US 'diplomats' are campaigns big donors, or primary supports. I've eaten with someone who expected to be named diplomat in Europe because he supported Obama by 2007, but was one-uped by a richer donor post-primary.

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csh0 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think it’s fair to say that diplomats appear to be appointed under a two-faced system.

On the one side you have some diplomats who really are quite capable career foreign policy wonks, appointed in a manner which appears to be meritocratic.

On the other side you have folks appointed, like you mention, as a kind of patronage.

Traditionally, it has been that the softer counterparties (Friendly countries, European allies, small island nations, etc) are staffed with patrons while the more difficult or geopolitically sensitive relationships are manned by professionals, but this is certainly not always true, and one can find many counterexamples.

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msy 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The patrons are doing an excellent job of adding to the 'more difficult' list.

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orwin 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Okay, thanks for the added details (and your sibling too), today I've learned something.

	▲	stanford_labrat 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		some added context (both my parents are/were in the Foreign Service): your location is assigned based on a competitive bidding system where you select from a list of cities to do your next tour. some countries/cities are obviously dangerous for a variety of reasons and they are called "hardship tours" (think iraq or afghanistan). you get bonus money for these and sometimes are forbidden from bringing family. posts in places like Europe or East Asia are very desirable and highly competitive. but often it's a matter of fit. my dad was a hedge fund manager before the Foreign Service so his first posting was actually in Frankfurt. you can also do a tour in the continental US, such as in DC or NY. because of his economics background he has done a few of those. most of the time the head ambassador is a political appointee, but the grunts are regular people who have made this their career.

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JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> US 'diplomats' are campaigns big donors, or primary supports

To be clear, there are political and career diplomats, and each administration mixes and matches to its taste. (The current one veers strongly towards political appointees. That is to say, folks who raised money.)

This is how most foreign services are run, with maybe the exception of China.

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mamonster 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>This is how most foreign services are run, with maybe the exception of China.

Absolutely not most. What country in Europe has a significant amount of ambassadors that are not career diplomats / government workers ?

In France, Germany, Switzerland you would either need to be a career diplomat/ foreign service worker or in rare cases you would be a career government employee assigned as diplomat to some specific country for some reason (i.e you were trade minister and become ambassador to your biggest trading partner).

The most "political" appointee ambassador in Europe I can think of is Mandelson but he is (as we found out) supremely connected to US power networks and he is still a lifetime politician/ government employee.

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Tomte 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Former speaker of the chancellor (and TV news anchor before that) is German ambassador to Israel. Next ambassador will be a career politician.

It‘s not uncommon, though I‘d say even the „cool posts“ like Paris or London usually go to career diplomats.

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bondarchuk 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I know nothing about this but JumpCrisscross seems to use "political" to mean "has donated large sums of money" while your use of "political" is more like.. someone who does politics.

	▲	nxobject 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I think they're using it in a technical sense that's idiosyncratic to America: "career" members of the Foreign Service Corps, versus "political" appointees that can be directly appointed at higher ranks, but at the pleasure of the (in turn politically-appointed) secretary. The first might have joined the Foreign Service and worked their way up; the second might have had a career elsewhere (not necessarily in political office), get invited to work for an administration, and then leave once there's a change in power.

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Barrin92 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>This is how most foreign services are run

It is not. The vast majority of the world has a professionalized diplomatic corps roughly modeled on a Prussian or French system. As Fukuyama points out in Political Order and Political Decay the US is an odd case because it democratized before it developed an administrative state and as a result is somewhere between "Greece and Prussia" and ended up with a spoils-based and clientelist system, somewhat moderated by the Progressive era.

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supertrope 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This. Political allies who bundle donations get nominated to cushy ambassador positions. https://publicintegrity.org/politics/barack-obamas-ambassado...

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TitaRusell 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Nobody in America noticed this but lately US ambassadors are going out of their way to insult and undermine the nations that they're posted in.

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throw_rust 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Wolf Warrior diplomacy on-shored, or perhaps American Sniper diplomacy?

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filoleg 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is there any evidence of this being an actual pattern? I cannot speak for the rest of the americans, but I, personally, haven’t noticed it because it didn’t seem to be the case to me at all.

Asking because from my perception over the past 12 months, US ambassadors got more friendly and cordial with some countries (e.g., Japan[0]/Taiwan/South Korea[1]) and less cordial with others (e.g., certain european countries, like UK, that attempt to [imo unjustly] press american businesses that don’t even have any business presence within their jurisdiction).

0. U.S. Ambassador George Glass participated in remarks emphasizing the “new golden age” of U.S.-Japan relations, underlining partnership. (https://jp.usembassy.gov/ambassador-glass-remarks-at-yomiuri...)

1. The U.S. signed Technology Prosperity Deals with both Japan and South Korea in late 2025, advancing shared technology and innovation goals. (https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/10/the-united-state...)

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we_have_options 7 hours ago | parent [-]

evidence of pattern, maybe:

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/24/g-s1-111302/france-spat-with-...

	▲	fmajid an hour ago \| parent [-]
		That's Jared Kushner's dad. The one who went to prison for setting his brother-in-law up with a prostitute to break up his sister's marriage. I am sure he will approach this new mission with the same finesse he demonstrated in the previous ones.

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mcmcmc 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> US 'diplomats' are campaigns big donors, or primary supports.

So in this administration, that would be Epstein clients and co-conspirators. Truly sending the best.

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deadbabe 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How much do you have to donate exactly? I’m always surprised by how little it takes to bribe your way into government favor. I always think it must cost millions, then I hear it’s only like $100k or so. Sometimes even just $25k for local governments.

	▲	mcmcmc 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The sky’s the limit. The politicians are the ones who set the asking price, and it’s not just money. The cost is a function of how much they think they can squeeze you for discounted by how fervently you prostrate yourself to the throne.

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lysace 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The list of ambassadors of the US to Sweden is kind of sad. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ambassadors_of_the_Uni...)

It begins with Benjamin Franklin (well, sort of) and ends with a bunch of campaign contributors (both sides).

Seems like it started some time in the 1990s/2000s and then gradually grew more and more transactional.