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On Bureaucrats as Pundits
John Burgess · Friday, February 17, 2006 · No comments
In Dr. Joyner's post about former government officers becoming pundits, I had a bit of a disagreement with him in the comments section. Perhaps part of that is protecting my own "rice bowl" as I'm a former State officer and now comment about my areas of interest/specialization. That I'm not among the talking heads constantly on CNN doesn't really affect the issue.
I draw a clean line between speaking while you're still a government official and when you've retired/resigned. In the former, you are sworn to support the Administration–no matter the party, no matter the incumbent. If you can't do that, you have options, the foremost among them being to resign. Government bureaucrats indeed may know more than the political appointee whose setting policy; that's often the case. But that's a big "so what." Government bureaucrats were not elected to set policy; they were given jobs–or sometimes even commissions–to do a job to the best of their abilities in order to support whomever is in the White House.
That does not infringe upon their consciences, though it may very well inhibit their freedom of speech. That's part of the job; if you don't like that, you need to find another employer. Foreign Service Officers are, in fact, commissioned officers, same as in the military. We swear the same oath to defend and protect the Constitution. We have military-equivalent ranks that are important only in inter-agency matters. We even get to join USAA for our insurance needs!
But freedom of speech is limited for FSOs as much as it is for the military, perhaps more so. We are taught from the early days of our Junior Officer Training that we may have opinions, but we are restricted in where and how we may offer them in public. Because we spend a good portion of our careers overseas, we are seen as voices of the American gov't, whether the setting is official or private. It simply does not work to have divergent voices explaining US foreign policy. Sometimes, as during the Cold War, that's simply a security risk. Anytime, it shows an incoherence in getting the message across. That doesn't mean that we have to ignore dissident voices, however. We only have to make sure that our explanations are accurate and do support the policy.
Post-employment, different rules apply. There are limitations about what can be said about classified matters, naturally. Books written by former FSOs, as former CIA officers, need to go through official vetting if the subject matter is germane to the area we worked in to ensure that no classified materials get out inadvertently.
But post-employment writing offers a great temptation–and platform–to get even. It's a terrific opportunity to show how much smarter the writer is than the knuckleheads who held the top positions. It's a way to disclose the petty unfairnesses that intrude in any work environment. Everybody has a beef; not everybody writes about it.
Even this getting-even can have a positive reaction, as was the case of female officers who were institutionally disadvantaged in terms of promotions or hot assignments. I might argue that the cure was excessive, but that'd be my beef, not necessarily right or wrong. Putting it in print, though, makes it public, makes it fair game to be used (or abused) by any who choose to do so.
Former officials who choose to go into print need to recognize that once their opinions are published they have lost control of them. That may call for reappraisal or not. There are certainly those with such a visceral hatred of any given administration that they will be happy to have their writings used to promote anti-administration activities [Paging Joe Wilson!]. Others, though, do try to be balanced and circumspect. Dr. Joyner's comment about how the media cherry-picks what they report, as in the case of Scheur, is absolutely to the point: the writer loses control of the message.
This comes down to a matter of responsibility to a large extent, though motivation often overrides that. If one thinks that a policy is wrong-headed, then s/he's free to argue. After resigning or retiring. There is no right to argue, outside the office, while still employed.
If there's an egregious wrong being committed, there are channels to express that dissent. State even has a special cable channel dedicated to dissent. Every cable sent through that channel is moved immediately to the 7th Floor (where the Secretary of State sits). If that isn't enough, then FSOs (and CIA officers) have a right to petition their congressional representatives. In a strongly polarized time, that can be good or bad depending on where you stand on the issue. There is no constitutionally protected right, however, to bring it into the public arena.
I've had to support policies that I thought really sucked, were wrongheaded, or were not based on reality. But none of them was so egregious that I felt impelled to resign. Mileage for others obviously differed. I still have my beefs against State, still think they've got the wrong end of the stick on many issues, from personnel policies to foreign policies. But I don't try to impugn motive. Stupidity explains so much more than conspiracy…
FILED UNDER: Intelligence, Congress, Constitution, EU, Imperial Hubris, Talking Heads
About John Burgess
John Burgess retired after 25 years as a US Foreign Service Officer, serving predominantly in the Middle East. He contributed 35 pieces to OTB between February 2006 and April 2014. He was the proprietor of the influential Crossroads Arabia until his death in February 2016.


