Photo: CSIS
This transcript is from a CSIS event hosted on April 3, 2024. Watch the full video here.
John J. Hamre: Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Delighted to have you here. My name is John Hamre. I’m the president at CSIS. And really an honor and privilege to have you here. And the reason we’re doing this is because Secretary Verma is going to offer some remarks here first. And this is for the audience, the outside audience. And then we’re going to sit and have this conversation in front of all of you. Wanted to explain what the format is.
I had this conversation with Rich, gosh, maybe eight or nine months ago. And I said, what can I do to help? I mean, this is – the State Department is so vital for our future, and yet it’s so underappreciated, you know, in the American political landscape. And so he kindly agreed to do a session with us. And I’m so glad we have it here.
We’re partnering today on with the American Academy of Diplomacy. And I just want to say a sincere thanks, you know, to the Academy for joining us today. It is a collection of really the most talented former ambassadors, and then a few people like me, who just feel very strongly that America’s future really rests on creative, and thoughtful, and dedicated diplomacy. And so I just want to say thank you to them for being our sponsor, our cosponsor, here today.
I’ve known Secretary Verma, gosh, 30 years I suppose. He’s held up a lot better than I have, OK? We first met when he was with Jack Murtha, who was the ranking Democrat on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. And we struck up a deep friendship then, because he’s a very deep intellect and a thoughtful man. And then I was, of course, celebrating his success. He became assistant secretary for legislative affairs for the State Department. Went off and became our ambassador to India. Did a brilliant job there. And then now, of course, he’s back, and he is the deputy secretary for management and resources.
It’s a real privilege that he’s here today. We’re going to first hear from Secretary Verma. He’s got some prepared remarks. And then the two of us are going to engage in a conversation together. Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. Would you please welcome Secretary Verma? (Applause.)
Deputy Secretary Richard R. Verma: Thanks, John. Thank you so much. And thank you, John, for the nice introduction. And thank you all for being here. I also want to thank CSIS. I want to thank the American Academy of Diplomacy for doing really incredible work and advocating for the department and all of its personnel. So thank you.
John Hamre told half of the story. I met him over 30 years ago, when I was working for the then-chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. John was both the comptroller of the Pentagon and he was the Deputy Secretary of Defense over the entire Clinton administration. And when you were in the Murtha office, there was a phrase that was uttered pretty much every day, multiple times a day. And it was: Call Hamre. Call Hamre. (Laughter.)
Whenever there was a problem, an issue, a question, an urgent matter – maybe not even an urgent matter, it was: Call Hamre. That phrase has stayed in my head, John, over 30 years. And I will tell you, there have been times when I have said to myself: Call Hamre. You should call Hamre. (Laughs.) So I’m really glad not only to see you, but I was so grateful for our conversation, as you said, many months ago where you actually asked us, what can we do to highlight some of the needs of the department both from a budget perspective and a personnel perspective? So I’m sorry it took eight or nine months to get here, but I’m really, really grateful to be here.
I want to – if I can, I just want to start with a bit of a brief recap. This week would mark my first year in office as deputy secretary for management. And it has been an honor to return to the department last April; as John mentioned, my previous service in India, the Bureau of Legislative Affairs. This has been an eye-opening experience, in many ways, to see the department from this vantage point.
In my first few weeks on the job we began evacuating Sudan and it has been a whirlwind ever since that. I will say, however, that everything I’ve seen and done since that first day has reinforced for me one key point which I hope you will take away from today and that is the Department of State as ever continues to deliver a tremendous value to the American people at a cost of approximately 1 percent of the national budget. One percent of the national budget.
When you actually ask – there’s a famous Pew poll – when you ask the American people what they think we spend on foreign assistance they say, oh, 20 percent, and when you ask them what they think it should be they say, well, really, it should be about 10 percent. And then they are shocked and surprised when they actually find out it’s 1 percent.
The department today stands at some 77,000 employees spread across nearly 300 embassies, consulates, and domestic operations. The Americans in our workforce come from every state in the union and nearly 20 percent of them are veterans.
As the deputy for management and resources, or DMR as the position is known, I have broad responsibilities for oversight and management of department operations including the department’s budget, foreign assistance programs, diplomatic missions, and our support to Americans overseas. Some describe it as the chief operating officer for the department.
In this capacity and in this first year I visited over 30 of our overseas missions just in this first year, from Kyiv to Baghdad, Jakarta, Comoros, Bogota, to the western Indian Ocean and many places in between and I’ve also visited about a dozen or so of our domestic facilities across the United States.
People have been asking me, why do you travel so much – isn’t your job here in D.C.? But I do think it’s critical to stay connected to the needs of our workforce including our terrific locally-employed staff.
