PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION MARCH-APRIL 2026 DIPLOMACY IN DANGER PLUS PEACE CORPS AT 65: FROM VOLUNTEERS TO AMBASSADORS NEGOTIATING NUCLEAR SECURITY
4 MARCH-APRIL 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL 30 A Brief History of U.S.- China Nuclear Diplomacy By Yanliang Pan 35 Responding to the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: U.S. Assistance to Japan By Steven Aoki 39 Is Nuclear Testing Needed? By Mark Goodman and Monte Mallin 22 The Nuclear Security Summits: Keeping the World Safe from Nuclear Terrorism By Laura Holgate 27 Negotiating Nuclear Security: A View from the First Trump Administration By Christopher A. Ford March-April 2026 Volume 103, No. 2 ON THE COVER: Illustration by Mammuth/iStock. FOCUS ON NUCLEAR SECURITY 35
THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH-APRIL 2026 5 55 A t the Breaking Point (Part II) 55 Update on AFSA’s Legal Actions 56 State VP Voice— The Erosion of Trust 57 USAID Representative Voice— By the People 58 R etiree VP Voice—Retirees Supporting AFSA’s Mission 58 W ork for America Webinar 59 Foreign Service Departures 61 Foreign Service Grievance Board Vacancies 63 O PM Clarifies Remote Work Exceptions 63 F Y26 NDAA Includes State Department Authorization Act 64 D.C. Rally for Rights 64 Vote to Protect Unions 64 AFSA Welcomes New Intern 65 AFSA President on the Road 65 Dinner Event Supports AFSA Legal Defense Fund 65 AFSA Governing Board Meeting, December 10, 2025 66 AFSA Welcomes New FS Class 66 A Tribute to Ambassador Ruth A. Davis 66 War on Labor Unions Webinar AFSA NEWS THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF AFSA PERSPECTIVES 7 President’s Views Toward Common Goals By John “Dink” Dinkelman 16 Speaking Out Our Professional Foreign Service Is in Danger By Ronald E. Neumann 19 Speaking Out What’s Wrong with the Ben Franklin Fellowship? By Eric Rubin 85 Reflections Did Wyatt Earp Smuggle a Puppy into Sweden? By Beatrice Camp 86 Local Lens Ben Nevis, Scotland By Aidan Gorman FEATURES 42 The Secret Sharer By William Roebuck 47 Peace Corps at 65 By Ben East FS HERITAGE 51 Wolf Ladejinsky: A Public Servant’s Case with Lessons for Today By Michael Conlon RETIREMENT SUPPLEMENT 68 Life After the Foreign Service Diplomacy in Demand: University Students Are Eager to Learn from Practitioners By Mark C. Storella DEPARTMENTS 8 Letters 10 Talking Points 73 In Memory 78 Books As one way to let our colleagues who have recently left the Foreign Service know we see you and we thank you— and in the absence of State Magazine’s regular publication of lists of retirees—AFSA is now publishing names of colleagues who self-report their departures from the Service (see page 59). Please let us know if you would like to be on the next list by going to https://bit.ly/AFSAdepartures. Thank You for Serving MARKETPLACE 81 Real Estate 83 Classifieds 84 Index to Advertisers 68
6 MARCH-APRIL 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL www.sfiprogram.org SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY INITIATIVE SFI-01268 Certified Sourcing Editor in Chief, Director of Publications Shawn Dorman: dorman@afsa.org Deputy Editor Donna Gorman: gorman@afsa.org Senior Editor Susan Brady Maitra: maitra@afsa.org Managing Editor Kathryn Owens: owens@afsa.org Associate Editor Mark Parkhomenko: parkhomenko@afsa.org Business Development Manager— Advertising and Circulation Molly Long: long@afsa.org Art Director Caryn Suko Smith Editorial Board Lynette Behnke, Co-Chair Hon. Jennifer Z. Galt, Co-Chair hannah draper, Gov. Bd. Liaison Kelly Adams-Smith Ben East Mathew Hagengruber Steven Hendrix Katherine Ntiamoah Peter Reams Dan Spokojny Lisa Nuch Venbrux THE MAGAZINE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS PROFESSIONALS The Foreign Service Journal (ISSN 0146-3543), 2101 E Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20037-2990 is published bimonthly by the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), a private, nonprofit organization. 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Indexed by the Public Affairs Information Services (PAIS). Email: journal@afsa.org Phone: (202) 338-4045 Fax: (202) 338-8244 Web: www.afsa.org/fsj Address Changes: member@afsa.org © American Foreign Service Association, 2026 PRINTED IN THE USA Postmaster: Send address changes to AFSA, Attn: Address Change 2101 E Street NW Washington DC 20037-2990 AFSA Headquarters: (202) 338-4045; Fax (202) 338-6820 State Department AFSA Office: (202) 647-8160; Fax (202) 647-0265 USAID AFSA Office: (202) 712-1941; Fax (202) 216-3710 FCS AFSA Office: (202) 482-9088; Fax (202) 482-9087 GOVERNING BOARD President John Dinkelman: dinkelman@afsa.org Secretary Sue Saarnio: saarnio@afsa.org Treasurer John K. Naland: naland@afsa.org State Vice President Rohit Nepal: nepal@afsa.org USAID Vice President Randy Chester: chester@afsa.org FCS Vice President Jay Carreiro: jay.carreiro@afsa.org FAS Vice President Vacant Retiree Vice President Hon. John O’Keefe: okeefe@afsa.org Full-Time State Representative Vacant State Representatives hannah draper: draper@afsa.org Donald Emerick: emerick@afsa.org Connor Ferry-Smith: ferry-smith@afsa.org Christina Higgins: higgins@afsa.org Stephanie Straface: straface@afsa.org USAID Representative Austan Mogharabi: mogharabi@afsa.org FCS Alternate Representative Joshua Burke: burke@afsa.org FAS Alternate Representative Vacant USAGM Representative Vacant APHIS Representative Joe Ragole: ragole@afsa.org Retiree Representatives Hon. Michael Kirby: kirby@afsa.org Julie Nutter: nutter@afsa.org STAFF Executive Director Ásgeir Sigfússon: sigfusson@afsa.org