Category: Uncategorized

Secretary of State Blinken has appointed Amb. Steve Mull to lead the transition activities preparing for the Trump administration, according to Reuters. Steve and I served together in Warsaw, Poland, where he was the political counselor and I was the Science Counselor.

John Limbert was one of the American diplomats held hostage by the Iranians during the Carter administration. The Associastion for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) has his interview about his experience. Amb. Limbert and I joined the Foreign Service at the same time and began our careers at the same…

According to the Washington Post, Trump plans to destroy much of the State Department’s organization and bureaucracy. Trump associates echo “Trump’s insistence on the need to ‘drain the swamp’ of national security officials who are not prepared to forcefully and enthusiastically implement whatever his priorities may be.” Under a Trump rewriting…

According to CNBC, an article in Foreign Policy by Jared Cohen calls for the US to compete with China for cooperating with other countries in building data centers. Data centers are a key piece of artificial intelligence infrastructure. Where they pop up around the globe could have lasting geopolitical impacts…

Government Executive magazine reports that since 2021 the State Department has expanded it civil service employees by 22% and its Foreign Service employees by 6%. he State Department’s workforce growth and reforms to bring in new types of employees are at the core of the Biden administration’s diplomatic accomplishments, its…

According to Politico: This year, a little-known center within the State Department exposed a major Russian disinformation campaign in Africa, scoring a rare but decisive victory as America’s adversaries seek to sow chaos and confusion around the world. Now, the Global Engagement Center, which acts as America’s nerve center in combating…

I sympathize with the CIA whistleblower who disclosed that Trump was denying weapons to Ukraine in order to get Ukraine to incriminate Joe Biden, according to the Washington Post. Trump was bribing Ukraine to get dirt on Biden to use in the election. Rudy Guiliani was working closely with Trump…

I served a tour in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). The Association for Diplomatic and Consular Training (ADST) provides a history of its creation based on an interview with Helmut Sonnenfelt. I worked on the space treaty portion of the arms control agreement evaluation book displayed in the…

The Washington Post described a county board meeting in Wisconsin where legal immigrants complained about all the money being given to illegal immigrants. the board punted and made no decision on the immigration issue. The Washington Post’s bias in favor of illegal immigrants over legal immigrants is clearly on display.

Wired magazine has published an evaluation of Antony Blinen’s tenure as Secretary of State. It says: Blinken, 62, once thought he might become a musician—or maybe, even less lucratively, a journalist. Instead he has spent virtually his entire career in the Washington foreign policy establishment, which is something of a…