As global crises multiply, scores of US diplomats say they have been forced out
By Jennifer Hansler, CNN
(CNN) — Amid ongoing foreign policy crises around the globe and as the Trump administration struggles to reach a deal to end the war with Iran, the State Department last week finalized the firings of nearly 250 foreign service officers in a brief, impersonal email.
“Your reduction in force separation will be effective today,” part of it read. “Thank you again for your service to the Department.”
Those reductions in force (RIFs), which were initiated last July, also impacted more than 1,000 civil service officers, and saw the firings of entire staffs in offices that former officials say would have been able to provide guidance on the war in Iran, which is having severe consequences for the US and global economy. The State Department has consistently maintained that the RIFs were meant to eliminate redundancies and that work on key issues was maintained and moved to different offices.
Beyond the firings, scores of experienced foreign service officers with decades of experience have retired. Nearly a dozen former officials who spoke with CNN said it is clear that the Trump administration has no upward assignments or promotions, like ambassadorships, available for career diplomats, leaving them with no options in an “up or out” system.
“It was just unprecedented numbers of people choosing to leave,” said David Kostelancik, who retired after 36 years in the foreign service. The American Foreign Service Association estimates that roughly 2,000 foreign service officers left the State Department last year.
Meanwhile, more than 100 ambassador posts around the world, including in the Middle East, Ukraine, and Russia, do not have a Senate confirmed ambassador, setting the US far behind the likes of adversaries like China.
And the most sensitive diplomatic negotiations, on fraught topics like ending the war in Iran and securing an end to the Ukraine conflict, are being led by business associates and family members of President Donald Trump, often without teams of experienced diplomats with regional expertise.
Taken together, the actions represent what former diplomats say is a systematic hollowing out of the State Department that Secretary of State Marco Rubio on his first day pledged to empower. Although the agency has begun hiring new diplomats, the loss of experienced personnel, the former officials say, will have far-reaching consequences for the US’ ability to project power and deliver on its priorities both now and for years to come.
“I think historians will look back on this period as one of the great unforced errors that the United States imposes on itself,” former career ambassador John Bass told CNN.
State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said the idea that the agency was being hollowed out is “false,” and the claim that the loss of hundreds of experienced diplomats will impact US’ ability to deliver on its priorities is “baseless.”
“Our reorganization eliminated redundant positions, streamlined efforts by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy, and empowered our diplomatic corps,” he said, referring to the sweeping overhaul within the department.
Pigott said that “the RIF’s are not having any negative impact on our ability to respond to operations, our ability to plan, and our ability to execute in service to Americans.”
“In fact, we have been able to respond quicker and more effectively, which was the entire point of the reorg – to empower personnel in the field while allowing us to move at the ‘speed of relevancy,’” he claimed.
Experts on key issues forced out
Erik Holmgren was a career foreign service officer who had worked around the world, including in Russia and Mexico. His last assignment at the State Department was serving as Director of the Office for Energy Diplomacy for the Middle East and Asia, which worked on energy security, energy access, critical minerals and with private industry.
The entire Bureau of Energy Resources, which housed the Office of Energy Diplomacy, was eliminated as part of the reorganization. The entire staff in his office was fired, he told CNN.
Pigott said the “critical capabilities” of the Bureau of Energy Resources were moved to the Bureau of Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs. The House Foreign Affairs Committee last week voted for bipartisan legislation that would revive a “Bureau of Energy Security and Diplomacy.”.
Holmgren noted that the work of the bureau and the experts who worked there would have been highly relevant in helping to advise the administration, as well as industry partners with whom they had relationships, on the crisis with Iran.
For example, he said that one of the focuses of his office was “trying to make it a lot harder for Iran to deliver crude”– something that is of key interest during the war.
His office, he told CNN, was “using all the policy tools we could to try to help deal with Iran and weaken the regime.” And they could have provided further warnings about the need to manage the “chokepoint in Hormuz.” That chokepoint has snarled traffic through the critical strait, driving up fuel prices and threatening humanitarian catastrophe as many parts of the world are cut off from key fertilizer supplies.
Holmgren said his office was also working to diversify the energy supply to Iraq, which relies heavily on Iran, and they had a whole team in the bureau to work with private industry, including on “$12 billion of contracts for US firms to … help Iraq develop their own energy resources.”
Pigott told CNN that the State Department’s “energy policy teams are performing better than ever,” with the Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs Bureau, “coordinating the release of strategic reserves with allies and partners in response to Iran’s attacks.”
