12:35 pm
State Department: Not Even a PC, Much Less a Mac
One of my goals for this blog is to start a discussion on whether the rapid evolution in technology has had an impact on the practice of foreign policy. It should be an interesting topic, given the U.S. Government’s absolutely inept response to emerging trends like email, podcasting, and oh, I don’t know, the wheel.
Let me be clear: I’m not an expert on either technology or security. But this is too important an issue not to touch upon. Furthermore, it’s is not a partisan issue: modernizing our foreign policy infrastructure should be something that both McCain and Obama should agree on. Then again, given McCain’s own fear of/wonder at the intertubes, I may be wrong.
There are two problems. The first is that the State Department and other government agencies are not equipped to adapt quickly to emerging technologies. If you’ve never been to the State Department, much less worked there, then you probably don’t know that it’s notoriously behind the times. Part of the problem is security — they’re still coming to terms with how to manage classified data. Another factor is that, as far as I know, the foreign service does not include awareness of technology in its hiring criteria. A third issue is that the government can’t compete with the private sector in terms of attracting the talent it needs to stay close to the curve, much less ahead of it.
But those issues don’t tell the full story. When I arrived at State ten years ago, they were still getting around to replacing the Wang terminals they had bought in the early 80s. For those not in the know, Wang was an early leader in PC technology that used its own OS.
Although it was in many ways more sophisticated than the IBM PC, the Wang’s inability to run MS-DOS meant that it quickly lost market share and eventually went out of business — leaving behind thousands of machines in the Department. The fact that it took the Department nearly ten years to replace them tells you enough about the internal challenges. I’m guessing things have gotten better since then, but during a recent visit to the Department, I think saw a Wang terminal sitting in a corner.
The second problem is that many people currently responsible for managing our foreign policy don’t “get” technology any better than John McCain does. Before I worked at State, I was at a small NGO with about twelve staff. We had Windows, and everybody taught themselves how to use it. When State made the transition from Wang to Windows, all Department staff were required to go to the Foreign Service Institute to learn how to use it.
Now we’re not talking rocket science here. Windows, Word, and Excel are fairly intuitive. And frankly, I knew more about them than the guy teaching us. Yet in my class, the only people who had had any experience with what by then already was a ubiquitous system were the ones who had had other jobs before coming to State. The foreign service officers were lost. WYSWIG mystified them. And like many people confronted with something new, their response was largely hostile.
But this isn’t just a question of computers, or even of individual capabilities. I don’t mean to pick on FSOs. Just look at the government’s efforts to create satellite teevee networks. Al Hurrah’s incompetence has gotten the most attention lately, but it’s not like they’re the only problem station: TV Marti, the US effort to broadcast to Cuba, has been a joke for decades.
Furthermore, the Department still doesn’t know how to operate in internet time. Its clearance process, created for the drafting of cables to far-off posts, can take so long and be so ponderous that it makes it difficult to draft press guidance or formal responses. In addition, the clearance process favors those willing to play dirty: if you’re trying to get language cleared for the spokesperson before his 12:00 briefing, and it’s 11:45 and the Turkey desk won’t clear your draft, you have two choices: cave and go with their language, or fight and get the spokesperson angry at you. It’s a no-win situation and favors those who want to play it safe.
When it comes to social media, things are even worse. You may have heard that the CIA regards use of everything from Facebook to World of Warcraft as disqualification for employment in the clandestine service. And there are few blogs more lame than Dipnote, which I keep on my blogroll largely out of a mix of pity and masochism.
In other words, our foreign policy apparatus continues to display the same combination of hostility towards and incomprehension of technology that characterizes much of the rest of the government. Let me put it another way: Were Apple to make one of their “I’m a Mac” commercials about State, the PC character would be played by John McCain.
What do you think? Please share your observations in the comment section below. And while you’re thinking, here’s a hilarious iPhone parody from E! Television’s The Soup. It’s not really germane to the topic — except to bet that State and CIA probably don’t allow their employees to use iPhones — but hey, it made me laugh. Enjoy….
Hat tip: The Unofficial Apple Weblog
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