I also come back from every trip inspired and motivated to do the right thing by our team spread across the globe. What you will find when you travel – and I encourage members of Congress and staff to get out there as much as they can – when they meet our teams around the world you find a committed and dedicated workforce serving globally, often in dangerous and difficult conditions.
At the end of the day, we are a national security agency with people serving bravely from Ukraine to Somalia and South Sudan to Iraq and Port-au-Prince and in so many other conflict zones. I could share stories of their creativity and effectiveness and heroism that I’ve seen during all this travel but the main point here is this.
In an age of increased competition, of global interconnectedness, of growing authoritarianism, it is vitally important for America’s diplomats and development professionals to show up everywhere we can to lead, to build, to grow, and to deepen cooperation.
As Secretary Blinken often says the world does not organize itself on its own and without U.S. leadership there often is adverse consequences. This is because the network of global friendships, partners, partnerships, and alliances the United States has built over the last several generations supports the lives and livelihoods of all Americans and billions of others around the world.
This network is one of the United States’ greatest strategic assets and what has and will support our continuing leadership in the world. And our ability to continue to lead is so important because we also know the world is changing, perhaps becoming more dangerous and, some would argue, less free.
We see more countries competing for more resources and more fractured international architecture, renewed great power competition, and a wide range of transnational threats. It was in this context even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the attacks of October 7th, or the latest instability in Haiti or parts of Africa that President Biden suggested the world is at an inflection point, a point where the decisions America makes now at home and abroad will impact generations to come.
These decisions, of course, include how we approach our competition with the People’s Republic of China or respond to Putin or others. They’re also decisions about how we respond to cybersecurity attacks and information warfare, how we push back the continuing threat of extremist groups, how we prepare for the next pandemic, address the impacts of climate change or integrate artificial intelligence into human endeavor.
They’re about how we address all these challenges that the CIA director, Bill Burns, calls, quote, “problems without passports” – problems that know no borders, problems that can only be solved through greater international cooperation.
We can acknowledge that these challenges have stretched the State Department in unprecedented ways. They’ve meant working in more places on more issues and problem sets than ever before.
And this brings me to the second point I hope you’ll take away today, which is, despite the challenges, the department is not resting on its laurels. We are also responding to the challenges in multiple ways, taking every step possible to make sure that the department remains fit for purpose.
And one main vector for this has been to carry out Secretary Blinken’s robust, multiyear modernization agenda. Now, I could spend the entire hour or more talking about everything we’ve done under the modernization agenda, but let me summarize it briefly, noting highlights from our three main lines of effort.
First, we’ve looked at our critical missions and made sure the department was organized to address these now and for the foreseeable future. We’ve stood up multiple new offices and bureaus and opened new diplomatic missions abroad. We’re now addressing issues like cyber and global health security in a more comprehensive way than we have before.
Second, we’ve taken several steps to invest in our world-class, worldwide workforce across all hiring types. We’ve diversified hiring pathways through paid internships and new authorities, redefined our approach to training and professional development, and established a new retention unit to evaluate factors affecting our employees’ decisions about whether to stay or go.
Finally, we are looking at our policies and safeguards on risk, on technology and innovation, ensuring there is a balance in our decision-making about information and physical security around the world. This is us – this has enabled us to embrace technology in new ways, yes, including AI, where appropriate, and advanced data analytics to aid in our decision-making and efficiencies.
We are also implementing new technology to be more efficient and effective in our traditional work. For instance, the department’s passport agencies and consular sections cleared out an epic COVID backlot last year, processing more than 24 million passport applications and issuing over 10 million visas.
The economic impact of all this incoming and outbound travel is immense. The Commerce Department estimates $1.7 trillion of U.S. economic activity is generated annually by the travel-and-tourism industry, directly or indirectly supporting approximately one of every 20 U.S. jobs. Indeed, 48 percent of Americans now hold a passport, up from 20 percent in 2006.
As Americans and lawful permanent residents travel abroad, State Department personnel all over the world help ensure their safety and support, including during times of crises. For instance, when violence erupted suddenly in Sudan, the department facilitated the safe departure of more than 1,400 private citizens, U.S. citizens, LPRs and others, in a true multinational effort.
After October 7th, we augmented limited local commercial transportation options with more than 7,500 seats on government-chartered transportation. We are also continuing to honor our promise by coordinating special immigrant visa processing for Afghan allies at over 60 posts worldwide. Our evacuation of U.S. nationals from Haiti continues. All told, our consular teams, just in fiscal year ’23, assisted 70,000 Americans across the world in times of crises and, frankly, personal emergencies that are never on the front pages of any newspaper. That’s what we are there to do.
Now, these are some of the demands and activities we’ve taken. Let me now come to what is at the center of my job description, which is: Do we have the resources and people to actually do our jobs?