Executive Assistant to the President Jahari Fraser: fraser@afsa.org Office Coordinator Therese Thomas: therese@afsa.org PROFESSIONAL POLICY ISSUES AND ADVOCACY Director of Professional Policy Issues Lisa Heller: heller@afsa.org Director of Advocacy Kim Sullivan: sullivan@afsa.org Advocacy and Policy Manager Sean O’Gorman: ogorman@afsa.org FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION Director, HR and Operations Cory Nishi: cnishi@afsa.org Controller Kalpna Srimal: srimal@afsa.org Member Accounts Specialist Ana Lopez: lopez@afsa.org IT and Infrastructure Coordinator Aleksandar “Pav” Pavlovich: pavlovich@afsa.org COMMUNICATIONS AND OUTREACH Director of Communications and Outreach Nikki Gamer: gamer@afsa.org Deputy Director of Communications and Outreach Nadja Ruzica: ruzica@afsa.org Online Communications Manager Jeff Lau: lau@afsa.org Communications and Marketing Manager Hannah Harari: harari@afsa.org MEMBERSHIP Director, Programs and Member Engagement Christine Miele: miele@afsa.org Membership Operations Coordinator Mouna Koubaa: koubaa@afsa.org Counselor for Retirees and Alumni Brian Himmelsteib: himmelsteib@afsa.org Manager, Membership and Events Glenn Stanton: stanton@afsa.org Program Coordinator Indigo Stegner: stegner@afsa.org OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL General Counsel Sharon Papp: papp@afsa.org Deputy General Counsel Raeka Safai: safai@afsa.org Senior Staff Attorneys Zlatana Badrich: badrich@afsa.org Neera Parikh: parikh@afsa.org Labor Management Counselor Colleen Fallon-Lenaghan: colleen@afsa.org Labor Management Coordinator Patrick Bradley: bradley@afsa.org Senior Grievance Counselor Heather Townsend: townsend@afsa.org Grievance Counselor Ed White: white@afsa.org Attorney Adviser Erin Kate Brady: brady@afsa.org FOREIGN SERVICE CONTACTS www.afsa.org
THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH-APRIL 2026 7 Toward Common Goals BY JOHN “DINK” DINKELMAN John “Dink” Dinkelman is the president of the American Foreign Service Association. PRESIDENT’S VIEWS I find writing these President’s Views columns to be a daunting task, mainly out of concern for ensuring that my message hits the intended “feeling.” After all, who hasn’t heard the saying, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I have found this adage to be true— especially in the Foreign Service. In our profession, words and actions are plentiful, but the end goal is to engender respect and trust on the part of our interlocutors, giving them reason to see Americans as credible and collaborative. Unfortunately, this basic concept seems to be losing ground within the Foreign Service itself, where people are working under considerable strain trying to maintain their professionalism while faced with unreasonable demands. In this edition of the Journal, you’ll find several columns that get at current feelings inside our Foreign Service community. Unpleasant feelings, even. They offer a serious look at what’s gone wrong in our profession over the recent past. Please take time to read Ambassador Ron Neumann’s “Our Professional Foreign Service Is in Danger,” Ambassador Eric Rubin’s “What’s Wrong with the Ben Franklin Fellowship?,” and AFSA State VP Ro Nepal’s “The Erosion of Trust.” Then give some thought to how you might be able to contribute to a more collaborative, inclusive discourse. I am grateful to the FSJ Editorial Board for allowing the Journal to be used as a starting point for the discussion of this matter, which threatens to undermine the unity and cohesion of the Foreign Service. This is long overdue. I look forward to seeing where this earnest individual and collective selfexamination can lead us. And I’m glad that the FSJ will continue to provide a platform to examine the state of the Foreign Service and discuss the causes of this animosity and ill will that have arisen among and between large elements of the Foreign Service. More importantly, I hope that through the exploration of what went wrong, we can start a dialogue that will begin to address and remedy what ails us. We need to acknowledge that our professionalism has been subordinated to disparate parochial interests. Even more importantly, we need to understand how we can avert further division and restore the civility among ourselves that is critical to the successful performance of our duties. We need to renew our focus on diplomacy, to spend our days working for the American people. Such exploration of what divides us, on the pages of a professional journal, can only go so far. If we truly intend to address these divisions, we need to come together in person, face to face, to find the common ground we seem to have misplaced. I call on leadership to convene the various disparate elements of the Foreign Service community—including employee organizations and professional associations—and to take the lead on this effort while again acknowledging the vital role that diverse groups of well-intended professionals can play in achieving our common goals. As always, AFSA will be here to support such efforts. And we welcome honest brokers to share their thoughts on the way ahead. n I hope that through the exploration of what went wrong, we can start a dialogue. AFSA is seeking input from employee organizations (EO) and requests that those in a position to speak on behalf of their EO please join in this conversation. Tell us what is (or was) the value of your EO, how your group is faring now, and what you see as the future for your organization and its members vis-à-vis the Foreign Service. Send your comments (up to 600 words) to journal@afsa.org. Join the Conversation.
