Flashy international summits and armed conflicts make the headlines, but most foreign policy is conducted at the staff level and flies way under the public’s radar. Traditionally, it has been far less partisan than domestic politics, and career experts with deep knowledge of the issues and regions they manage have performed the lion’s share of work in this area under presidents of both parties.
When Donald Trump won the Electoral College, it was widely assumed that there would be changes to America’s more high-profile, public-facing foreign relations, but the anonymous experts who handle the routine tasks of navigating a super-power on the world stage would continue to perform their duties largely unmolested.
Wow, was that assumption wrong.