S. global corps or global 
serves. Professor Slaughter mentioned there is intriguing 
aspects there. There are other things about the report that I 
would dig into, but with only 5 minutes, I think I will just 
ask one question and see if all three of you might address it.
    Figuring out the right structure and role for the State 
Department and its great employees in the 21st Century right 
now and going forward, you have to analyze other pieces of the 
puzzle. Another significant one is the National Security 
Council, my observation during the time that I have been here. 
I think it is a trend that maybe pre-dated my coming in 2013. I 
certainly heard Senator McCain talk about this a lot, is as the 
NSC has grown, it has often sort of maybe sucked some of the 
expertise power, decision-making authority from State 
Department more into the White House.
    Senator McCain leveled the same critique about it pulling 
some of the decision-making power from the Pentagon into the 
White House. He was sort of a critique of a large NSC, not 
because of just sheer size but I think he wanted the DoD and 
State to be very empowered both in the secretaries, but in 
everybody in those two important parts of the Executive Branch 
to do the missions assigned to it. You worry about it growing 
NSC as sort of centering power in the White House and sort of 
neutering to some degree state and DoD.
    So if each of the witnesses could address sort of NSC state 
balance as we think about this going forward, I would 
appreciate hearing your thoughts about it.
    Mr. Biegun. I will take a shot at that first, Senator 
Kaine, thank you. I have had the opportunity to view this 
dynamic both as poacher and gamekeeper. I served as a senior 
NSC staffer for President Bush and his Deputy Secretary in the 
Trump administration. Some of these, some of the phenomenon you 
describe seem to be endemic and eternal but it does not mean 
they should not be taken on. You are absolutely right, and 
Senator McCain was absolutely right, that the agencies should 
be expected to be the lead executors of policy, and that 
Congress should expect that as well because the agencies are 
answerable to the oversight of this committee, unlike the White 
House.
    So the Congress and the executive departments have a shared 
interest in this. Some of it is personality driven, and it 
depends on who the national security advisor is, who the 
secretary is, and who are the President's preferences are. 
Structurally, a NSC of limited size and of a well-defined role 
as a coordinating body rather than as a policy making body do 
in my view produce the best outcome for government.
    We have had national security advisors who have felt that 
way. Brent Scowcroft is famously the example I think almost 
every national security advisor when they ascent to that 
honorable position attest to wanting to live up to the legacy 
of General Scowcroft but few do. The press of events, the 
parties of the President, the intermingling of politics and 
policy over time can erode the authorities of the State 
Department and draw those decisions to the NSC. This is a 
process reform. I mentioned in my testimony, Senator Kaine, I 
look at it as people, process, and policy are the three likes 
of the stool and getting the process right is incredibly 
important to having that empowered foreign service that 
Ambassador Ries and Dr. Slaughter have discussed.
    Senator Kaine. Great. Ambassador Ries.
    Ms. Ries. Thank you. First, I agree with Steve Biegun that 
the National Security Council, when it functions as a 
coordinating body works extremely well. The example that he 
gave would have been the one that I would have given as well. I 
think that the partnership between the National Security 
Council and the State Department is very important. One way of 
strengthening the partnership, which we suggested in our 
report, would be when the National Security Council sets up 
various committees to discuss problems and proposals, to have 
the State Department chair them. That would seem to be a 
formula for the partnership to work very well.
    Moreover, there is the point that much of the staff of the 
National Security Council come from the State Department. This 
is what I would describe as a force multiplier. That aspect of 
the cooperative working relationship works well and should be 
continued.
    Senator Kaine. I am over my time, Mr. Chair. Could we ask 
Dr. Slaughter if she would want to weigh in just for a second? 
Thank you.
    Senator Cardin. Certainly.
    Dr. Slaughter. Thank you, Senator Kaine. It is good to see 
you. So I agree that when the National Security Council is too 
big, then they think they have the capacity to actually drive 
things rather than to coordinate, and that is a problem. They 
really should be appointing lead agencies. I think what 
Ambassador Ries suggested in their report made sense, but I 
would say, the NSC should be leaner. It should appoint lead 
agencies, but not automatically turn to the State Department to 
chair. Part of what it has to do is also allow USAID or other 
agencies that really often have tremendous knowledge also to be 
able to lead at time.
    Senator Cardin. Senator Hagerty.
