Slate - How worried should we be about the military’s takeover of American foreign policy?

Isaac Chotiner at Slate ("a daily magazine on the web") interviewed a military scholar.

Money quote(s):

"The sort of substantive throughline is that we barely have a foreign policy. This gets closer to my book’s themes. We essentially have a military policy. The military policy is being carried out with reasonable consistency and coherence in a sort of technocratic sense.

But we don’t have much other than military policy because the State Department under Trump and Secretary Tillerson is all but paralyzed by a combination of hiring freezes, threatened budget cuts, lack of personnel in key positions, and the fact that the White House fairly consistently shuts them out of anything important. Much of the sort of traditional U.S. diplomacy is either on hold or has sort of pulled back."

This is certainly what one would understand from major media reporting; from the inside it's not quite so drastic although there is at least partial truths for each of these listed factors.

"I think there’s a really strong sense in the Defense Department that, in an ideal world, the State Department is a vital counterpart to the military. I think there’s an equally strong sense in the military at the moment that there is nobody home in the State Department, and that’s been to some extent true for the last decade or more but now dramatically exacerbated in the Trump–Tillerson era.

I think you will continue to hear people like Jim Mattis and the service chiefs say very strongly that diplomacy is important. Development is important. Our job, you know, we can’t do our job without those things. I think you’ll continue to hear that, but there’s only a limited degree to which the actors at the Pentagon have any ability to create that out of thin air or to get Donald Trump to create it."

The "nobody home in the State Department" seems more true nowadays due to the number of "acting" officials throughout the Department, but the interviewee conflates this lower-level rudderlessness with the previous Administrations focus on international irrelevancies.

"The oft-cited line that there are more members in the military marching bands than there are foreign service officers is in fact true, even though I always thought it had to be apocryphal. This was a huge issue in Afghanistan during the Obama years, that the constant promises of a civilian surge just never materialized because the personnel just weren’t there."

There simply is not and has never been deployment-ready diplomatic brigade sitting on a stateside base awaiting orders to go nation-build somewhere.  Sec. Powell tried to bake some surge-capacity into the cake with the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative (DRI) but increases in worldwide workload have eaten away at that for years.  And with the continuing hiring-freeze, hollowing-out, and possible 30 percent downsizing, it only gets worse going forward.

"It’s also important to remember that Mattis and Kelly have retired. They are civilians now. They are not active. McMaster is the exception. He is obviously still active-duty military, but I don’t quite get the fixation on oh my God the military has taken over."

Politico - Interest in U.S. diplomatic corps tumbles in early months of Trump

Daniel Lipplman and Nahal Toosi at Politico ("We reach the most influential people in the country") discussed plunging recruitment numbers.

"This June, the number of Americans who took the Foreign Service exam to start the process of joining the prestigious State Department ranks fell 26 percent from the same month a year earlier to 2,730, according to data obtained by POLITICO. The June tally marked the lowest number of test-takers in nearly a decade."

That's a big dip.  Unfortunately the article doesn't specify when the previous low-point, sometime about 10 years ago, was. Arithmetic suggests that it was during Pres. Obama's first term, which is interesting given this next set of figures.

"Since 9/11, annual hiring for FSOs has ranged from about 300 to just above 700.

The exam is usually given three times a year. The number of applicants spiked to almost 9,000 in June 2009 and was mostly around 4,000 to 7,000 for tests during the Obama years."

Reading between the lines, there was a big influx of exam-takers just after Pres. Obama took office and then, sometime not too long after, the lowest number of applicants until this latest figure.  At a guess, there was a lot of enthusiasm and interest so more people took the exam early in Obama's first term, which left a smaller pool of potential applicants just afterwards, since test-takers have to wait 12 months to re-take the examination.

About a quarter to a fifth of test-takers are selected to move forward in the selection process from this first hurdle.

" “The Foreign Service is like the military — if you don’t bring in lieutenants now, you don’t have the majors you need in 10 years and don’t have the colonels you need in 20,” said Ronald E. Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy"

Preach it.  The Foreign Service suffered for years from the lack of hiring under the Clinton administration (when there were years the FS exam wasn't even offered).  Several hiring initiatives, beginning under Sec. Powell's "Diplomatic Readiness Initiative," have turned that around over the past decade or so.