8 MARCH-APRIL 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL LETTERS Heartened by the Next Generation I was thrilled to read in the January- February FSJ Noah Rose’s Off-Road piece about an excursion into eastern Türkiye. The adventurous instinct, his engagement with regular Turks, and his use of Turkish—it’s great to know that the newest generation of Foreign Service officers are doing this. Stephen G. McFarland Ambassador, retired Vienna, Virginia Encomium for Heroes I just read Tom Boyatt’s quite moving “remembrance” of Bill Harrop in the November-December 2025 Foreign Service Journal. His praise for Harrop is fully deserved, and the events he recalls need to be remembered. Harrop—along with other AFSA heroes like Tex Harris, Charlie Bray, and, yes, even Tom Boyatt himself, although he was too modest to include himself in that pantheon—were the “young Turks” of their generation, the forebears of the modern American Foreign Service Association. They fought through the purchase of AFSA headquarters at 2101 E Street NW so AFSA would not be physically beholden to the whims and vicissitudes of political appointees at the top of the State Department. Harrop and his colleagues also pushed through labor-management reforms that had been talked about for years but never acted on, and they gave real voice to the Foreign Service’s relations with State management. Boyatt lays out the impact of the reforms for which successive generations of Foreign Service officers have been the beneficiaries. With the changes in labormanagement relations the Trump administration is pushing through (many of them being challenged in court), it’s clear that many of AFSA’s hard-won achievements are under threat. I listened to AFSA President John “Dink” Dinkelman run through them at a recent luncheon of the Foreign Affairs Retirees of Northern Virginia, and Dinkelman ticked off the challenges before us. But for now, let’s remember how we achieved the rights that were won for us by the generation that preceded us. David Passage Ambassador, retired Washington, D.C. Spreading the Word On September 24, 2025, I wrote the following letter to the editor that was published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, a local newspaper in Cheyenne: Are USAID funding cut decisions humane or efficient? I don’t think so. Three items in the September-October 2025 issue of The Foreign Service Journal both disturb and sadden me. My husband worked for USAID for almost 30 years in Honduras, Panama, Pakistan, the Dominican Republic, and Ukraine. His career promoted humanitarian aid and fostered economic assistance to help countries improve themselves. It made me and my daughters proud to represent the United States at our overseas posts. Page 12 from the [Journal] says, “Critics cite a new Lancet study projecting more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030 due to USAID cuts, including millions of children under the age of 5. In describing this new approach, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. is ‘prioritizing trade over aid, opportunity over dependency, and investment over assistance.’” Is this humane? Page 13 says, “The Trump administration has ordered the destruction of nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food originally purchased by USAID to feed malnourished children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The high-energy biscuits, which are valued at $800,000 and capable of feeding 1.5 million children for a week, will be incinerated at a cost of $130,000 to U.S. taxpayers.” Is this government efficiency? Page 61 says the current administration has “pushed 80,000-plus people with AIDS into early graves, caused the deaths of more than 75,000 children due to malnutrition and the cessation of USAID food assistance and wasted more than $8 billion in a misguided, ill-prepared, illegal and unconstitutional shutdown of our beloved agency.” Is this humane? Does it show government efficiency? I often wonder if my letters to the editor affect anyone, but this time I have proof. On September 26, the following letter was published: Carol Mathia’s recent letter identifying the enormous degree of human suffering and deaths caused by this administration’s USAID cuts was truly enlightening. She quoted [The Foreign Service Journal] and referenced a scientific study that anticipates more than 14 million deaths, including many children, as a result of this lost funding in the next five years! After quoting Marco Rubio as stating this is “prioritizing trade over aid, opportunity over dependency and investment
THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH-APRIL 2026 9 over assistance,” Carol asks, “Is this humane?” Put me down as a NO! And I’d ask a question. Is this really what Americans want to be known for? [End quote.] Carol Mathia USAID FS family member, retired Cheyenne, Wyoming Working Through a (Literal) Storm I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all the former USAID Foreign Service officers and Foreign Service Limited officers who made the U.S. response to Hurricane Melissa a success. Despite being illegally fired by this administration, you put aside your reservations and willingly assumed your same job with the State Department. Your work since Melissa devastated parts of the Caribbean is proof of the successful humanitarian assistance model that USAID implemented for decades. Regardless of what Marco Rubio may say, we know that you are the reason this ongoing effort will succeed. USAID may be gone, but your work, your way of doing business, and your commitment live on. Randy Chester USAID FSO, RIFed/retired Incline Village, Nevada Our Selling Skills Apropos of nothing or perhaps of everything, I, at age 95, would like to remind my fellow diplomats that our principal duty is to go abroad and do what is necessary to learn, interpret, advocate, and sell the policies of our government as well as to learn, interpret, and sell to our government what other governments and their people are thinking and doing that can help our government form its foreign policy. When it comes to our serving in Washington, the emphasis is on interpreting and presenting what we have learned to our political masters who essentially control policymaking especially when the governing administration picks and chooses among options we present or others we do not. This is a case of exercising our sales skills at home just as we do with governments abroad. It often takes a special effort to achieve. The world is constantly changing. But diplomacy remains the same—whether correctly applied or not. So let us concentrate on our selling skills and remember that we are diplomats at home as well as abroad and the sales skills we bring are essentially the same whether at home or abroad. George Lambrakis Senior FSO, retired Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom n Share your thoughts about this month’s issue. Submit letters to the editor: journal@afsa.org Corrections In the November–December 2025 In Memory, the obituary for Julia Nelson Easley Mak misidentified Jean Doyle. She is the spouse of Emma C. Hersh. Additionally, the Virginia Declaration of Rights was incorrectly referred to as the Virginia Bill of Rights. We regret the errors.
