Decline of the US State Department

 Small Wars Journal published on 11 August 2026 a commentary titled "The War of the Pen: What America's State Department Is Ignoring" by Julian McBride.

The author laments the absence of ambassadors at numerous US embassies, the State Department's waning soft power, the rise of middle and regional powers at the expense of the United States, and the increasing influence of China in the Global South.

He believes US diplomatic setbacks are self-inflicted but can be reversed through concerted action and the US position restored in the Global South.  

Why Is the State Department Slashing Visa Processing Across Africa?

 The State Department published on 15 July 2026 an announcement titled "Realignment of U.S. Visa Services in Africa to Regional Hubs."

Effective August 1, the Department of State ended routine visa services at the following 25 US embassies and consulates in Sub-Saharan Africa: Antananarivo (Madagascar), Abuja (Nigeria), Asmara (Eritrea), Bamako (Mali), Banjul (The Gambia), Brazzaville (Republic of Congo), Bujumbura (Burundi), Conakry (Guinea), Cotonou (Benin), Durban (South Africa), Freetown (Sierra Leone), Gaborone (Botswana), Harare (Zimbabwe), Juba (South Sudan), Libreville (Gabon), Lilongwe (Malawi), Lusaka (Zambia), Maputo (Mozambique), Maseru (Lesotho), Mbabane (Eswatini), N'Djamena (Chad), Niamey (Niger), Nouakchott (Mauritania), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), and Windhoek (Namibia). 

Instead, persons seeking visas to visit the United States in the countries cited above will have to travel to a regional visa hub in one of the following 20 cities: Abidjan (Cote d'Ivoire), Accra (Ghana), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Cape Town (South Africa), Dakar (Senegal), Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania), Djibouti (Djibouti), Johannesburg (South Africa), Kampala (Uganda), Kigali (Rwanda), Kinshasa (DRC), Lagos (Nigeria), Lome (Togo), Luanda (Angola), Malabo (Equatorial Guinea), Monrovia (Liberia), Nairobi (Kenya), Port Louis (Mauritius), Praia (Cape Verde), and Yaoundé (Cameroon).

The Department of State said it is realigning visa operations in Sub-Saharan Africa as "part of a long-standing Department practice that strengthens national security by promoting more uniform screening, vetting, and adjudication standards, as well as improves efficiency."  

Comment:  The national security explanation is not convincing.  For example, a consular officer located in Lusaka can adjudicate a visa application just as uniformly and accurately as one at a visa hub in Johannesburg.  In fact, a consular officer located in the country of application has a better understanding of the applicant's background than a consular officer in another country.  Nor is the realignment likely to save much money.  US embassies and consulates are still expected to provide routine passport and protection services for American citizens.  The consular sections in most embassies and consulates in Africa are small with one individual often handling both visa services and assistance to American citizens.  

What the realignment will do is make it more difficult for many Africans to visit relatives in the United States, study at American universities, and travel for tourism and business.  The geography of the realignment means, for example, that the entire Sahel region and all of southern Africa except South Africa and Angola will no longer have local non-immigrant and immigrant visa services provided by US embassies and consulates.  This raises the question.  Is the real reason for this realignment to make it more difficult for Sub-Saharan Africans to come to the United States?  Whatever the rationale, the State Department has just handed another victory to China and Russia.  

 

The State Department and the Trump Administration

 The American Conservative published on 22 July 2026 a commentary titled "The Fight Inside Trump's State Department Is About Power--Not Expertise" by Phillip Linderman.

The author argues that the Trump administration is trying to salvage the US Foreign Service from the "globalist and woke values" that dominate professional diplomatic services.  But the "old guard" in the State Department is stymieing this effort in the belief that the situation in the Department will return to normal after Trump leaves office.

For decades, the State Department's machinery has reflexively favored the globalist or internationalist Foreign Service officer over the American First officer.  Now an administration is trying to rebalance the institution.   

The old guard understands that accepting Trump's approach would mean surrendering much of its power to shape foreign policy.  That is why its members defended "the corrupt and dysfunctional USAID."  He concludes: "This is a fight about Washington power, not diplomatic expertise."