    Senator Hagerty. Thank you, Chairman Cardin. Senator Kaine, 
I want to thank you very much for that insightful question. I 
would just like to add one thing because your time did not run 
over but I think I would love to continue this conversation. I 
took a hard look at this when I served on a volunteer basis 
helping the transition process in government. Back when the 
41st presidency when General Scowcroft was running the NAC, the 
size of the NAC staff, and Steve you will help me with this, 
was about 50-70 people. I looked at it again in 2016, it was 
about 450. So that is a massive expansion just if you look at 
the numbers alone.
    So I think that we ought to constantly think about this and 
the scope of our thought process here as we envision and 
reimagining I guess our diplomacy going into the 21st Century 
because the coordinating function, I agree with Dr. Slaughter, 
certainly runs a great risk of being overwhelmed with the 
driving function when you get an entity of that size. So thank 
you for raising that, and I would encourage us to keep that in 
mind as we move forward. I would like to open with a question 
for Secretary Biegun. You know, inertia is the most powerful 
force in the universe, and you mentioned in your testimony the 
fact that opinions can be long held, interests can be vested.
    Change is challenging. You have had the experience in the 
corporate world and a deep experience here in government 
dealing with the challenge of effecting change. I would like to 
ask you first, over 41 years since the last time this act was 
redone, much has happened. In that context, what would you 
perceive is the risk if we do not affect change at this point 
in time.
    Mr. Biegun. Yes. Thank you, Senator. Forty-one years is 
much too long. Just nearest and dearest to me one of the most 
pressing issues I confronted as the Deputy Secretary of State 
was the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the second global pandemic 
since 1980 that the United States has endured. The HIV/AIDS 
pandemic took the lives of 700,000 Americans. It is largely 
believed that that virus was originated in Africa. The COVID-
19, which is largely believed to have originated in China has 
taken the lives of 600,000 Americans. Yet, in 2020 when it came 
time to respond to that pandemic, we had to build it on the 
fly. We were building the plane as we were flying it.
    Now, the State Department and it is incredible talent can 
overcome a lot of obstacles. Still, something like a retired 
diplomatic core like Ambassador Ries recommended would have 
been of enormous benefit to us, especially if people had 
experience in these things. We need our diplomats out there at 
the front lines of where issues like global pandemics, right? 
That is just one issue of dozens of issues that the Nation has 
left exposed if we do not have a more agile and responsive 
diplomacy. So I was sobered by my experience as deputy, and I 
think that this kind of thoughtful reform and restructuring, 
the Department gave us tools to respond to the crisis of the 
future in a much better way.
    Senator Hagerty. Thank you. I would just like to follow up 
with another point to both yourself, Secretary Biegun, and to 
Dr. Slaughter. You both have spoken about the need to form a 
commission. I would love to get your input. We may not have 
enough time today to do this but both in terms of the process 
and the composition of that commission, I agree with the notion 
to be bold. Dr. Slaughter, you refer to the roadmap already 
being in place from the Goldwater-Nichols Act. I think that we 
would benefit greatly from the learning and the experience that 
you all have studied as we think about a commission going 
forward. I would love to get your comments. I will start with 
you, Secretary Biegun.
    Mr. Biegun. Thank you, Senator. So a commission can be a 
very useful way to do this, and I was here for the Goldwater-
Nichols process and saw the enormous impact that it had on the 
structure of our defense Department. It was and is a lasting 
improvement in our defense and probably helped us prevail in 
the Cold War because of its effectiveness. We do need a similar 
thing. That wasn't done outside of the work of the Armed 
Services Committee was done with the Armed Services Committee. 
My only appeal would be that this committee maintain its 
leadership role and its counterpart in the house in trying to 
effect that kind of change.
    You can rely upon that broad set of expertise, and I agree 
completely with Dr. Slaughter. This is not something that the 
State Department or the State Department career officials alone 
can resolve this. It has to have outside perspective from every 
dimension of American society. This committee has to play a 
leading role if that is going to be a successful effort.
    Senator Hagerty. Well put. I agree with that. Dr. 
Slaughter, we are running at the end of time but a quick 
comment would be most appreciated.
    Dr. Slaughter. Well, it will be quick because I completely 
agree on two things. One, Congress absolutely has to stay 
actively involved. Goldwater-Nichols had the Center for 
Strategic and International Studies do a part of the 
preparatory work, but the committees drove it. Two, yes, it 
will only work if this is a Congressional commission that then 
turns into legislation and not yet another report that gets 
read but not implemented.
