Caitlin Klevorick is a policy and communications professional in New York.

The State Department employs more than 70,000 people around the world, the vast bulk of them apolitical civil servants. In the weeks since President Donald Trump took office, some have gone. Perhaps of greater concern, fewer have come.

The top ranks of the department are nearly empty, with the departure not only of former President Barack Obama’s political appointees and ambassadors, but also career officials serving in top management roles. Today, of the 116 posts that the Partnership for Public Service has identified as “key” at State, only two are filled. This is not normal. And though there are talented people in the department who are capable of filling in the gaps, it takes time to replace the years of experience that have walked out the door. The current vacuum could be destabilizing and dangerous.


I worked at the State Department from 2009 to 2013 for the counselor and the secretary. I was a political appointee, but I didn’t do politics; my job was advancing our foreign policy priorities and working on unexpected events—some might say crises. And I saw how vital the tremendous people at the department and around the world are at representing America. While many alumni are rooting for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who seems smart and capable, we’re also concerned about his apparent struggle to be an effective advocate for the department, whether it’s within Foggy Bottom, at the White House or overseas. The United States can’t solve everything with its military—it needs diplomats to do the patient, painstaking work of building relationships, negotiating deals large and small and defusing problems before they become crises. It needs the State Department.

And it’s not just the State Department’s absence that worries us. While it certainly takes some time to get the government up and running after a change in administrations, the delays on the Trump team are unprecedented. The inability to even nominate top deputies in departments across the government, and the reports of White House vetoes of nominees, are deeply concerning.

The lack of leadership in Foggy Bottom is particularly alarming at a time of deep uncertainty and turmoil abroad, not to mention global confusion about America’s intentions. The State Department has yet to hold a single press briefing. And when the State Department is silent, America can’t defend or explain itself to friends and foes alike. U.S. diplomats represent the United States in more than 265 places around the world. In a normal administration, department officials are present—and carry weight—at every major decision-making table, but they need guidance from political appointees, and they aren’t getting it now.

Diplomacy has been the work of the foreign service since 1924. Its professionalized, apolitical corps has been key to executing every administration’s policies, Democratic and Republican alike. Foreign service professionals do not operate according to personal political beliefs; rather they execute the administration’s foreign policy priorities and vision. A strong and present political leadership sets the tone and provides the policy guidance; the department then executes it. But, in the absence of political leadership, the department can be left somewhat rudderless, as it is today.

Even more troubling is the recent politicization of the department. The leak of the Dissent Channel cable about the president’s executive order on immigration, which was signed by more than 1,000 foreign service officers, put the Trump administration on edge. This adversarial mind-set gave rise to one of the gravest examples of disregard and denigration of foreign service and civil service professionals—press secretary Sean Spicer’s statement from the White House podium that those who do not agree with President Trump’s opinions and his “vision” should either get with the program or go.

As the host of one of just two daily briefings by the administration—and one whose audience is the international community—the State Department has traditionally held on-camera briefings on a daily basis. This week, the department informed the press that on-camera briefings would happen only every other day. Secretary Tillerson has also scaled back the number of journalists traveling with him abroad—only one reporter went with him to Mexico. Perhaps the Trump administration views the State Department press corps with the same jaundiced eye it looks at the media writ large, but this is a mistake. In my experience, the reporters who covered us were focused on policy, and tried hard to get the substance right. Now they have been left largely in the dark, struggling to nail down basic facts about the Trump team’s view of the world.

In the absence of information, speculation and fear rise. Some members of the foreign service are contemplating leaving its ranks, while others are thinking about requesting assignments in areas where President Trump owns properties—thinking it will result in more attention from the White House.

The lack of political leadership extends beyond Foggy Bottom to overseas posts, foreign governments and global organizations. Many of our closest allies and bilateral partners have no high-level political contacts. Their questions are going unanswered and their concerns are multiplying, perhaps most pointedly about the immigration executive order and Trump’s confusing position on Middle East peace. As one person from the department told me, “We look like fools. How are people around the world supposed to take us seriously and listen to our policies when we don’t know what they are? I know this can change. It is just a question of when it will.”

Hopefully, Secretary Tillerson will fix this, and soon. But for the moment, his department is drifting, and only one podium speaks for the entire U.S. government—Spicer’s. At the same time, foreign policy decisions are being made by a select few in the West Wing, who make decisions behind closed doors and to date with little if any input from foreign policy professionals—something we have never seen before. The arrival of H.R. McMaster as the new national security adviser should help, but ultimately, the president has to decide whether he values what our diplomats do. Because the longer the State Department goes without robust leadership and high-level policy guidance, the longer America goes without a voice around the world.