You can count me among the people—including newly sworn-in President Joe Biden—who think the U.S. Department of State needs some serious repair work. But reforming the department and revitalizing the foreign service won’t make U.S. foreign policy more successful if America’s diplomats are forced to spend their time, energy, credibility, and other resources on quixotic or misguided missions. A better department will still come up short if it is asked to do the impossible.
To be clear: The State Department was in bad shape before former President Donald Trump showed up to make things worse. Its budget was woefully inadequate, its administrative and computer systems were antiquated, its organizational chart was outdated and overly complicated, and it was repeatedly sidelined by presidents who preferred to run foreign policy out of the White House. Roughly a third of U.S. ambassadorships were handed out to wealthy campaign contributors instead of trained professionals—a bizarre practice that no other major power follows—and the department was sometimes forced to take on new missions in response to congressional whims rather than pressing needs.
