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Thanks for writing this! I’d be curious to hear you expand on a few points.
My naive guess would have been that, when a crisis strikes and senior national security officials put their eye on something, junior staff get mostly swept aside (i.e., might get listened to for information about what’s happening locally but wouldn’t have much room to set priorities or policy goals), because they’re (perhaps inappropriately) seen as insufficiently aware of broader political/geopolitical/intelligence considerations, as insufficiently aligned with the President’s priorities, and/or as rivals in an opportunity to show impressive leadership ability.
But it sounds like that’s not what happens—which of my above assumptions are mistaken, or what are they missing?
Why do you see it as a better crash course than working in U.S.-based international affairs roles (e.g., some U.S.-based roles in the State Department or National Security Council)? (As you mention, there are upsides from being on the front lines, but I could also imagine some U.S.-based roles offering more breadth and more insight into high-level foreign policymaking?)
Also, could you share a bit about how you see the network benefits of working in the Foreign Service comparing to the network benefits of U.S.-based policy roles? Is this a significant upside/downside?
Good questions. A few thoughts:
I think your assumptions are generally right, but I’d add one: One’s authority in a policy space is somewhat proportional to the number of other people claiming expertise. The junior staffer who’s been laboring on an otherwise ignored issue will skyrocket in value at the moment of crisis. For example, how many Ukraine experts were there last year compared with today? If that junior staffer can rise to the moment, they can launch their career on a new upward trajectory. Meanwhile, comparably few officials are working on the war in Yemen right now, which the UN has described as the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”
US Diplomats spend an average of a third of their career in DC and two-thirds abroad. In this manner, the foreign service offers you multiple perspectives. You’ll understand issues not only through the DC-centric lens, but also Beijing, Brussels, and Buenos Aires. The power lies in DC, but it’s harder to build real expertise and relationships sitting behind a computer screen in DC.
Building on the above answer, I’d ask: What’s your network for? Building expertise and influence are sadly not always the same thing. If you want to build expertise on an international issue, it may be a significant advantage to build a great international network on that issue. That’s not something you can build easily from home. Living/working in DC is a significant advantage for building influence in DC, but that game is much easier if you also have recognized expertise. The foreign service isn’t the only way to build up expertise and influence, but it’s a great one, and it’s more accessible the most other pathways. But hey, if someone offers you a job on the NSC, go ahead and take it!
That’s helpful, thanks!
This is a great article. Agree with the points raised, and think it is very balanced. Thank you for writing this.
One thing I would add → the article touches on the frustrations of bureaucracy—this is definitely a big limiting factor.
But I would add sometimes as a diplomat you will be called upon to do things you disagree with… not just things you think are a waste of time, but things that in some way you think are a bad idea.
It might be helping the US export meat around the world, or siding with some pretty nasty regimes important for geopolitics, or cutting the aid budget in a country that really needs it. It might just be that you can’t publicly speak your mind on issues you care about.
To be fair, the politicians are elected, so they should get to call the shots, and if you don’t like it, you can always quit. But I think many people would find this difficult to stomach, and that might mean a diplomatic career isn’t for them.
This is a great point—diplomats are often reminded (even as early as onboarding) that we must be willing to implement policies we don’t agree with. This point perhaps didn’t come to mind when drafting because this scenario can be avoided by selecting diplomatic assignments where you agree with the mission. This is also probably easier for diplomats (like me) who are in the Economic career track. The offices/countries where I’ve worked, we’ve pursued long-term sustainable economic growth, energy resilience, earthquake preparedness, science/tech/health cooperation, and better/expanded social safety nets. The risk for being assigned somewhere you do not agree with is highest in the first four years when you have limited control of where you go.
To use your example of aid cuts for illustrating how nuanced this can be: diplomats are likely to fight tooth-and-nail against aid cuts in countries that need it. While the diplomat might have the bad luck of delivering the news, they’ll have been in a position to fight the cuts for months (within the government, not publicly). The diplomats might then be able to pursue other types of financial support, citing lack of aid as a major reason.
