'Swagger' Doesn't Make up for Bad American Foreign Policy

Daniel R. DePetris

Security, Americas

An evaluation of Mike Pompeo's four months on the job.

When Mike Pompeo was nominated by President Donald Trump in March to replace Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, the former congressman from Kansas and CIA Director knew immediately that he had his work cut out for him.

To many employees, former diplomats, and outside observers, Tillerson’s year-long reign was a disaster zone. The Texas oil magnate was depicted as aloof from his workforce, trapped in the seventh floor and isolated from the worker bees, and out-of-touch with the prevalent grumbling of the career foreign service officers who were questioning whether their work was appreciated by the boss. Tillerson seemed more animated with cutting the department’s budget and overhauling its bureaucracy than with traveling the globe and negotiating agreements. When President Trump abruptly fired Tillerson via tweet, his personal and professional relationship with the White House was broken and the department’s senior leadership was left rudderless.

Has Mike Pompeo turned the ship around? After being on the job for four months, how is former CIA chief doing?

On making the State Department great again, Pompeo is well on his way. He promised to inject some excitement back into Foggy Bottom’s ranks, pledging to senators on the Foreign Relations Committee that he would freeze any further job cuts and begin recruiting the best and the brightest into the diplomatic service. Pompeo pledged to the State Department workforce that he would bring swagger back to the diplomatic community, all the while assuring his new employees that their contributions to U.S. security were highly valued. During his first speech on the ground floor, Pompeo lauded those around him as “patriots and great Americans” who will no longer be shut out or dismissed by the senior leadership.