The Hill - Diminishing American diplomacy around the globe a dangerous prospect

Brett Bruen at The Hill ("It signals the important issues of the moment.") makes some nice arguments about the importance of U.S. diplomacy to real life Americans.

Money quote(s):

"You’re robbed on a trip overseas. It’s late on a Friday night. A short message at the American Embassy informs you that due to budget cuts they no longer provide afterhours service. No help will be available until Monday. Even then, you’ll face long lines and limited options. Can our citizens really do without diplomats?"

Most consular services are supported by fees.  Application fees for visas, processing fees for passports, notarial fees; you get the picture.

There are some instances where there's no fee charged; in death cases, in assisting victims of crime, in visiting U.S. citizens detained, arrested, or imprisoned abroad.  That comes out of overhead.  Embassies and consulates (and the Bureau of Consular Affairs which pays the salaries of consular staff) eat the cost; the paying customers subsidize the non-paying ones.

One of the concerns about (possibly) moving the visa and passport missions to DHS is the question of who then shoulders the burden of some of the most sensitive functions of consular work, assisting U.S. citizens abroad?  Along with that, who pays for it?  Would State retain those responsibilities?  Would DHS assume them?  If the fees ($2 billion annually) were to move along with the visa and passport function to DHS, is Congress then going to begin appropriating a budget (which it hasn't had to do in decades) to pay for those non-fee generating services?

"In defending diplomacy, we too often talk in bold and broad terms. World peace. International trade. America’s standing on the global stage. These goals seem detached from the kinds of things that impact people every day. Less heralded are the concessions achieved by our negotiators that make the world a fairer place to do business. Few will connect the fact Americans need a visa to so few countries with the work of diplomacy. There are no parades for the war that didn’t happen."

Americans may travel to so many countries around the world needing to get a visa beforehand that some are honestly surprised when they encounter a situation where they do.  Naturally, that tends to happen (since nowadays nobody books trips through travel agencies which might have warned them) when they try to board a flight for their dream vacation destination and are denied boarding.  Even more naturally, that will happen as they try to change plans at an airport overseas and on a weekend in a city where they don't understand the language, they have no hotel reservations, and there is no U.S. consulate.

"There are those in the West Wing who doubt diplomats’ support for Trump’s foreign policies. Yet, every senior diplomat in Foggy Bottom served under Republican and Democratic administrations. They did so because they are guided by a belief in American principles, not party."

It's true our diplomats genuinely put country before party.  Nonetheless, it's also true that the last eight years really muddied those waters, especially in the minds of those who watched from the other side of the aisle.

The Hill - 6 ways to know if State Department reform is real or fake

Joseph Cassidy writing at The Hill makes some excellent points.

Money quote(s):

"A real reform plan would mobilize the department to confront the dangers of the 21st century. It would remedy organizational weaknesses and inefficiencies. It would clarify State’s role in formulating foreign policy and define its relationship with other U.S. government agencies. It would provide a sense of purpose to State’s dedicated but downtrodden employees. "

That right there looks like an pretty fair mission statement for departmental reform.

"In recent administrations, the State Department’s structure has been more hourglass than pyramid. Senior officials and their staffer remoras have been over-abundant and have consumed a disproportionate amount of the department’s workload. Real reform would cut senior positions and reduce the number of staff officers who don’t originate work product."

&

"There is widespread agreement that the weedy proliferation of special envoys (not just those with that specific title, but also other powerful single-issue envoys outside State’s regional and functional bureau chains of command) must be pruned. Real reform will substantially reduce their number but also ensure that important responsibilities are incorporated into other parts of the department (double-hatting officials with a special envoy title, when its termination would be politically or diplomatically problematic).

Envoy proliferation has had two pernicious consequences — disempowering regional bureaus (which should rather be reinforced) by removing important diplomatic issues from their control and ensuring regional bureaus don’t in practice follow “special envoy” issues as closely. Real reform will mainstream as well as streamline."

This.  The dozens of special envoys and such duplicating and tromping over the responsibilities of existing embassies and missions is overkill.  Even granting the half-dozen or so (seven?) actually mandated by law, the idea of dual-hatting some of those back into the fold, onto the worthy-brows of the officials already charged with those countries, regions, or issues is one well worth exploiting.

(Gotta love the use of "remoras" to describe the spear-carriers and special assistants attending to extraneous special envoys.)

"Too many otherwise smart people believe diplomacy is something separate from other elements of national power, e.g., that the James Mattis does national defense, the Treasury Department does international finance and sanctions, the Commerce Department helps U.S. business abroad, the Department of Justice does international law and State carries messages back and forth to other governments like an Amazon delivery drone.

Diplomacy without foreign policy content is irrelevant, and there’s no such thing as short-term strategy. Real reform would reassert State’s role as lead strategist and coordinator of U.S. foreign policy, including the current actions of other cabinet agencies and America’s role in the world over the next several decades. "

You can bet that Sec. Mattis knows very well the many aspects of national powers, DIMEFILS and similar mnemonics outlining the instrumentalities and elements of implementing national strategies and grand strategies.  State is a logical place for interagency coordination of national strategy although the National Security Council staff seems to have inherited that mantel of late.

Read the whole thing.