American Diplomacy at Risk: A Report from the American Academy of Diplomacy

The Foreign Service is being deliberately undermined, a new AAD report warns. The Academy offers 23 recommendations to reverse the threat to American diplomacy.
BY RONALD E. NEUMANN  |  http://www.afsa.org/american-diplomacy-risk-report-american-academy-diplomacy?utm_source=Daily+Media+Digest&utm_campaign=ec3fa2b2db-AFSA_Media_Digest_7_13_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e87ea75dce-ec3fa2b2db-215349973

The American Academy of Diplomacy released the report, American Diplomacy at Risk, on April 1.

Despite many excellent people and successes, American diplomacy is facing serious problems. American Diplomacy at Risk, the latest report from the American Academy of Diplomacy, goes beyond cataloging problems to offer numerous specific, actionable recommendations.
The problems it addresses were initially surfaced in a Washington Post opinion piece published on April 11, 2013, which I joined former AFSA President Susan Johnson and retired Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering in writing. The op-ed drew strong support and some strong criticism, particularly charges that it was elitist and anti-Civil Service. Those criticisms were wrong then and they are wrong now, as a close reading of our report will show. (The full text is available at www.academyofdiplomacy.org.)
ADAR (as we will refer to the report henceforth) does not just describe the problem, but offers solutions. The contents of the report should concern all active-duty, retired and prospective Foreign and Civil Service personnel. It is the product of a year’s work by a drafting team including Thomas Boyatt, Susan Johnson, Lange Schermerhorn and Clyde Taylor under an advisory committee co-chaired by Thomas Pickering and Marc Grossman and a red team, listed in the report.