Jon Finer in Foreign Policy on how Trump is already disabling the State Department.
It’s no surprise that political appointees are asked to leave, he says.
But what is happening these days at the State Department — where a slew of senior career diplomats and management professionals have been given the non-choice between resigning effective Friday and being summarily relieved of their duties and where several others have retired voluntarily — is different and could be damaging. These are not, for the most part, people who have any role in implementing signature Obama administration policies on which the new team has signaled a different direction, like the Iran nuclear deal, fighting climate change, addressing women’s issues globally, or managing the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Rather, many of the officials set to depart in the coming days are responsible for bread-and-butter diplomatic and bureaucratic work that benefits all Americans and should be beyond the reach of politics. They oversaw the production of 19 million U.S. passports last year, the second highest annual total in American history. They helped return some 300 children abducted abroad to their rightful American parents. They are responsible for arranging visas for foreign nationals who come to the United States to do business or spend tourism dollars. They oversee security for more than 275 diplomatic posts overseas. They executed Obama’s decision to close Russian diplomatic facilities in response to interference in our election. They make good on our commitment to transparency by processing an unprecedented volume of document requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). And they arrange for the evacuation of American citizens amid, for example, medical emergencies or burgeoning foreign crises.
And they’re being thrown out before anyone is lined up to replace them – which is not how things are normally done.
Meanwhile, on the policy side, the career officer serving as acting undersecretary of state for arms control and international security — the department’s most senior official dealing with, among other things, nuclear nonproliferation, chemical weapons, and the monitoring of arms control treaties — was en route to meetings in Europe when he was directed to return home to resign by Friday. The assistant secretary for conflict stabilization operations received a similar directive.
If these vacancies seem unsettling, you’ll need to get used to it. Between the extensive vetting required of senior appointees and a constipated Senate confirmation process, it will almost certainly be many months before these top positions get filled, leaving a vacuum that will impair the department’s ability to manage U.S. foreign relations, operate overseas, and serve the interests of the many millions of Americans who live or travel abroad.
Terrifying, isn’t it.
Intentional or otherwise, the message that the Trump administration is sending through these early personnel moves is not just that the new team is still getting its act together or wants a break from the past, both of which are understandable, but something potentially more pernicious. Career officials are concerned that it reflects a fundamental disregard for the essential role of diplomacy among our foreign-policy tools, by an administration that has shown an early fetish for all things economic and military. More troubling would be if the administration is subjecting the State Department to a subtler version of the freeze imposed on agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, intending to hamstring an institution whose rank and file are not fully trusted.
My guess? It’s that – the intentional hamstringing.
I despair.