10 MARCH-APRIL 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL TALKING POINTS Ambassador Tracker AFSA remains vigilant about tracking nominations and confirmations to ambassadorships and other senior positions at the foreign affairs agencies. With the new Senate tactic of confirming large numbers of nominees en bloc, most of those nominated in 2025 were eventually confirmed. Only 12 ambassador nominees were returned to the president at the end of the year. Ominously, the administration nominated only six members of the Foreign Service to ambassadorial posts in 2025: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. All but the nominee to Colombo were confirmed. At the same time, 64 political appointees were nominated for ambassadorships. This 10:1 split is by far the most lopsided AFSA has ever seen and goes squarely against the Foreign Service Act’s requirement that “positions as chief of mission should normally be accorded to career members of the Service, though circumstance will warrant appointments from time to time of qualified individuals who are not career members of the Service.” Thirty nominations have been made to senior positions at the Department of State since January 2025. Only three of those have gone to career diplomats: the positions of under secretary for management; assistant secretary for population, refugees, and migration; and coordinator for counterterrorism. Mass Ambassador Recall Raises Alarm No accounting of nominations and confirmations under this administration is complete without addressing the mass recall of career ambassadors that took place in the last two weeks of 2025. President Trump’s decision to recall ambassadors from more than 30 countries intensified concern on Capitol Hill and within the diplomatic community about the erosion of U.S. diplomatic capacity. According to reporting by the Associated Press and Reuters, the move leaves more than half of U.S. ambassador posts in sub-Saharan Africa vacant and adds to roughly 80 ambassadorial vacancies that already existed before the recall; once the recall is complete, there will be at least 110 ambassador vacancies around the world. Those recalled face an uncertain future in the Service. By law, they will have 90 days to find an onward assignment or face involuntary retirement. AFSA has expressed concern that this unprecedented and unnecessary recall may serve as a backdoor reduction in force of some of the department’s most experienced and capable diplomats. In an appearance on PBS NewsHour on December 23, 2025, AFSA President John Dinkelman described the mass recall as “unprecedented” and “not standard practice,” disputing administration claims that the action is routine. He noted that ambassadors had submitted resignation letters at the start of the administration, as is customary, but most of the resignations by career diplomats were declined, also customary, and those envoys remained on the job, only to be abruptly recalled nearly a year later. It is highly unusual, even unprecedented, for so many ambassadors to be removed a year into a new administration. Dinkelman warned that the move amounts to “taking our star players off the field,” weakening U.S. credibility and the ability to advance policy through sustained, on-the-ground engagement. As of February 10, AFSA had confirmed the recall of 31 ambassadors. Talking Points offers a snapshot of recent developments affecting the Foreign Service. The following items were finalized for publication on February 10, 2026. The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied— the WTO, the UN, the COP—the architecture, the very architecture of collective problem-solving are under threat. And as a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions: that they must develop greater strategic autonomy in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains. And this impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. But let’s be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable. And there’s another truth: If great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate. —Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in a speech to the World Economic Forum at Davos, January 20. Contemporary Quote
THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH-APRIL 2026 11 Those recalled were serving in Algeria, Egypt, Laos, the Marshall Islands, Montenegro, Nepal, the Philippines, Slovakia, Somalia, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Only three posts had a nominee identified to succeed the recalled chief of mission. Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee echoed AFSA’s concerns in a letter urging Trump to reverse the decision. Led by Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (D–N.H.), the signatories warned that the recall of so many career ambassadors could create a “vacuum in U.S. leadership” that threatens national security and the safety of U.S. citizens and businesses overseas. The letter cautioned that the absence of ambassadors at more than 100 U.S. embassies could provide openings for adversaries such as China and Russia to expand their influence. Critics argue that leaving key posts without Senate-confirmed chiefs of mission, alongside ongoing leadership gaps in Washington, risks politicizing a traditionally nonpartisan corps and undermining America’s ability to project influence at a time of heightened global competition. U.S. Withdraws from 66 International Organizations On January 7, President Donald Trump directed the United States to withdraw from 66 international organizations, expanding on a February 2025 executive order that required a government-wide review of U.S. participation in multilateral institutions. The decision formalizes U.S. withdrawal from 35 non– United Nations (UN) organizations and 31 UN entities, with additional reviews still underway. The memorandum directs executive departments and agencies to take immediate steps to effectuate withdrawal as soon as possible. For UN entities, withdrawal is defined as ceasing participation or funding to the extent permitted by law. The list of rejected organizations includes major climate, development, and governance bodies, such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, the UN Population Fund, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the International Renewable Energy Agency, as well as the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the Peacebuilding