Hillary Clinton’s State Department Reforms and Management Initiatives

34 young. And this is true moving forward. Some men in the White House are on the “society” side; some women in the State Department are on the “government to government” side. And many officials switch sides (and can switch back again) amid the long hours of debate. The most common sentiment among foreign-policy veterans reflects another familiar Bill Clinton line: “It sure was simpler during the Cold War.” For Hillary, the crisis mentality must eventually give way to the more mundane realities of running the department. She is midway through a five-year plan to increase the size of the State Department’s foreign- service staff by 25 percent and double USAID. And she’s taken a leaf from the Pentagon playbook and launched a “Q.D.D.R.”— Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. The idea is to ask all the agencies housed at Foggy Bottom the larger questions—like whether they are even focused on the right things. It’s a huge structural project. Hillary prides herself on sweating the small stuff, too. She’s big on feedback—an intranet “Secretary’s Sounding Board” is bringing the suggestion box into the modern age. She gets high marks from the high-tech community for “21st-century statecraft” like using texting to raise money for Haiti-earthquake victims and an Internet freedom agenda she is pushing aggressively. She’s popular with State Department employees for practical changes like providing full benefits for same-sex partners (“Fix it!” she scolded bureaucrats who were dragging their feet) and building showers to accommodate people who cycle or run to work. In the past, meetings with foreign ministers featured nothing more than bottled water. Hillary was incredulous: “You can get coffee, tea, nuts all over the world, and in Washington you get a bottle of water?” She was told, “That’s the way we do it here.” Her chilly retort: “Not anymore.” HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_024991