    Senator Hagerty. Thank you.
    Senator Cardin. It is very interesting that the diplomacy 
is there to try to prevent conflict as one of its major 
responsibilities. If they are not successful, we have defense 
that can come to our rescue and provide the military might to 
deal with conflict. In the Defense Department, in defense 
budget, we have built redundancies so that we can surge and 
take care of contingencies that could occur that is in our 
national security interest to defend against. At state, we 
really do not have that capacity to surge. I think we have 
missed opportunities where there were opportunities for us to 
make major advancements in building democratic states to 
prevent conflict. We in some cases acted just too slowly. Also, 
it is a challenge to get the international community to work in 
a unified manner.
    So I am interested in drilling down a little more on the 
concept of the diplomatic reserve corps and global service. It 
seems like these two are somewhat aimed at a similar problem, 
and how that would conform to the Foreign Service Act and the 
challenges that it might be presented under the Foreign Service 
Act in order to have this type of a corps available to serve 
diplomacy, particularly if we wish to surge in a particular 
area. So perhaps I will start with Ambassador Ries because I 
think you had suggested the diplomatic corp. And Then perhaps 
Dr. Slaughter on the global service.
    Ms. Ries. Thank you, Senator Cardin. Actually, I am an 
example of what happens when a surge is needed. I was a sitting 
ambassador in Albania and I left my post in order to go to Iraq 
to be the political military counselor there. The others who 
were in the leadership team all had been pulled from other 
posts. So the idea that we would have a reserve corps, which 
could be our surge capacity, I think, is something that is 
really needed. When you look at what the military reserves 
include, we could employ the same basic framework of regular 
service, of a willingness to be deployed worldwide. This would 
provide the Service with a bank of skills and perhaps language 
capabilities to draw upon.
    They would have once a month service responsibility the way 
as the military reserve corps does. Retired Foreign Service 
officers could be members, and family members could also 
participate. There are a lot of interesting ways that this kind 
of a corps could be put together. I think it is very much 
needed. As you mentioned, we do not have a reserve capacity of 
any sort and this would be a way to do it.
    Senator Cardin. Dr. Slaughter.
    Dr. Slaughter. I strongly agree that we need more reserve 
capacity. Again, the idea of the Global Services is that you go 
beyond diplomatic capacity. You also have development 
expertise. I am reading a wonderful book right now by Fatema 
Sumar, who served under Senator Kerry when he chaired the SFRC, 
talking about being a development diplomat needing both those 
skills. Again, we also need business skills, working with civil 
society.
    My father served in the Navy on active duty only for 3 
years, but he was in the naval reserve for decades. So I would 
encourage us to think about connecting the idea of a reserve 
corps to the idea of shorter stints of service in a Global 
Service, instead of having to work your way up from the bottom. 
I want us to be able to see a leading NGO leading, or a top 
business person, or a university professor who then says, ``You 
know, I want to serve my country for a tour of duty that could 
be 7 to 10 years, or 5 years renewable. I will do the training, 
but I am not going to follow this traditional ladder. I will 
get my experience in other sectors.'' Then allow all those 
folks to be part of our reserve.
    Senator Cardin. Thank you. Each one of you have mentioned 
the issue of our workforce and diversity, and I want to drill 
down a little bit on the workforce diversity issue. We 
obviously want our workforce to reflect diversity of our Nation 
but also the diversity of the global community, and that is not 
an easy assignment. Historically, there have been challenges in 
the diversity at this State Department. When I look at our, the 
resources that we are spending, I see that in training we spend 
about 50 percent of the funds for language training. Yet, we 
find that we have in at least one out of every four assignments 
that require language skills, the minimum standards are not 
being met.
    Then lastly, there is the issue of diversity as it relates 
to the assignment that may be not as welcomed by the host 
country, and there could be safety issues. Should that even be 
a consideration in our assignments at the State Department. I 
welcome your thoughts as to how we deal holistically with this 
diversity issue to make sure that our workforce has the best 
diversity to carry out the mission that we have in diplomacy.
    Mr. Biegun. Mr. Chairman, that was an issue that I spent an 
enormous amount of time over the past year tackling, working 
very closely with different focus groups inside the Department, 
including mid-career people, to try to get a sounding often 
anecdotal but nonetheless a large number on what were driving 
their choices at the middle of their career in the State 
Department. Also, the State Department has a tremendous asset 
in a number of affinity groups, which can help communicate with 
leadership on the interests of different parts of the 
Department.
