Critics of Donald Trump’s foreign policy warn that from the reorganization of the State Department to walking away from international agreements like the Paris climate accord, the President is doing lasting damage to America’s global standing, writes Walter Russell Mead in the Wall Street Journal. But “Trump’s mix of ideas, instincts and impulses is not as ill-suited to the country’s needs as his most fervid detractors believe.”
“Promoting democracy in the Middle East; protecting the rights of religious and sexual minorities; building successful states from Niger to Ukraine; advancing global gender equality; fighting climate change: This is only a partial list of objectives recent administrations pursued, sometimes under pressure from congressional mandates. Foreign policy has become as complex and unwieldy as the tax code, even as public support for this vast, misshapen edifice has withered,” Mead writes.
“Change had to come, and the failure of Mr. Trump’s 2016 rivals -- both Republican and Democratic -- to offer a less disruptive alternative to gassy globalism helped put him in the White House.”
“In steering American foreign policy away from the inflated expectations and unrealistic objectives produced by the end of history mirage, the Trump administration is performing a much-needed service. But it is not enough to demolish the old. Ultimately Mr. Trump will be judged on his ability -- or failure -- to build something better.”
A dangerous numbers game? The U.S. “Foreign Service is a jewel of the American national security establishment,” write Nicholas Burns and Ryan C. Crocker, two former U.S. ambassadors, in the New York Times. It’s time for Congress to step in before President Trump’s neglect undermines it all.
“The drop in morale among those who remain behind is obvious to both of us. The number of young Americans who applied to take the Foreign Service officer entry test declined by 33 percent in the past year. This is particularly discouraging and will weaken the service for years,” they write.
“We support creating a culture of reform and renewal at the department. The Trump administration is right to look for budget and operational inefficiencies to ensure the best use of taxpayers’ money…[Yet the] decision by Mr. Tillerson to downsize the Foreign Service by up to 8 percent of the entire officer corps…is particularly dangerous. The Foreign Service, which has about 8,000 officers who do core diplomatic work, is a fraction of the size of the military.”
Tillerson: Not so fast. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pushed back Tuesday against recent criticism of his restructuring plans, Robbie Gramer reports in Foreign Policy.
Tillerson “defended the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts of about 30 percent, calling the State Department’s recent annual budgets of about $55 billion a ‘historic outlier,’ and describing the planned cuts as ‘just a reality check.’ He said the administration is cutting the State Department budget in part because it expects to resolve some global conflicts that presently take up department resources.”
“Promoting democracy in the Middle East; protecting the rights of religious and sexual minorities; building successful states from Niger to Ukraine; advancing global gender equality; fighting climate change: This is only a partial list of objectives recent administrations pursued, sometimes under pressure from congressional mandates. Foreign policy has become as complex and unwieldy as the tax code, even as public support for this vast, misshapen edifice has withered,” Mead writes.
“Change had to come, and the failure of Mr. Trump’s 2016 rivals -- both Republican and Democratic -- to offer a less disruptive alternative to gassy globalism helped put him in the White House.”
“In steering American foreign policy away from the inflated expectations and unrealistic objectives produced by the end of history mirage, the Trump administration is performing a much-needed service. But it is not enough to demolish the old. Ultimately Mr. Trump will be judged on his ability -- or failure -- to build something better.”
A dangerous numbers game? The U.S. “Foreign Service is a jewel of the American national security establishment,” write Nicholas Burns and Ryan C. Crocker, two former U.S. ambassadors, in the New York Times. It’s time for Congress to step in before President Trump’s neglect undermines it all.
“The drop in morale among those who remain behind is obvious to both of us. The number of young Americans who applied to take the Foreign Service officer entry test declined by 33 percent in the past year. This is particularly discouraging and will weaken the service for years,” they write.
“We support creating a culture of reform and renewal at the department. The Trump administration is right to look for budget and operational inefficiencies to ensure the best use of taxpayers’ money…[Yet the] decision by Mr. Tillerson to downsize the Foreign Service by up to 8 percent of the entire officer corps…is particularly dangerous. The Foreign Service, which has about 8,000 officers who do core diplomatic work, is a fraction of the size of the military.”
Tillerson: Not so fast. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pushed back Tuesday against recent criticism of his restructuring plans, Robbie Gramer reports in Foreign Policy.
Tillerson “defended the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts of about 30 percent, calling the State Department’s recent annual budgets of about $55 billion a ‘historic outlier,’ and describing the planned cuts as ‘just a reality check.’ He said the administration is cutting the State Department budget in part because it expects to resolve some global conflicts that presently take up department resources.”
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