As many of you know, we released the president’s fiscal year 2025 budget last month with a total request for State and USAID of $58.8 billion. We also now have our full-year FY ’24 appropriation at $56.7 billion, which is nearly 6 percent below our FY ’23 budget. This is a significant cut, but frankly not as bad as the House-passed bill last fall which cut the department’s budget by over 15 percent. Now, I’m grateful that Congress has funded many of our shared priorities, but this number, the FY ’24 number, means the department – we will have to make trade-offs; the dollars are simply unable to stretch as far as we need to meet the moment. And budget cycles do not always align with the global realities and crises, which is why we critically need the national security supplemental to respond to Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific, as well as global humanitarian needs. As the White House has said, there is no other pot of money to address these emergencies happening today. Without the supplemental, we are limiting our ability to address some of the most important and difficult challenges of our time. In Ukraine, for example, the stakes are clear: If passed, the supplemental offers hope to a democratic Ukraine and its fight against Putin’s aggression. If we fail to act, we send the wrong signal to authoritarians everywhere. We must act.
And let’s take a look at some of the numbers. If you were to graph the State Department and USAID’s base budget over the period of the last 20 years, you’d see an increase of about $36 billion, from about $22 billion in the year 2000 to about $58 billion in 2023. As a comparator, however, DOD’s budget increased by nearly $600 billion over that same time period, more than 10 times the size of the entire State budget. Over those same 20 years, some of our most strident advocates have been our friends from across the river at the Pentagon. You’d witness testimony from Defense secretaries about the importance of funding diplomacy and development as complementary pillars of national security alongside the Defense Department. As General Mattis aptly put it, quote, “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.”
We are also constrained by congressional inaction. In FY 2024, as I mentioned, we now have our full-year appropriation, but it is six months into the fiscal year, funding that was unavailable until just two weeks ago. In addition to these delays, we also lack the flexibility. Our annual appropriations bill is more than 300 pages with nearly 500 individual directives that constrain our programming. In fiscal year 2023, over 90 percent of our economic and development assistance was earmarked for specific priorities. All of this dilutes the department’s ability to adapt to real-time emerging crises.
None of this is intended to suggest government agencies can’t be innovative and find efficiencies. We have and we will always strive to do so. But I do, however, want to be candid about our reality and the challenges and the constraints we face. We must also find a way to support our national security priorities by consistently and fully funding the department and USAID for sustained period of time to ensure we can deliver for the American people. But we should also consider how these resource battles are impacting U.S. competitiveness globally. We know that while the State Department and USAID remain less than fully funded, the PRC has provided some $1.34 trillion in grants and loans over the past 22 years. Last October the PRC and President Xi announced an additional $100 billion more for China’s development banks. That’s on the funding side.
And with regards to our people, the State Department today has a 13 percent staffing gap, on average. We have also failed to send our ambassadors to key posts. Around 15 percent of our nominees remain unconfirmed, with average waits of over a year from nomination to confirmation. Nineteen of our ambassador nominees have been waiting 400 days or more.
I give you some examples. Our nominee for Albania, 432 days. Albania, where we have a significant number of Afghan refugees and a new platform there. Our ambassador to Djibouti, waiting 432 days. Djibouti, where we have several thousand U.S. troops. Our ambassador to Nigeria, the largest country in Africa, waiting 628 days. Our ambassador to Cambodia, waiting 647 days. Our ambassador to the African Union, waiting 654 days. Our ambassador to Ecuador, where there’s been renewed violence and gang warfare, waiting 589 days. I could go on, but I think you get the message. So these asymmetries between us and some of our competitors matter. We know the United States can present developing countries with better options, but without our ambassadors in the field, without consistent funding authorized and appropriated, we cannot reliably make our best case. So let me bring this to a close.
I started – as I mentioned, I started my career off working on Capitol Hill for Congressman Murtha. Mr. Murtha was a Democrat, and Marine, a Vietnam veteran. He could do battle with the best of them on domestic issues. But I also recall Jack Murtha sitting down each year to work out the defense budget with then-Secretary Weinberger, and following that Secretary Cheney, to hammer out the defense budget that they all agreed was necessary to support U.S. national security around the world. The same was true when I had the opportunity to work in the Senate leadership post-9/11. And we supported and worked with the Bush administration on the post-9/11 national security architecture, building everything from the Department of Homeland Security to our new national security authorities that we needed in the war on terrorism.
I would argue that the global situation today requires us to come together to find greater unity of purpose and strengthen and advance U.S. interests. Not that we need to agree on everything, but so we can advance what really matters. The State Department is the oldest Cabinet agency in the U.S. government, with a 250-year record of serving American interests. We are ready to continue that course, but we really do need to come together to achieve the president’s vision of a free, open, secure, and prosperous world.
So I look forward to this discussion here at CSIS with the hope that you will help us identify ways that we can get back to the point where partisan politics stops at the water’s edge, and that all our pillars of national security, defense, diplomacy, and development are powered up for the 21st century. Thank you. I look forward to the discussion. (Applause.)