Former officials argue that when the US was working to evacuate stranded Americans from the Middle East and navigate the perils of the early weeks of the war in Iran, they could have used the expertise and institutional knowledge of their career staff, including those who had been RIF’d or retired.
In March, the State Department rejected the assertion that the RIFs impacted their assistance to US citizens stranded in the Middle East or to State’s consular operations and said “hundreds of experience personnel” were working on a task force to help Americans.
Throughout the region – and the world – there is a significant absence of confirmed US ambassadors. According to the American Foreign Service Association, 115 of 195 ambassador posts are vacant, as of Tuesday.
In many countries, if the head of an embassy is not a confirmed ambassador, they may not have access to the senior level officials in that government, multiple former officials told CNN.
Asked about the large number of vacant ambassador posts, Pigott said, “The President has the right to determine who represents the American people and interests around the world.”
“The transition away from Biden-era ambassadors is not news nor should it be surprising,” he said. In December, the State Department recalled at least two dozen career ambassadors who were added to their posts during the Biden administration.
“The Department has confidence in our ability to communicate with our counterparts around the world and advance the national interest,” he said. “In those embassies without a Senate-approved ambassador, experienced chargé d’affaires lead the missions.”
‘Fealty’ over expertise and experience
Many former officials noted that the administration has largely spurned the inclusion of career personnel on key diplomatic crises, instead relying on a small circle of trusted advisers.
Former officials say the lack of appreciation for experience and preference for “fealty,” in the words of Bass, has created an environment meant to drive career people to leave – or instill fear in those who remain.
Multiple officials told CNN that the annual evaluation system, which is used for promotions for current diplomats, has changed to include a tenet for “fidelity” to the administration’s policies. Multiple officials also said that there is now a bell curve on the reviews, which is likely to further stymie promotions because it limits how many people can be highly ranked.
“You’re going to have a lot of people who are doing really fantastic work, who are going to end up being sort of mid-ranked because you’re forcing this bell curve statistic limitation on them,” another former career diplomat said.
Pigott said that “the recalibration of the employee performance review system has been under discussion for years and is long overdue.”
“Under Secretary Rubio’s leadership, the change was thoughtfully done in a way that mirrors best practices from across the government and makes the reviews actually meaningful in measuring performance,” he said. “This evaluation process will ensure that foreign service employees, through these data-driven evaluations, can better find roles that fit their strengths to help serve the Department.”
“We have one fundamental goal: to implement President Trump’s America First foreign policy to make our nation safer, stronger, and more prosperous,” he noted.
Even for senior career diplomats who want to stay, there are not positions available. Under the Foreign Service Act of 1980, ambassadors overseas have 90 days to find another assignment or retire.
“They’re trying to use that again to force people into retirement, because those folks who are still able to work, or still want to work, they’re not finding positions,” the former career diplomat said.
Within the State Department, positions that normally went to senior diplomats, like resident teaching positions, have been eliminated. At the headquarters, many assistant secretary posts have been left vacant or filled with unconfirmed senior bureau officials, several of whom are fellows in the Ben Franklin Fellowship, an organization committed to “advancing traditional American diplomacy based on national interests, US sovereignty, and secure borders.”
The administration “wants a set of professionals in the field who are only going to do what they’re told, who will not push back on decisions, who are not going to provide alternative viewpoints,” said Bass, who served as a US ambassador to Afghanistan, Turkey, and Georgia.
However, “it’s precisely that kind of expertise that has kept us from making even bigger mistakes,” he told CNN.
And that expertise is not easily replaced. Kostelancik, who served around the world and as a foreign policy adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, said that the retirements and RIF’s are a “squandering of the investment that the US government, that the taxpayers, have made in us over decades, in training, in working overseas.”
“The Foreign Service is an apprenticeship profession. You can’t just drop someone in from the outside. Diplomacy requires skills that are built over years, in the field,” said Ryan Gliha, , who spent most of his 23-year career in the foreign service in the Middle East before he was let go.
He noted that beyond Washington, DC, the hollowing out may end up being felt by everyday Americans.
“Most Americans don’t have a strong opinion on the Foreign Service because they rarely interact with us directly — we’re largely invisible to their daily lives,” Gliha said. “But we have a profound effect on this country’s prosperity: the trade deals we negotiate, the American businesses we promote overseas, the crises we defuse before they escalate, the help we provide citizens in trouble abroad.”
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