The Foreign Service Journal, September 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2017 21 Security in 2014. DS Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs Christian Schurman will take on the job of acting assistant secretary. Slow Pace of Nominations Affects Diplomacy I n Washington, D.C., and all around the world, key U.S. diplomatic post- ings remain unfilled. AFSA’s ambassador tracker indicates that 50 out of 188 positions were vacant as of early August (excluding countries that do not have a diplomatic relation- ship with the United States). Vacant, in this instance, means that no one has been nominated or confirmed for the position of ambassador. While the embassies without an ambassador are being ably led by career diplomats acting as chief of mission or chargé d’affaires, foreign governments take note when the ambassador post in their capitals remain vacant. As of press time, Pres. Trump has only put forward 36 nominations. As Ambassador (ret.) Ronald Neu- mann, president of the American Acad- emy of Diplomacy, noted to CNN, the process for confirming an ambassador can be lengthy—from financial disclo- sure forms to security checks and writ- ten questions from senators—so most administrations prepare a list of nomi- nees well ahead of time. Not this one. The shortage of ambassadors “affects our capacity to deal with crises when we don’t have people that the president can call on,” says Terry Sullivan, a politi- cal scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Something that blows up in North Korea doesn’t just blow up in North Korea. It blows up for India. It blows up for Saudi Arabia. It blows up for Germany, because we are connected to all of those places.” Keep checking AFSA’s website, www. afsa.org/ambassadorlist for the most up- to-date information about nominations and appointments of career and political ambassadors. War Crimes and Cyber Offices Shuttered A lthough Sec. Tillerson stated that the reorganization of the State Department had no “predetermined outcomes,” it appears that key decisions about department offices may have already been made. According to Foreign Policy , the special coordinator of the Office of Global Criminal Justice has been reas- Foreign policy is what is going to determine our success or failure as a nation. The convoluted security situation the United States faces today can only be solved with a good framework of foreign policy. We can have the greatest military in the world. But if we don’t have clarity in our political objectives, if we haven’t properly resourced the State Department, if our foreign policy and our allies aren’t strong, we’ll never be successful. … I view the Department of Defense as being in support of the Department of State. —General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking at the 2017 Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, July 22. Contemporary Quote signed, effectively closing the office. A State Department official told FP that part of the reorganization would involve folding special envoy offices back in the bureaus, to streamline the policymaking process. Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s international justice program, said that the move would be a huge loss for accountability, adding that the independence of the office gave it more weight on the international scene. Another office apparently under threat is the Office of the Coordinato r for Cyber Issues, which will be folded in to the Bureau for Economic and Business Affairs. Robert Knake, a senior fellow for cybersecurity at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., described the move as “taking an issue that’s pre-eminent and putting it inside a backwater within the State Department.” James Lewis, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and Interna- tional Studies, noted that cyber security is a specialized issue; he believes that EB simply does not have the expertise neces- sary for the United States to keep up with the international field. Governors Do Diplomacy A merican governors have taken an unusual degree of initiative in conducting foreign policy, largely due to President Trump’s controversial policies on trade and climate. Past months have witnessed gover- nors embarking on high-profile trips abroad to ease relations with other countries and stake out independent policy positions. This year’s Governors’ Association summer meeting also featured a prominent foreign delegation from various nations, including Cana- dian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.