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Article: The Rigors of Foreign Service.(Essay)
- Article from:
- American Diplomacy
- Article date:
- January 8, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 American Diplomacy Publishers. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Some commentators have taken Foreign Service personnel to task for objecting to forced assignments to Iraq. Now that the Iraq posts have been filled by volunteers, it's time to put the issue into some context. There are about 11,500 people in the Foreign Service, 6,500 commissioned officers and 5,000 support staff such as security personnel and IT staff. The military has more full colonels/Navy captains and more band members than the State Department has diplomats.
To make matters worse, various studies estimate the staffing shortfall in the Foreign Service--a result of under funding not lack of interest--to be as large as 1,000 to 2,000 positions. In 2007 the ...