    I found it is simplest to break this down into three 
particular areas. One is recruitment, the second is 
development, and the third is retention. Within that, all three 
have to be right. The State Department actually is doing better 
than it has in the past in recruitment. The funnel has opened 
much more wider to Americans to join the Department in the A-
100 classes, the entry level classes, that I saw during my 
tenure were impressively diverse and full of just the most 
amazing young and not-so-young talent because we recruit people 
from all ages as well, but we are definitely having a problem 
in the middle mid-career level.
    There is something that is happening in the State 
Department career cycle that is affecting our employees, and 
particularly our people of color. Because the numbers start to 
shift when you get to about tenures in the Department. I think 
it has a lot to do with our training and development, it has a 
lot to do with our promotional processes in the Department, and 
both of those deserve very close scrutiny. Training somebody to 
advance inside the organization is the best way to signal to 
them that there is a figure for them in the organization. When 
you do not invest in training them, and if the leadership isn't 
there to recruit them for promotional opportunities, it is very 
easy for them to interpret that as a signal that they are not 
wanted in the Department. Because the State Department is still 
able to track the best talent in this country, they are also at 
risk.
    The State Department has to offer a better value 
proposition for every employee 10 years in or we will lose them 
to the private sector, or to NGOs or non-profits. Or they will 
simply choose to stay home with their families where they may 
make a better work-life balance than they get in the 
Department.
    Senator Cardin. Ambassador Ries.
    Ms. Ries. I agree that the mid-level is the problem area. 
One of the things that we heard a great deal from people with 
whom we spoke was that first-time managers were the ones that 
really needed training on how to create an atmosphere of 
inclusiveness. In our proposal, we suggest that there ought to 
be significant periods of training at the various levels of the 
Foreign Service, but training for first-time managers in 
particular would be very important. The second point that I 
would make is we have to have accountability at every level. We 
need to hold all officers accountable for promoting diversity 
and inclusion in the service. That means whether it be in 
promotion or in assignments whether that officer has shown 
themselves to be a person who promotes an atmosphere of 
inclusion in his or her work unit should be taken into account.
    Senator Cardin. Dr. Slaughter, in answering this question, 
it is clear we need leadership at the State Department to 
implement the type of recommendations that we just heard from. 
Is there a role that Congress can play in advancing these 
priorities on diversity?
    Dr. Slaughter. I think so. We have a huge number of 
Americans now who grow up bilingual in many, many languages, 
far more than a couple of decades ago. So we have a lot of our 
talent already out there. One of the things that Congress can 
do again is to overhaul the way we think about these tours of 
duties to attract more folks, but the other is to revisit the 
idea of the 3-year tour in a country, after which you are sent 
not only to another country, but to another region of the 
world. You might spend 3 years in Vietnam and master Vietnamese 
then you might be sent to Peru. You are not likely to be sent 
to Japan in part because of fears that you will ``go native,'' 
if you spend too much time in one region.
    Other foreign services do not do that, right? You know one 
Asian language and then you learn another, and another as you 
move around a region. There is a lot of room there I think for 
recruiting differently. Yes, training and management always 
very important, but also looking at what are our rules about 
mid-career hiring, allowing people to bring in expertise and 
then to build on it from their post?
    Senator Cardin. Thank you. Senator Hagerty.
    Senator Hagerty. If you will indulge me, Senator Cardin, I 
might just carry forward a few further questions that this 
conversation has sparked.
    Senator Cardin. Sure.
    Senator Hagerty. I was particularly intrigued by Dr. 
Slaughter's perspective on bringing in new types of people 
making the system more diverse, allowing us access to new types 
of talent pools. It struck me at the same time, Ambassador 
Ries, you participated in the Harvard study on reimagining the 
American diplomacy in our foreign service. Something that came 
from that study, the Harvard study was talking about the need 
for change in the culture of the Department. The study talked 
about an internal caste system.
    I think about the idea that Dr. Slaughter brings to bear, 
which I find quite attractive, but at the same time 
acknowledging the reality that I saw when I served as an 
ambassador myself within the State Department. Here, I am 
talking about the difference in treatment between a Foreign 
Service officer and a civil servant. I would think, and again 
my private experience that merit should be the primary driver 
of how a person is promoted, how a person is treated within the 
Department. There very much is a sense that there is an 
internal caste system within the State Department today. We are 
talking about ways to reimagine that, I know, but I think it is 
a very real concern. I think that a system that puts a priority 
on personnel category, on tenure rather than merit, is 
something that seriously needs to be reexamined.
