Change in the State Department Requires Change in the White House

Yes.  It was time to get rid of Rex Tillerson.  The State Department is in disarray and the U.S. has undermined its credibility globally to the point where it has little diplomatic capacity.  But, President Trump’s plan to replace Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo cannot rebuild what this administration has broken.  To do so, Trump must recognize the value of diplomacy, the central role of the State Department, and the importance of the Secretary of State domestically and globally.

Rex Tillerson was the worst Secretary of State in modern history. He failed to advance U.S. interests, ceding the traditionally powerful voice of the position and refusing to use the soft power that comes with the position. As his relationship with Trump disintegrated over the past months, he lost the respect of foreign leaders, who no longer saw him as representing the President and instead looked to White House insiders, like Jared Kushner, and former military officials, like Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, to craft and implement U.S. foreign policy. Tillerson even managed to lose the support of his own department by engaging in high-profile firings and forced early retirements and refusing to appoint senior leadership. Under Tillerson, the number of Career Ambassadors and Career Ministers – the diplomatic equivalent of four- and three- star generals – fell from 39 to 19.

After the damage wrought by Tillerson’s “reform,” the next Secretary of State will inherit the hardest, most daunting job in the department’s history. The new Secretary must rebuild U.S. diplomatic leadership, restore the department as a voice within the U.S. government, and reconstitute the department’s diplomatic capacity. An ideal next Secretary would need to bring three key attributes to the job to have any hope for success.

• First, the next Secretary would need to be a well-known and respected figure in the US and around the world. At a moment when U.S. diplomatic leadership has stalled, the new Secretary needs to speak with authority and have the clout to demand access in Washington and around the world.

• Second, the next Secretary must understand Foggy Bottom and have bona fide experience with Department processes, bureaucracy, and human resources to rebuild a gutted, disorganized, and discouraged agency.

• Third, the next Secretary would need to be well versed in the pressing challenges of the moment—from the Korean Peninsula to the Middle East, from a rising China to a threatening Russia. There is simply no time to learn on the job; the U.S. cannot afford another year or three without a diplomatic toolkit.

The Trump Administration’s pick, Mike Pompeo, lacks the necessary tools. He served in the military, the House of Representatives, and (for little more than a year) as Director of the CIA, yet does not have the profile to speak with the authority, gravitas, and experience needed for U.S. diplomatic leadership today. His past comments on Russian election meddling, his at-times extremist views, and his lack of any diplomatic experience undermine his credibility. We need a Secretary whose voice immediately resonates in Berlin and Beijing. Equally important, Pompeo’s only experience with the State Department involves playing relatively minor oversight roles in Congress. He lacks the experience and expertise to fix Tillerson’s failed reform effort and revitalize the capacity of the Department. In previous administrations, a strong Deputy Secretary of State or Counselor, could lead revitalization efforts. Given the current state of affairs, the Secretary will have to personally drive the effort to re-empower personnel, re-constitute abandoned offices, and rebuild diplomatic capacity.

At the end of the day, not even a strong Secretary of State can prevent America’s deteriorating global influence while President Trump sends consistent and powerful signals that neither the State Department nor diplomacy is a valuable asset to the United States. For any new Secretary to advance traditional U.S. interests, President Trump and the White House must empower both the State Department and diplomacy as tools of national power. He must first embrace the new Secretary, signaling to leaders in Washington and the world that the new Secretary speaks for the President, and that his or her voice has consequence. Second, President Trump and the White House must invite the State Department back to the table on all issues of consequence – from the Middle East Peace Process to a potentially nuclear North Korea. Finally, President Trump must, both in tweet and in action, show that diplomacy is a valuable tool to advance U.S. interests and values. If Pompeo is to have any hope of success in his new job, he must hope that Trump and the White House are willing to commit to restoring diplomacy to its rightful place alongside defense as key tools of U.S. foreign policy.

-- William Burke-White is Richard Perry Professor and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also directs Perry World House. He served on Secretary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff where he led her major reform process, the QDDR.