The Decline of the State Department

Abstract

Te State Department’s foreign policy functions have largely migrated to a National Security Staff at the White House, an off-the-books government agency impervious to Congressional oversight and public scrutiny. The State Department’s internal organization is a management consultant’s nightmare, and it consoles itself for its irrelevance with globalizing fantasies and a trendy obsession with social media. The result is a vicious cycle of irrelevance.