Comment:  There is a grain of truth to the author's core argument.  Foreign Service officers tend to be globalist and internationalist in their approach to foreign affairs.  That has also been the approach of all post-World War II administrations with the exception of the first Trump administration.  Foreign Service officers, especially at the senior level, also want to have an impact on the foreign policy decision making process and not meekly parrot every decision that comes from on high.  

This is where his analysis falls apart.  There is a role for offering a slightly different approach or even a contrary point of view backed up by sound knowledge and analysis.  If it is not accepted, then obviously the decision from "on high" must be accepted.  In the vast majority of cases in my experience, this has been the response from the Foreign Service.  If significant differences remained, the Foreign Service officer was moved to a different position or resigned.  

A Foreign Service officer has every right to disagree, for example, with the author's definition of USAID as "corrupt and dysfunctional" because he is flat-out wrong and the administration erred in dismantling the organization.  But the Trump administration made the decision to shut USAID down, and it is up to the Foreign Service to implement the new policy on foreign assistance.  I suspect the overwhelming majority of Foreign Service officers today are doing just that.

The author argues that the "public record" suggests senior Foreign Service officers' reluctance to implement the president's decisions fully and faithfully is widespread.  The "public record" he cites is a flawed analysis titled "Why Does Trump Hate the State Department" published by The American Conservative on July 20 and reposted below on July 21.  

Status of Fired USAID Staff

 The Hill published on 22 July 2026 a commentary titled "The Dismantling of USAID and the Firing of Its Staff Was Illegal" by J. Brian Atwood and Kevin E. Burns.

The Trump administration has violated the Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, updated in 1978, by firing most USAID personnel without offering an opportunity for due process.

The Merit Systems Protection Board ruled that the president can remove career officials without due process.  Fired USAID employees are appealing this decision through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Why Does Trump Hate the State Department?

 The American Conservative published on 20 July 2026 an opinion piece titled "Why Does Trump Hate the State Department?" by Peter Van Buren.

This is a blanket condemnation of the State Department as an institution, at least under both Trump administrations if not all Republican presidencies.  The only positive comment about the Department comes at the end of Van Buren's remarks when he states: "Of course there will always be some role for the State Department overseas at least, primarily in consular staff assisting American citizens and the few traditional diplomats needed to handle the bureaucratic concierge work and VIP logistics that State has always been good at." 

Comment:  Van Buren's cherry-picked half-truths and non sequiturs are still a useful reminder to State Department personnel, who tend to be more liberal than the populists of the Trump administration, that it is important to follow the policy direction of the administration in power.

I spent thirty-seven years as a Foreign Service officer in the State Department under Republican and Democratic administrations (but not a Trump administration) and concluded that Department personnel with rare exception do, in fact, pursue the policies laid down by the White House.  

The Reagan administration, for example, attached considerable importance to support for the development of American trade and investment overseas. Appointed in the late 1980s by Reagan as ambassador to Burkina Faso, I devoted much of my three years in Ouagadougou promoting American trade and investment, albeit with only modest success.  My ambassadorial colleagues throughout Africa were equally supportive of Reagan administration policies.   

Reagan's Republican successor, George H.W. Bush, and his Secretary of State, James A. Baker was highly respected throughout the Department of State.  In return, I believe Bush and Baker respected State Department personnel.  It is simply not accurate to conclude, or at least imply, that State Department personnel do not follow the policies of Republican administrations.    

Van Buren writes that "State's Foreign Service Officers saw themselves as resistance superheroes who would take down Trump I."  This is utter nonsense.  Based on my continuing contact with active-duty officers, they are quietly doing their jobs as directed by political appointee supervisors or just trying to stay out of harm's way until there is an administration, Republican or Democratic, that gives them a little respect.  

The Decline of Diplomacy in the United States

 USA Today published on 19 July 2026 an opinion piece titled "Reduction in US State Department Staff Was Purge in Diplomacy" by Elizabeth "Liz" Colton.

The Trump administration's dismissal of diplomacy and purge of the State Department have resulted in the predictable negative impact on US foreign policy.  

