The Uneven State of the State Department

Reconciling some contradictions in the post-Trump era of American foreign policy

Photo by Brandon Mowinkel on Unsplash

A running theme of Drezner’s World has been the Biden administration’s diplomatic competency. Any administration would look good on this front compared to the Trump administration. That said, with a few exceptions Biden’s team has excelled at what George Shultz described in his memoirs as “gardening” — tending to allies and partners to make sure that irritants do not turn into anything worse. This diplomatic push is all the more impressive because the Biden administration has pursued some policies that are legitimately irritating to U.S. allies and partners.

In response to last week’s post on how “Biden and his foreign policy team… keep ringing up diplomatic wins with key allies,” Friend of the Newsletter¹ Jonathan Bernstein asked a question on Twitter:

Jonathan Bernstein @jbview

I liked this item but it leaves me with a question for @dandrezner (or others): How does the excellent reviews for Biden administration diplomacy sort with the warnings we had about how Trump was emptying out long-run governing capacity at State (and NSC, etc.)?

Daniel W. Drezner @dandrezner

Russia keeps misreading Western resolve on Ukraine. https://t.co/FAnipUnb8z

This is a great question! I was one of the folks warning about the Trump administration’s deconstruction of the foreign policy machinery — and I was not alone. Politico’s Nahal Toosi had an excellent longform piece on the relative decline of the diplomatic corps late last year (see my response to that piece here). How is it possible to reconcile the Trump administration’s partially successful effort to demoralize the Foreign Service with the Biden administration’s diplomatic wins?

My quasi-informed speculation is that there are a couple of different factors at play here:

1. As galling as it might be for Foreign Service Officers to hear, American foreign policy is larger than the State Department. Given the current international security environment, the Defense Department plays an outsized role in some foreign policy initiatives like, oh, I don’t know, expanding basing opportunities in the Pacific Rim. So the parts of the federal government that Trump’s team did not attack mercilessly are playing a role.

2. We are seeing Biden’s political appointees relying on and the civil and foreign service. This was a far cry from the previous administration, when the political appointees tended to look at the civil service as their natural enemy. It’s amazing what can happen when policy principals and the bureaucracy are working together rather than at cross-purposes. Furthermore, most of Biden’s senior national security advisors — Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken, William Burns — are seasoned foreign policy hands, not just white-haired dudes who looked like they came from central casting.

3. It should not be surprising that the Biden team is making progress in areas that they prioritize. Even the Trump administration racked up accomplishments in areas they cared about, such as renegotiating NAFTA or midwifing the Abraham Accords. The damage that the Trump years wreaked on the State Department has an impact in the areas further away from the Biden administration’s primary areas of focus. There are plenty of reasons that countries in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa have demonstrated greater sympathy with Russia over the past year. I suspect one of them, however, is that this is where the State Department’s thin bench strength is most apparent.

I think these three factors answer Bernstein’s question. But those readers with greater knowledge of Foggy Bottom should feel free to knock down or build up these suppositions in the comments.

1. Is this a newsletter? A blog? A column?! Drezner’s World is almost six months old and I honestly don’t know what to call it. Any descriptor feels weird to be honest. Suggestions for the right term are welcomed in the comments.