"The State Department desperately needs to be vigorously harnessed. It has too big a role to play in the formulation of foreign policy, and foreign policy is too important to be left up to foreign service officers"
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“Vigorously harnessed” is doing a lot of work here: it frames the State Department as a powerful animal that, left to its own instincts, will wander off-script. Galbraith isn’t just critiquing bureaucracy; he’s staking out a theory of democratic control. The punchline lands in the second sentence, where he calls State both too big to be ignored and, paradoxically, too important to be trusted. It’s a classic insider’s provocation: the department matters enormously, which is precisely why it must be subordinated.
The subtext is a turf war disguised as principle. “Foreign service officers” becomes shorthand for a professional class with its own culture, incentives, and worldview: incrementalism, risk management, a preference for continuity over rupture. Galbraith, himself a diplomat, is not attacking competence so much as autonomy. He’s warning that expertise can harden into self-authorizing power, turning policy into something “administered” rather than decided. The line also carries an implicit critique of process: if State is “formulating” policy, then elected leadership (and the broader public) are already reacting to decisions made upstream.
Context matters: postwar American foreign policy repeatedly oscillated between institutionalized diplomacy and White House-centered control (NSC staff, special envoys, covert channels). Galbraith’s phrasing echoes a long-running suspicion in Washington that State is either too cautious to act decisively or too insulated to reflect political priorities. It’s a deliberately abrasive reminder that, in a democracy, legitimacy outranks résumé.
The subtext is a turf war disguised as principle. “Foreign service officers” becomes shorthand for a professional class with its own culture, incentives, and worldview: incrementalism, risk management, a preference for continuity over rupture. Galbraith, himself a diplomat, is not attacking competence so much as autonomy. He’s warning that expertise can harden into self-authorizing power, turning policy into something “administered” rather than decided. The line also carries an implicit critique of process: if State is “formulating” policy, then elected leadership (and the broader public) are already reacting to decisions made upstream.
Context matters: postwar American foreign policy repeatedly oscillated between institutionalized diplomacy and White House-centered control (NSC staff, special envoys, covert channels). Galbraith’s phrasing echoes a long-running suspicion in Washington that State is either too cautious to act decisively or too insulated to reflect political priorities. It’s a deliberately abrasive reminder that, in a democracy, legitimacy outranks résumé.
Quote Details
| Topic | Decision-Making |
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