Political/Economic Tradecraft

As of today, I've finished the last course of my initial training at the Foreign Service Institute. My final class was the three-week course on how to be a political officer (the second year of my rotation at Embassy Copenhagen). It was definitely a high point of the overall instruction.

One of the best aspects was a good overview of basic economics. Through lectures and a book ("Naked Economics" by Charles Wheelan) we got just enough of an introduction to speak somewhat comfortably about international economics.

In the second week, we had opportunities to practice various skills of an embassy's political section. We prepared three-minute briefings on a topic related to our destination countries (mine was on the Danish government's environmental policies), wrote and revised cables reporting to Washington, created and presented a PowerPoint on the destination country's economy, and practiced "elevator briefings" (the subtle art of boiling down a complex issue to a sixty-second explanation that one could give to a VIP during the ride in the elevator down to the meeting room). They also showed us some technology, ranging from a pretty cool wiki that the US government uses to share sensitive and classified information between various agencies, to the sometimes bizarrely counterintuitive program that we use for writing and sending "cables" to the Department.

During the Pol/Econ course I was also able to join a meeting the Danish Embassy in DC held for various U.S. diplomats who will be going to Copenhagen this year. My friend Spencer, who passed the FSOA with me and was in the A-100 class right before mine, helped set that up for me. It will be fun working with him in Denmark. The embassy lunch meeting was a great chance to hear the Danish point of view on issues ranging from the climate change conference to prospects for economic recovery in the EU to the best way of keeping a healthy lifestyle in Copenhagen. It was also a good opportunity to enjoy real smørrebrød prepared by a professional Danish chef.

Another highlight was a briefing by Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, State's Director of Policy Planning. She said that she enjoys meeting new officers and encouraged us to go out and have great careers. She also gave us some insights into Secretary Clinton's major speech at the Council on Foreign Relations this week, and into the general style and substance of the Obama administration's approach to foreign policy.

While we were at the main State Department building for the meeting with Dr. Slaughter, I also had a chance to meet with one of the coordinators for our delegation to the climate change conference in December. In general, I've been impressed with how easy it is to make appointments with all kinds of different people who have information that might help me in Denmark, and how happy they are to take the time to share that information. People have prepared print-outs of briefing info for me, talked about the kind of reporting they need to receive back from post, what I can do to make their jobs easier and what I can do to make my own work more rewarding. It seems like a great atmosphere at the Department. Which is good, because another office I checked in on that day was the Office of Nordic and Baltic Affairs in the European Bureau, where I'll be working for five weeks starting on Monday. I introduced myself to the receptionist, confirmed that they're expecting me, and checked out the room that she thinks will probably be my office. I am most definitely looking forward to being productive again - while I've enjoyed learning new things for the past 20 weeks, it will be nice to feel like I'm making a contribution, and earning the salary on which the government is spending your tax dollars.