The Foreign Service Journal, May 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2018 23 worse, the Tillerson plan failed to address structural and systemic anomalies. For exam- ple, approximately 67 percent of the Foreign Service serves overseas at any given time. But more than 50 percent of DS agents serve stateside, even as the threats and risks to U.S. personnel and facilities are abroad. DS agents have now edged out political officers as the largest cohort in State. They exceed by 500 each the economic, public diplomacy and consular officer cadres, and number close to 900 more than management officers. This can hardly be characterized as an optimal mix. Moreover, five bureaus (led by Consular Affairs and Diplomatic Security) account for 70 percent of Civil Service positions. Their hiring, which is given priority under the staff- ing exercise as those bureaus have deficits, automatically means that the needs of other bureaus in the State Department may be nearly shut out—whether in arms control, non-proliferation, sanctions enforcement, trade promotion, civil aviation, energy, human rights or a host of other critical areas. Tillerson and his senior team downplayed the loss of senior leaders and career ambassadors. It is normal to see retirements at those ranks. What is unusual is that so many were forced out at one time—a precipitous decline when contrasted to the many vacancies at the assistant secretary level and many posts lacking ambassadors. Budget Reality Though Tillerson and his staff claimed that State’s budget was unsustainable, they offered no empirical evidence in support and made no business case why drastic retrenchment in budget and personnel was necessary. The department has yet to put budget figures into context, either historically or in comparison to national security spending overall. In fact, State’s budget has declined since 2008. The operational budget for core diplomacy functions (the Diplomatic and Consular Programs account) has been on a downward slope since 2010, even as requirements grew. Budget growth came in the form of separate outlays for security, embassy construction and other administrative functions. Funding for diplomacy shrank, both in nominal and inflation-adjusted terms, severely straining capacity to advance America’s national security, economic and trade interests. Juxtaposition of the budget and staffing numbers clearly shows a slow, gradual retrenchment, now dramatically accelerated. No efficiency improvements will substitute for or translate into diplo- matic acumen, capabilities or clout in the policy arena at home or abroad. In looking closely at the president’s FY19 budget request, sev- eral warning signs pop out, as the Brookings Institution noted in a Feb. 13 report byThomas M. Hill, “What Trump’s Budget Means for the State Department—Snap Judgments.” First , OMB manipu- lated various funding accounts to disguise de facto cuts. Second , it both sliced the Overseas Contingency Operations account and shifted it into State’s base operational account. That could be a sensible solution because it requires State (and Congress) to deal with normal operations, not indefinite special circumstances. But it does not change anything on the ground. State still needs to spend huge funds in Afghanistan, Iraq and other conflict areas for ongoing operations; none of those funds are easily reprogrammed to address needed structural reforms or develop a future workforce for new challenges. Third , it cleverly (some say deviously) shifts monies between programmatic and operational accounts, making both targets for future cost-cutting exercises when the programs are found “ineffective” or “duplicative” and the workforce must be reshaped (downsized) for the sake of efficiency. And fourth , while everyone recognizes that State requires a massive IT upgrade and modernization—with a whole new architecture and state-of-the-art, secure data management, data visualization and messaging systems—there are no new dedicated funds for that. Rather, it appears that monies are reprogrammed,