But let us recall the years since the Cold War ended with the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall. How many crises have we seen since then?

We experienced discord with America over the U.S. Forces Korea and other problems in the alliance, and over territorial claims to Dokdo and a fisheries agreement with Japan. We had a hard time with China over its Northeast Project, which aims at co-opting ancient Korean history. We still have a problem with Russia over the loan we gave it.

Most of Korea’s diplomatic crises are patched up without being properly resolved. Therefore they sporadically flare up again, often simultaneously at moments when our national strength is exhausted.

The public, having experienced governments from both Left and Right, is now aware that our politicians are incapable of handling diplomatic and security issues properly. It's high time we focused on the importance of having diplomats capable of minimizing or resolving diplomatic conflicts whichever side may be in power.

If the experience and knowledge of 1,000-plus diplomats scattered around the world is consolidated, we might be able to block clumsy responses by amateurish administrations and map out the best possible response.

But if that is to happen, we must introduce the concept of competition for our diplomats as well and reform personnel management in a way to pick out creative and resourceful diplomats without being bound by the seniority system.

So long as personnel management is strictly based on the years that have passed since a diplomat’s civil service exam, we will not be able to pick “star diplomats" like chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill, former U.S. Middle East peace negotiator Dennis Ross, and former Bosnia peace negotiator Richard Holbrooke. The case of the Korean-American diplomat Sung Kim, who won extraordinarily speedy promotion from first secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul just four years ago to director of the Office of Korean Affairs at the State Department and U.S. special envoy on North Korean affairs is totally unimaginable in our Foreign Ministry.

American diplomats do not have the same sense of seniority as we do. And many U.S. diplomats, if weeded out in competition, end up retiring at the level of minister in an embassy without ever becoming ambassadors.

With Korean diplomats, however, the chances are that more than 90 percent of them retire as an ambassador, although it is a different matter where they are given assignments. Unless they are reprimanded or disqualify themselves, virtually all diplomats eventually serve as ambassadors once or twice before they retire. It is like in the private sector, where all employees become department chiefs or executive directors in 20 years or so if they stay with the organization.

In such a structure, diplomats are liable to be complacent rather than exercising creativity and attempting to persuade politicians into the right direction backed by insight acquired in their career. The motivation to rock the boat is bound to be low if certain compensations are guaranteed even if you don't make efforts.

The time has come to realize that unless we change the basic paradigm in operating the Foreign Ministry, we can do nothing but to keep watching diplomatic crisis after diplomatic crisis due to administrations which are either incompetent or set the wrong directions.

The column was contributed by Lee Ha-won, the Chosun Ilbo's correspondent in Washington.