34 JULY-AUGUST 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The rigorous and competitive process for becoming a Foreign Service officer is in jeopardy due to reforms instituted in 2025 and projected reforms being considered by State Department leadership. BY STEVE ADAMS-SMITH Steve Adams-Smith is a retired Senior Foreign Service officer. During his 28-year career, he served in Brussels, London, Moscow, Sofia, and Tallinn, and in multiple positions in Washington, D.C. Are We Seeing the Reemergence of the Spoils System? Historically, approximately 30 percent of ambassadorial nominations have gone to political appointees—campaign donors, friends of the president, and others with partisan affiliations. While political appointees have experience in business, politics, and other areas and often make important contributions to U.S. diplomacy, many are new to government service, lack foreign policy knowledge, and have never led large teams, especially teams of experts in diplomacy, commerce, defense, development, and intelligence. By contrast, the Foreign Service, including career ambassadors, has long consisted of career professionals selected through a rigorous and competitive process that has included externally validated assessments based on job analyses that identify the key skills required in Foreign Service work. This process, studiously refined and improved over the last century to emphasize professionalism, is jeopardized by reforms instituted in 2025 and projected reforms being considered by State Department leadership. The origins of the professional Foreign Service date to the late 1800s and the recognition that the then-predominant spoils system rewarded political allies but failed to provide the nation with a cadre of nonpartisan experts. The recent Netflix series about President James Garfield, “Death by Lightning,” based on Candice Millard’s book Destiny of the Republic, highlights the spoils system that staffed the government with loyalists until the late 1800s. Garfield began a transition toward a professional Civil Service, formalized in the 1883 Pendleton Act. The 1924 Rogers Act, inspired by the Pendleton Act, prioritized merit-based hiring for Foreign Service officers, including FOCUS ON THE U.S. IN THE WORLD AT 250
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