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Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Elizabeth Shackelford: Burning down America's best tool for peace and prosperity
On July 11, the U.S. State Department imposed sweeping layoffs as part of a large-scale reorganization. Why should this matter to you? Violence is surging across the globe — 2024 saw the highest number of state-based armed conflicts in over 70 years. In our globalized world, instability affects us whether we like it or not. This means now is a very bad time to undermine our diplomatic capabilities, which is exactly what this will do. Diplomacy is our least expensive and least risky foreign policy tool, and the State Department leads it. Much like preventative health care, the more effectively we invest in it early on, the fewer costly and dangerous crises we face later. If we don't, we'll have to rely on riskier and costlier tools to defend our national security interests, such as economic coercion or military intervention. Because it's less visible, diplomacy is often underrated and overlooked. It's hard to take credit for the crises we avoid. But American diplomacy — backed up by our military might — is what kept us out of a hot war with the Soviet Union, has prevented war between China and Taiwan, and ended conflict between Egypt and Israel, to name a few. I've seen diplomacy mitigate conflict in places such as Kenya, Burundi and Somalia. As a former U.S. diplomat, I know that these sloppy cuts at State will cost us a lot. As the world moves undoubtedly into a more conflict-ridden future, we are undermining our own ability to navigate that world safely. Our military leaders have long understood this. As Gen. James Mattis said during testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services in 2013, 'If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.' Effective diplomacy requires skilled diplomats and regional and subject matter experts. It relies on investment in the long game, building strong relationships and addressing underlying causes of conflict and instability. This administration is tossing that all aside with little concern for the consequences. No career civil servant would deny that the State Department could use serious, thoughtful reform. But this is not that. Like the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts that came before, the State Department 'reorganization' has been conducted with little appreciation or understanding of what it does, how it works and why it matters. This is no surprise given who was put in charge of it. Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old former DOGE staffer with no prior experience with the State Department or diplomacy, has taken the lead. He was promoted this month to undersecretary, the department's third-highest ranking. He's been assisted by Lew Olowski, an entry-level Foreign Service officer who was recently tapped to lead the human resources department, a position typically held by a long-serving member of the Senior Foreign Service. Their qualifying criteria apparently consist of being loyal to the administration of President Donald Trump and willing to break things. The result is costly and dangerous. Delaware Sen. Chris Coons highlighted some of the most egregious outcomes during a recent Senate hearing. While grilling the deputy secretary of state for management, Coons pointed out, 'You literally just fired department experts on nuclear proliferation, including experts with decades of expertise on Iran's nuclear weapons program, (on) ending Russia's invasion of Ukraine.' Other casualties included key parts of the counterterrorism bureau; the entire office for countering violent extremism; half of State's cybersecurity bureau (which had a leading role in countering China's cyberattacks); most of the office focused on science, technology cooperation and critical technologies, including artificial intelligence; much of the office addressing fraud prevention for visas and passports; and the offices focused on drug trafficking and energy diplomacy, both areas that the administration had specifically indicated were top priorities. Widespread cuts to the Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA) were met with shock, since it serves Americans directly and is self-funded through service fees. CA issues passports and visas and is responsible for the welfare of Americans abroad. The Office of Casualty Assistance, for example, assists victims of crime and terrorist attacks and helps repatriate bodies of Americans who die overseas. It was eliminated. I've made those heartbreaking calls to families to tell them a loved one has died. I've helped them navigate hospitals, criminal investigations, repatriation and grief — with critical support from Washington. You'll feel these cuts if you find yourself in trouble in a foreign country. I also know many people who were let go: experts with extensive language skills, knowledge and relationships cultivated over decades. These are taxpayer-funded investments that cannot be rebuilt overnight. Not that this administration intends to try. It ultimately plans to slash the State Department budget by almost half, to $28 billion. For comparison, Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' increased military spending to over $1 trillion, which is $156 billion more than the Department of Defense asked for. This means the U.S. military got a tip nearly six times the entire planned State Department budget. If you don't mind a future with more war, we can just keep buying more ammunition. But if you want a safer world, tell your government to invest in the tools of peace.
