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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPresent at the Destruction: How Rex Tillerson Is Wrecking the State Department
Politico:When Rex Tillerson was announced as secretary of state, there was a general feeling of excitement and relief in the department. After eight years of high-profile, jet-setting secretaries, the building was genuinely looking forward to having someone experienced in corporate management. Like all large, sprawling organizations, the State Departments structure is in perpetual need of an organizational rethink. That was what was hoped for, but that is not what is happening. Tillerson is not reorganizing, hes downsizing.
While the lack of senior political appointees has gotten a lot of attention, less attention has been paid to the hollowing out of the career workforce, who actually run the department day to day. Tillerson has canceled the incoming class of foreign service officers. This as if the Navy told all of its incoming Naval Academy officers they werent needed. Senior officers have been unceremoniously pushed out. Many saw the writing on the wall and just retired, and many others are now awaiting buyout offers. He has dismissed States equivalent of an officer reserveretired FSOs, who are often called upon to fill States many short-term staffing gaps, have been sent home despite no one to replace them. Office managers are now told three people must depart before they can make one hire. And now Bloomberg reports that Tillerson is blocking all lateral transfers within the department, preventing staffers from moving to another office even if it has an opening. Managers cant fill openings; employees feel trapped.
Despite all this, career foreign and civil service officers are all still working incredibly hard representing the United States internationally. Theyre still doing us proud. But how do you manage multimillion-dollar programs with no people? Who do you send to international meetings and summits? Maybe, my former colleagues are discovering, you just cant implement that program or show up to that meeting. Tillersons actions amount to a geostrategic own-goal, weakening America by preventing America from showing up.
States growing policy irrelevance and Tillersons total aversion to the experts in his midst is prompting the departments rising stars to search for the exits. The private sector and the Pentagon are vacuuming them up. This is inflicting long-term damage to the viability of the American diplomacyand things were already tough. State has been operating under an austerity budget for the past six years since the 2011 Budget Control Act. Therefore, when Tillerson cuts, he is largely cutting into bone, not fat. The next administration wont simply be able to flip a switch and reverse the damage. It takes years to recruit and develop diplomatic talent. What Vietnam did to hollow out our military, Tillerson is doing to State.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)flt rsk
(92 posts)IronLionZion
(45,404 posts)see if there's a secret wine cellar. Someone has been having a good time.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)SHRED
(28,136 posts)Way more problematic than his stupid tweets the media is obsessing over.
leftstreet
(36,103 posts)Golden Raisin
(4,607 posts)were deliberately chosen for their opposition to, open disdain for and willingness to mismanage, or gut and bleed out their respective departments.
3catwoman3
(23,965 posts)...the hen house to the 10th power, and then some.
We are going to be Somalia, or Haiti.
Amishman
(5,554 posts)This is intentional. If they just went straight to converting all these organizations to their bizzaro conservative mirrors it would attract more attention. They will hollow them out first, that way when the real corruption of purpose starts there are fewer real people around in positions to expose it.
They are 5 months into a 4 year plan.
IronLionZion
(45,404 posts)and every time they get elected they prove it
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)the russians & their republican cronies are totally screwing over America.
Girard442
(6,066 posts)...he'd be behaving differently how, exactly?
TimeToGo
(1,366 posts)"When Rex Tillerson was announced as secretary of state, there was a general feeling of excitement and relief in the department. After eight years of high-profile, jet-setting secretaries, the building was genuinely looking forward to having someone experienced in corporate management."
Really? I find that hard to believe. I might like some evidence.
They_Live
(3,231 posts)Good catch.
emulatorloo
(44,098 posts)I believe this is a hit piece on Tillerson coming from the White House. For all those articles about how Tillerson is pissed at White House for lack of support for hiring personnel. Other articles where Tillerson is tired up cleaning up after Trump's insane statements. And tired of being undercut by Kushner the Wonderboy.
IronLionZion
(45,404 posts)Sure he's lower profile than Kerry and Clinton, but I doubt they would want a CEO instead. Foreign service people got into the profession for a reason.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,839 posts)that the rank and file in the State Department were looking forward to a corporate idiot like Tillerson being in charge.
OregonBlue
(7,754 posts)The only additional personnel they will need will be their private armies to "enforce" their mineral agreements.
Bear Creek
(883 posts)Republican businesses are ran and when they go out of business they say it was the employees fault.
pansypoo53219
(20,968 posts)oasis
(49,365 posts)emulatorloo
(44,098 posts)(Funding and personnel) and he's continuingly being undercut by failed real-estate 'magnate', Jared Kutcher. Pissed also at having to clean up after Trump's insane statements.
Given the implied smears of Kerry and HRC ("high-profile, jet-setting secretaries), I tend to believe this article is WH pushback on Tillerson.
spanone
(135,805 posts)bobbieinok
(12,858 posts)To defend the country -- not necessarily the citizens -- in a
shooting war
That's it!!
According to the GOP, the only way to defend the country ìs by
military force. The country is NOT defended by good education,
good health, safe environment, etc, for its citizens. NOR by good
diplomacy or good intelligence about others' plans. ONLY by the
threat of or actual use of force.
This makes a twisted sort of sense. The only important part of the
country to the GOP is the property--the land and buildings. The people are
important only to the extent that there are enough minimally healthy and
educated ones to provide cannon fodder to protect the only really
important target of the 'protect and defend' task--the PROPERTY.