"(T)he secretary of state, has already suspended the use of prestigious fellowship programs and otherwise severely restricted hiring as he ponders ways to reorganize the department, a process that could take many more months to complete."

This is troublesome.  It's particularly galling to see a Republican administration repeat a Democratic administration's mistakes in hiring new officers at below the rate of attrition.

"14,000 Foreign Service employees carry out U.S. diplomacy around the world, interacting with people from other countries while helping Americans overseas."

We interact with foreigners so you don't have to.  And helping Americans overseas is one of the most worthwhile and satisfying functions of a U.S. consular officer.

"Devika Ranjan, president of the student Academic Council of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service this past year, said many of her recent fellow graduates, who earlier would have followed a storied tradition of the school’s grads going into State, are choosing to focus their attention instead on think tanks, nonprofits and further education. “They’re concerned about representing the United States abroad when they don’t necessarily agree with the decisions of the administration,” she said.

There are still more than enough applications to fill the limited number of open slots in the Foreign Service, an intensely competitive program in which only 1.8% of Foreign Service applicants get hired. The State Department expects to hire 222 new Foreign Service officers by the end of fiscal year 2017, according to a State Department official. "

Two-hundred plus officers is barely two (perhaps three) orientation or "A-100" intake classes.  That's better than nothing but what perhaps explains the drop in test-takers is that that number means nearly all of the new-hires will be from one of the special hiring tracks like Rangel or Pickering fellows.

This means only a handful will be from the normal accession channels, i.e., taking the Foreign Service exam.  In other words, test-takers opting out of the process at this time are being perfectly rational, since only a literal handful or dozen of them will get a job offer, rather than several hundred.

Harrumph.  This too shall pass but at what cost?

re: "Obama's Meglomania: What He Should Say Tonight About Libya"

Peter Schweizer at Big Peace thinks the Europeans have our number.

Money quote(s):

"I suggest instead.... that he tell the truth: He got played. Obama got maneuvered into getting involved in Libya because the Europeans, particularly the French and Italians, were concerned about their access to oil and a refugee crisis. And as much as Obama wants to believe that he can “hand over” the Libyan operation to the Europeans, the Colin Powell Rule in International Affairs still applies: ”If you break it, you fix it.” The United States can’t just bomb Libya and then walk away.

The Europeans played Obama so easily because they appealed to his guilt instincts. Obama sincerely believes that under Bush the United States was a Cowboy Empire, insensitive to the sophisticates in Europe. He has been all to eager to demonstrate that he’s different and willing to allow them to lead. What Obama failed to take into account is that Europe has a history of wanting the fruits of military power without actually having military power. It’s the same with Libya. If things go awry, you can bet that the French will gripe and blame the Americans, cajoling the White House to get more firmly involved.

The Europeans no doubt played on Obama’s meglomania and presented this as an opportunity for him to appear both strong and selfless. Strong because he could use military power! ”Selfless” because there are exactly no American interests at stake.

Our enemies and allies are both very shrewd at figuring out what personal qualities they can manipulate in our leaders and using them to their advantage. Sarkozy played Obama perfectly."

As fond as I am of Sec. Powell, I'm less enthused about the "Pottery Barn" rule about owning the things you break, at least when it comes to warfare. There are such things as punitive expeditions, after all, where the whole point is to break things (and leave without paying).

re: "Some Questions For Advocates Of Intervention In Libya"

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") relays George Will's excellent questions and declares:

"(B)efore we accept the arguments of those calling for yet another war in an Arab nation, we require them to answer these questions."

Mr. Will has a few more questions than the Powell Doctrine required.

What are they?