The Age
12-07-2025
- Politics
- The Age
Bigger defence budgets are more often a prelude to war, not peace
It was Trump's own former defence secretary, General James Mattis, who warned if there were cuts to diplomacy and aid, 'then I need to buy more ammunition'. That's because real security requires more than just military power – it requires stability, trust, and reliable partnerships. I have just returned from the Thai Burma border visiting countless refugees from the junta's merciless aerial bombing of their own civilians using Russian and Belarusian bombs. The military led a coup on February 1, 2021 after Aung San Suu Kyi won a massive re-election in 2020 for her National League for Democracy government. Hundreds of thousands resigned from their government positions to join the resistance and many fled. I visited amputees and other wounded in Thailand's border hospitals. They are the lucky ones due to being carried across the border to receive medical treatment in Thailand. I met with the indigenous Chin leaders who spoke of more than 60 churches bombed. They are Baptists and as poor farmers their beautiful churches are their only communal source of pride; they are experiencing psychological terror as well as physical terror. I met with Karen leaders in Thailand whose churches have also been obliterated by bombs. One of the largest ethnic groups in Myanmar, there are now 1.2 million Karen internally displaced. There are no active international NGOs and UN agencies able to function in ethnic areas – it is only the churches and Buddhist monasteries delivering basic food and limited health work. International aid groups must be approved by the junta, so the only help is in junta-controlled areas. Civil society organisations have been blacklisted with many of their leaders imprisoned. Today there are now 3.5 million internally displaced people and 22 million Burmese in the country in dire need of humanitarian aid as the health and social systems have collapsed. With the cessation of USAID, even the limited health support that was reaching vulnerable communities – including vaccines, and treatment for TB, malaria, and HIV – has dried up. And it was USAID feeding the Karen refugees in the nine camps on the Thai border. As of July 31, 2025 the nine refugee camps are to be closed with 108,000 refugees unable to feed themselves and no right to work in Thailand. The Thai Border Consortium, headed by an Australian, has failed to fill the USAid gap because EU and British donors have also cut aid. It is a complete humanitarian disaster. Loading Defence spending decisions in donor nations are wreaking humanitarian havoc now. But Australia has skin in the game – with Julie Bishop serving as the UN Special Envoy for Myanmar – while both the UN Security Council and ASEAN have called on the junta to halt its bombing campaign and allow humanitarian aid to flow. I am proud that our government was one of the few nations that did not cut aid in its last Budget, and I call on the opposition to make aid a bipartisan commitment.
Sydney Morning Herald
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Bigger defence budgets are more often a prelude to war, not peace
It was Trump's own former defence secretary, General James Mattis, who warned if there were cuts to diplomacy and aid, 'then I need to buy more ammunition'. That's because real security requires more than just military power – it requires stability, trust, and reliable partnerships. I have just returned from the Thai Burma border visiting countless refugees from the junta's merciless aerial bombing of their own civilians using Russian and Belarusian bombs. The military led a coup on February 1, 2021 after Aung San Suu Kyi won a massive re-election in 2020 for her National League for Democracy government. Hundreds of thousands resigned from their government positions to join the resistance and many fled. I visited amputees and other wounded in Thailand's border hospitals. They are the lucky ones due to being carried across the border to receive medical treatment in Thailand. I met with the indigenous Chin leaders who spoke of more than 60 churches bombed. They are Baptists and as poor farmers their beautiful churches are their only communal source of pride; they are experiencing psychological terror as well as physical terror. I met with Karen leaders in Thailand whose churches have also been obliterated by bombs. One of the largest ethnic groups in Myanmar, there are now 1.2 million Karen internally displaced. There are no active international NGOs and UN agencies able to function in ethnic areas – it is only the churches and Buddhist monasteries delivering basic food and limited health work. International aid groups must be approved by the junta, so the only help is in junta-controlled areas. Civil society organisations have been blacklisted with many of their leaders imprisoned. Today there are now 3.5 million internally displaced people and 22 million Burmese in the country in dire need of humanitarian aid as the health and social systems have collapsed. With the cessation of USAID, even the limited health support that was reaching vulnerable communities – including vaccines, and treatment for TB, malaria, and HIV – has dried up. And it was USAID feeding the Karen refugees in the nine camps on the Thai border. As of July 31, 2025 the nine refugee camps are to be closed with 108,000 refugees unable to feed themselves and no right to work in Thailand. The Thai Border Consortium, headed by an Australian, has failed to fill the USAid gap because EU and British donors have also cut aid. It is a complete humanitarian disaster. Loading Defence spending decisions in donor nations are wreaking humanitarian havoc now. But Australia has skin in the game – with Julie Bishop serving as the UN Special Envoy for Myanmar – while both the UN Security Council and ASEAN have called on the junta to halt its bombing campaign and allow humanitarian aid to flow. I am proud that our government was one of the few nations that did not cut aid in its last Budget, and I call on the opposition to make aid a bipartisan commitment.
