A new presidential administration needs a team of political and career appointees to run the government, including the world’s most powerful military and a vast diplomatic and national security team. So far, President Donald Trump has nominated 347 individuals, but only 140 have been confirmed. At the same point in their Presidencies, George W. Bush had nominated 573 people with 316 confirmations; Barack Obama 450 with 321 confirmations. Out of those numbers, only 24 individuals have been confirmed at State (compared to 83 and 86 by the former presidents) and 15 at Defense (compared to 22 and 33).
Todd Rosenblum spent his career in federal service, divided between being a career employee at the CIA, Department of State, and on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He was also a senior political appointee at the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, after serving on President Obama’s Presidential Transition Team responsible for national security appointments. The Cipher Brief’s Callie Wang asked him about the delay in key appointments for the Trump Administration, and how that will affect key national security agencies.
The Cipher Brief: What role do these key positions play in departments such as State and Defense? Why is it important to have nominations/confirmations for positions like under secretary of Defense (Policy, Intel, etc.) or assistant secretary of State?
Rosenblum: The persons filling these positions are vital to advancing the objectives of the president and White House staff. Career officials are the core of management and operations in departments and agencies, but political appointees fill the equally vital role of determining priorities, framing options, reaching successful compromise within organizations and across the interagency, and ensuring public support for final outcomes.
Political appointees reflect the values and goals of the president. Career officials are fiercely non-political in the work place. The blend of career and political is essential to ensuring there is needed continuity, historical knowledge, and deep subject matter expertise, along with new thinking, change agents, and refreshment of priorities.
Career officials rarely demonstrate overt political preferences in the work place. This is simply verboten, as it should be. I have seen career officials tie themselves too directly to political appointees, either for personal advancement or ideology, but those persons find themselves in de facto exile when a new administration comes to power. Similarly, I have seen too many political appointees come to office thinking career officials are in place, are hidebound, and exist only to stymie their goals. These political officials rarely succeed.
TCB: What is the impact of not having people in these positions on daily policy/relations with countries? What about long-term strategy implementation?
Rosenblum: The biggest negative of not having political appointees in place is in opportunity cost. New administrations, especially after eight years of the other party being in office, have a window at the beginning of their tenure to examine options for strategic change. This window closes quickly, however, as unexpected crises, deepening inboxes, the inevitable creep of bureaucratic ownership, and power plays, redirect time and attention that cannot be regained for “fresh, untethered” looks at problem sets.
The normal window for strategic resets is the first year of a new administration. Given how few political appointees are in place, the Trump Administration probably cannot recover this lost opportunity. Even new secretaries often are not able to do the kind of reset that is possible only at the beginning of an administration when everyone is new, and the president’s political capital is highest.
The Cipher Brief: Does this strike you as a vulnerability for the U.S.?
Rosenblum: I am less concerned about the effective management and operations of government. Political appointees are an extraordinarily small percentage of the federal workforce. Career officials have years of experience executing missions during exigent circumstances. FEMA, for example, appears to have partnered very well with states, local governments, the private sector, and other federal partners in the response to hurricanes Harvey and Irma despite there being no secretary of Homeland Security. This excellence reflects the readiness and capability of career staff.
TCB: What about ambassadors, special envoys, or White House officials assigned to specific countries? Many ambassador posts to key nations have not been filled yet. What’s the impact of that on U.S. policy for that nation?
Rosenblum: The impact of not having ambassadorial appointments, needed special envoys and White House officials with specific, high priority responsibilities is, perhaps, largest felt in the conduct of foreign policy. Here I distinguish foreign policy making from defense and intelligence operations. Defense and intelligence operations are planned and executed by career intelligence officers and the uniformed military. Strategic decisions about direction are impacted by political leaders, but much of what they do so well is the product of long term planning, acquisition, training, and development of sources and tradecraft.
The making of foreign policy is another matter. There are, of course, deep traditions, norms and acquired skills in the conduct of negotiations and diplomacy, and the U.S. Foreign Service is unsurpassed in its depth of knowledge. But, diplomacy is deeply dependent on guidance from the top.
Foreign policy is, by definition, achieving success in the gray zone. Success happens when personal relationships and power structures are understood by your side and the other, recognition of the political risk vicissitudes of those in power, and senior decision makers having confidence that their choices are optimal for advancing the national interest. These are areas not particularly quantifiable or scientific variables. Personal dynamics matter greatly. Personal preferences matter greatly. The barrier for personal belief in expertise is lower than it is for the more technical fields of military operations, defense planning, economics, trade, energy, finance, budget making, program management, intelligence recruitment, and interpretation. Not having key personal in place leaves a large void in how we assess our own options and how foreign partners and adversaries see theirs.
