The State Department has lost its way. Time to clean house and refocus on what really matters: the national interest.
America has been the preeminent world power since at least the end of the Second World War. During that time, our diplomatic corps has carried the weight of our national interests quite well, helping to defeat communism and win the Cold War, as well as cement America's superpower status in the post-1991 geopolitical environment. That strong pursuit of our national interest has been part and parcel of State's mission since the earliest days of our Republic. Foreign policy is one of the few genuinely federal responsibilities and has historically been the primary task of the national government.
For America's first decades, diplomatic posts were filled by some of the nation's leading thinkers and political figures. The Secretary of State job, far more so than the Vice Presidency, was the stepping stone to the highest office in the land. Illustrious men like John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, and Daniel Webster all held the office in the first half century of American history. During the Cold War, leading geopolitical thinkers like George Marshall, Dean Acheson, John Foster Dulles, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and James Baker filled the seat and manfully advocated for American interests and toward the ultimate defeat of our communist enemy. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the appointments to serve as America's top diplomat have been quite hit or miss.
But this is merely a symptom of a far deeper problem: the entire State Department and larger diplomatic apparatus have degraded into a shade of their former selves, pushing vainglorious progressive ideology over the national interest. The national diplomatic structure no longer centers concrete American interests, instead prioritizing diplomacy as an end of itself and exploding with unnecessary bloat and bureaucracy. In this, our national diplomats are more interested in being seen as in touch with the so-called international community, avoiding conflict at all costs, and unnecessarily criticizing our allies than they are assiduously advocating for American interests, whatever that entails. The permanent bureaucracy has put its own self-interest – including its political preferences – ahead of the national interest as defined by the presidential administration they serve. All of this has rendered American diplomacy an inert force at best and a truly counterproductive one at worst.
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