Forbes
18-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Heed General Mattis' Warning, D.C.: Less Diplomacy Means 'More Ammunition'
In his January Inaugural Address, Donald Trump said, 'We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.' If that's the president's most crucial foreign policy metric – and it's a good one – then it's hard to understand why Washington is pulling back on investments that have prevented war and promoted peace for decades. Especially when foreign aid accounts for only about one percent of the federal budget, much of it actually spent within the U.S. Every American should hope the White House reconsiders its strategy before it's too late. "If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition" — Former Defense ... More Secretary James Mattis. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch - Pool/Getty Images) In 1947, America did something unique in world history when it launched the Marshall Plan, spending $187 billion in today's dollars to rehabilitate the economies of 17 European countries. Most extraordinary of all, we spent over 20% of those funds on the recovery of our World War II adversaries, Germany and Italy. The plan worked, establishing a stable and prosperous Europe, a network of reliable allies, and a massive market for U.S. companies. Last year, the U.S. exported almost $250 billion of goods alone to Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. This exercise of 'soft power' – which describes the use of foreign aid, diplomacy, and the promotion of American values abroad – turned out to be every bit as consequential to strengthening America and winning the Cold War as our military's 'hard power.' But soft power is on the outs in Washington. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the administration plans to reduce the Department's staff in the U.S. by 15 percent while closing and consolidating more than 100 bureaus worldwide. At the same time, China now has a larger diplomatic presence worldwide than the U.S. and a massive global infrastructure and investment strategy. Its Belt and Road Initiative is the largest infrastructure project in history, involving more than 140 countries and drawing an increasing number of nations into its orbit. China is rapidly filling the void because the U.S. has vacated its historic and influential presence. On his first day back in office in January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order freezing all foreign aid, including the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Since its creation in George W. Bush's administration, PEPFAR has saved more than 25 million lives and prevented millions of HIV infections, including those in America, as the AIDS pandemic has been brought under more control. Although the Trump administration subsequently allowed a waiver for the continued distribution of HIV medicine, many other key aspects of the PEPFAR program are in jeopardy. President Trump has also ordered the closure of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which reaches 50 million people each week in places where media freedom doesn't exist. Even Cookie Monster, Oscar, and Elmo are on the chopping block. Less soft power for Elmo: International adaptations of "Sesame Street" have been impacted by cuts in ... More federal funding. Since the early 1970s, Sesame Workshop, the producer of Sesame Street, has collaborated with local broadcasters to develop unique, culturally adapted versions of the show in over 150 countries. These international co-productions often include local languages, characters, and educational priorities, making "Sesame Street" a global neighborhood. Because the Department of Education has cancelled its key grants, Sesame Street has become a dead end in several nations. There's little question that some of the money Washington spent in recent years on foreign aid was wasted or devoted to pet ideological causes. This likely explains why 59% of the public supports reducing foreign aid, even as they vastly overestimate how much America spends on it. (Opinion polls often show Americans believe more than a quarter of the federal budget goes to foreign aid. As stated earlier, the real figure is around 1%.) However, I'd ask my fellow Americans – and our leaders in Washington – to recall something General James Mattis, then commander of the Central Command, said in 2013 about the perils of making reckless cuts to foreign aid and diplomacy. Testifying before Congress, he said, 'If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition. The more that we put into the State Department's diplomacy, hopefully, the less we must put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene.' To meet President Trump's goal of ending and avoiding wars, Washington can't just slash budgets. It needs a new framework for soft power that prioritizes America's interests and delivers peace through strength. A great place to start would be the new 'Blueprint for How America Wins in the World' from the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (full disclosure: I am a Vice Chairman at USGLC). I spoke recently to USGLC President Liz Schrayer, one of the sharpest thinkers I know on foreign policy and the exercise of U.S. power. Amid growing threats from China, Russia, and Iran, Liz walked me through several steps America can take to be stronger, safer, and more prosperous, including: Making these soft power investments should appeal to the most hardboiled realists in Washington – and compel the White House to reverse course on some of its proposed aid and diplomacy cuts – because they all make America safer. If we want to stay one step ahead of China, prevent the next pandemic from reaching our shores, keep our borders secure, and grow our economy, America must show up, lead with strength, and make smart investments abroad that deliver on American interests. Otherwise, our service members are going to need more ammunition.
