Hugh Dugan<\/a><\/p>\nI just watched CNN and Anderson Cooper\u2019s very sloppy panel on Thursday\u2019s mass resignation of senior management at the US Department of State.\u00a0 They all said that the officials were KICKED OUT, \u201cand what a pity of the loss of hundreds of years of institutional memory,\u201d implying short-sightedness of the new White House.<\/p>\n
All other accounts say the officials actually RESIGNED.\u00a0 Wholesale senior management resignations at this time, hardly as spontaneous as a Benghazi night of vandalism and murder, pointedly deprive Secretary of State nominee Tillerson of transition resources and the country of institutional memory.\u00a0 Maybe there is a video somewhere that started all of this.<\/p>\n
A further level of detail reveals that three of the four resigned their current posts, but will find different posts within the State Department.\u00a0 So, \u201cresigned\u201d overstates their newsworthiness.\u00a0 Reportedly, Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy indeed is retiring.\u00a0 He served for decades creating a Harry Potter-like discipleship among his management apprentices at State.\u00a0 He now appears to be taking a new tack to continue ahead of the Benghazi black clouds and the Hillary e-mail cold front that have been on his map in recent years.<\/p>\n
Although the Cold War is over, there has been no climate change in the State Department. Its foreign service caste culture, famously leaning left for decades, was proud of all things Obama.\u00a0 Comes a new sheriff to town and the foreign service elite can\u2019t hold its ground in Foggy Bottom. \u00a0Kennedy and his bureaucratically loyal entourage have survived upon the Foreign Service Act of 1980.\u00a0 Now, much like State\u2019s supercilious senior management team, the Foreign Service Act of 1980 needs to be repealed and replaced (to borrow a popular phrase).<\/p>\n
The Act tooled the Foreign Service for a prior world of Soviet certainties, Japanese ambitions, and mutually assured destruction.\u00a0 Lo these forty years, State\u2019s cocooned, tenured officials (yes, by law, actually tenured, like professors) have pondered while other federal agencies take the lead chair in trade, disarmament, environment, health, aviation, and similar international negotiations.\u00a0 Worse yet, the National Security Council now inhales all the policy oxygen in the room.\u00a0 State is the doorman for foreign affairs, no longer the penthouse tenant.<\/p>\n
Yes, it is time to reform the Foreign Service Act of 1980.\u00a0 Cut tenure for officers walking the Department\u2019s corridors between guaranteed gigs abroad at in DC from which they can “resign” to make their point.\u00a0 Although they believe they know much more than most White Houses, cutting them loose is for the country\u2019s good.\u00a0 The United Kingdom, facing the same onset of foreign service sclerosis, reformed itself and eliminated tenure.\u00a0 It is no longer an elite support system; today\u2019s unpredictable foreign arena needs muscle and hustle, not armchair quarterbacking.<\/p>\n
In the end, it\u2019s not that big of a loss if we see these people go.\u00a0 Better yet, it is evidence of another Trumpian outcome: a self-draining swamp.\u00a0 Maybe one day the State Department\u2019s Foggy Bottom neighborhood will earn the name \u201cfirm ground\u201d.<\/p>\n
Based on this, I\u2019m hopeful for a self-building wall.<\/p>\n
–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The author is Visiting Scholar at the School of Diplomacy of Seton Hall University.\u00a0 He served as US Delegate to the United Nations for twenty-six years advising eleven US Ambassadors.<\/p>\n
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By Hugh Dugan I just watched CNN and Anderson Cooper\u2019s very sloppy panel on Thursday\u2019s mass resignation of senior management at the US Department of…<\/p>\n
Continue ReadingThe Self-Draining Swamp<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2428,"featured_media":2182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[294,285],"class_list":["post-2264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogposts","tag-profhughdugan","tag-shudiplomacy","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2265,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2264\/revisions\/2265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/unstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}