re: "State Department reform: Much ado about nothing?"

Thomas M. Hill at The Brookings Institution ("a nonprofit public policy organization") is thinking about State Department's reorganization plan.

Money quote(s):

"A second rumored reform to fold State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs and Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration into the Department of Homeland Security came under attack from Senators Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) as well as House Democrats. Senator Cardin stated, “I firmly believe the State Department should remain the face of America to the world and the entry point for foreigners traveling here, for consular activities and refugee resettlement.”"

It's fine for all options to be on the table and to give consideration to major changes.  It's not necessarily a bad thing to have to stop and consider why things are being done a certain way or why things are a certain way.  If nothing else, Sec. Tillerson and others now have a firmer grasp of why it makes sense for State to be the "front end" of the visa and other consular services, even where there are shared and even overlapping responsibilities with DHS.

"The opposition to these rumored reforms was so significant that Secretary Tillerson felt compelled to include a slide in the reorganization plan preview titled “what redesign is not” and saying, “there is no intention by State or USAID to undertake the following actions at this time: moving Consular Affairs to DHS… Dismantling State or USAID…”"

Glad that's settled then.

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."

Slate - The Blob Ate Donald Trump

Joshua Keating at Slate ("a daily magazine on the web") reassured the unsettled.

Money quote(s):

"Rex Tillerson’s ongoing reorganization of the State Department, seemingly purposely designed to sideline and scale back the work of career diplomats, is definitely a concerning shift that could have lasting impacts on U.S. diplomacy around the world. But in the absence of leadership, it appears American foreign policy can just kind of run itself for a while. I don’t know how long that can continue before it slips off the rails."

Politico - Tillerson looking to eliminate dozens of special envoy posts

Nahal Toosi at Politico ("We reach the most influential people in the country") did a nice piece of writing here.

Money quote(s):

"Tillerson notes that nearly 70 special envoy or similar positions exist at the department and that some have outlived their purpose. In many cases, Tillerson argues that existing State Department bureaus will be able to handle the same duties in a more efficient way."

Some of the special envoys duplicate offices or even U.S. ambassadors resident in other countries.

"Tillerson's attempts to reduce the number of special envoys has broad support within the State Department, where many diplomats nonetheless cringe at Trump's proposal to cut their budget by 30 percent. The general feeling is that the envoy positions have proliferated to the point where they are undermining existing State Department regional bureaus and other divisions that do similar work."

Yup.  And if eliminating those duplicative positions takes care of some of that 30 percent cut, it may save truly vital functions from getting the ax.

"Some of the special envoy positions are mandated by law, making Tillerson's reorganization process tricky. At the same time, many of the positions are supported by outside advocacy groups who fear that their elimination will undermine efforts to highlight those particular issues."

The articles cites "international labor affairs; cyber issues; rights for the disabled; implementation of the Iran nuclear deal; global youth issues; and the Northern Ireland conflict" specifically as special envoy positions to be eliminated.

Daily Beast - Rex Tillerson Is Not Going to Fire the Top Asia Diplomat Bannon Hates

Of course, this is eclipsed by today's latest leaks from the White House.

Spencer Ackerman at the Daily Beast ("Independent. Irreverent. Intelligent.") interpreted the present and predicted the future.

Money quote(s):

"The State Department is standing firmly behind a senior Asia-focused diplomat under attack by Steve Bannon."

That is a nice thing to see.

"Thornton is a widely respected and non-ideological career diplomat"

At that level, most of them are.  Both.  (Or they are neither.)

"Bannon’s pledge to remove Thornton from State is the latest chapter in a long-running feud between Tillerson and the White House. For months, the Secretary of State has pushed back against efforts to meddle in his affairs and undermine his top aide, even reportedly yelling at White House personnel official over their resistance to making Thornton the permanent assistant secretary."

I don't mind a secstate who will raise his voice in support of his personnel picks.

"Haas said that the only reason for dumping Thornton was to ensure her position goes to a political loyalist.

“The only rationale I can think of for seeking to get rid of her is fact she’s a foreign service officer,” he said. “As a lapsed foreign service officer myself, I find that deeply disappointing – that anyone would be disqualified on basis having devoted their life, being sent around world, working long hours in high stress, for low pay, for the sole purpose of advancing America’s interest.” "

The real ideologues come and go with each administration.  They're called political appointees.  And with the housecleaning across State's sub-cabinet level earlier this year, the message should be clear among the career folks in both civil and foreign services.

"But if recent reports turn out to be true, Thornton may stick around longer in her gig than Bannon in his."

I suppose he'll go back to Breitbart.Com.  Which hasn't been the same since Andrew died.

re: "State Dept. in ‘Open War’ With White House"

Pamela Geller at The Geller Report ("a foremost defender of the freedom of speech against attempts to force the West to accept Sharia blasphemy laws, and against Sharia self-censorship by Western media outlets") is highly critical of the new SecState.  For that matter, she clearly has no great love for the State Department or Foreign Service themselves.

"Foreign Service is a different kind of animal. Most get subsumed by the culture at State and the snakes in Foreign Service. Condi was consumed by them, and Kerry was completely and utterly out of his depth."

Her recommendation:

"Amateur hour is over. Send in the cavalry. It’s time for a pro. It’s time for John Bolton."