From Foreign Policy:
The State Department suffers from low morale, bottlenecks, and bureaucratic inepititude. Do we need to kill it to save it?
Discussion over the fate of Foggy Bottom usually focuses on the tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the troubles of public diplomacy, and the rise of special envoys on everything from European pipelines to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Americans would benefit more from a reassessment of the core functionality of the U.S. State Department.
Read more ....
Mt Comment: This should not be a surprise.
Ambassadors are appointed by who gives the most money. Special envoys are named on a regular basis. We have a President/White House that is constantly involved in foreign affairs. A Secretary of State that carries a lot of baggage, and .... lets face it .... has a reputation of not being "diplomatic" and regards the Secretary of State Post as a stepping stone to .... (fill in the blank).
For me .... the event that made me realize that the State Department had degenerated into something else was right after the American invasion of Iraq. When the call was made for State Department employees to go to Iraq .... no one stepped forward. The Pentagon had to fill in the shoes that the State Department would normally fill.
Since that one pivotal event, the Pentagon has been America's true State Department .... not The State Department itself. This is (in my opinion) wrong, but until there is someone at the top who will reorganize what is essentially a very old institution from the top down .... the State Department will never get out of it's present day morass.
4 comments:
The first action I would recommend is to remove all intelligence, counterintelligence and law enforcement responsibilities from DOS and USAID (imagine that) and pass these activities directly to the entity designed to handle such functions; the DNI. Many will argue, and rightfully so, that collaboration and diplomacy can only be handled by DOS Foreign Service Officers. However, after spending the past six years in combat zones and designated high threat areas in five different countries with a federal agency, and 19-yrs as a member of NAVSOC, the only place that bureaucratic stranglehold is more prevalent than in Wash DC is US Embassies or Consulates.
Certainly, the President's National Security Strategy and its three underlying and interdependent components - diplomacy, development, and defense can best be served by either a single integrated entity providing an "end-to-end" solution, or at a minimum by thinning the herd at DOS and streamlining responsibilities. Thinning the herd can best be achieved by immediately instituting the Pay for Performance System for USG employees. No more welfare performance standard where mediocrity truly is the standard. Its high time to can the ineffective managers from our benches who are choking the desire of new recruits and seasoned performers.
Bold ideas require courage and intestinal fortitude to make big changes.
Rick .... I completely agree.
Unfortunately .... the leadership to make such changes is no where in sight.
Thanks for posting my article here. A complimentary post that looks at the role of Congress is here: http://mountainrunner.us/2009/09/senate_approps.html.
Mountain Runner, thank you for your comment.
Your blog is on my "need to read all the time list". Your blog is always well written, thoughtful, and a joy to read. I am always learning something new from the posts that you do, and I am always strongly recommending others to put you on their blogroll.
I have only one beef with your blog, and that is I wish you were blogging more.
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