    I think we all know the case, I will not mention the name, 
of a civil servant that was recruited by an ambassador to be a 
DCM, a Deputy Chief of Mission, the Chief Operating Officer, 
because that ambassador felt that the person had the management 
talent I presume that they wanted to see. Yet, we had the 
Foreign Service Grievance Board ruled that that individual had 
to return to Washington. They filed a complaint, the union 
filed a complaint, to not allow that to happen. It required 
Secretary Albright to intervene to change that situation.
    That sends a very troubling message to the folks at the 
State Department. It reinforces this caste system sort of 
perspective, and it is something that I hope that we will 
tackle. Ambassador Ries, I would like to get your perspective 
on how we would go about addressing the way that the American 
Foreign Service Association looks at the building there. How we 
go about including our civil servants more in a greater 
fashion. How we send the right sort of message as we help think 
through how the State Department determines assignments.
    Ms. Ries. Thank you, Senator. I think that we are seeing a 
kind of a transformation of how do we approach the policy 
issues that we deal with in the State Department. Dr. Slaughter 
has mentioned in her own writings that today we are facing a 
lot of problems related to science and technical matters, and 
global issues such as climate change.
    Because civil servants are experts, for whom I have great 
respect, are deep experts in many subjects, they tend to be 
serving in those functional bureaus that deal with these global 
issues. As we start to deal with these issues, there is going 
to be a lot more emphasis on civil servants' talents in dealing 
with these very serious issues. A clear example is the Arms 
Control Bureau, which I served.
    Senator Cardin. I have been told your mic is not on. If you 
could turn that on and answer it.
    Ms. Ries. My apologies.
    Senator Hagerty. Yes. It is on now.
    Ms. Ries. Thank you. As we deal with these global problems, 
we will see that we are relying more and more on civil 
servants. If I could clarify the reference to a ``caste 
system.'' Our use of the term in our report referred to the 
division of Foreign Service Officers into cones and our 
recommendation that we abolish them. This would eliminate cones 
as a means of ``racking and stacking'' Foreign Service 
Officers. We should consider all of our officers to be 
multifunctional, and therefore expect them to be competent in 
all of the different areas.
    Senator Hagerty. I certainly saw that conal hierarchy as 
well in my embassy, but I was thinking particularly, it at 
least brought that that term brought to mind the difference in 
perspective of great civil service staff that we have in the 
State Department with long institutional knowledge. I think we 
have a lot of opportunity there. Secretary Biegun, I know you 
have spent time on this issue too. I would love to get your 
thoughts.
    Mr. Biegun. It was not easy to manage the multifaceted 
Department of State because competition for assignments and the 
frequency of rotations led to a constant reward and constant 
disappointment by the people who were seeking advancement in 
the building. I tried a couple of times to weigh it in, to 
manage expectations, and I think hand-fist to the--this 
requires a very deep rethink. Ambassador Ries does mention that 
the largest proportion of civil service employees are in 
functional bureaus, but that is not the entirety of it.
    We do have blends of civil service and Foreign Service, 
including in the embassies and including up to the ranks of 
ambassador. That blurred line between the two invites all sorts 
of misperception, including the perception that there is a cast 
system. That not to mention the compensation levels and the 
personnel practices and the legal structures are all different, 
and yet these people are co-existing within the same Department 
of State is a challenge to manage.
    We also have a third set of employees, which are locally 
employed staff, at least the line is there a little bit more 
clear. Those are non-U.S. citizens working in support of the 
Department's mission abroad. Then we have contractors as well 
who come in. I think there is an opportunity here for a 
complete rethink of how we menage that blended workforce, and 
how we lead that blended workforce to ensure we do not have 
this kind of perception, that there are different casts inside 
the Department. That perception is a real one and exists. I 
know it.
    Senator Hagerty. On a final note, I would just like to 
underscore a point that you made about training. As a business 
person, when I came into my role as ambassador, and I keep 
focusing back on the past, but that is, it is a very recent 
experience for me, I was shocked at the lack of relevant 
training. There is a tremendous amount of language training 
that goes on. If you look at the budget, we spend a lot of 
money and a lot of time and a lot of hours on training people 
on languages, and they count that as training in the way they 
capture it.
