The Lost Bureau

For many years after WWII the European Bureau ruled the State Department. At some point – I've forgotten my history here, but I think it was in the 1970s – there was an in-house revolt and the European Bureau ceded a great deal of its power to others (there are twenty Assistant Secretaries of State who head up Bureaus but depending how you wish to score it there are about 30 Bureau-equivalents these days, being the main organizational units at State). EUR remained, nevertheless, primus inter pares. Now Condi is further downgrading EUR, floating away from the US understanding of the post-WWII world into some kind of Manichean nightmare of empowered third world terrorists. It's inside baseball, sure, but what it means in practical terms is that your diplomatic service is losing more of its edge.