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
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
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.
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.