Dr. Hamre: Thank you, Secretary Verma. Please join me here. We’re going to have a conversation. And, again, let me say thank you to Ron Neumann, to the American Academy. Really a marvelous institution that’s making America better every day. And it’s really great. And all of you, by the way. In the virtual audience – thousands of people are watching. But, of course, everybody here, we’re going to have a reception downstairs where you can meet and personally petition Secretary Verma – (laughter) – for whatever it is that you personally would like him to pay attention to. That’ll be downstairs in the fireplace room.
So, Secretary, let me – I was very taken by your presentation. You quoted somebody, but you said: The world does not organize itself on its own. So how do we talk to average Americans about why the State Department is important for them?
Dep. Sec. Verma: Yeah. It’s a great point. And I think we, frankly, have to do a better job of this, connecting the dots about what we do around the world, why it matters to the American people. Again, the president and secretary of state often like to say: Foreign policy begins at home. And I can make that argument about what we’re doing, about opening new markets around the world, about trying to secure greater diversity of energy supplies to bring down the cost of fuel, to try to ensure that supply chains are resilient during a time of pandemic or during a time of shortage, to ensure that our critical minerals that we need for chips and semiconductors are coming from reliable and secure sources.
Again, I also point to what we do for all those Americans that are around the world and run into a problem. When I think during my term as ambassador to India – a lot going on in the bilateral relationship – but if someone asked me really what were you most focused on and was your biggest concern it was the safety and security of the nearly 1 million Americans that are in India any given day. That’s what our job is.
I will also say a lot of what we do – I don’t know that I can draw a straight line back to someone where I grew up in Johnstown or in western Pennsylvania because a lot of what we do is simply the right thing to do, helping people who are in desperate conditions who are facing incredible instability.
But I think, as I pointed out in that poll about what the American people believe about foreign assistance, this has generally been bipartisan, it has generally been supported, and I think people, when they understand the mission set, I think they find it very true to American values.
So do we do that enough? Do we go back and remind people what we’re doing enough? We probably don’t.
The other thing I would say – and you’ve traveled a lot and you’ve served in senior most positions in government and you know this to be true and our – probably a lot of our former ambassadors here know exactly what I’m about to say, which is when you go out to a Ukraine, when you go to Iraq, when you go to Somalia – take your pick of really complicated places these days – and you go to that country team meeting in the morning and you get that briefing you see every agency of our government.
You don’t often know unless they’re wearing a uniform whether they are military, whether they are the intelligence agencies, whether they are State Department, whether they are USAID, and that’s the way we work. That is – we are integrated, we are supporting each other, and that’s the way I think the American people expect us to work.
But somehow when we come back here to Washington one person at that table gets a 7 percent increase in their budget and the other people at that table get a 7 percent cut. And so –
Dr. Hamre: They’re not equal. Seven percent –
Dep. Sec. Verma:
No, exactly. (Laughter.) I would just remind folks about how we actually work together to support and advance American interests around the world.
Dr. Hamre:
I think most Americans would be surprised to learn that half of the people in the embassies around the world are really from other agencies. They’re not State Department.
Dep. Sec. Verma: Right.
Dr. Hamre: It’s the platform for the entire United States government.
Dep. Sec. Verma: It is the platform for the entire U.S. government. It’s also why chief of mission authority and having a chief of mission confirmed by the U.S. Senate with the imprimatur of the Senate but also as the president’s representative showing up in country makes a big deal.
We have fabulous actings and charges and deputy chiefs of mission around the world. It is different when you show up with a letter from the president confirmed by the Senate and the host countries know that.
And, boy, our adversaries love it when we’re not there.
Dr. Hamre: Yeah.
Dep. Sec. Verma:
And, you know, I think I mentioned there’s some – at least 30-plus countries – where we don’t currently have ambassadors, where the Chinese and the Russians are fully present.
Why would we give them that open lane to operate? It makes no sense strategically. It makes no sense from a just national security perspective.
Dr. Hamre:
Yeah. What corporation would choose to keep vacant 20 percent of their senior executives? You know, what board of directors would ever tolerate that?
Dep. Sec. Verma: Right.
Dr. Hamre: This is just nonsense.
Dep. Sec. Verma:
Right. So we have our senior positions vacant but we also have a staffing gap in the department. I mentioned on average it’s about 13 percent, and there’s a lot of reasons for this because, as I mentioned, we’re getting pulled in different directions. There was a hiring freeze in the prior administration. There were pretty significant cuts in the prior administration. We are digging our way back out of that.
But 13 percent is a big deal. Can you imagine if United Airlines or Microsoft or Google or the University of Virginia had 13 percent of its positions unfilled? What happens is you end up with then incredible workload burdens. You end up shifting certain duties. You end up with posts that don’t have enough people.
