The Foreign Service Of The United States

Inside a U.S. Embassy is widely recognized as the essential guide to the Foreign Service. This all-new third edition takes readers to more than fifty U.S. missions around the world, introducing Foreign Service professionals and providing detailed descriptions of their jobs and firsthand accounts of diplomacy in action. In addition to profiles of diplomats and specialists around the world-from the ambassador to the consular officer, the public diplomacy officer to the security specialist-is a selection from more than twenty countries of day-in-the-life accounts, each describing an actual day on.

Career Diplomacy—now in its second edition—is an insider's guide that examines the foreign service as an institution, a profession, and a career. Harry W. Kopp and Charles A. Gillespie, both of whom had long and distinguished careers in the foreign service, provide a full and well-rounded picture of the organization, its place in history, its strengths and weaknesses, and its role in American foreign affairs. Based on their own experiences and through interviews with over 100 current and former foreign service officers and specialists, the authors lay out what to expect in a foreign service career, from the entrance exam through midcareer and into the senior service—how the service works on paper, and in practice. The second edition addresses major changes that have occurred since 2007: the controversial effort to build an expeditionary foreign service to lead the work of stabilization and reconstruction in fragile states; deepening cooperation with the U.S. military and the changing role of the service in Iraq and Afghanistan; the ongoing surge in foreign service recruitment and hiring at the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development; and the growing integration of USAID’s budget and mission with those of the Department of State.

Heir to a tradition that predates the founding of the Republic, the Foreign Service of the United States has been representing U.S. interests abroad for more than two centuries. During that time, it has undergone organizational changes and acquired new functions in a process of adaptation to changing circumstances. Today, Foreign Service personnel in five different foreign affairs agencies work together and join with other elements of the federal government to help shape and execute the foreign policy of the United States. After tracing the Service from its origins to the structure established by the Foreign Service Act of 1980, Andrew Steigman describes the composition of the modern Foreign Service and offers a succinct account of the work done by its members at home and abroad. He concludes with an assessment of the problems posed for the Service by societal change and by the spread of terrorism and offers some cogent thoughts about the Service’s future.