Posted on 11/09/2017 8:19:19 AM PST by Olog-hai
The ranks of top US diplomats are being depleted at a “dizzying” speed, the head of America’s diplomatic trade union has warned.
Since January, the number of “two-star” minister counselors has dropped by 42% and “three-star” career ministers by 14%, according to Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) and former ambassador to Panama. At the highest ranks of the State Department, the number of career ambassadors has dropped from five to two, after the retirement of three top diplomats.
“These numbers are hard to square with the stated agenda of making State and the Foreign Service stronger,” Stephenson wrote in a public letter to union members on Wednesday. “Were the U.S. military to face such a decapitation of its leadership ranks, I would expect a public outcry.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who assumed office in February, has implemented White House proposals to cut the State Department budget by about a third. In August, he abolished most of the United States’ special envoys, including those for climate change and disability rights, as part of a restructuring plan within the 75,000 employee-strong Department of State. …
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
There's a problem right there.
Foggy Bottom has long needed a deep purge if not a phoenixing.
The ChiComs are having The President dine in the Forbidden Palace, an honor which has extended to approximately zero foreigners and these people are worried about random swamp creatures being able to extended influence! XD
I think not.
Seems like a misnomer. More like Foggy Bottomless, or Foggy Abyss.
We’ll always know where we can find them if we need them.
Working the drive-thru at Burger King.
A self-draining swamp! Perfect!
Departing State Department employees, including ambassadors, should be replaced by retired Green Berets.
We don’t have diplomats helping transfer Americas wealth to our competitors or to third world countries
Seems like a win for ys
The state department should be entirely purged and replaced with TRunp loyalist with no exceptions,WE don’t have time for delay in moving our agenda forward. We only have seven more years to get this swamp cleaned out.
I hope that includes all the sexual perverts that Obama appointed as ambassadors.
Crooked politicians use the State Department to steal money. That’s why Hillary went there.
Had that thought many times myself. How about State becoming a branch of the DOD? SecState would be a four star from one of the services on a rotating basis. Diplomacy is a lot easier with a strong military. Grab them by their balls and their hearts and minds will follow. Gunboat diplomacy.
There, fixed it for 'em!
Trump is the best diplomat that America has had in the recent past. Perhaps ever!
Wow, so he’s found a way to clean out the diplomatic corp.
Amazing.
We’ve needed more America First people in this corp for decades.
That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be diplomatic. It just means they need to think of our nation’s interests first.
About time!!!!
I’ve been wondering recently about the history of diplomacy and what era/rules/assumptions our current state department is working under.
George Washington could send a message to Europe and get a reply in 1-2 months. Or send an envoy and get a response in 2-3 months. Timelines in weeks at best, but the president’s representative often had to do his best to represent the US for months or years at a time with infrequent communications to/from the president.
Even 30-40 years ago we didn’t have instant communication to a big part of the globe and other parts were limited (not just anyone in the state dept could call/email whoever/whenever they wanted). Ambassadors and embassies had a significant role interacting with the other country as well as the day-to-day issues with US citizens in that country. I’d bet foreign diplomats today have been to the US a lot more than they had decades ago - and our diplomats have been the their country. Even if not, it’s much easier to be exposed to each other’s countries, culture, and language now than before.
Today, the president or cabinet, or any number of other people (all the way down) can have calls and video conferences with their peers as often as they want. Many ambassadors can probably do 90+% of the job from the US (would miss out on the parties). Misunderstandings can be addressed in minutes including escalation to higher-ups if needed - every higher-up is accessible 24/7. Another difference is that if something is leaked, the whole world knows in hours.
A lot of the complaints I hear from state dept officials sound like they are still operating in colonial times or maybe updated to the 1960’s. Have they adapted to the modern world? Are old ways still the best? Has the state dept. gone through an evaluation of the modern world in the last decade to look at how people, practices, procedures, and technology can be best used in the modern diplomatic world?
They say that like it's a bad thing...
People quitting. Saving money. Headed in the right direction.
Between the end of WWII and 1949, there was an ongoing process under the Marshall-led State Department to purge the old school types who still inhabited Foggy Bottom, and replace them with what we would call today the “New World Order” types (led behind the scenes by the likes of Alger Hiss who laid out the UN guidelines and was the direct aide to Edward Stettinius.
By the end of the 1940’s, Marshall was out and Atcheson and his ilk were in charge. They pretty much purged all of them out and it has been going downhill since then.
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