The State Department informed the most recent class of the Thomas R. Pickering and Rangel International Affairs Fellows that they will not have an opportunity to become career candidates in the U.S. Foreign Service at this time. Instead, they were offered temporary positions in consular affairs. SFS is concerned and disappointed by this news. The suspension of A-100 classes for graduating fellows is a breach of trust for the fellows and has serious implications for SFS students and the U.S. Foreign Service as an institution. On behalf of the SFS, Dean Joel Hellman expressed concerns in a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on June 21, 2017, expressing support for the Pickering and Rangel programs as essential components of a diverse, talented Foreign Service. The suspension of the capstone component of those programs “jeopardizes not only this cohort of remarkable fellows, but threatens to impact future generations, who will never be certain again if the commitments they worked so hard to achieve in their graduate education will be met with the promised career paths that motivated their course of study,” Hellman wrote.

Graduate students from the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD) capstone course on Southeast Asia presented policy recommendations at the US State Department on May 3, 2017, with their instructor, Foreign Service Officer Katharine Nanavatty.

On November 15th, 2017, ISD's Distinguished Practitioners Series welcomed Ambassador James Dobbins (SFS ’63), who served under 10 different presidents and 13 secretaries of state. Dobbins recently published his memoir, Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy. [watch video]

WASHINGTON (April 26, 2016)—Georgetown University today announced that the U.S. Department of State has designated the university as its first Diplomacy Lab partner in the national capital region. A 2013 State Department Office of Global Partnerships initiative, this public-private research program provides students – both undergraduate and graduate – at over 25 participating universities the opportunity to research and propose innovative yet well-grounded solutions to real-world policy challenges on behalf of State Department offices and U.S. embassies.

How do presidents shake long-running diplomatic policies that stay in place despite the lack of positive outcomes? The Obama administration's opening of US-Cuba relations, like the Nixon administration's US-China rapprochement, took a bold move in the face of domestic backlash and a resistant bureaucracy, among other hurdles.

Dr. Ernest Moniz, U.S. Secretary of Energy, received the 2016 Trainor Award for Distinction in the Conduct of Diplomacy for his role and his team’s role in the P5+1 negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program and the Paris climate talks. The first scientist to receive the prestigious award, Dr. Moniz addressed a large audience of students and faculty at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service on April 11, 2016, reflecting not only on the Iranian and Paris talks but the Department of Energy’s broad role bringing science to diplomacy on “weapons, windmills, quarks and quagmires.”

The Diplomatic Pouch, the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy’s blog, highlights the intersection of diplomatic history and current affairs, and history’s influence on foreign relations. To borrow from William Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” History, and diplomatic history in particular, influence the everyday workings of international affairs. Practitioners who craft policies unhinged from history risk policies unhinged from current realities. The Diplomatic Pouch seeks to connect history to the present in service to the diplomat or foreign policy practitioner – and to spark reasoned debate that places current affairs in broader historical context. The inaugural post in ISD's Diplomatic Pouch looks at the success of the NATO Alliance, 67 years later.

The Walsh Scholars Initiative (WSI) selected five SFS students for its inaugural cohort for the 2015-2016 academic year. Selected from a highly-qualified pool of candidates, the cohort demonstrates the academic performance, professional and leadership experience, and commitment to Georgetown’s values necessary for successful careers in public service. In collaboration with the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and the SFS Dean’s Office, WSI provides each scholar with the professional skillset and network of practitioners and scholars necessary to address the most pressing international challenges of our time. After a semester of professional development training and relationship building, each Walsh Scholar will complete a substantive public service internship.

Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD), along with the Mortara Center for International Studies, received a nearly $840,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York under its “Bridging the Gap” initiative. This honor highlights the School’s century-old mission to connect academia and the global policy world. The grant – “From Scholar’s Theory to Practitioner’s Work, and Back” – will focus on expanding the understanding and application of diplomacy as a critical tool of national policy. The grant empowers students, scholars, policymakers and the broader public through its emphasis on innovative learning, support for original research, and infrastructure for real-time publication of policy relevant work.

Within 40 Under 40: Latinos in Foreign Policy, Georgetown University and ISD were well represented by Elvia Valle, a graduate student and Thomas R. Pickering Fellow in the School of Foreign Service, and by Ramon Escobar, one of our 2015-2016 Dean & Virginia Rusk Fellows who is co-teaching Diplomatic and Military Statecraft this fall and will be teaching U.S. Foreign Policy in Conflict States in the spring.