- The world would be better without Gaddafi. But is that a vital U.S. national interest? If it is, when did it become so? A month ago, no one thought it was.
- How much of Gaddafi’s violence is coming from the air? Even if his
aircraft are swept from his skies, would that be decisive?
- What lesson should be learned from the fact that Europe’s worst atrocity since the Second World War – the massacre by Serbs of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica – occurred beneath a
no-fly zone
- Sen. John Kerry says: “The last thing we want to think about is any kind of military intervention. And I don’t consider the fly zone stepping over that line.” But how is imposing a no-fly zone – the use of military force to further military and political objectives – not military
intervention?
- U.S. forces might ground Gaddafi’s fixed-wing aircraft by destroying runways at his 13 air bases, but to keep helicopter gunships grounded
would require continuing air patrols, which would require the destruction of Libya’s radar and anti-aircraft installations. If collateral damage from such destruction included civilian deaths – remember those nine Afghan boys recently killed by mistake
when they were gathering firewood – are we prepared for the televised
pictures?
- The Economist reports Gaddafi has “a huge arsenal of Russian surface-to-air missiles” and that some experts think Libya has SAMs that could threaten U.S. or allies’ aircraft. If a pilot is downed and captured, are we ready for the hostage drama?
- If we decide to give war supplies to the anti-Gaddafi fighters, how do we get them there?
- Presumably we would coordinate aid with the leaders of the anti-Gaddafi forces. Who are they?
- Libya is a tribal society. What concerning our Iraq and Afghanistan
experiences justifies confidence that we understand Libyan dynamics?
- Because of what seems to have been the controlling goal of avoiding U.S. and NATO casualties, the humanitarian intervention – 79 days of bombing – against Serbia in Kosovo was conducted from 15,000 feet. This marked the intervention as a project worth killing for but not worth dying for. Would intervention in Libya be similar? Are such interventions morally dubious?
- Could intervention avoid “mission creep”? If grounding Gaddafi’s aircraft is a humanitarian imperative, why isn’t protecting his enemies from ground attacks?
- In Tunisia and then in Egypt, regimes were toppled by protests. Libya is convulsed not by protests but by war. Not a war of aggression, not a war with armies violating national borders and thereby implicating the basic tenets of agreed-upon elements of international law, but a civil war. How often has intervention by nation A in nation B’s civil war enlarged the welfare of nation A?
- Before we intervene in Libya, do we ask the United Nations for permission? If it is refused, do we proceed anyway? If so, why ask? If we are refused permission and recede from intervention, have we not made U.S. foreign policy hostage to a hostile institution?
- Secretary of State Hilary Clinton fears Libya becoming a failed
state – “a giant Somalia.” Speaking of which, have we not seen a cautionary movie – “Black Hawk Down” – about how humanitarian
military interventions can take nasty turns?
- The Egyptian crowds watched and learned from the Tunisian crowds. But the Libyan government watched and learned from the fate of the Tunisian and Egyptian governments. It has decided to fight. Would not U.S. intervention in Libya encourage other restive peoples to expect
U.S. military assistance?
- Would it be wise for U.S. military force to be engaged simultaneously in three Muslim nations?

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Hat tip to Barcepundit ("My English is not perfect? Well, it's not my mother tongue, so sue me! ").

re: "Diplomatic Bloggers: No Blanket Ban but Better Guidelines Needed"

DS at Diplopundit ("Blogging the Foreign Service: outside looking in, sometimes, inside looking out; monitoring the goings on at Foggy Bottom and elsewhere in the diplomatic universe, so you don't have to. ") continues her discussion of State's "social media" rules.

Money quote(s):

"As far as I know, there is no blanket ban on blogging by diplomats writing in their private capacity. But there may be soft and hard pressures exerted on employees or their family members not to blog by various characters in the bureaucracy. This is probably one of those many things in the FS that fall into the “it depends” category. This is probably one of those things in the FS that is having a hard time trying to catch up with the real world without a hard push (remember those Wang computers that you had to put up with until Colin Powell said 'nuff already?)."

Oh yes, I well remember the Wang computers that everyone was forced to use. There would, if you were lucky, be one PC on an office floor, which people could use, if they signed up for time slots.

"Logic dictates that if senior officials do not have time to clear materials written in your private capacity in Timor-Liste or in London, they absolutely won’t have time to clear your random thoughts and musings in a war zone. "

Ya think? Don't higher management have a lot more to do that this?

If you think they don't, you're wrong.

"Are we to understand that although these guidelines have been in the books forever -- that State will look the other way, as long as your blog is not controversial and remains obscure? (John Matel was controversial at some point when he wrote his To My Overwrought Colleagues, but he did not put State in a bad light), or as long as the New York Times has not come calling for that interview? Or could it simply be that State is trying to catch up with the times, but has not quite made up its mind on how to change the rules?"