Several current and former diplomats told me that what was happening at the State Department — the unfilled ambassadorships, the conferences not attended, the foreign aid not given — amounted to a slow degradation of America’s global leadership. “My fundamental concern is that he is so decimating the senior levels of the Foreign Service that there’s no one to show up at meetings where the U.S. needs to be represented,” a retired diplomat told me. “Whether it’s the oceans, the environment, science, human rights, broadband assignments, drugs and thugs, civil aviation — it’s a huge range of issues on which there are countless treaties and agreements that all require management. And, if we are not there, things will start to fall apart.”

In small ways, the breakdown is already showing. The secretary of state’s office has typically sent guidance to diplomats on how to speak publicly about important decisions. According to the longtime diplomat in Asia, after the withdrawal from the Paris accords the State Department sent paraphrases of Trump’s speech denouncing the accords. “The guidance we got was juvenile,” the diplomat said. (A more thorough memo came twenty-four hours later.)

The larger effects may become apparent in a moment of crisis, or they may develop only in the long term. “You look out over the next ten, twenty, maybe thirty years, and the United States is still going to be the preeminent power in the world,” Bill Burns told me. “We can shape things, or wait to get shaped by China and everybody else. What worries me about the Trump people is that they’re going to miss the moment. There are sins of commission and sins of omission. And sins of omission—not taking advantage of the moment—cost you over time.”