Israel & USA Need Diagonal Foreign Policy Planning
The Governments of Israel and the United States need to explore novel ways to better prepare their foreign service officers to make strategic choices in pursuit of shared winning aspirations. One way would be to conduct diagonal foreign policy planning at multiple levels across their respective governments. Fortunately, the timing could not be better for taking that approach. A key question then is how it could be done. A brief outline is provided below.
Governance Model
Prior to conducting diagonal foreign policy planning, the Governments of Israel and the United States should create a lightweight governance structure for the process.
Among other things, that governance structure might delegate responsibility for day-to-day management to the Chiefs of Mission at the Embassy of Israel in Washington (i.e., Ambassador Yechiel Leiter) and the U.S. Embassy in Israel (i.e., Chargé d’affaires ad interim Stephanie Hallett).
Diagonal Strategic Planning
Once the governance model is in place, the Governments of Israel and the United States should conduct diagonal strategic planning.
At the level of the agency, the senior leadership teams of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel and the United States Department of State should seek to identify a set of shared foreign policy priorities, goals, and objectives. This plan would declare the shared vision and direction for the strategic partnership.
At the level of the geographic bureaus, the regional leadership teams responsible for Africa, Europe, and the Middle East should seek to identify sets of shared foreign policy priorities, goals, and objectives. These plans would declare the shared vision and direction for regional engagement by the strategic partners.
At the level of the diplomatic missions, the country leadership teams at the relevant diplomatic missions should seek to identify sets of shared foreign policy priorities, goals, and objectives. These plans would declare the shared vision and direction for third country engagement by the strategic partners.
The Governments of Israel and the United States could conduct this diagonal strategic planning using one of the following approaches:
Top-down Approach: The diagonal strategic planning would start at the level of the agency and flow downwards.
Bottom-up Approach: The diagonal strategic planning would start at the level of the diplomatic missions and flow upward.
Hybrid Approach: The hybrid strategic planning would simultaneously start at all three levels. Once the priorities, goals, and objectives were identified, the results would be integrated and synthesized by a set of delegated decision-makers.
Diagonal Scenario Planning
In parallel with diagonal strategic planning, the Governments of Israel and the United States should conduct diagonal scenario planning.
Since diagonal scenario planning tends to be much more costly than diagonal strategic planning, the Governments of Israel and the United States should limit the scope of this line of effort to a few high-priority countries (e.g., Abraham Accords countries).
At the level of the diplomatic mission, the country leadership teams at the selected diplomatic missions should seek to identify a set of potential outcomes that could arise in the future. Then, they should identify a set of opportunities and risks that are associated with those potential outcomes that would provide “actionable insights and, where appropriate, owners and next steps.”
Current Outlook
The timing could not be better for the Governments of Israel and the United States to pursue diagonal foreign policy planning. Less than two weeks ago, President Donald Trump started his second term in office. Almost immediately, he issued an executive order which established a radically different set of foreign policy priorities for the Government of the United States. Following these extraordinary events, the U.S. Department of State will need to draft a new set of strategic plans at all levels. This includes the strategic plan of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Israel. That process will be overseen by Chargé d’affaires ad interim Hallett. Like her counterpart at the Embassy of Israel in Washington (i.e., Ambassador Leiter), she is new to the position. It therefore seems reasonable to assume that she will bring a different set of ideas to the table than her predecessor. The key question is whether one of those ideas will be to think outside of the box about how best to conduct foreign policy planning.