Commission, and the UN Register of Conventional Arms. Additionally, on January 22, the U.S. formally withdrew from the World Health Organization (WHO), following a January 21, 2025, executive order signed by President Trump initiating the removal process. This ended nearly 80 years of membership. In a statement released on January 7, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Site of the Month: Project Resource Optimization The appearance of a particular site or podcast is for information only and does not constitute an endorsement. Amid sweeping disruptions to U.S. foreign assistance in early 2025, a new platform emerged to prevent lifesaving aid from disappearing overnight. Project Resource Optimization (PRO) was launched in February 2025 to help donors identify and sustain the most cost-effective global health and humanitarian programs placed at risk by abrupt USAID funding cuts. Founded by former USAID economists Caitlin Tulloch and Rob Rosenbaum, PRO evaluates and analyzes aid programs and connects them with private philanthropy. In less than a year, the initiative has helped mobilize more than $110 million, sustaining nearly 80 projects across 30 countries and reaching more than 40 million people worldwide. PRO focuses primarily on interventions with immediate, measurable impact, such as childhood immunization, treatment of acute malnutrition, and emergency health services in humanitarian crises. As Tulloch and Rosenbaum explained in an interview with PBS NewsHour, many of these programs had already procured vaccines or nutrition supplies when funding was cut, leaving lifesaving assistance stranded in warehouses just as needs were intensifying in places such as Sudan. PRO draws on expertise from former leadership at USAID’s Office of the Chief Economist and Development Innovation Ventures. Its analytical work is hosted by the Center for Global Development, reinforcing the project’s emphasis on evidence-based decision-making and accountability. Learn more about their efforts at https://proimpact.tools.
12 MARCH-APRIL 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The policy builds on a November 2025 directive that expanded financial self-sufficiency requirements and directed posts to apply more comprehensive vetting, including assessments of applicants’ finances, health, education, skills, family status, and prior use of public benefits. The suspension affects countries across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, the Balkans, and the Caribbean, specifically Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, Somalia, and Nigeria. Nonimmigrant visas for tourist and business travel are not affected; demand for those is expected to rise ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics. Secretary Marco Rubio said the action is aimed at preventing fraud and abuse of public benefits programs and ending what the administration describes as exploitation of the U.S. immigration system. A separate cable to U.S. embassies and consulates also directed officers to more closely scrutinize nonimmigrant visa applicants for potential reliance on public benefits. Those critical of the directive argue that the pause significantly restricts the organizations “redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas,” or otherwise harmful to U.S. sovereignty and prosperity. He said the administration would end the flow of U.S. taxpayer funding and diplomatic support to institutions deemed inconsistent with U.S. interests. Rubio added that the administration views the current multilateral system as having evolved into “a sprawling architecture of global governance,” often driven by ideological agendas on issues such as climate and gender policy and detached from national interests. He said the United States would continue to pursue cooperation where it advances U.S. priorities but would disengage from institutions it considers irrelevant or counterproductive. Critics have warned that the withdrawals could reduce U.S. influence in shaping global norms and standards, while administration officials argue the move aligns U.S. diplomacy and resources more closely with national sovereignty, fiscal restraint, and strategic purpose. U.S. Suspends Immigrant Visas for 75 Countries The Trump administration has suspended immigrant visa processing for nationals of 75 countries, a directive that began on January 21, 2025. The move is part of a broader administration effort to reduce both legal and illegal immigration pathways. Under guidance issued by the department, consular officers have been instructed to halt immigrant visa applications while Washington reassesses screening procedures to prevent the admission of individuals deemed likely to become a “public charge.” legal immigration. The State Department has touted on social media that the administration has already revoked more than 100,000 visas since Trump returned to office and expanded social media and background screening. A lawsuit against State and Secretary Rubio was filed February 2 by a coalition of immigration groups to overturn the order suspending IV approvals from the 75 countries. Trump National Security Strategy Recasts Europe On December 4, 2025, President Donald Trump released a new National Security Strategy (NSS) that marks a sharp break with decades of U.S. foreign policy, recentering national security around sovereignty, migration control, and regional preeminence rather than global leadership and alliance management. The document warns that Europe faces “civilizational erasure” driven by migration and demographic change. It argues that European governments are pursuing unrealistic policies on Ukraine and Russia that do not reflect public opinion. While reaffirming U.S. support An Opportunity to Close a Tragic Chapter 50 Years Ago Several weeks before, I had left Saigon on one of the last helicopters, anguished and angered over the failure of the embassy to extricate the majority of the Vietnamese who worked for us. Now, suddenly, there was an opportunity to participate in the last act of that tragedy, an opportunity to help in the resettlement of over 130,000 Vietnamese who had succeeded in fleeing to the United States. There was, in other words, an opportunity to help end this piece of history on an affirmative note. —Foreign Service Officer Alan Carter, “The Indo-Chinese Refugee Program— A View from a Camp,” in the April 1976 edition of The Foreign Service Journal.
THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH-APRIL 2026 13 for NATO, the NSS endorses limiting further alliance expansion and calls for “strategic stability” with Russia, diverging from prior bipartisan policy and earlier Trump-era strategies that explicitly identified Russia as a malign actor. Critics note that the document largely omits references to Russian cyber operations, political interference, or influence campaigns, framing the war in Ukraine primarily as a European concern. More broadly, the strategy formalizes the administration’s “America First” worldview into doctrine. It rejects democracy promotion and the rules-based international order as organizing principles of U.S. policy, stating that the affairs of other countries warrant U.S. involvement only when they directly threaten core national interests. Border security and demography are elevated to central national security priorities, with the document declaring that “the era of mass migration must end.” At the center of the strategy is what it terms a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 (aka the Donroe Doctrine), which argues that U.S. security depends on restoring U.S. preeminence in the Western Hemisphere. The NSS calls for reorienting military posture toward the region, expanding maritime and border enforcement, and limiting the influence of external powers—particularly China. This new doctrine was manifested on January 4 when President Trump announced that the United States would place Venezuela under temporary U.S. control following a raid that captured President Nicolás Maduro and brought him to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges.
14 MARCH-APRIL 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Trump said Washington would oversee a transition while U.S. oil companies moved to rehabilitate Venezuela’s energy sector. In the Eastern Hemisphere, China is framed primarily as an economic and technological competitor rather than an existential ideological rival. The strategy calls for rebalancing trade and reducing supply-chain dependence while maintaining a “mutually advantageous” economic relationship. It reaffirms long-standing U.S. policy opposing unilateral changes to the status quo regarding Taiwan. The strategy also deemphasizes the Middle East as a central U.S. priority, casting the region as a place for investment and partnership rather than democracy promotion, and it treats Africa largely as a theater for commercial engagement and competition with China. While not binding, observers say the document codifies a fundamentally different theory of U.S. engagement that favors sovereignty, spheres of influence, and transactional diplomacy over alliance-centered global leadership. SIGAR Final Report and Oral History Project A final report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), published December 3, 2025, finds that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan was a twodecade effort “fraught with waste” that failed to build a stable democracy despite nearly $145 billion in reconstruction spending from 2002 to 2021. The report attributes the outcome to corrupt partners, shifting strategies, and the absence of a clear plan. Acting Inspector General Gene Aloise said corruption “affected everything,” describing Afghanistan’s government as a “white-collar criminal enterprise.” He noted that SIGAR identified systemic weaknesses, particularly in Afghan security forces, years before the 2021 withdrawal, but key findings were increasingly classified. While the report does not assess the withdrawal itself, it estimates the United States left behind about $38.6 billion in military equipment and infrastructure. Aloise said SIGAR was not consulted in the Pentagon’s current withdrawal review ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Established by Congress in 2008 and closed on January 31, SIGAR says it generated $4.6 billion in cost savings while identifying at least $26 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse: an oversight role Aloise said helped limit far greater losses to U.S. taxpayers. This January, SIGAR also released video interviews and transcripts from the SIGAR Oral History Project, “Conducting Oversight in a War Zone.” That project consists of interviews with more than 30 SIGAR personnel about their experiences helping SIGAR identify, report, and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in Afghanistan. The interviewees include SIGAR criminal investigative agents who pursued fraud cases in Afghanistan, auditors who inspected and evaluated U.S. program and project sites there, as well as research analysts and other subject matter experts who tracked bigger picture issues for SIGAR’s “Lessons Learned” reports. The interviews contain case studies and internal insights from SIGAR’s work overseeing reconstruction in Afghanistan and are offered by the organization as a resource for the education and training of future federal government professionals who may engage in related work. The SIGAR Oral History Project Overview document provides brief highlights from each interview, and details about how to access the full edited interviews and transcripts, today and after SIGAR sunsets and ceases. The archived version of the SIGAR. mil website is now available online through the University of North Texas CyberCemetery at https://bit.ly/SIGARarchives. For the oral histories, go to “News” and then “Spotlights.” State Department Rejects Fact-Checkers A State Department directive issued on December 4, 2025, instructs consular officers to reject visa applications, particularly H-1B petitions, from individuals whose prior work involved fact-checking, content moderation, or other activities the administration considers censorship of Americans’ speech. The guidance, first reported by Reuters and reviewed by NPR, calls for findings of ineligibility where applicants are deemed “responsible for, or complicit in,” restricting protected expression in the United States. The memo operationalizes a May 2025 policy announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and directs officers to closely examine applicants’ work histories, including résumés, LinkedIn profiles, and media references, for roles tied to misinformation or disinformation efforts, trust and safety, compliance, or content moderation, fields common in the tech sector. Civil liberties groups and industry experts criticized the move, arguing it conflates safety work with censorship
THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH-APRIL 2026 15 and could raise First Amendment concerns. The department said it is defending Americans’ free expression from foreign interference and, in a related step, has required H-1B applicants and their dependents to set social media profiles to public for review. Nuclear Safety Rules Secretly Overhauled The Trump administration has quietly rewritten a sweeping set of nuclear safety and security directives at the Department of Energy (DOE), sharing the revised rules with reactor developers while keeping them from public view, according to an investigation by NPR. The changes, made over the fall and winter, cut more than 750 pages from existing requirements governing reactor security, environmental protections, worker safety, and accident investigations, replacing detailed standards with broader, more discretionary guidance. The overhaul is tied to a DOE pilot program aimed at bringing at least three new designs online by July 4 and reflects the administration’s push to fast-track experimental nuclear reactors, particularly small modular reactors. In a statement responding to NPR’s reporting, Union of Concerned Scientists warned that the DOE had taken a “sledgehammer” to core regulatory principles. Edwin Lyman, the group’s director of nuclear power safety, said the changes weaken safeguards developed in response to disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima and could extend beyond the pilot program to affect broader nuclear oversight. While DOE officials defend the revisions as streamlining unnecessary regulation and say the directives will be posted publicly later this year, former leaders of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and outside experts caution that relaxing standards without transparency could erode public trust and increase risks as the administration accelerates nuclear development to meet growing energy demands, including those tied to artificial intelligence data centers. 