Bruce Hoffman’s Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947, a behind-the-scenes look at the tumultuous period leading up to the collapse of British colonial rule in Palestine and the establishment of the Jewish state, has been awarded the gold medal in The Washington Institute's 2015 Book Prize competition, the research organization announced today. Hoffman, director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, will receive the prestigious award and an accompanying $25,000 prize.

ISD Student Fellow Elijah Jatovsky and SFS senior Patrick Lim delivered their talk, "A Syrias Risk" on October 24 at the TEDx Georgetown conference on Risk Takers. Their talk details their study abroad experiences in Jordan and activism with Syrian refugees.

On November 3, 2015, Special Envoy to the Colombian Peace Process Bernard Aronson joined Ramon Escobar, ISD Rusk Fellow for a discussion: "Is Colombia's Long War Drawing to an End?" This event was co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies. Aronson helped promote the first successful democratic elections in Nicaragua and an end to the contra war and a negotiated settlement of the war in El Salvador. In addition during Aronson’s tenure: Panama was liberated from the dictatorial rule of General Manuel Noriega; the United States helped Colombia defeat Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel; Latin America emerged from both the debt crisis and the lost decade; NAFTA was negotiated; Argentina and Brazil put their nuclear programs under IAEA safeguards; Peru defeated, with U.S. assistance, Sendero Luminoso; and the OAS unanimously adopted the Santiago Declaration committing its member states to the collective defense of democracy.

A participant from the 2013 Georgetown Young Leadership Seminar in Qatar, Tin Ma Ma Htet - Teacher and Storyteller, Monastic Education Development Group, Myanmar Storytellers - joins Clinton Global Initiatives 2015 Annual Meeting to discuss "The Future of Impact". You can watch the video of the panel here.

Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy welcomes its new class of six graduate and two undergraduate research fellows. The fellows pursue independent research projects that focus on a wide range of ongoing and emerging diplomatic issues. They are advised by ISD senior staff and associates, other Georgetown University faculty, and notable practitioners. The projects culminate in substantial studies presented at a public colloquium during the spring semester.

The American Academy of Diplomacy has released a new report, American Diplomacy at Risk, that aims to stimulate the changes necessary to prepare American diplomacy for the challenges of the 21st century. "A strong State Department, based on a strong Foreign Service and a strong Civil Service, is a critical component of America's security. But America's diplomacy—the front line of our defenses—is in trouble. Increasing politicization undermines institutional strength; almost no career officers serve in the most senior State positions, while short-term political appointees penetrate ever deeper into the system. The Foreign Service lacks the professional education and standards to meet its current heavy responsibilities and to create its necessary future senior leaders. The Civil Service is mired in an outdated system with limited coherent career mobility."

On Monday, April 27th, students enrolled in IPOL 358, The Military and Peace-building, presented their joint report, "Mali: Developing a Multi-faceted Strategy for a Successful U.S. Stability Intervention," to a senior panel of NSC, defense, and military practitioners in the Pentagon. The practitioner panel was very impressed by the report with one participant acknowledging, "I suspect we will detect traces of their ideas emerging in talking points for upcoming policy discussions in the building and across the river as we determine the best strategy for Mali." Congratulations to the students for a job very well done.

Adopted in 2013 by the UN General Assembly, the Arms Trade Treaty sets international standards for transfers of conventional weapons, and addresses diverging security, geopolitical, economic and ethical interests related to the international arms trade. Why was it negotiated in the framework of the UN? How did the actors, notably the United States, pursue their interests? What are the treaty’s impacts? How does it affect the decision whether to supply lethal weapons to conflict areas such as Ukraine or Syria? What role will the United States play in the future?

The Mortara Center and The Institute for the Study of Diplomacy are pleased to host Amb. Bill Luers, Paul Pillar, and Robin Wright of The Iran Project to discuss the current status of negotiations with Iran and the prospects for their success.

ISD's Yahoo! Fellow, Yoani Sanchez, a prominent Cuban blogger and founder of online newspaper 14YMEDIO.com, writes for The Miami Herald on the latest developments in Cuba.

The Honorable Wendy R. Sherman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, received the Trainor Award for Distinction in the Conduct of Diplomacy and presented a lecture on Sept 16, 2014, on US Policy in the Middle East: Present Course, Future Direction.