Let's Get Serious about Research for Diplomacy: A proposal for a foreign policy-focused FFRDC
By: Dan Spokojny and Alexandra Blum | July 18, 2022
Photo credit: Unsplash
The Department of State has a knowledge problem. Sure, diplomats know plenty of facts about the world. Chat with any foreign service officer and you'll likely get treated to a grand tour of international politics and history. What State doesn't know, however, is how best to affect change in the world.
The knowledge the Department of State lacks is about its effectiveness. There's very little time and research invested into such questions in the halls of diplomacy. In the words of one official State Department website, "Department officers rely on institutional memory, collective wisdom, and personal experience to make decisions." Many diplomats will even suggest that it is impossible to evaluate whether diplomacy works. As many senior officials say, "diplomacy is an art, NOT a science."
But some senior leaders are demanding more evidence in the policy process. Congress passed the Foundations for Evidence-based Policymaking Act of 2018, and more recently, President Biden issued an executive order on Restoring Trust in Government through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking, both of which directed government agencies to center learning and evidence in the policymaking process.
This June, the Department of State released its congressionally mandated Learning Agenda, a systematic plan to answer a set of policy-relevant questions critical to achieving the Department's strategic objectives. The Department has committed to answering eight ambitious research questions over the next four years, including:
How can the State Department improve the effectiveness of its diplomatic interventions to better advance foreign policy objectives?
How can the Department's tools best address the climate crisis?
How can the Department better respond to unpredictable international events and emergencies such as global pandemics?
These are great questions. Answering them with the best available research will be vital to advancing U.S. national security and protecting the American people.
Unfortunately, the Department of State lacks the capacity to conduct serious research of this magnitude. The Learning Agenda references no plan for carrying out the research. Few diplomats have the time or training to study such grand questions, nor is any office dedicated to supporting such research needs.
The State Department requires help answering such ambitious and vital questions. We recommend State sponsor a new Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) for U.S. foreign policy.
What is an FFRDC?
An FFRDC is a public-private research institute sponsored by a federal agency and operated by an institution outside of the U.S. government, such as a private firm, university, or think tank. An FFRDC conducts research exclusively for the U.S. government and the public interest. They fill a niche role in government research and development (R&D) that is otherwise neglected.
Currently, eight of the 15 executive departments sponsor an FFRDC. The Department of Defense sponsors ten FFRDCs, including the Institute for Defense Analysis, whose "mission is to answer the most challenging U.S. security and science policy questions with objective analysis leveraging extraordinary scientific, technical, and analytic expertise." The Center for Naval Analyses boasts that its staff has accompanied U.S. military forces in every conflict and every major exercise since World War II by embedding scientists in commands worldwide. Even the Internal Revenue Service sponsors an FFRDC, the Center for Enterprise Modernization, whose goal is to "transform the way they do business for the American public."
Such FFRDCs offer unique advantages to their agencies. They retain specialized scientific and technical experts devoted to their sponsoring agency's immediate research needs.
A common criticism of academics is that they are irrelevant to policymakers because they fail to answer policy-relevant questions. FFRDCs overcome this problem by putting policymakers in the driver's seat. A policymaker can set the research agenda, timeline, and format that will be most conducive. Indeed, research produced collaboratively with policymakers is most likely to be trusted and used in the policymaking process.
Most diplomatic documents are sealed for decades before academics are granted access for study. FFRDCs overcome this problem by making security clearances available for their employees, giving them a distinct advantage in the policy process compared with universities and think tanks.
FFRDC experts would be granted access to the latest intelligence and have the opportunity for more honest exchanges with policymakers about their policy goals. For example, the details of most diplomatic negotiations are highly classified, making it challenging for outsiders to provide timely advice.
Finally, FFRDCs can enable a sponsoring agency to study longer-term policy challenges. Freed from the constant crises that occupy policymakers' attention, FFRDCs can embark on over-the-horizon research. Because FFRDCs are not themselves government entities, federal restrictions on hiring and pay are not applicable. This allows them to more easily recruit cutting-edge talent and prioritize the right mix of specialists to get the job done.
A Research Agenda for a Foreign Policy FFRDC
It is essential to differentiate research from decision-making. Research generates evidence about how the world works, whereas decision-makers use that evidence to make informed decisions.
The Department of State is very practiced at crafting policy, but weak at generating evidence. Few diplomats have the time or training to study big questions, nor is any office dedicated to supporting such research needs.
This is where an FFRDC could really shine. The Learning Agenda offers questions that are both important and neglected. And most importantly, the research agenda was identified by policymakers rather than imposed from the outside. The answers would be immediately useful in improving foreign policy.
In general, an FFRDC will be most useful in synthesizing best practices for diplomats to achieve U.S. objectives, especially on the use of common foreign policy instruments. The FFRDC would be an opportunity to start building doctrine for diplomacy that would help officials understand how their tools work.
The successes of FFRDCs across the government prove they effectively deliver scientific research to federal departments to support their policymaking and operational processes.
RAND Cooperation's three FFRDCs exemplify the type of research a foreign policy FFRDC could conduct. The report What are the Characteristics of Successful U.S Military Interventions studied military interventions dating back to 1898 to identify factors that have made U.S. military interventions successful at achieving their political objectives. Understanding and Reducing the Ability of Violent Nonstate Actors to Adapt to Change surveys research on how violent nonstate actors "adapt to changes in their operational environments and provides recommendations on how the Army might anticipate such adaptations and mitigate them before they occur."
Building a culture of learning at the State Department would improve the efficacy of policymaking. Dedicated research support for the State Department would encourage all officials to think about how long-term research could support their office's work.
Where FFRDCs researchers will not be welcome is in the policy proposal game. Similarly, grand strategy is a poor place for external researchers to plug in. Seemingly every organization in Washington seems to have an idea on how to respond to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, options for limiting Iran's nuclear ambitions, or critiques of the U.S. pivot to Asia.
Elected officials and their appointees should set policy at the highest level. The FFRDC must stay out of such questions. Instead, the FFRDC should equip policymakers with the best available evidence to understand which policy interventions will be most likely to succeed.
Better Research is Necessary for Better Diplomacy
State Department's knowledge deficits have contributed to its marginalization in the policy process and an over-reliance on military instruments of power. Experienced U.S. diplomats warn of a "crisis" inside the State Department, evidenced by "a reluctance to speak truth to power, a lack of individual accountability … [and] an aversion to professional education and training."
Two senior Biden administration officials argued in late 2020 that a "decades-long failure to implement essential reforms" has produced a "policy environment that has, in some priority areas, evolved beyond the core competencies of most Foreign and Civil Service officers."
An FFRDC for diplomacy would better prepare policymakers to defend their policy proposals with robust evidence from history, data, intelligence, and social science. Such an effort must help the integrity of ideas and rigorous analysis win over ideology, watered-down recommendations, and bureaucratic turf battles.