And so we’re in this race to catch up. But you can’t catch up if your budget, like this past year, has been cut by nearly 6 percent.
Dr. Hamre:
Yeah. The DOD has – back when I was the comptroller, we had a fuel inflation-adjustment clause that I think was bigger than your field operating budget.
Dep. Sec. Verma: (Laughs.) Don’t tell me that. Right?
Dr. Hamre: No, I know. It’s just astounding –
Dep. Sec. Verma: Right.
Dr. Hamre: – because it’s not adequately budgeted. I completely agree with that.
I personally think that the State Department functions as our strategic-planning element for our federal government. We can’t do strategic planning about our relationship with Nigeria from Washington. You know, our politics here gets in the way. We need somebody in the embassy there that can help design that.
So how many vacancies – you say we have 30 vacancies now?
Dep. Sec. Verma:
Currently, at least. I mean, it’s actually higher than that if you total up the number of people who are actually pending and going through the process. I think it’s a much higher percentage.
Dr. Hamre: Much higher.
Dep. Sec. Verma: Yeah.
Dr. Hamre: So it’s – well, it’s a real mistake for the country. Let’s just say that.
Dep. Sec. Verma:
Well, so let me just say on that, a big believer in the, you know, advice-and-consent responsibilities of the Senate. I spent a number of years working there. My counterpart, you know, who was staff director of the Foreign Relations Committee at the time while I was working in the Senate leader’s office, was a guy named Tony Blinken, who’s come a long way over those years; now my boss.
And I don’t want to suggest that everything in the past was just so great and how we all just, you know – no one critiqued each other. Of course, it was loud and it was noisy. And, yes, politics is rough and tough. But for career people to be impacted the way they have been over the last few years, not being able to go to posts of consequence, with blanket holds, for example – and you know how the Senate works. One hold and, without a cloture vote, you’re not moving anywhere.
Dr. Hamre: Right.
Dep. Sec. Verma:
And so it’s – I would say we don’t exactly have the right confirmation process to meet the needs of today, which has to work, I think, much faster and has to recognize that these are people that don’t do politics. These are people that do foreign policy and diplomacy. Should their credentials be assessed and evaluated? Absolutely. Should they go through a hearing? Absolutely. But that, I think, is what the constitutional requirements are. And then they should go and serve dutifully in their posts, the way they are, I think, desperate to do.
Dr. Hamre: Yeah. This is my statement, not yours, but since the Congress doesn’t legislate anymore, they use leverage on nominations to try to get policy objectives done. That’s my comment. That’s not yours.
Let me ask you – you highlighted three main thrusts. And the third one was policies on risk. You talked about physical security. And obviously we’re building wonderful new facilities. I think – you know, I think professional staffs need good-quality facilities. But there’s some criticism of them being kind of isolated from the community. How do you balance protecting your employees with having an engaged department in the field?
Dep. Sec. Verma: Right. I think if you were to talk to our workforce, they don’t want to be an hour outside the city center. They don’t want to be behind a big wall. They want to be engaged with the people. This very much is a contact sport. Showing up is a huge part of this, and engaging with the local population is what they want to do. And so we have a bit of a pendulum on this over the course of our history. If there is a security incident, if there is a bad event, there is the inclination to pull back and to build those bigger walls and to be more secure.
I think we just have to find the balance and accept a degree of risk that is responsible. And I think that is the mindset of our workforce. Again, they want to be forward-leaning. So this is part of our modernization agenda. And again, it has three parts to it. And this technology and risk is a big part of it. That’s the third pathway.
The other two pathways, though, I think, are pretty exciting. The second one is on workforce. And, you know, last year we had the biggest class of Foreign Service recruits ever, the most diverse, the most accomplished, you know, coming from all parts of the country, all levels of professional accomplishment; very excited about that. We’ve had incredible recruits on the Civil Service side as well.
This morning we had a town hall on critical missions. That is the first pathway of our modernization effort. And this is about making sure we’re doing the things that are actually coming across the inbox each day and that our governments that we engage with, and that the American people want us to be thinking about.
So why do we have a new Global Health and Security Bureau, for example? We just lived through this incredibly terrible period of global pandemic. I heard our Ambassador Nkengasong, who is the head of the bureau, talk this morning about how in 20 days COVID spread to 165 countries and over three years resulted in the deaths of 20 million people. If we didn’t have a new Global Health Bureau, I think the American people would be saying, what exactly are you working on, if not this issue of how to prevent and minimize the impact of the next pandemic?
We have a new Cybersecurity Bureau. Again, think about what’s happening in the cyber domain, whether through cyberattacks, or through misinformation and disinformation, and what’s happening around the world. So we are out there trying to set standards and compete, and use cyber as a part of our tradecraft, right? We have a new China house, which is a consolidated effort to manage our global competition with China. We have a new effort on commercial diplomacy. We have a new effort on climate diplomacy.