2025 SOSA Awardees for Outstanding Volunteerism Abroad The U.S. Foreign Service community is celebrating the 2025 recipients of the Secretary of State Award for Outstanding Volunteerism Abroad (SOSA), presented annually by the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide (AAFSW). Established in 1990 with the encouragement of then–Secretary of State James A. Baker and his wife, Susan, the SOSA Awards recognize exceptional volunteer service by members of the Foreign Service community serving overseas. Since its inception, the program has honored more than 100 volunteers from over 130 diplomatic missions whose projects demonstrate creativity, leadership, and sustainability—often continuing long after an assignment ends. Awardees are selected by a panel representing AAFSW, the Global Community Liaison Office (GCLO), and State Department regional bureaus, with full profiles published annually in Global Link. Each regional bureau winner receives a $2,500 cash award and a certificate signed by the Secretary of State. Read about them at https://bit .ly/2025-SOSA-honorees. The End of New START On February 5, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expired, ending the last legally binding limits on U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces. The treaty capped each side at 1,550 deployed strategic warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers and allowed on-site inspections and data exchanges that built predictability and reduced worst-case assumptions. Its lapse marks the end of a decadeslong era of bilateral arms control. Without binding caps or verification, both countries are free to expand deployments, raising the risk of a renewed arms competition. President Trump has called for negotiating a “better” and more modern treaty. Critics have long argued that New START did not cover nonstrategic nuclear weapons or Russia’s newer “exotic” delivery systems. Meanwhile, Russia has indicated it would consider observing New START’s numerical limits for one year, if the United States reciprocates. Beijing remains reluctant to accept formal limits but may be more open to discussions focused on reducing nuclear risks. Priorities for any new treaty would include bringing back inspections and data exchanges, covering tactical and new types of weapons in future talks, clarifying what is allowed under the nuclear testing pause, and ensuring missile defenses and nuclear forces do not create new instability. With New START’s expiration, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) remains the only legally binding global nuclear restraint. Whether new guardrails can be built will depend on sustained diplomatic engagement. n This issue of Talking Points was compiled by Mark Parkhomenko.
16 MARCH-APRIL 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL SPEAKING OUT Ronald E. Neumann, the former U.S. ambassador to Algeria, Bahrain, and Afghanistan, is president of the American Academy of Diplomacy. These views are his own and in no way represent Academy positions. T he professional, nonpartisan Foreign Service is in danger. America needs the best possible diplomacy to confront the challenges of a fracturing world, dangerous great power competitors, and transnational challenges. It needs diplomats with courage, skill, and experience, but the continued existence of such a corps is in trouble. The immediate danger comes from the behavior of the Trump administration. The longer-term one stems from the intrusion of the country’s partisan rancor into the ranks of the Service. In the current administration, I have heard both political appointees and some Foreign Service officers (FSOs) say that the Foreign Service is too much a collection of elite-school graduates with left-leaning political and cultural attitudes disdainful of “regular” Americans and reluctant to execute the policies of the Trump administration. They point to actions such as the leaking of dissent cables in the first Trump administration to show that too many FSOs, contrary to their oath to the Constitution, are neither loyal nor prepared to put full effort into executing the president’s policies. From this they appear to have concluded that a massive effort to reshape the Foreign Service culture and clean out its adherents is required. The cleaning out is evident. In previous administrations, 60 to 70 percent of ambassadorial appointments, on average, went to career diplomats. As of December 2025, the number was well below 50 percent. Only six out of 70 ambassadorial nominations and appointments in 2025 were from the career Foreign Service. Of 30 other senior appointments in the State Department, just three went to career officers. The week before Christmas, some 30 career ambassadors were “recalled,” informed they must depart their posts within a few weeks, signaling a further reduction in the career ranks. While complaints about the attitudes of some career officers may be true, the policies adopted by the Trump administration to refashion the Foreign Service appear to go well beyond reestablishing nonpartisan norms of loyalty. Instead, the actions undertaken appear designed to politicize diplomacy and abandon the idea of a nonpartisan career Service as established by law. I use terms like “seem to” and “appear to” because it is difficult to know how various policy pronouncements are actually applied. The administration has no obligation, and apparently no intention, to reveal the details of its actions without a recognized union to push for disclosure. Efforts to Reshape the Foreign Service Administration policies that appear to try to reshape the Service include the nontransparent alteration of promotion standards, the recomputation of scores from previous promotion boards to award additional promotions, an altered entrance exam about which little is known and much is rumored, as well as the new core precept and emphasis on “fidelity” of new FSOs without making clear whether this is to their constitutional oath or the values of the Trump administration. There is a question of whether oral examinations for the Service will be politicized by adding examiners who will ensure that new entrants have the “correct” ideological and social orientation. Recruitment is another area in which changes seem to echo the administration’s long-term social goals. Statements by the administration directed an end to any so-called DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) outreach work. There is a less well-defined endeavor that suggests a belief that the FS is too reflective of social elites and needs more recruitment from the American heartland. Our Professional Foreign Service Is in Danger BY RONALD E. NEUMANN Without a nonpartisan and cohesive staff, the department would lose the skills and courage to contribute to policy or effectively implement decisions.
THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH-APRIL 2026 17 Efforts by diplomats in residence (DIR), Foreign Service officers posted to universities around the U.S., could be redirected if they were not enlisting a sufficiently diversified social base. Instead, the DIR program has been closed. New outreach seems to be limited to universities with a particular social and (Christian) religious orientation. I’ve heard stories that certain Christian universities have an advantage in providing preparation for their students to pass the Foreign Service exam, leading to suspicion that either they are receiving special information or even that the new tests have been leaked to them. The rumors are not substantiated and may be false, but without transparency suspicion flourishes. As dangerous as these developments are, the growing politicization within the ranks poses a greater long-term challenge. The Trump administration has three more years in office. Many of its directives can be changed or reversed by the next administration. AFSA has a good chance of winning its court battle and returning as the recognized union of the U.S. Foreign Service. In this event, it will have the opportunity to force negotiation of many policies affecting promotion standards, the composition of promotion boards, and other policies that touch on personnel actions. But this would not necessarily fix the larger problem. If the politicization and divisions so prevalent in American politics become entrenched within the Service, the prospects even under future administrations for a nonpartisan and professional diplomacy are gloomy indeed. Removals and Appointments This issue did not begin with the Trump administration. Most new administrations remove senior officers they perceive as being too closely identified with the policies of the previous administration. Yet now, the tendency is growing by leaps and bounds. The first Trump administration pushed out an unusually high number of senior career officers, including a disproportionate number of officers from underrepresented groups. At that time, I and many other retired FSOs urged Foreign Service members to remain and to loyally carry out the policies of elected leaders. Yet when the Biden administration came into office, it overlooked several officers who had remained in acting senior positions. Some very capable and experienced retired officers were brought back, but comparatively few officers who had served in senior positions during Trump I were moved up to Senate-confirmed positions. The current Trump administration has taken this practice of getting rid of serving officers in leadership positions to new heights, rapidly ending promising careers, including the dismissal of numerous senior minority and female officers, many with distinguished records of serving multiple administrations in difficult and sometimes dangerous postings. Case in Point Removals and appointments are now leading to growing divisions within the Foreign Service itself. The Ben Franklin Fellowship (BFF) is a case in point. The friction surrounding it is an example of the larger problem. According to its website and official statements, the organization is devoted to overturning policies of DEI and returning to what it calls merit-based principles without any form of discrimination. Its website states that it is “non-partisan and not affiliated with any political party.” But many believe that, in practice, its objectives are more radical. BFF members probably hold diversified viewpoints. Yet when the organization’s chair characterizes a removal of career ambassadors never done on this scale by any previous administration as “just the speeding up of the [normal] turnover,” he seems to be an administration apologist. In further stating that the action reflects the corridor reputation of those removed as “opposition to Trump,” he is moving from espousing a conservative viewpoint to one that is expressly partisan. And when the BFF chair asserts that 90 percent of the Foreign Service leans Democrat and must be reshaped to reflect “a country that ideologically breaks 50-50” for Trump, he is calling for a major reshaping of the Foreign Service on a partisan basis. BFF is open “by invitation only” to those who share its principles. The suspicion aroused by this secretiveness is reinforced by the presence of many fellows appointed as senior bureau officials. There is a perception that being a member of BFF gives preference in bidding, assignments, and access to senior State Department officials. Franklin Fellows I have talked with say this is exaggerated. They do have access to senior officials but say they are often surprised by personnel decisions. They point out that BFF members are among those forced out of government by the July 2025 State Department reduction in force (RIF). They argue that the Ben Franklin Fellowship simply gives a voice to conservative views that have been long marginalized in the Foreign Service. Yet they also note the difficulty of speaking
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