The Guardian
16-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump's parade isn't what he was hoping for. It was a disappointing, sad affair
In one version of the story, you can blame the French. Evidently it was in France, watching the 2017 Bastille Day military parade alongside Emmanuel Macron at the outset of his first term, that Trump initially got the idea to stage an armed spectacle in Washington DC in honor of himself. Back then, the military said no. In a now-famous anecdote, Gen Paul Selva, who grew up in Portugal under its integralist regime, told Trump that such parades are 'what dictators do'. James Mattis, his then-secretary of defense, reportedly revolted against the idea, saying he would 'rather swallow acid'. Trump never got his parade. Until now. Restored to power after an interregnum in which all American institutions failed to hold him accountable for his crimes and abuses, Trump has now set about a second term in which he is pursuing vengeance against his perceived enemies, using his office to enrich himself, and indulging all the impulses that were checked by his staffers and advisers back when anyone serious still worked for him. Having stuffed the military and defense department leadership exclusively with sycophants and incompetents, Trump is now surrounded exclusively by the kind of people he likes best: people who can't see any reason not to give him whatever he wants. On Saturday, they gave him a military parade for his birthday, complete with tanks, missiles, airplanes overhead and parachutists. A band sang Happy Birthday. The spectacle was mostly paid for by taxpayers, but there were corporate sponsorships, too – among them the Thiel-backed venture Palantir, and the crypto exchange Coinbase. If Trump was expecting a display of pomp and pride that rivaled his own egotism, he may have been disappointed. The parade, as it turned out, was something of a disappointing affair. The uniformed soldiers marched irregularly, slightly off beat; the turnout was small and the crowd seemed defeated, low-energy, a bit wilted and unenthused after spending hours in DC's brutal summer humidity. It rained. It was all a great contrast to the large-scale protests that had exploded across the country earlier that day, with millions taking to the streets in jubilant displays under the banner 'No Kings'. In one, big crowds expressed opposition to Trump's vision of America, and offered instead a colorful hope for equality and the dignity of self-government. In the other, a desultory group of soldiers trooped through what looked like a mostly empty city – DC had been largely blocked off, in no small part to prevent the protesters from clashing with the military parade and possibly creating a Tiananmen Square-style visual. The soldiers popped up from their tanks and waved wearily to a smattering of onlookers. Once in a while, the bored-looking president roused himself to his feet and delivered a flaccid salute. This wasn't what Trump was hoping for. Nominally, the event was meant to mark the US army's 250th anniversary. But no one really believes that that was the reason for the parade. Instead, the event marked Trump's 79th birthday, and was meant both to celebrate his seizure of power and underscore his determination to quash dissent. The armed forces were used as an ornament to his ego and a threat to his enemies. As Trump has illegally seized control of the California national guard, deployed the marines to Los Angeles, disappeared dissidents, crammed migrants into internment camps with atrocious conditions, and had his underlings rough up opposition leaders, the military parade was meant to celebrate his successful pursuit of his dictatorial ambitions, to emphasize the solidity and fearsomeness of his rule, and to remind onlookers that those who oppose him can be met with violence. All of Trump's fearsome power and ambition, however, was complicated, in the scenes from the parade, by how obscenely on the nose it all was. Trump clearly wants to be a dictator, and major forces in American politics are helping him become one. But more than wanting to simply be a dictator, Trump also wants to play a dictator on TV. Trump has always reinforced his politics with an aesthetics: his gilded Trump Tower apartment signifying his wealth, his bouffantish combover and long red ties signifying his winking vulgarity, his love of fast food signifying a declasse self-indulgence. He is playing to type now, with his military parade, and the type is authoritarian. With his display of power and authority – with the military used as a prop to demonstrate his love of violence and indifference to the constitution – Trump is imitating himself, seeming to cast one eye to the viewer for their reaction. He seems to imagine, always, what his next line would be in the sitcom – a bit like the mobsters on The Sopranos, who modeled themselves self-consciously off of characters in The Godfather and Goodfellas. He's thinking less of what he wants to do, less of what his true interests or impulses are, and more of what someone like him, a dictator, should be doing. In this way, though it has become easy to fear and hate Trump, it has always remained a bit hard to take him seriously: he is a simulacrum of a strongman dictator, doing the things he has seen strongmen dictators do on TV. It can feel buffoonish, this self-referentiality; it implies a lack of spontaneity, a sense that perhaps, if he needs to prove his own power so badly, Trump might not actually believe in it. But perhaps this is another lesson of our age, the one in which irony and sincerity have collapsed, and in which the dictator tries, with evident effort, to hit his marks on the screen: just because he's faking it, doesn't mean it's not the real thing. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
