Trump’s State Department Reforms Reorient the Institution for Today’s Challenges

In July, the Trump administration enacted the US State Department in one generation, and the reaction from the main media was significantly negative. But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in urgent need of reform. The reorganization is the first step towards stimulating the administration to develop American interests for a more controversial period of political geography.

There was a time when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has developed and implemented the US policy of its most important global challenges. For example, legendary policy planning teams during the reign of George Keenan and Paul Nitz, for example, often led to the Cold War strategy in the United States.

However, the National Security Council employees (NSC) have absorbed successive departments and the development of strategy and implementation, which led to the deportation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Department of Foreign Relations (literally interacting with their foreign counterparts) and played an unlimited role in formulating strategy and politics. One of the former policy planning director told me, “There is no strategic bone in the entire section.”

Despite this reduction in responsibilities and importance, the size of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has grown in recent decades.

According to a senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who spoke to her, near the end of the George W. Bush administration in 2008, there were 62,165 employees in the department. Under Obama’s management, this number expanded by 23 percent to 77,021. During the first Trump administration, the volume of employees was reduced to 76317, but under Biden’s leadership, he rose up by 5 percent to nearly 80,000 – more than 25 percent from 2008.

With the growth of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the internal organizational processes did not continue. New offices and positions were established, such as the International Women’s Cases Office in 2009 and the Diversity and Integration Office in 2021, which was directly reported to the Foreign Minister. Administration advisers reported that the average scope of control of executives ranges between five to 10 direct reports, but before the recent reorganization, 25 leaders of the administration are directly to Foreign Minister Marco Rubio.

This range of control is unrealistic to anyone, not to mention a person who also works as a national security and national archive consultant. This organization, which seems flat, with the reports of everyone directly to the Foreign Minister, was regularly produced Gridlock where routine notes had to be reviewed often by 10 offices – often by many people within each office – before reaching the Secretary Office.

These real administrative challenges were noticed by groups of experts from the two parties and former officials for years. In 2017, for example, the center, which was run by the Atlantic Council, published a report on the reform of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by a group of foreign political experts. Among other recommendations, they urged “to reduce[ing] The number of offices and offices by integrating and eliminating jobs. As they recommended, they reduced[ing] The number of layers of clearance, review, approval of three and payment of decisions below. “In his report attacker, the former National Security Adviser twice Brent Scaroft wrote,” The ministry’s Espret de Corses has been injured through unequal interest in the administration’s priorities over the years … and infringement of its basic mission-not by the National Security Council employees and the Ministry of Defense. “

The problem was clear to the wise people of our foreign policy, but no action was taken.

Worse, the expansion of employees has not been directed to priority areas within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Former Defense Secretary James Mattis said that if Washington does not spend more money on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he will need to buy more bullets. Unfortunately, a lot of growth in employees did not go to the pointed side of the spear – such as foreign service officers, regional experts and diplomats in this field who interact with their foreign counterparts. Instead, as mentioned above, a new employment for new job programs for issues such as human rights, climate change, migration, women’s issues, food security, diversity, fairness and inclusion (Dei) (Dei) was conducted.

These offices have often pushed controversial agendas at the expense of the basic American interests and the main partners by imposing progressive views, strongly disputed even in the United States, on traditional societies around the world. For example, the prominent Ministry of Foreign Affairs official told me, for example, that one of his colleagues from a country from the Gulf country complained that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the shadow of the Biden administration constantly harassing his government over the organization of guest workers. The American Political and Military Affairs Office evaluated the commitment of a state of Bedi before approval of arms sales to the allies. They also told me that the provision of DEI consists of 20 percent of the Foreign Ministry’s performance categories – a level equal: leadership, communication, experience and management. A young foreign service officer in a foreign center told me that “all my team did is Dei” until recently.

Rubio has a different idea of how to manage the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The job began with a clear vision of reform, aware of its many years of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As mentioned in January after confirming the secretary, “I want the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be in the center of how to involve America to the world – not only how we implement it, but on how to formulate it.”

As an advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and National Security, he is in a very good position to balance the roles and responsibilities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and NSC. With simplifying and enabling the section, NSC rights are done. The philosophy of reorganization is to promote American diplomacy through the return of power to external jobs and regional offices, as well as cutting shortcomings in job offices with job issues at an enlarged headquarters.

According to the first official, 82 percent of the demobilization of workers were civilian employees in Washington and none of the foreign service officers were serving abroad. This step has unified excessive offices, such as three separate stores dedicated to penalties. Several offices for specialized job issues have been closed, but job missions have been kept and transferred to regional offices that do real work to manage daily partnership. The Political Affairs Office, which includes assistant secretaries of major regions such as Europe, the Middle East, India and the Pacific, was more than that of the discounts. Individual offices were also simplified, and the number of the Secretary has been reduced to direct reports.

Media reports have exacerbated the job losses that are supposed to be the US diplomacy, but reduce approximately 3,000 jobs from 80,000 employees was a modest modification. It was simply reflected the expansion of the Biden administration and returned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the same levels of employment that prevailed during the period of US President Donald Trump.

Some may equal more employees who have more diplomacy, but an ineffective organization that focuses excessively on wrong issues will not help the United States compete for major energy with China.

Media reports gave the impression that reorganization and layoffs were transferred without adequate advice, but according to my exporter, the Rubio team began the consultations in January. By April, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has informed a plan to reduce employees by approximately 15 percent. Senior job officials were then asked for their recommendations on how to simplify their offices. I read the leadership of the administration and responded to more comments 650 in the opposition channel – which is the supporter of reforms – and attended the congressional surroundings and reorganization hearing sessions. A working group met more than 20 times and considered the reactions of job employees, congress and department offices. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs followed all legal requirements, was connected with its working power, and worked for months to properly reorganize.

Not everything works perfectly. Some of the high performance who happened to be in the wrong place was abandoned, while some poor artists were able to maintain their jobs, but protecting the federal civil service made it impossible to conduct reorganization in any other way. In line with Federal law, the law and jobs were abandoned, not individuals.

In short, the Trump administration has now started the process of reorganizing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in line with the current challenges of the United States. With a major war in Europe, conflicts in the Middle East, and the increase in Chinese aggression in the Indian Pacific Ocean, it is clear that efforts to enhance US diplomacy cannot come for a moment very soon.