Picking Up the Pieces at the US State Department

 The Federal News Network published on 16 July 2026 an article titled "Laid-off Federal Employees Spotlight Impacts of State Dept. RIF" by Drew Friedman.

The State Department laid off nearly 1,350, mostly civil service, staff and DOGE fired almost all USAID personnel and abolished the organization, moving a small number of USAID employees to the State Department.  The State Department is now scrambling to figure out how to cope with issues such as Ebola in Africa.  

Marco Rubio Dismantles Human Rights at State Department

 Foreign Policy published on 8 July 2026 an article titled "Marco Rubio Burned Down the House to Fix a Sink" by Amanda Klasing, Amnesty International.  

Secretary of State Rubio has led an assault on human rights in American statecraft by slashing humanitarian aid, decimating human rights programs, gutting human rights offices and bureaus, disengaging from global human rights systems at the United Nations and elsewhere, and threatening international justice mechanisms.  

He has also changed the guidelines for the State Department's annual, global human rights reports by prioritizing political agendas over consistent accounting of human rights violations around the world.

Crisis at the U.S. Department of State

 The Daily Beast published on 14 July 2026 an article titled "Insiders Expose Trump 'Crisis' at the State Department" by Ewan Palmer.

This is a devastating account of the current situation in the U.S. Department of State.  It draws heavily on a longer article in the UK's Financial Times.

Reversing DOGE Damage to State Department

 Federal News Network published on 10 July 2026 an article titled "State Dept. Is Looking to Rebuild after Major Staffing Cuts.  Laid-off Diplomats Say They Are Not Welcome Back" by Jory Heckman.

After arbitrarily firing 1,350 State Department employees last summer, the administration is now trying to hire staff so that the organization has the personnel to carry out the functions expected of it.

Comment: This is a classic example of how not to "reform" a large bureaucratic, governmental organization.   

USAID Dismantlement Has Resulted in Deaths

 The New York Times published on 1 July 2026 a commentary titled "U.S.A.I.D. Cuts Killed People.  That's the Truth" by Nicholas Kristof.  

Elon Musk, who at the beginning of the Trump administration ran DOGE, the organization that dismantled the US Agency for International Development, insists "there is not even a single dead child" as a result of the actions by DOGE.  

Nicholas Kristof, who has met with family members in Africa of dead children, begs to differ.  In addition, studies by university researchers and by Lancet, a British medical journal, estimate that deaths due to USAID financial cuts are in the hundreds of thousands.   

US Warns of Possible New Atrocities in Sudan

 The New York Times published on 23 June 2026 an article titled "U.S. Warns of 'Imminent' Atrocities in Sudanese City" by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Brian O. Otieno.  

The U.S. State Department warned early this week that there are alarming indications of imminent "mass atrocities" in the event the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces takes the city of El Obeid, capital of North Kordofan region, from the Sudan Armed Forces.

Foreign Aid: US Congress vs the Trump Administration

 Propublica published on 22 June 2026 an article titled "'A Huge Grab of Power': Trump Is Defying Congress on Foreign Aid" by Anna Maria Barry-Jester.  

Bipartisan support for foreign aid remains in the US Congress despite the Trump administration's dismantlement of the US Agency for International Development and its effort to minimize US foreign assistance now administered by the State Department, which does not have the capacity to manage it in any event.  

Dismantling of Professional American Diplomacy

 The Daily Beast published on 1 June 2026 an article titled "Jaw-Dropping Brain Drain Under Trump Revealed" by Will Neal.

The Trump administration has either laid off or forced into retirement about 2,000 career diplomats since the beginning of 2025.  This figure does not include foreign service personnel who were fired when the administration dismantled the US Agency for International Development.  

More than half of US embassies do not have a Senate-confirmed ambassador and those that are staffed at the ambassadorial level include only 8 percent career ambassadors.  The vast majority of American ambassadors today are financial contributors to the Trump campaign, close friends of the administration, or family members. 

The Hollowing Out of the US State Department

 CNN published on 16 May 2026 an article titled "As Global Crises Multiply, Scores of US Diplomats Say They Have Been Forced Out" by Jennifer Hansler.

