CNN reports:

Amid ongoing foreign policy crises around the globe and as the Trump administration struggles to reach a deal to end the war with Iran, the State Department last week finalized the firings of nearly 250 foreign service officers in a brief, impersonal email.

“Your reduction in force separation will be effective today,” part of it read. “Thank you again for your service to the Department.”

Those reductions in force (RIFs), which were initiated last July, also impacted more than 1,000 civil service officers, and saw the firings of entire staffs in offices that former officials say would have been able to provide guidance on the war in Iran, which is having severe consequences for the US and global economy. The State Department has consistently maintained that the RIFs were meant to eliminate redundancies and that work on key issues was maintained and moved to different offices.

Beyond the firings, scores of experienced foreign service officers with decades of experience have retired. Nearly a dozen former officials who spoke with CNN said it is clear that the Trump administration has no upward assignments or promotions, like ambassadorships, available for career diplomats, leaving them with no options in an “up or out” system.

“It was just unprecedented numbers of people choosing to leave,” said David Kostelancik, who retired after 36 years in the foreign service. The American Foreign Service Association estimates that roughly 2,000 foreign service officers left the State Department last year.

Meanwhile, more than 100 ambassador posts around the world, including in the Middle East, Ukraine, and Russia, do not have a Senate confirmed ambassador, setting the US far behind the likes of adversaries like China.

And the most sensitive diplomatic negotiations, on fraught topics like ending the war in Iran and securing an end to the Ukraine conflict, are being led by business associates and family members of President Donald Trump, often without teams of experienced diplomats with regional expertise.

Taken together, the actions represent what former diplomats say is a systematic hollowing out of the State Department that Secretary of State Marco Rubio on his first day pledged to empower. Although the agency has begun hiring new diplomats, the loss of experienced personnel, the former officials say, will have far-reaching consequences for the US’ ability to project power and deliver on its priorities both now and for years to come.

“I think historians will look back on this period as one of the great unforced errors that the United States imposes on itself,” former career ambassador John Bass told CNN. [Continue reading…]