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Home > Uncategorized	> Extra week, tackling key for 'D'
Extra week, tackling key for 'D'
November 4, 2010 Jordan Schelling
MADISON – It was the icing on the cake of Wisconsin's best defensive performance in more than a decade.
One of the defining moments of the Badgers' 2009 season came in the most unlikely of circumstances, as Wisconsin led 37-0 over Purdue with just 6:44 remaining.
After turning the ball over on 3rd-and-3, the Badgers gave the Boilermakers the ball in excellent field position, needing just 39 yards to find the end zone for the first time. With backup quarterback Caleb TerBush at the helm, Purdue picked up 36 yards, giving them 2nd-and-Goal at the 3-yard line.
Three plays and a handful of impressive defensive efforts later, Wisconsin's goal line stand was complete, sealing the Badgers' first Big Ten shutout since 1999.
"We got after them," said defensive end J.J. Watt, who broke up a fourth-down pass in the end zone. "We were flying around, we were having fun and we were just playing great technically-sound football.
"They put the starting defensive line back in for that goal line stand, and we were excited about that because we knew we wanted to preserve the shutout. That was a huge stand for our defense as a whole because it showed we could persevere through a tough drive and that was a big one for our team."
Having suffered back-to-back tough losses to Ohio State and Iowa last year, the Badgers were hungry for a win, and they put together an impressively complete performance against the Boilermakers.
One key factor that may have helped was having an extra week to prepare for the spread offense of Purdue. After defeating the Buckeyes and Hawkeyes this year, the Badgers had an extra week once again, and hope to use it effectively against the Boilermakers.
"I think it helped scheme-wise, we got to know some of their plays better than we normally would," linebacker Blake Sorensen said. "It just kind of gets us used to playing a spread team. We haven't really played one since Arizona State, so the extra week with more practices, it definitely helps."
After four nonconference games to begin the season, Wisconsin settled into the heart of its Big Ten schedule, facing four traditional offenses and three of the conference's top teams. Over the final four games, the Badgers will see plenty of variations of the spread from four of the second-tier teams in the Big Ten.
While they're a spread team, the Boilermakers utilize the run quite a bit from the spread look, creating another wrinkle to figure out as the Badgers prepare for Purdue. Last year, Wisconsin looked like it knew what was coming holding Purdue – the Big Ten's fourth-leading offense in terms of yardage entering the contest – to only 141 total yards.
The Boilermakers gained just 60 yards on 29 rushing attempts while picking up 81 yards through the air on just nine completions. To have similar success, the Badgers will need to put together a strong team effort in terms of tackling this week, especially in the open field.
"Defensively we've got to tackle well, probably now more than ever because in spread offenses, they create one-on-one spacing, so that's a big difference in this game," head coach Bret Bielema said. "We haven't had many missed tackles.
"But, again, now that this is a different type of offense, where there's one-on-one tackling because of the spread formations, it's going to be a unique challenge that we really haven't seen to this point."
Categories: Uncategorized Tags: Big Ten, Blake Sorenson, Bret Bielema, Football, J.J. Watt, Wisconsin Badgers
Badgers ready for Ross-Ade Kerrigan next test for O-line

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Q: Convergence of Covariance Matrix and SDE I am learning Stochastic Calculus and there is a question which stuck me for a long while, so I'd like ask for help. Here is the question description:

Consider the linear SDE $dX_{t}=AX_{t}dt+BdW_{t}$, where W_{t} is a multi-variate standard Brownian motion. Define $X_{t} = S(t)X_{0}+\int_{0}^{t}S(t-t')BdW_{t'}$, where the $S(t)$ is fundamental solution with property $\frac{d}{dt}S(t)=AS(t)=S(t)A,S(0)=I.$
(a)calculate the $cov(X_{t})$, which involves an integral involving $S(t)$.
(b)Assume that $\int_{0}^{\infty}||S(t)||dt < \infty$, show that the limit of $cov(X_{t})$ exists and write an integral formula for it.

So the way how I started is that, I first verified the $X_{t}$ defined is in the question is indeed a solution to the linear SDE, then I proceed to try to calculate the covariance matrix.
I use $cov(X_{t})=\mathbf{E}[X_{t}X_{t}^T]-\mathbf{E}X_{t}\mathbf{E}X_{t}^T$, but I don't know how to properly deal with the Expectation of the $It\hat{o}$ integral part, after searching the Internet for a while, I think I might need to apply It$\hat{o}$ isometry, but I am not sure here.
Then I go to part(b), which confused me that, how does the integral of the norm of $S_{t}$ less than $\infty$ affect the problem and how to make use of the condition. Now I think the norm's convergence might have something to do with the "steady state" of the matrix in the long term.
So, I sincerely ask for some help here. Particularly, I would appreciate if there is a theorem or lemma involved, could someone please tell me, because I am not sure if I have learned that yet or not, so I need to pick it up.
Thank you for your time

A: It is indeed a direct result of the Ito Isometry, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%C3%B4_isometry. If we work in $\mathbb{R}$, we can directly compute
\begin{align*}
E[X_tX_t]=E[\int_0^tS(t-s)BdW_s\int_0^tS(t-s)BdW_s]=\int_0^tS(t-s)BB^TS(t-s)^Tds.
\end{align*}
The last integral expression is the one you are looking for.
This expression also holds in any dimensions (also in infinite dimensions for SPDEs). However, the computation only makes sense in 1d. If you would want to show this in any Hilbert space H, you would have to do the following computation: Take two elements $v,w\in H$ and compute
\begin{align*}
E[\langle X_t,v\rangle_{H}\langle X_t,w\rangle_H]=\langle Q_tv,w\rangle_H.
\end{align*}
If you did everything correctly, you will find that
\begin{align*}
Q_t=\int_0^tS(t-s)BB^TS(t-s)^Tds
\end{align*}
as expected.

A: Hi guys: I am still working on it. So I tried again and I found I could cancel out a few terms, but still stuck by the "Expectation of product of Ito integral".The way I did it
Could someone proceed here to help me a bit?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Fresh Water: Water typically purchased from municipal sources, water districts and water companies that requires little or no treatment for use. Fresh water may be potable or non-potable.
Potable Water: Water that is suitable for drinking and residential use.
Non-Potable Fresh Water: Fresh water that is not suitable for drinking or residential use without treatment but that may be used for agriculture or other uses.
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Produced Water: Water that originates in oil and gas formations and is brought to the surface during the production of oil and gas.
Reclaimed Produced Water: Produced water that has been treated by separation of oil, gas and solids for delivery to agricultural water districts for use in irrigation or recharge.
Recycled Water: Water that is treated to remove solids and impurities and reused.
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