[6][7] In 1946, President Truman signed legislation that enabled Secretary of State George C. Marshall to establish the Institute on March 13, 1947.

The orders were ultimately issued and, on March 13, 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall announced the establishment of the Foreign Service Institute.

[9][10] In October 1993, FSI moved to the National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia, and remains headquartered there today.

The Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Studies also maintains a network of language field schools in Taipei, Yokohama, Seoul, and other regional programs in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia where a further 44 weeks of instruction is offered overseas in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic.

SPAS is also home to the Center for the Study of the Conduct of Diplomacy (CSCD),[15] which examines recent diplomatic experiences in order to capture best practices and lessons learned.

CSCD produces comparative analyses which are incorporated into FSI training and used to help prepare foreign affairs professionals at all ranks for the challenges faced at U.S. missions around the world.

TC's Center of Excellence in Foreign Affairs Resilience (CEFAR) provides consultations and training designed to help individuals, family members, and teams perform in high-stress and high-level-threat environments.

Published since 1861, the series contains documents from numerous government agencies that reveal how U.S. foreign policy was created and executed at the highest levels.