Review: America's Other Army

America's Other Army talks about the Foreign Service's mission, challenges, and lifestyle, but in a much more comprehensive way than Realities of Foreign Service Life or Inside a U.S. Embassy. Kralev, as a journalist, has interviewed innumerable diplomats for this work, and his sources reveal both the good and bad sides of the State Department.

The best chapters are  Seven, Nine, and Eleven -- covering consular affairs, State's role in the recent Iraq and Afghan wars, and State's human resources problems. It's in these chapters that you really get a feel for the challenges of public service overseas.

Consular officers go above and beyond to help U.S. citizens overseas but get treated with contempt. They also have to deal with the realities of international limitations, especially where dual-citizen child abduction cases are concerned, but then are accused of "coddling" to oppressive regimes. The "visa mills" are a thankless daily grind of face-to-face interviews, but somehow the officers he interviews stay motivated.

In the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, we see how State's pick-up role in the counter-insurgency surprised a number of diplomats who'd never been trained to practice their craft in a war zone. Some struggled to find their role, and the lessons learned are legion.

Finally, there's the assignment process, which remains opaque, and the fact the department has no independent inspector general. It's in the second order effects that Kralev's journalism reveals the "true" realities of foreign service life -- not just the day-today tasks individuals complete.

Completed in September 2012, America's Other Army puts on display the achievements of recent secretaries of state and the patriotism of the diplomat corps as well as the systemic and cultural constraints they've all had to work under.

Next up: We Meant Well, by Peter van Buren.