    There is a lot of times spent on orientation. I went 
through it myself for a month going through an orientation 
process. If you look at functional training, at geographic area 
training, the types of things that Ambassador Ries talked 
about, there is a real dearth of training there. That was 
certainly my perception. Now, we rely on experience and 
hopefully assigning a junior person to a more senior person 
that has experience in the area, but you know how the rotation 
system works.
    Mr. Biegun. Yes.
    Senator Hagerty. A lot of times, that falls through.
    Mr. Biegun. Well, I want to amplify what Ambassador Ries 
said because it was in slightly tactical language and maybe it 
did not register. She said 15 percent of the State Department's 
workforce should be basically in training at any given time. 
That does not happen today, and in fact oftentimes with both 
the pace of our rotation and the pressing needs to get new 
personnel out to post, supervisors will press people to start 
their assignment and to forego training. The Pentagon would 
never do that. The United States military will never take 
somebody off of deployment and put them on to a new deployment, 
and maybe in the most critical needs of the country.
    Senator Hagerty. South Africa.
    Mr. Biegun. As a routine matter, it would be unforgivable. 
The way the Pentagon has a unit deployed is there is one 
trainee to go to deployment, there is one deployed, and then 
the one that was deployed is back in training again afterwards. 
State Department does not preserve that ability for our 
officers to do so, and we have to. Now, whether we shrink the 
mission, improve, increase the size of the people, or just 
enforce it upon the existing organization as it is, we have to. 
It is not just management training, it is not just issues 
training, it is leadership training too.
    I have a pet view that, pet theory, that a lot of our 
diversity issues are bad leadership. We just need to train 
people to not make hasty or biased decisions, but to reflect 
and make seasoned decisions. That is a responsibility of 
leadership because a diverse organization is a stronger 
organization for the United States of America, or for the 
private sector in a corporation. It starts with the leaders, 
and we have to train the leaders.
    Senator Hagerty. Thank you.
    Senator Cardin. I want to add one additional point to this 
diversity of assignments that we have in the State Department. 
You have already mentioned the potential challenge between 
those that are in functional bureaus and those that are in 
missions, and the coordination and perhaps bureaucracy, the 
responsibilities of the Chief Admission. Then we have special 
representatives that we have proliferated over a long period of 
time.
    We tried to contract that in the last Congress, and I think 
we had some success in doing that. Are we creating too many 
additional lines of responsibility rather than trying to 
coordinate things better? Every time we have a change of 
Administration by party, we get all the confirmation hearings 
here in the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 
and I do not think we realized how many different bureaus we 
have, and how many different positions that have to get 
confirmed by United States Senate. A lot of these positions 
will not be confirmed for a long period of time because of the 
volume, sheer volume of this. As we look at doing things more 
efficiently, are we just creating a special person for every 
time we have an issue rather than trying to empower the 
structure itself to be more efficient?
    Mr. Biegun. Again, gamekeeper and poacher here speaking. I 
have long advocated that we minimize, probably not eliminate, 
but minimize special representatives. There can be good reasons 
for them. It can be an issue that is of such priority that 
needs that focus. Both Congress as legislation and the 
Executive Branch's own decisions have created these positions. 
As a general rule, we should employer the bureaus in the State 
Department to have responsibility for the full set of issues.
    I think that I am a, again, process is one of the three 
legs of the stool that I think we need to look at, and good 
process is a good flat organization that has clear lines of 
authority in the corporate world that that is what leaders 
aspire to, and then the Federal Government, it should be the 
same. There are good reasons for special representatives. At 
time, it is an issue so compelling, so urgent. Or, for example, 
the case in North Korea where we did not have, we do not have 
an embassy. Personnel in the country, at least the--there is a 
vacuum there that could be filled with a special 
representative.
    It also can be an admission of failure that the--either the 
speed of confirmation for officials on the issue, which is 
another issue that the Department grapples with across 
administrations, or an absence of leadership inside the 
Department leads to the Congress mandating the creation of a 
special representative. I think we should be very, very 
judicious. I do not want to take a blanket rule to it, but I 
think the special representatives should be the exception.
    Senator Cardin. Ambassador Ries, any comment on that?
    Ms. Ries. I agree with Steve.
    Senator Cardin. Thank you. Dr. Slaughter.
