"The real value of State Department staff is their ability to speak truth to power, offer unvarnished analysis, and keep U.S. diplomacy steady no matter who's in the White House."
American Diplomacy Is Being Dismantled Before Our Eyes | Opinion
Published Aug 19, 2025 at 6:00 AM EDT
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(Fired State Department Staff Exit In Emotional Farewell- Photo)
By John Dinkelman
President, American Foreign Service Association
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Last month, the U.S. State Department carried out what may be the largest single-day layoff in its history—1,350 people gone in one day. Among them: experts on the South China Sea, chemical and biological weapons, human rights, visa fraud, embassy security, economic policy, and global agriculture. This followed the overnight dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the shuttering of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, including the Voice of America—two pillars of America's soft power. Taken together, these moves aren't a careful rethink of diplomacy. They're an attack on the very tools that make diplomacy possible.
Some have cheered this demolition on. In a recent Newsweek op-ed, Michael Gfoeller and David H. Rundell cast the State Department cuts as bold, overdue reform. But reform takes thought and planning. What's happening now at the State Department, and across the foreign affairs family, is retreat.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio purports to be fixing bureaucratic sluggishness with decisive leadership. But this doesn't acknowledge the mess left behind: empty desks where seasoned specialists once ran nonproliferation programs, calls from key allies who relied on USAID staff going unanswered, and allies left wondering what, exactly, America's priorities are these days.
Diplomacy is essential to America's security. And yes, the State Department needs fixing. I've spent 37 years in the foreign service, including in leadership roles, and I've seen the slow processes, stovepipes, and areas where we can and should do better. But what we're seeing now is a scorched-earth campaign dressed up as efficiency.
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Marco Rubio
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 08: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a Cabinet Meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at at the White House on July 08, 2025 in Washington, DC. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
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I say that not just as a career diplomat, but as president of the American Foreign Service Association, which represents active-duty and retired members of the foreign service, many of whom are serving on the front lines of America's foreign policy work. They know how hard this work is and how long it takes to build the skills, trust, and networks that make diplomacy effective. To our members, watching such expertise tossed aside overnight is as dangerous as it is disheartening.
It doesn't have to be this way. In 1999, the U.S. Information Agency and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency were folded into the State Department as part of a White House effort to "reinvent government." That was a big change, but it was done with advance notice, detailed planning, and input from the people doing the work, and was designed to preserve core institutional strengths. We didn't just flip the lights off and walk away.
In contrast, July's layoffs at the State Department were determined not by skills, performance, or mission needs, but simply by where someone happened to be working on May 29. No thought was given to the fact that a senior adviser on chemical and biological weapons, whose work directly keeps Americans safe, would be shown the door. Or that South China Sea experts would be cut loose just when countering Beijing is supposedly a top priority.
And it's not just about who's gone—it's about what's creeping in. The department introduced a new evaluation category called "fidelity," rating officers on how closely they follow "the priorities and guidance of department leadership." Sounds harmless, until you think about it. It's essentially a loyalty test. The last time we saw something like this was the McCarthy era, when careers were wrecked for failing to toe the political line.
The real value of State Department staff is their ability to speak truth to power, offer unvarnished analysis, and keep U.S. diplomacy steady no matter who's in the White House. Over the course of my career, I have been fortunate enough to serve under politically appointed leadership from both parties—in Washington and abroad. I gave and received frank and honest analysis of situations ranging from narcotics interdiction to maritime boundary negotiations. I felt it was my duty to "call it like I see it" and then execute the policy decisions of the president, regardless of the course he set. "Fidelity," as written, undermines that mission. It rewards yes-men and sidelines independent thinkers, the exact opposite of what we need to navigate a combustible world.
Then there's the soft power we've just thrown away. USAID has spent more than six decades building schools, strengthening public health, supporting democracies, and helping communities rebuild after disasters. It's how we've earned trust and influence where the military could never win hearts and minds. Pulling the plug overnight hands that good will to our competitors.
The same is true for the U.S. Agency for Global Media. For years, it's been one of the few reliable sources of fact-based news in parts of the world awash in propaganda. Now there's an information vacuum our adversaries are eager to fill.
Congress must demand immediate accountability. What expertise are we hemorrhaging, and how is this gutting America's global leadership? Diplomacy isn't a commodity you can simply repurchase. When we sever these professional bonds, we forfeit irreplaceable assets—longstanding relationships of trust, hard-won language fluency, cultural intelligence, and negotiating expertise that form the backbone of effective statecraft.
If you care about America's standing in the world, let your representatives and senators know. Tell them that these layoffs hurt real people in their districts, families who depend on consular services, businesses that rely on commercial diplomacy, communities connected to America's global engagement. Demand oversight. Demand answers.
A month on, the damage is already clear. What's at stake is bigger than jobs. It's America's credibility, our competence, and our ability to lead on the global stage. That's not reform. That's retreat.
John Dinkelman is president of the American Foreign Service Association and a 37-year veteran of the U.S. State Department, where he held senior leadership roles worldwide and in Washington, including acting assistant secretary of state for administration.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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