Julia Ioffe: “Previously unpublished data from the AFSA shows that the foreign service is losing people at an alarming clip. In the first two years of Trump’s presidency, nearly half of the State Department’s Career Ministers retired or were pushed out. Another 20 percent of its Minister Counselors, one rank level down, also left.”
“There are no official numbers yet for 2019, but one former career foreign service officer I spoke with offered a telling piece of data that speaks to the unease. Last December, this ex–foreign service officer created a Facebook group aimed at connecting fellow FSOs looking to transition out of the service and into the private sector. In less than a year, this former FSO told me, the group has accumulated over 1,000 members.”
