> Today, languages are not only not required to enter the Foreign Service; once in, the teaching of them is perfunctory at best, and officers are moved around s

> Today, languages are not only not required to enter the Foreign Service; once in, the teaching of them is perfunctory at best, and officers are moved around so much that it’s all but impossible for them to gain real expertise in any particular country or its traditions. I wonder how fair a judgment this is. Fiona Hill wrote a short biography of Putin; to me, it seemed quite a good explication of the paranoid worldview held by himself and his fellow siloviki.