Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the US Foreign Service

Career Diplomacy is an insider's guide to the Foreign Service as an institution, a profession, and a career.  In this thoroughly revised third edition, Kopp and Naland provide an up-to-date, authoritative, and candid account of the life and work of professional US diplomats, who advance and protect this country's national security interests around the globe. The authors explore the five career tracks ― consular, political, economic, management, and public diplomacy ― through their own experience and through interviews with more than a hundred current and former members of the Foreign Service. They lay out what to expect in a Foreign Service career, from the entrance exam through midcareer and into the senior service ― how to get in, get around, and get ahead.

New in the third edition: 
• A discussion of the relationship of the Foreign Service and the Department of State to other agencies, and to the combatant commands 
• An expanded analysis of hiring procedures
• Commentary on challenging management issues in the Department of State, including the proliferation of political appointments in high-level positions and the difficulties of running an agency with employees in two personnel systems (Civil Service and Foreign Service) 
• A fresh examination of the changing nature and demographics of the Foreign Service

Harry W. Kopp, a former Foreign Service officer and consultant on international trade, has written widely on diplomacy and the Foreign Service.  He was deputy assistant secretary of state for international trade policy in the Carter and Reagan administrations. His foreign assignments included Warsaw and Brasilia.

John K. Naland served in the Foreign Service for nearly thirty years and was head of a provincial reconstruction team in a war zone in Iraq. He was twice elected as president of the American Foreign Service Association.