So it’s not everything, but it is those things that I think really matter. And this is not to add to the burden and workforce of the department. It is, frankly, to give people additional tools and skillsets so we can actually navigate our way forward in a – in a pretty difficult period. When I talk about how we’re being pulled and stretched like we haven’t been before, it’s not to suggest we’re at the most dangerous point in our history. And, you know, we’ve lived through some incredibly difficult periods. But it is to suggest that we need to be present in more places, doing a more diverse array of things, that I think we have seen before.
So we can’t afford not to be deployed across Africa. We cannot afford to not be deployed across the Indo-Pacific. And, yes, we have a hot war taking place in Ukraine. We have a terrible situation following the terrorist attacks of October 7th, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And, yes, the potential for broader regional conflict in the Middle East. We have this incredible migration and security set of challenges here in this hemisphere. We have 125 million people displaced and on the move today around the world. So, look, that requires us to be just really maxed out in a way that I do think is unprecedented. I think we – I don’t like to throw around that word, “unprecedented,” you know, casually. But that’s what I feel and what I sense.
Dr. Hamre:
You know there was a day when the State Department was kind of a laggard on technology, they probably – some of the people in this room remember typing on Wang computers, you know. (Laughter.) That was a long time ago. But how would you characterize the modernity now of the tools that you’re giving to the department?
Dep. Sec. Verma: Yeah. No, look, I feel – I actually feel really good about this. And I know there is that image of State Department personnel walking around with BlackBerry’s, you know, and kind of a good 10 or 15 years behind the time. That has not been my experience, not only in this job but in my – in my prior job in India as chief of mission, in which is now one of the largest embassies in the world. We were moving really fast. And I will say, we were a bit of – we were the envy of other diplomatic missions. We were driving the agenda. We had the technology we needed.
Fast forward to today. Again, just from a kind of user-friendly standpoint, I think the workforce would say, yeah, there’s things we could do better. But we have really good technology. But where I think we’ve even gone further – I mentioned AI, I mentioned data analytics. We have really embraced it responsibly. And we understand the risks, but if we can take some of the 2(00) or 300 reports that we have to do each year and submit to Congress, if we can use advanced tools to help us kind of reduce some of the hours that go into that, the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of hours, that’s a good thing.
We have these incredibly large datasets. If we can take those data sets and correlate and extract conclusions we couldn’t do before because of these advanced tools, we should be doing that, and we have really, really first-rate people –
Dr. Hamre: You have people that can do that now?
Dep. Sec. Verma:
We have people doing that now, and frankly, when I go into interagency meetings and talk about how we’re using advanced technology, frankly people are surprised and they’re impressed. I’m grateful for what the team has done and I believe we are now no longer considered behind. I think we’re leading the way.
Dr. Hamre: You know, in your prepared remarks you referred to testimony that our friend Jim Mattis gave that if he didn’t fund the State Department he’d have to buy more ammunition. I think that’s a metaphor for the State Department really being a defense agency. Would you reflect on that?
Dep. Sec. Verma:
I don’t see it as a defense agency, but I do see it as a national security agency. I don’t think there’s any question. And again, I’ve been privileged over the course of my career to see various Defense secretaries and chairmen of the Joint Chiefs go in – for example, into the Murtha subcommittee – and talk about fully funding the State Department. I remember when I was assistant secretary Mr. Murtha trying to move several billion dollars from the Defense Department over to the State Department and it became so hard to do –
Dr. Hamre: (Laughs.) I think I fought that. (Laughs.)
Dep. Sec. Verma: Right. Thank you. (Laughs.) Yeah. He wasn’t able to pull it off in the end, but Secretary Gates and others were actually strongly supportive of fully funding because when you think about the mission set that we’re doing, it is diplomacy, it is conflict prevention, it is negotiating, it is trying to address some of those root causes that lead to greater instability, whether that’s on the development side, whether that’s on the giving countries the tool to build up their own capacity on the security side. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. And if we’re not doing it, you’ve got generally some bad actors, some malign states, some bad kind of nonstate actors in there filling that void, and we see that playing out in countries around the world. If we are not there pushing back, as I said, dangerous things and bad things can happen. So I think that was the Admiral Mullen, Jim Mattis, Secretary Gates – that is what they were trying to say is that this doesn’t make any sense to put all of the U.S. government’s resources in the warfighting machine; let’s work on preventing the war from actually happening.
Dr. Hamre: Yeah. Yeah. And when we have to use military force, we create dynamics that we don’t anticipate that become even more complicated. It’s just far better to have diplomacy to help mitigate and avoid those issues.
