By Virginia Stratford
Foreign Service officers are now being stationed in local communities in an effort to use transformational diplomacy to help foreign citizens, said a deputy director from the Department of State Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2006, at the Kennedy Center.
'I am the boot camp instructor of America''s diplomats,' said John Dinkelman, deputy director of the Orientation Division, Foreign Service Institute, Department of State, who trains all incoming Foreign Service officers. 'Diplomacy requires better jointness between our nation and soldiers.'
Dinkelman, who graduated from BYU with degrees in business and Spanish, drew his remarks heavily from a speech delivered by Secretary Condoleezza Rice at Georgetown University on January 18, 2006. Rice defines transformational diplomacy as working with other partners around the world to build and sustain democratic states that will respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system.
'Transformational diplomacy is rooted in partnership; not in paternalism,' Dinkelman said, quoting Rice. 'In doing things with people, not for them, we seek to use America''s diplomatic power to help foreign citizens better their own lives and to build their own nations and to transform their own futures.'
The Department of State is taking a public affairs front on service in other countries. The Foreign Service Institute is now placing officers throughout the world in secondary and tertiary posts to place the United States in a forward position rather than a submissive position, Dinkelman said.
These stations, called American Presence Posts, are no longer located solely in large cities; they are stationed in regions and districts to work locally in promoting and sustaining American interest. Dinkelman cited Rice''s example that the same number of State Department personnel in Germany, a country of 82 million people, is the same number in India, a country of one billion people.
The increase in Foreign Service officers demands a high level of commitment from applicants.
'We are changing the people we take,' Dinkelman said. 'There will be times when you''re separated from your loved ones. This will be challenging, but has great rewards.'
With dedicated personnel, the State Department can use transformational diplomacy to serve diplomatic purposes throughout the world.
'As you enter a different century where people want to kill us, the need for your generation to speak Urdu, Mandarin and Arabic will be a challenge that must be addressed,' Dinkelman said. 'We must transform our old practices to serve new diplomatic purposes.'
Dinkelman was a guest lecturer for the Global Awareness Lecture series sponsored by the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies.