# North Korea and lack of diplomats **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 28, 2017, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522 "2017-09-28T14:48:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/1 "2017-09-28T14:48:42Z")
From an article on Slate - “We currently have no ambassador to South Korea, no assistant secretary of state for Pacific and Asian affairs, no assistant secretary of defense with that portfolio, no special emissary—nothing.” Given the state of affairs with NK, how is it possible that Trump has failed to fill these (and many other) positions in the diplomatic corps? Has his Press Secretary been asked this question and, if so, what was her response? If not, would somebody please ask? I’d love to know the thought process (if it even exists) that leads to this kind of decision-making. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/2 "2017-09-28T15:05:37Z")
The Trump administration has had trouble filling a large number of political appointments for two reasons: first, a great number of career civil servants are simply not interested in serving in a political position in such a chaotic administration, and second, the White House has consistently vetoed suggestions from within the executive departments because those people had been critical of Trump’s candidacy, or had otherwise been aligned with Establishment Republicans. Within the State Department in particular, this has been a major bone of contention between President Trump and Sec. Tillerson, to the point that Tillerson has found it impossible to push through many of his suggestions for undersecretary nominations. The fact that he is simultaneously working on slashing the size of the diplomatic staff hasn’t helped matters. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/3 "2017-09-28T15:33:37Z")
It’s not just diplomatic corps positions that remain unfilled. The Washington Post has a [site](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-administration-appointee-tracker/database/) at which they’re tracking 601 “key executive branch nominations” (of the “roughly 1,200 positions that require Senate confirmation”). For half of these positions, no nominee has been proposed. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/4 "2017-09-28T16:52:33Z")
The Trump administration has it’s issues - many issues. But let’s not make stuff up: > [@friedo](#): > > The Trump administration has had trouble filling a large number of political appointments for two reasons: first, a great number of career civil servants are simply not interested in serving in a political position in such a chaotic administration, and second, the White House has consistently vetoed suggestions from within the executive departments because those people had been critical of Trump’s candidacy, or had otherwise been aligned with Establishment Republicans. Career civil servants are just that - career civil servants, and politicals are just that - politicals. Career civil servants will only jump to being a political if it’s there last job in the government. Keep in mind that politicals come and go, especially at the end of an administration. So no one that is looking for a 30 year career as a civil servant is going to become a political just to lose their job for good in 4 years. You’ll see politicals becoming civil servants (or more likely they and their job will) but you’ll rarely see the opposite. This is partly a good thing. Because Trump doesn’t owe a lot of favors, he doesn’t have a long list of people looking for high profile jobs. Not altogether a bad thing, but bad in this respect. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/5 "2017-09-28T17:18:00Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Career civil servants are just that - career civil servants, and politicals are just that - politicals. Career civil servants will only jump to being a political if it’s there last job in the government. Often, but not always, especially at State. Let’s look at the humble political position of Deputy Secretary of State for the last few years: John Sullivan (incumbent) - formerly Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense and former General Counsel of the Department of Commerce, plus plenty of back-and-forth between federal positions and private practice Tony Blinken - former National Security Council staffer and national security advisor to the Vice President. William Burns - career Foreign Service officer, former ambassador to Russia, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs James Steinberg - former Directory of Policy Planning at State and another National Security Council staffer. John Negroponte - 37-year career Foreign Service veteran, former ambassadorships to Mexico, Iraq, and the UN (among others). Robert Zoellick - former US Trade Representative (that one might be a political office - I can’t remember.) Anyway, my point is there are plenty of long-serving bureaucrats who are end up nominated for middle-management political positions, and who may even go back to civil service positions after. I’m [not the first](http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/28/tillerson-blows-up-at-white-house-aide-240075) to make allegations about the Trump administration’s interference with internal nominees. > [@Politico](#): > > Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s frustrations with the White House have been building for months. Last Friday, they exploded. > > The normally laconic Texan unloaded on Johnny DeStefano, the head of the presidential personnel office, for torpedoing proposed nominees to senior State Department posts and for questioning his judgment… > > Where Tillerson is concerned, the frustration goes both ways. Many of his proposed nominees have been rejected by DeStefano’s Office of Presidential Personnel either because they are Democrats or because they are Republicans who were critical of Trump during the campaign. Though Brian Hook, the State Department’s director of policy planning, told associates several weeks ago that the department had several people in the pipeline, few have been announced since, and the White House continues to resist Tillerson’s choices. > > He’s also faced resistance to leaning on civil servants. Tillerson has expressed his desire to nominate Susan Thornton, a career foreign service officer now serving as the acting assistant secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, to take over the job in an official capacity — a move White House staffers have resisted, saying they want a political person in the role. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/6 "2017-09-28T18:08:53Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Often, but not always, especially at State. Let’s look at the humble political position of Deputy Secretary of State for the last few years: > > John Sullivan (incumbent) - formerly Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense and former General Counsel of the Department of Commerce, plus plenty of back-and-forth between federal positions and private practice > > Tony Blinken - former National Security Council staffer and national security advisor to the Vice President. > > William Burns - career Foreign Service officer, former ambassador to Russia, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs > > James Steinberg - former Directory of Policy Planning at State and another National Security Council staffer. > > John Negroponte - 37-year career Foreign Service veteran, former ambassadorships to Mexico, Iraq, and the UN (among others). > > Robert Zoellick - former US Trade Representative (that one might be a political office - I can’t remember.) Well you just proved my point! I said that it doesn’t happen that often, and when it does, it’s because someone is at the end of their career. And then you point to a bunch of people that are politial appointees, i.e. non career GS/SES such as Bliken, Steinberg etc. and people with 37+ years as civil servants. My issue is that you can’t point to the fact that career SES people aren’t taking political jobs, because they usually don’t because it’s a dead end career at that point. And I take issue with this: > [@friedo](#): > > Anyway, my point is there are plenty of long-serving bureaucrats who are end up nominated for middle-management political positions, and who may even go back to civil service positions after. While there are some, there aren’t many “middle-management” “political” jobs. Almost by definition political = high level. And I’ve never seen a GS/SES go to a political position and revert back to a career GS/SES. I can’t say it’s never happened but not in the “plenty” category. And - surprise surprise - the Administration wants its own people in the positions where they can dictate policy. That’s why they get elected! You don’t think that Obama’s policy was different that Bush’s was? You don’t think he brought in his own people? You don’t think that he didn’t want his people is these jobs? ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/7 "2017-09-29T17:30:30Z")
But didn’t Obama at least fill the jobs with someone? No Ambassador to South Korea? Really? I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump couldn’t pick out the Koreas on a map before he was elected. Seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/8 "2017-09-29T17:39:53Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > While there are some, there aren’t many “middle-management” “political” jobs. Almost by definition political = high level. And I’ve never seen a GS/SES go to a political position and revert back to a career GS/SES. I can’t say it’s never happened but not in the “plenty” category. I would say that Schedule C employees are very much political positions, and there is frequent “burrowing” of these employees to civil service positions. And there are roughly 1,400 Schedule C positions in government. So, I’d call those positions both middle management and political. I assume you disagree, but why? ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/9 "2017-09-29T20:07:57Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I would say that Schedule C employees are very much political positions, and there is frequent “burrowing” of these employees to civil service positions. And there are roughly 1,400 Schedule C positions in government. > > So, I’d call those positions both middle management and political. I assume you disagree, but why? From my experience (DoD) there are two types of Schedule C. Deputies to other political appointees, who come in as GS-15s or Tier 1 SESs. They are usually pretty highly functioning, and usually, have some expertise in the department. For example, if the department deals with medical issues, the SES could be any type of manager, but the deputy Schedule C is a medical administration professional of some type. The second type is a straight stick, young puppy, who is in their low 30s, who is smart, but very, very green and is more of an intern. Whether they are middle management or not depends on where you sit. If one is an SES or GS-15, I suppose they could be middle management, if one is a GS-10 or 12, then they aren’t middle management at all. But my point remains that these jobs are rarely filled by professional GS or SES personnel. They are reward and or political positions, that are filled for 4 years, and then frequently filled by someone else. A career GS wouldn’t be offered one of these, and if they were, they’d be out of a job with the next administration, so there is no future in it. You can burrow as I’ll discuss below, but you have to change _the position_ from political to career GS/SES and that’s not easily done. So stating that these should be easily filled by any of the existing GSs in government, and if they aren’t it’s a sign of incompetence is incorrect, in my opinion. And one rarely burrows as you discussed. (I think that there were 100 or so in the Obama Administration IIRC, so wouldn’t characterize that as frequent.) And the ones that do manage to burrow (I work for one right now) are very political animals and aren’t run of the mill 15, or tier 1. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/10 "2017-09-29T20:26:40Z")
I had to re-look **friedo** ’s comments, but now I understand the point you’re making and I agree with you. I can’t think of anyone who has gone from a civil service to political position, and then back to civil service. It would be quite weird. Apologies for my mis-reading of the thread. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/11 "2017-09-29T21:04:06Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > I had to re-look **friedo** ’s comments, but now I understand the point you’re making and I agree with you. I can’t think of anyone who has gone from a civil service to political position, and then back to civil service. It would be quite weird. > > Apologies for my mis-reading of the thread. No apologies necessary at all. Such a pleasure to have an adult discussion that doesn’t degrade into name calling. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-and-lack-of-diplomats/797522/12 "2017-09-29T21:06:22Z")
OK, granted that Trump wants someone who supports him in these positions. But can’t he find anyone who supports him? I mean, enough people supported him to get him elected, after all.