Could I just ask you, Secretary, you’ve worked up on the Hill. You mentioned the bipartisan quality that existed when you were with Jack Murtha and the open conversations that Mr. Murtha had with Dick Cheney. How would you characterize your interactions now with the Congress? Is it pugilistic? Is it – behind closed doors is it more open and conversational? How would you characterize where we are now?
Dep. Sec. Verma: Yeah. It’s challenging. It’s challenging. And look, there’s a – what’s happening around the world, the debate about kind of how involved to be in the world, the role of foreign assistance, the importance of democracy – these are debates taking place all over the world, including here in the United States. So it’s no surprise that we are also impacted in those debates. I think there used to be, I think, a much broader, stronger bipartisan consensus about the role of the United States in the world and the tools that we would employ. And I understand why there has been pushback. I understand we’ve lived through a very hard last 20 years. Between the sacrifice and service and expenditure in both Afghanistan and Iraq, I think people come away from some of those experiences saying, show us what we have gained from it. And so I understand there’s been pushback. And that’s where it gets back to kind of demonstrating the value of what we’re doing and what happens if we’re not there. And I can weave a very positive story together, again, about what I’ve seen around the world and what our people are doing across the board, not just in our government, but our retirees, our college students, our nonprofits, our universities, our businesses. I mean, we really are – we are really having a positive impact around the world.
And so I’m not looking for unanimity of views. I’m not looking for everyone to put us on the back. But what I also am not looking for is for people to damage the department, right? I’m happy to have a policy debate, but I think for people who want to actually do harm to the federal government, that is a different thing that I haven’t seen over the course of my career. And I think we have to really push back on that. We can have a debate about the size of the budget. We can have a debate about policy issues. And I’m happy to have those debates, vigorous debates. But we – I think we’ve now run the risk of taking it a bit too far, given the kind of dysfunction and divisions that we have here at home.
Just bring Admiral Mullen back into this. When he testified, again, a few years ago, what he was most worried about in terms of national security threat, he didn’t bring up China or Russia. He brought up American divisions here at home. And that worries me. And I hope we can get back to a place where, as I describe it, the national security game, at least, used to be played between the 40-yard lines. It was a game that was played at midfield. And we really did – once we were deployed overseas or were working on missions overseas, there was this kind of broader base of support. I want to figure out how to get back to that.
Dr. Hamre:
My colleagues in the American Academy of Diplomacy about a year ago were not as flattering about the department’s work on commercial diplomacy. Can you talk about what it is that you’re now doing?
Dep. Sec. Verma: Sure. I think, first, we’re trying to give folks additional tools and training in commercial diplomacy. So there’s a whole series of classes and workshops that the Foreign Service Institute is actually providing to our State Department personnel so that they are actually out engaging in a way that they probably haven’t before. I don’t know. I have seen our folks really lean into this in a way that has been helpful to creating more jobs for Americans back here at home. When I used to go to a plant opening, or – you know, in India – I would always say, tell me the advantage to American workers? Tell me the advantage to American shareholders? Why are we doing this here? I think it’s important to be able to tell that story.
And we can’t just, you know, trade with each other in the United States. We have to be out busting open new markets, trying to compete vigorously setting standards in a way that benefit the American workforce. Again, I had this incredible experience of not only being from an immigrant family, but showing up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1971, where the economy was booming, the steel mills were roaring, the coal mines were delivering an incredible amount of energy. That was the community that powered the war machine. That was a community that sent off sons and daughters around the world to protect American interests.
And then I also was there to see, over the course of the late ’70s and ’80s, that community get left behind. And in the name of globalization, in the name of, you know, international trade, and in the name of, you know, internationalism. And I can understand why people can be angry about that. And so, when we talk about foreign policy begins at home, and whether it’s commercial diplomacy or whatever work we’re doing, we have to remember and be able to connect the dots back for people – my friends, my neighbors, my classmates back in Johnstown – to say what we’re doing matters to them. You mentioned commercial diplomacy. I think that’s a great example of what we should be doing more of, and actually show results so people don’t get left behind in an era of really intense global competition.
Dr. Hamre:
Yeah. I mean, you’re wise to raise it. You know, I mean, globalization, the benefits were spread broadly to everybody. We all got cheaper sneakers, you know, and T-shirts. But the pain was concentrated.
Dep. Sec. Verma: Absolutely.
Dr. Hamre:
It was concentrated where people lost jobs in a community. And it was –we didn’t really address that. And it was a real mistake over the last years. Now we have to.
Dep. Sec. Verma: Hundred percent.
Dr. Hamre:
Secretary, you may not want this question. (Laughs.) You can duck it. But there are stories in the last couple of days about surreptitious directed-energy weapons being used against diplomats. Can you just say a word about that?