An estimated 2,000 Foreign Service officers have been forced out or left by their own choice the U.S. Department of State in the past year.  Of 195 ambassadorial positions overseas, 115 are currently vacant, an unprecedented situation this late in an administration.  

This hollowing out of the State Department will have far reaching implications for the ability of the United States to project power and deliver on its foreign policy priorities.

US Ambassadorships: Career Diplomats Need Not Apply

 2paragraphs published on 2 May 2026 an article titled "Former U.S. Ambassador to China Says Just 7% of U.S. Ambassadors Are Career Diplomats, 'Our Country Deserves Better'" by Lisandra Gomez-Tate.

In previous administrations, about 70 percent of U.S. ambassadors came from the career Foreign Service.  In the second Trump administration, that number is currently just over 7 percent, i.e. minus the zero.  Most of the ambassadorial positions are now occupied by friends, family members, and large political donors.

Comment:  This statistic demonstrates the low regard the Trump administration and Marco Rubio State Department hold the career diplomatic service.  What a waste of talent!  

Future of Voice of America and Sister Outlets

 The Poynter Institute, a global non-profit focused on ethical journalism, published on 20 March 2026 an in-depth report titled "A Year After Trump Administration Cuts, Voice of America and Its Sister Outlets Are Mostly Shadows of Their Former Selves" by Angela Fu.

After being largely shut down for more than a year on orders from the Trump administration, a federal judge has allowed the Voice of America (VOA) and its sister organizations under the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to resume operations.  The other outlets are the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Middle East Broadcasting Network.  

VOA had approximately 800 employees and 600 contractors in March 2025 broadcasting in 49 languages.  Today it has about 130 total staff reporting in just 6 languages.  The other employees, but not contractors, were placed on paid leave.  Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Middle East Broadcasting Network were able to continue limited broadcasting because, unlike VOA and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, they are independent organizations.  But they lost funding and experienced major cuts.  

The future of all of the broadcasting outlets remains uncertain.  The biggest challenge will be to regain the trust of the audience that the VOA and other outlets had before the Trump administration tried to dismantle them.  

The Voice of America Lives On, Sort Of

 The Washington Post published on 13 March 2026 an article titled "Trump Picks Head for VOA Parent Amid Lake Legal Battle" by Scott Nover and Adam Taylor.

The Trump administration nominated defeated Arizona candidate for governor and US senator, Kari Lake, to oversee the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which runs the Voice of America (VOA) and several other organizations such as Radio Free Asia.  The idea was to put Lake in charge to shut down these semi-independent government media outlets.  

US District Judge Royce Lamberth recently ruled that Lake has been illegally running USAGM and nullified months of Lake's actions, including a mass layoff of hundreds of employees. The Trump administration has now responded by naming Sarah B. Rogers, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, as the new chief executive of USAGM.  She will apparently keep her current position in the State Department while assuming her new role as CEO of USAGM.  

The White House only provided enough funding to shut down USAGM, but the US Congress rejected that approach and appropriated $653 million for the agency's operations this year. 

Comment:  This development keeps the VOA and its sister organizations alive but now under the direct supervision of the State Department.  USAGM and its media organizations will apparently lose much of their previous independence.  It is also not clear how many of the USAGM work force have remained during this demoralizing and unsettled past year.  

US Aid Cuts Undermine South Africa's Response to HIV/AIDS

 Devex Newswire posted on 4 March 2026 an article titled "US Aid Cuts Gut South Africa's HIV Fight" by Helen Murphy.

South Africa bears the world's largest HIV/AIDS burden.  US foreign aid cuts and the dismantlement of USAID have ripped through its response to the disease, forcing clinics to close and leaving thousands of vulnerable patients scrambling for care.  A State Department spokesperson responded that it is time for governments to take responsibility for the lives of people in their countries.  

Trump Administration Ends Humanitarian Aid to Seven African Nations

 Press TV posted on 23 February 2026 an article titled "Trump Admin Terminates 'Lifesaving' Aid Programs to Seven African Countries: Report."

The Atlantic magazine reported that the Trump administration has decided to end humanitarian aid programs in seven African countries because there is no strong connection between the humanitarian response and US national interests.  The seven countries are Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Somalia, and Zimbabwe.