U.S. embassies are indispensable and should be maintained wherever possible, but intelligently focused trimming is still possible.
The Department of State is determining how to reduce American diplomatic and consular representation abroad as part of its effort to eliminate programs not aligned with the priorities of the Trump administration. Approached properly, this could be a sensible process as there are many inefficiencies. However, if done recklessly, the effort will endanger American lives, reduce prosperity, and cede global influence to foreign opponents.
Sensible Cutting
America has eighty-eight diplomatic consulates and consulate generals. This is excessive. In Europe, the United States maintains over a dozen so-called “legacy consulates.” These posts were established after World War II, transmitting social security benefits, dealing with family reunification, and addressing refugee resettlement, among other issues. They tend to be in palatial buildings that are often expensive to maintain and secure. Embassies in the host-nation capitals could easily assume their functions. Ironically, the State Department would have closed many of these posts years ago but for Congressional pressure to maintain them as they are nice places to visit in cities like Florence and Milan.
Other consulates issue immigration and visitor visas and provide welfare and other services for Americans. Still, in many cases, they are located within easy distance of the American embassy in the capital city. Congress has provided significant funding to the Department of State to modernize IT systems, now providing U.S. citizens with online access to many of the protections and services they require while in foreign countries. Additional consulates could also be trimmed or eliminated, although there are some that should probably be retained for non-consular related reasons. The Consulate-General in Belfast is such an example since it keeps a finger on the sensitive pulse of Northern Irish politics.
Some consular posts serve other federal government agencies. In many cases, the State Department is mainly a landlord managing the property to provide a platform for the Defense Department, Treasury, Labor, Justice, Homeland Security, and other Federal agencies. If other agencies need these posts, they could increase the funding required to maintain them.
Embassies are a Different Matter
The U.S. Embassies in 173 countries protect American citizens and provide daily communication with the host government for political and economic reporting not available in open-source media. When Americans fall sick, lose passports, or get detained or arrested, they need an embassy in the country to help them, along with its connections and knowledge of local officials and processes. In many cases, resolving difficult situations requires the personal contacts and relations that embassy personnel have long cultivated through their time spent abroad.
American commerce likewise needs the embassy’s presence on the ground. This can be as simple as helping a company that does not know the country to find opportunities. It can be as complicated as mounting a major and sustained effort to influence the local government to buy American or to overcome foreign competition and bribery. This is an area in which America has been falling behind. Chinese diplomats outnumber U.S. diplomatic personnel throughout much of the developing world. They are making significant commercial inroads in Latin America and Africa. Our understaffed embassies need reinforcement, not removal.
Evacuations of American citizens abroad have become increasingly frequent in cases of civil disturbance, war, and disease outbreaks. Some situations required massive evacuations from distant locations abroad. These evacuations depend on the presence of the U.S. embassy in the country. In many cases, commercial air assets—often arranged by the local embassy—accomplish evacuations. In drastic situations, U.S. military air and sea assets must provide the capability for heavy lift.
However, the success of such military operations frequently depends on the embassies as well. It is the embassy that has the contacts and communications to find Americans in the country, organize them for evacuations, and coordinate with the host government to deconflict with local forces. Evacuations are team efforts that must begin when it is already too late to build the local contacts, relationships, and information essential to protect lives and evacuate successfully.
Virtual isn’t Real
It is important to understand that despite vast improvements in electronic connectivity, many local people will not speak with the same frankness on a Zoom video conference, WhatsApp call, or e-mail. They may worry that such conversations will be intercepted or blocked by repressive governments or misused by opposition elements. They are concerned about who else may be listening or is privy to the conversation. Building a level of confidence and trust requires personal contact on a frequent basis.
This is particularly true of cooperation in counterterrorism. These operations require careful personal management with sensitive host government elements. The U.S. military has learned that many such operations work best through teamwork with their diplomatic colleagues. The need for such diplomatic resources has been underscored numerous times, particularly when former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis observed, “… If you don’t fully fund the State Department, please buy a little more ammunition for me because I’m going to need it…”
Former Secretary of State George Schultz used to say that much of diplomacy was “tending the garden.” What he meant was that there is a great deal of work required to maintain and broaden local contacts, head off problems before they arise, and manage problems without getting into the public spats that make resolution difficult or impossible. This is the bread and butter of much daily diplomatic work in an embassy. Just as a garden cannot be weeded from a distance, this work cannot be carried out remotely or electronically.
Trim, don’t Shutter
U.S. embassies are indispensable and should be maintained wherever possible, but intelligently focused trimming is still possible. Some of our European embassies almost certainly have more political and economic staff than necessary, reporting facts and developments that are available in the public domain. However, this is not the case in many countries where there is no open media, foreign and domestic journalists are harassed, and scholars rarely visit.
The need for an embassy does not necessarily mean that every embassy needs to do all the same things. In many smaller countries in the developing world, we could do this with smaller posts, similar to the special embassy program that existed in the past. To make this feasible, the workload of such small embassies needs to be sized to fit the resources. Currently, there are an incredible number of reports from U.S. embassies, many driven by Congressional requirements. This might be one area where Elon Musk and DOGE could be useful in eliminating excessive and duplicate reporting requirements.
Many of the reporting requirements worldwide could be handled by desk officers in the State Department. Regional officers based in larger embassies could fulfill mandatory reporting requirements for smaller posts. This would allow a smaller embassy staff to focus on the essential jobs of helping Americans in trouble, promoting American commerce, and establishing detailed knowledge of local officials, opposition groups, and politics to help improve policy formation and deal with crises.
There are countries where U.S. Embassy staff can be trimmed, where staffing should be reinforced, and where the work needs to be adjusted to fit the available levels of staff and time. A careful review is well worth doing. However, massive cuts based on poor assessments of diplomatic needs or ideology will only weaken protection for American citizens, American security, and prosperity.
About the Authors:
Ronald E. Neumann is President of the American Academy of Diplomacy and former U.S. ambassador to Algeria, Bahrain, and Afghanistan.
Gregory Starr was a DoS Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security and UN Under Secretary General for Safety and Security.
Image: Teera Noisakran / Shutterstock.com.