Dep. Sec. Verma:
Sure. Yeah, and this is something we’ve spent a lot of time on, the anomalous health incidents, or AHI. Look, what we have said is that what people have experienced has been real in terms of their pain, their suffering, and that we are committed to taking care of them and making sure they have the health care they need and the benefits. And there’s legislation that actually is out there that supports them. And that is exactly what the State Department has been doing.
The question of attribution – and you’ve probably seen what the intelligence community has said. And I, you know, will just repeat what they’ve said. They have not been able to attribute it to a state actor. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be taking care of the people who have undergone some health experience.
Dr. Hamre: Sure.
Dep. Sec. Verma: And that’s what we are committed to doing. And I would say that to the workforce, and I’ve said it, and I’ll say it here with you.
Dr. Hamre: Yeah. I just have – I have to believe that there are some people inside the intelligence community that feel there is – it is possible to attribute. And they’ve been providing this now to a public –
Dep. Sec. Verma: Well, I think the other – the other thing I would say is that the research will go on, and it is continuing to this day. And we should continue to research it.
Dr. Hamre: Well, our State Department people are on the front line every day.
Dep. Sec. Verma: Every day.
Dr. Hamre: And in some places, it’s pretty dangerous. It’s got to be pretty rocky. And so we really do – this is a testament of our fidelity to them. They’re putting their life on the line. We owe that to them.
We’re coming to the end of our time together, Secretary. Let me ask if I could just – as you’re looking to a vision for the department, there are a lot of people who say, you know, we’ve got – you know, everybody now knows how to book a reservation. They can fly any place in the world; the internet. You can talk to people. You can book arrangements locally. So why is the State Department still so important for us?
Dep. Sec. Verma: Look, I tried to lay out a bit of a global picture again in this first year, going to some 34, 35 consulates and embassies kind of far and wide. And you see this very complicated global landscape; yes, on one hand, incredible promise, incredible innovation, incredible discovery. We all walk around with these supercomputers in our hands and pockets, and we’re learning more than we ever have. Development indicators are getting better in many parts of the world.
But we also see more players on the field, a more fractured international space, more countries competing for power. We have, again, as I mentioned, a very significant ongoing conflict in Ukraine. We have a very significant ongoing conflict with Israel and Hamas. We have this potential broader regional situation. We have an intense competition with the PRC. We have all these transnational threats that we’ve talked about, whether it’s climate or cyber or pandemics. We have the migration challenge. We have the income inequality. We have democratic retrenchment. I could go on and on.
And we have a world that doesn’t organize itself. And we have a tradition and a history of U.S. leadership. And we have a good story to tell. And we have people that want to serve abroad to protect and advance U.S. interests with our partners and allies.
And so, look, I see that world. And, yes, it is very challenging. And then when – as I said, when I come back from one of my trips, I come back ready to work even harder because I just see this incredible team of committed people just throwing themselves into this mission set to try to make the world a safer, more prosperous, more durable place for future generations. And that’s a great story. And the department plays such a significant role in that, along with our development friends, along with our Peace Corps volunteers, along with everyone that goes in to being out there in the international ecosystem.
But the State Department function in all of that – as you said, that chief of mission, that platform that we have – is so key. So I am – at the same time, I am excited about the future if we can get this right. If we can get the funding right, if we can get our personnel onto the field, if we can get this bipartisan consensus back, I’m excited about what lies ahead despite all these challenges that I’ve outlined.
Dr. Hamre: A friend of mine who’s a teacher was – he conducted a little learning thing with his students. He said: Where does electricity come from? And they said: Well, that switch on the wall.
Dep. Sec. Verma: (Laughs.)
Dr. Hamre: You know, well, what’s behind that, you know? Who builds the grid? Who establishes the standards? Who thinks about the future to know that there’s going to be enough energy for next year if it’s a hot summer?
Dep. Sec. Verma: Right.
Dr. Hamre: In the world of international relations, that’s what the State Department does. You build that infrastructure and working relationships that – so my passport is good. I go around the world. That passport’s quality, but that’s because the State Department is doing – is standing behind that. So it’s a much bigger story that we need to tell to the American public.
I mean, I feel very fortunate that you’re willing to serve. It is not an easy time to serve in public life these days. But someone of your quality, it’s a real privilege to have you.
Dep. Sec. Verma: I appreciate that. It’s an honor. And every day I walk into the building, I don’t take it for granted. And it’s just a – it’s a huge honor. And I also remember back to something President Obama said to me as I was headed out to India, which was, you’re in these jobs for a relatively short period of time in the grand scheme of human history here; just try to make it better and try to – (laughter) – try to build it stronger for the people that come after you. And that’s what we’re trying to do.
Dr. Hamre: You did that. You did that as ambassador. You’re doing it now as deputy secretary.
All of you are going to say thank you to the secretary privately downstairs when we go down and have some refreshments. But for now, please, with your warm applause, say thank you. (Applause.)
Dep. Sec. Verma: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.)
(END.)