    Dr. Slaughter. Yes. I used to sit in my office in 
government and imagine ``Google for Government.'' I used to 
think if I could take whatever problem came across my desk--
diplomatic problem, a development problem and just Google 
everybody across government who has really specific expertise 
and put them together on a taskforce to address the problem and 
then dissolve it, it would be so valuable. More like the team 
model in consulting firms. Obviously, that cannot happen. The 
stove piping in these rigid vertical hierarchies means we do 
not tap a lot of our talent. So often what happens with these 
special representatives is they are the people who can 
crosscut.
    I would suggest that if you change the nature of the people 
who serve, you will find that more of them have the kind 
outside stature, that special representatives often have. You 
are bringing people in, like a former senator or a former CEO, 
who has outside stature to corral all the different actors and 
report to the Present or the Secretary on a problem. If you 
change the folks who are in the service and you give them much 
more ability again to cut across different issues, also based 
on their outside experience, it may well be that we will have 
less perceived need to go outside.
    Senator Cardin. Thank you for that response.
    Senator Hagerty. Chairman Cardin, I would just add one 
comment to that very insightful question, and that is we should 
look at this in the scope of moving forward. I saw precisely 
the same thing, an embassy that was full of talent, a State 
Department that had tremendous talent, and the need for these 
sort of crosscutting skillsets and teams to function well 
together. Steve Biegun was a great example of somebody that we 
brought in I think in an appropriate role to serve as our 
special envoy for North Korea at the outset. At the same time, 
the system does not reward cutting across. The system is, I 
think, fairly rigid in many respects and it takes extra effort 
to do that. I think we need to look at the personnel system and 
create the opportunity and the environment to make that 
possible. So thank you.
    Senator Cardin. Thank you, Senator Hagerty. Let me just 
make an observation. You have all indicated we need to take a 
fresh look at this State Department and diplomacy for the 21st 
century, and that we have not done that for a long time. That 
the, any administration is so busy on so many different things 
that this is not going to be a high priority and therefore get 
sort of pushed to the back. So that we have a responsibility in 
Congress to figure out a way forward to deal with how we can 
get our input into having the most efficient effective 
diplomatic agency as we possibly can.
    So we are going to continue to try to figure out the way 
forward, whether it is a commission or whether it is a work in 
this committee with it is judicial hearings, we are going to 
figure out a way to move forward. It seems to me that one area 
that came out of this hearing is training, that we could really 
drill down and try to do something specific to deal with the 
training programs. It does appear to me that it is inadequate 
from that port of view of the resources that are being devoted 
to training. It seems to me that we are missing the opportunity 
to retain and promote a more diverse workforce by the use of 
training.
    It seems to me that we have gaps because of how we do not 
train for certain areas and have concentrated on traditional 
training, which may not be the most important for the 21st 
century, and the needs that we have in the 21st century. So I 
think training does offer an opportunity for us to make some 
maybe immediate progress in looking at it this year.
    I also think the recommendations for surge capacity, 
whether it is a reserve corps or whether it is global service 
or some form of utilizing talent that is out there to help 
backfill particular when key personnel are taken out of a 
mission in order to deal with a problem somewhere in the world 
is something that we need. I just came back from Bulgaria and 
which you could appreciate--or maybe it was Austria, it was us 
in Austria, where they backfilled with people that really were 
not at all familiar with the problems in the country. It does 
not mean that they are not handling our mission there but it 
is--it would be I think better if we had a broader pool that we 
could utilize to meet our diplomatic missions when we have 
vacancies for whatever reason.
    In this case, we do not have confirmed ambassadors so we 
had, and our Chief of Mission had to go home for a specific 
reason. Deputy--DCM had to go home for a particular reason, so 
we had no one to actually be there, so we had to bring someone 
in who was a quick learn. That is fine. It seems to me there 
could be a better and more efficient way to deal with those 
types of problems. Then you mention just in passing the Foreign 
Service Act. I think it really is time for us to take a look at 
the Foreign Service Act working with the stakeholders to see 
whether we cannot update those laws.
    So I think there is a lot of areas that we can advance. I 
think all three of you have really helped us in trying to focus 
on what we can do. This is our first hearing. This subcommittee 
was not terribly active in the last Congress. We intend to be a 
lot more active in this Congress, and again I thank Senator 
Hagerty for his commitment and interest and his background, 
which can really help us in dealing with these issues. I have 
been advised that the record will stay open until the end of 
the week in the event that any member has questions for the 
record. Again, I thank our witnesses for their participation in 
this hearing. With that, the subcommittee will stand adjourned. 
Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                              [all]