Yep. I agree with Abi. I also I think this is true in any industry. Or even just as a taxpaying citizen. It’s just really hard to have one’s ethics be completely aligned with anything. But exiting doesn’t make those ethical problems disappear. You just leave them for someone else to deal with.
I haven’t read this yet but I appreciate this post because it’s important. It’s so important that I will push back on the title of this post for understating how imperative this is. It isn’t enough for some in EA to only consider applying to join U.S. diplomacy. Some of them should really, definitely do it for sure.
You mean “American EA’s should consider applying to US diplomacy”, surely ?
We should start being more mindful about this type of thing, if we want to practice what we preach in terms of wanting EA to be, and be perceived to be, a globally welcoming and inclusive movement.
I think it probably makes sense to change the title of the post for efficiency reasons (I.e., “don’t bother reading if you aren’t American”), but not because I think it contributes to EA being a more “globally welcoming and inclusive movement,” which I feel like is a less significant issue/concern here. (Yes, the argument seems to be that without saying “American EAs” the implied assumption is that all EAs are American, but I don’t think that’s a strong vibe; at the very least, I wouldn’t imply that the post shows hypocrisy in EA)
I agree on the efficiency reason as well, good point.
However, as a non-American EA, I think its worth me pointing out that this type of thing is an example of the US-centric status quo in the community which does alienate and frustrate us non-US EAs (I know this is true for many of us, having been speaking and thinking about this frustration with other non-US EAs for about 6 years).
Thanks for the feedback. I actually would like the article to be considered by non-US citizens to consider joining their own Foreign Service. I was deciding between making the article more generalizable vs U.S. centric. I made the title more U.S. centric for efficiency/sorting purposes but have added a paragraph of my estimate for other countries’ diplomacy careers at the very top. Overall, I think the scale of staffing size makes smaller countries’ diplomatic careers competitive, despite the varying geopolitical influence of other countries.
Thank you for changing the title—I think it is more helpful overall now, and addresses the concerns I raised. BUT in addition to that, you added that note underneath it which not just addresses the point, but also raises an interesting consideration regarding non-US EAs working in diplomacy in their own countries, which I hadn’t thought about and I think bolsters your overall point considerably. Well done !
That’s really interesting, as an American who has been active in EA in the US and Europe I usually felt that England had an outsized weighting on EA stuff, not the U.S.
Yeah I think I should have been more accurate, I think by saying “US EAs” I really meant “US, EU, and UK EAs”
I think this post has a good list of reasons why diplomacy might be good. But I feel like a few things are missing, even if the post is just making the case to “consider” US diplomacy careers:
Arguments that this is the best thing some people can be doing with their careers. The best thing can be 100x better than a pretty good thing. Is this better than other paths towards policy careers? What about alternatives in other areas, like ops for EA orgs, GPR, or field-building?
The full story for impact. After gaining skills and marketability, what could someone do after foreign service? What important policies could be passed as a result? How does this ultimately reduce x-risk or create a huge number of QALYs?
Expected value calculations, especially since a heading claims there is high expected value. Assuming certain levels of talent and hard work, what’s the expected value of the funding directed to effective policies by starting with a diplomacy career? The estimate doesn’t need to be precise, but the current arguments in this post are consistent with the expected value being lower than many other things people could be doing with their careers.
For people who are struggling to switch over to policy from non-policy careers, the Foreign Service seems more accessible and provides a wider-range of exposure to EA issues than other entry or mid level policy options. For people already with established policy careers and a clear Theory of Impact, the Foreign Service might be a bit too open-ended (since you don’t get to select for your first two assignments). For people considering alternatives that are not directly related to government work (like ops for EA orgs, GPR, field-building), I’d still recommend at least applying if they’re in the minority of people for whom bureaucracy and constant moves isn’t a strong downside. Even having 1-2 more people excited about effective altruism in the Foreign Service would effectively double how many there are.
