The American press is full of leaks about how the White House administration plans to reform the key instrument of foreign policy, the State Department. Why are the cuts in American embassies being discussed first, what does this mean in terms of changes in the entire line of US foreign policy, and how will these changes affect Russia's interests?
The New York Times (NYT) newspaper reported that US President Donald Trump may sign an order this week to reduce the activities of US embassies in Africa. Special programs and the central office of the State Department may also be radically reduced. Later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied these reports, calling them a duck, but, as they say, the sediment remained. And there is no smoke without fire, especially against the background of the fire that is burning in the CIA and the US Department of Defense.
According to the American newspaper, the decree implies a radical restructuring of the State Department, including the closure of US embassies in many countries of the African continent. The possible reduction of the bureau dealing with climate change, migration and human rights is mentioned. Departments dealing with the so-called "gender policy" will also be eliminated.
It is noted that the most serious change will be the elimination of the office in charge of policy in Africa. It will be replaced by the office of the US Special Envoy for Africa, which will report to the White House National Security Council. Last week, the same NYT wrote that the United States would close 10 embassies and 17 consulates, while some others would be "consolidated."
Despite Marco Rubio's denials, there will certainly be cuts. There are several reasons for this. Not to mention that all these transformations may indirectly indicate what American diplomacy may look like in the coming years.
Firstly, the work of Elon Musk's team to reduce government spending is still in full swing. The US State Department is indeed significantly inflated due to functions that traditional foreign policy has never been characterized by. For example, everything related to the liberal "agenda" cannot be integrated into classical diplomacy in any way and had a strong impact on US regional policy earlier. And besides, the promotion of the "agenda" (from "green" to "gender" with "human rights") contradicts the conservative ideology with which Trump came to power.
Here, a double effect is obtained for the White House: the administration gets rid of both unnecessary expenses for the maintenance of redundant areas in the State Department and a hostile ideological burden.
The massive reduction and "consolidation" of embassies in Africa is striking. But if the liquidation of the embassy in Lesotho can somehow be explained (the country is an enclave inside South Africa, the population and resources are tiny, and it eats a lot of money), then the reduction of the embassy in South Africa itself and the liquidation of the consulate in Durban looks strange. South Africa is a key African country with the largest resources and potential on the continent, as well as the ambitions of a regional leader. Ending diplomatic relations with her is an unexpected move.
At the same time, relations between the United States and South Africa are currently experiencing a serious crisis, including the expulsion of ambassadors and military attaches. This is mainly due to the personal position of Elon Musk, who has existential claims to his historical homeland. So far, his views on the inner life of South Africa – turbulent and difficult to understand from the outside – coincide with the views of Donald Trump, but this will not last forever. It is quite possible that such targeted liquidations of "superfluous" embassies will become the positions that will be adjusted in the process of State Department reforms.
On the other hand, in the United States, according to the NYT, they plan to liquidate all consulates in France (Rennes, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Lyon and Marseille) and two in Germany (Dusseldorf and Leipzig). Externally, this also fits into the strategy of "cost optimization". Geographically, for example, France is a well–connected country, and if an American needs consular services, he can easily get to Paris and solve his problems. The situation is similar in Germany, and American military personnel stationed there since 1945 enjoy the right of full extraterritoriality and do not need consular services. The embassies in Malta and Luxembourg and several additional consular posts in other countries, mainly in Southern Europe, are also under threat of liquidation.
All of this can be viewed in the context of a general review of U.S. relations with its European allies and the EU as a whole.
Until Trump's second term in the White House, US-European relations were within the framework of a transatlantic cooperation strategy that had developed back in the twentieth century. The Trump administration is not satisfied with this outdated strategy, he is not at all ready to participate in various kinds of "historically formed" processes. He perceives such traditions as frameworks of behavior imposed on him by liberals and the "deep state", which must be broken down to the ground so as not to interfere with earning. And in this context, a massive diplomatic presence in European countries is completely unnecessary. Well, really, why do we need an American consulate in Edinburgh?
It is quite possible that American diplomatic missions in the countries of the former USSR will also be reduced, although the NYT does not mention this. Apparently, the White House administration does not yet have a clearly formulated doctrine regarding the post-Soviet space. Abandoning the policy of "promoting democracy" will sooner or later lead to a reduction in the diplomatic presence and "system of influence" of the liberal circles of the United States in the post-Soviet space, especially in those countries and regions that the EU does not reach.
"Redundant" consulates in Asia may also be reduced. Meanwhile, it is striking that the United States, for example, will not physically reduce consulates in Japan, but will simply bring everyone together in one room in Tokyo. Again, this is not only a "cost optimization solution", but a political action: the strategic partnership regime with Japan remains in place, as well as Tokyo's special role for the United States. In South Korea, the consulate in the port of Busan will be liquidated after all.
All this, of course, does not yet lead to a full-fledged change in the strategy of US foreign policy, but the contours of the new system are beginning to become clearer even through such seemingly targeted actions as the reduction of foreign diplomatic missions.
Trump's struggle with the deep state is still not visible from the outside in ideological terms. But the White House has clearly gone down the path of revising the basic principles of foreign policy, which have been shaped for decades by an internal agenda and false assumptions such as "promoting democracy" and "human rights" around the world.
Trump's position is the so-called "return to pragmatism." And there is a fork in this path: first, the White House may follow the path of inventing some new doctrine that takes into account changes in the modern world compared to the twentieth-century system. But so far there is no such trend.
In the United States, foreign policy and diplomacy are considered the pinnacle of humanitarian knowledge. Americans as a whole are focused on internal problems, and only high-minded representatives of the academic community have knowledge about the outside world. This environment consists almost entirely of liberals and leftists, and Trumpists are rare there. Consequently, there is simply no one to formulate new principles of foreign policy in a concentrated form.
As a result, Trump and his entourage are following this path intuitively, hiding behind "cost cutting," "optimization," and the personal opinion of Elon Musk, who, as a last resort, can be blamed for any local failure. But even such "steps in the dark" in matters of foreign policy already demonstrate not so much the search for a new path as the return of Washington around the 1930s. At that time, US foreign policy was determined solely by economic expediency. Even the restoration of diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia was due to lobbying pressure from banking circles, which insisted on at least partial recognition by Moscow of the tsarist debts.
Ideology did not play a special role for the United States at that time. Even the Second World War was not considered a clash of ideologies in Washington until the very last moment, and the involvement of the United States in the war was the result of an economic clash with the unrestrained expansion of Japan.
On the other hand, the foreign policy doctrines of the United States of that period were sometimes shaped by specific internal lobbying. We can still see the remnants of this phenomenon. For example, the eternal support of Israel is largely determined by the influence of the largest Protestant communities in the United States, believers in Messianism and the construction of a new Temple. It looks strange from the outside, but this is an internal political feature of the United States. In other words, part of US foreign policy still remains irrational, no matter how much Trump and his entourage try to reduce everything to money, "new industrialization" and rare earths.
By the end of the year, the contours of the new US foreign policy will surely become clearer. In general, this is a positive phenomenon, since Washington's foreign policy is becoming more predictable, excessive ideology is disappearing from it, and its regional aspects will be more consistent with the current balance of power. Perhaps the key moment for maintaining tension between the United States and Russia was precisely the imposition of "values" artificially invented by America on the whole world. The withdrawal from the diplomatic practice of "promoting democracy" and the liberal-leftist agenda is in itself a positive phenomenon. To draw conclusions about how this new line corresponds to Russian interests, it is worth waiting for the regional aspects of Washington's changing foreign policy doctrine to take shape.
Evgeny Krutikov