A corollary to the gray zone that is foreign policy, is the culture of the State Department. Having served for multiple years in most U.S. national security departments and agencies, including State, I believe Foreign Service officers are the most dependent in our government on political guidance to frame their work. The shifts in U.S. policy making during presidential transitions are perhaps felt strongest in the operations and communications of the State Department. Foreign Service officers are the primary voice and ears of the United States government around the world. State correctly goes into caretaker mode during presidential transitions, as yesterday’s top ally could become tomorrow’s nation to be squeezed. The Foreign Service goes into passive mode until new guidance is issued. Large voids in leadership, as is the case at today’s State, is deeply problematic.
TCB: Some have said that President Trump does not intend to nominate anyone for these posts as part of a larger effort to streamline the government bureaucracy – do you think these are the right positions to cut? Why or why not?
Rosenblum: It remains unclear what specific positions the Trump Administration intends to not fill or eliminate across the federal government, especially at the Department of State. Governments tend to establish new priorities and positions to execute priorities but do a poor job cutting missions and positions associated with dated priorities.
This is perhaps the biggest difference I see in government and large multinational corporate management. The private sector perpetually cuts unprofitable units and groups pursuing dated priorities, perhaps too directly tied to individual quarterly earnings, but governments do not. Government missions almost never get fully eliminated because there remains a legacy constituency to keep them alive in cold storage. The measure for assessing government leadership priorities is shifts in annual budget requests and the quality of the staff working an issue.
There is no doubt that there are legacy missions and offices in the State Department, and that a pruning of low priority activities is good. This is especially important to do given that there are finite resources, and resources expended in one area drain resources from more important missions. Presidents and secretaries of state have the right and responsibility to define priorities for the Department so I do not have any inherent problem with cutting in some areas, even if they are not the areas I would cut. Equally, I do not see great harm in reshuffling regional and functional mission placement in Department bureaus and offices as there is no magic formula for how to organize.
That said, some of the reductions seem oddly out of step with national and international priorities. The State Department is the coordinating face for U.S. engagement with the world and eliminating the Department’s Office of Cyber Coordinator and the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan without a more prominent reinvention of the functions elsewhere seems gravely retrograde.
TCB: Secretary of State Tillerson has also indicated he does not want to fill vacant positions until after he has completed the overall review of the State Department, in what could be a year-long project. Can the U.S. afford to wait that long, essentially putting policy on hold?
Rosenblum: Yes, and no. Strong, articulated leadership on the scope, direction and intent of a review leading to revitalized missions and priorities will keep the career Foreign and Civil Service professionals of the Department engaged and as embracing as possible of the change to come. Keeping positions vacant pending a reorganization also makes sense bureaucratically. It is highly likely a confirmed assistant secretary, possibly filling his or her dream job, will advocate strongly for the status quo (unless change means being in a stronger, more expansive position at the end of the process).
Unfortunately, my contacts in the Department confirm media reporting that Secretary Tillerson’s review process is closely held, secretive, and not including input from those with the most experience managing and making foreign policy. This closed effort is sending understandable jitters through the career professional ranks and leading to a general hunkering down. A dispirited and adrift foreign policy cadre will project a timid view of America, harming our ability to achieve success in the world.
My own perspective on reorganizations is that they are only worth doing if you are confident the outcome will lead to a decisively better, more modern organization. There are countless negative management and staff variables unleashed in reorganization, and that must be part of the cost-benefit analysis. Will the changes outweigh the cost and lost time?
Momentum, perception, and appearance are non-quantifiable variables for foreign policy success. An opaque, open-ended Department baseline review that will not make State a significantly better place at the end is not helpful.
TCB: What should be done to address this issue?
Rosenblum: Congress has the strongest hand in setting deadlines for the reorganization, holding administration priorities hostage until core positions are filled, and ensuring long-term, enduring national values and interests are preserved at State and elsewhere. There already is bicameral, bipartisan rejection of the President’s FY2019 budget request that cuts the State Department budget by 30 percent. Even Secretary of Defense James Mattis has expressed his support for a strong State that effectively advances national interests through diplomacy.
The Trump Administration’s curious overreliance on all things Department of Defense is not healthy for the making and execution of foreign and national security policy. We need Congress to tangibly restore funding to State, and leverage action on the reorganization and filling key slots, especially the heads of regional bureaus at State and preserve investment in enduring priorities. Failure to do so will have long-term, adverse impacts on the nation.