For example, if someone were an established expert in GPR research, the non-research work in the Foreign Service might not be a good career fit. If this GPR research expert really wanted to get into policy, I’d recommend more specialized strategic/subject-matter-expert roles in other parts of government unless they were very excited to join the Foreign Service specifically and are fine with waiting 10+ years to lobby for GPR within the government from a more senior position.
You asked about post-Foreign Service job options. Some go work at top tech companies as their strategic leads on different issues, join prestigious think tanks, start important think tanks from their US government knowledge (like Dan), become professors, etc. I have known of two who successfully ran for political office after. In other words, the Foreign Service is highly flexible. 80,000 Hours’ post on career capital sums the value of this up: “If you focus on building valuable, flexible career capital, then you’ll be able to have a more impactful, satisfying career too.”
You asked about important policies that can be passed or influenced and how this converts to QALYs. The State Department covers a huge array of important issues like setting/negotiating multilateral/international law, Biological Weapons Convention, building crisis communication channels, building norms regarding biosecurity, great power conflict, public health, etc. The QALYs are difficult to quantify but could be massive in the same way that economists’ work is competitive with RCT-backed interventions (EA Forum post: Growth and the Case against Randomista Development) Quote from their article: “China’s growth acceleration from 1977 onwards produced $14 trillion NPV in cumulative economic output. Thus, if the only thing the economics profession achieved in 50 years was to increase by 4 percentage points the probability that the Chinese government shifted to this new economic strategy, then it would have had greater economic benefits than the Graduation approach.” Diplomats are quite similar to economists and political advisors in their work, so could influence better norms for the long term future as well as better more equitable sustainable economic growth and stronger public health interventions.
How easy is it to go against the grain like that? Are there not institutional pressures to focus on short-term considerations?
There are definitely institutional pressures to focus on short-term considerations, especially for those offices that play bigger roles in quickly-evolving bilateral and multilateral issues. The more technical offices (also called functional bureaus) that have subject matter experts working on longer term strategic issues, and being called on to review the quicker/shorter-term considerations. These tend to have a higher number of Civil Service employees who are in the office for decades (unlike Foreign Service who are in a specific position for 1-3 years), making longterm considerations easier. Overall, I don’t think State suffers as much from an emphasis on short-term considerations as other Departments might since the bulk of State’s work isn’t focused on partisan issues or dependent on election cycles.
I want to highlight one area of diplomacy which I think is particularly relevant to EA is Science Diplomacy—briefly touched upon at the start of the post. Would be curious to hear the OPs’ views.
I see a number of key areas here that EA aligned Diplomats could be influence:
Good and bad scientific co-operation: these outcomes can be both good and bad e.g. Democratic Country R and Country S co-operate to provide knowledge on pandemic prevention vs Authoritarian Country X and Country Y co-operate to exchange nuclear power expertise which could be misused for proliferation reasons.
Developmental assistance in engineering: diplomats facilitate engineering experts from their country help to provide new power, utilities, transport, infrastructure for a developing economy to help it ‘level up’.
Using science and engineering to inform foreign policy-making: e.g. understanding the risks of A.I. integrated into weapons systems informs foreign policy objectives.
A note for UK people: seems that the main route into a diplomacy career is only the UK Governments Civil Service Graduate Scheme—there does not appear to be a direct inroad into diplomacy where you are able to go through a robust training program. I think this is dissapointing.
This is a great note. Science and tech diplomacy is finally getting a lot more funding and strategic priority. State just created a bureau entirely devoted to Cyber. The opportunities for science diplomacy are probably the highest they’ve been in a long time.
Hey, is it okay if I copy-paste this (with your name, unless you prefer not to) in a blog for international affairs? (with a link to the original here)
Apologies for the delay, I didn’t see this. Yes, that’s fine. Go ahead, thanks for linking it back.