Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday revealed the largest State Department employment overhaul “in decades,” eliminating and restructuring entire offices in the department. Lost in the shake-up: Rubio has killed the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, or CSO—the agency responsible for documenting Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
The CSO also focused on “conflict prevention, crisis response, and stabilization activities … driving integrated, civilian-led efforts to prevent, respond to, and stabilize crises in priority states, setting conditions for long-term peace.”
A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office notes that the CSO received $336 million between 2016 and 2023.
“Nobody is really sure what they do,” a senior State Department official told The Free Press in defense of Rubio’s decision to kill the CSO. “When I ask them, they seem to not really be sure what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s an office that was created several years ago to look at Afghanistan [issues] and to avoid conflict areas. But we already have other offices within the department that do that.”
Others, like former State Department official Brett Bruen, see the move as a politically motivated cash grab.
“It is essentially the demolishing of our international influence instruments.… The administration is trying to essentially have more discretionary funds available,” Bruen told The Washington Post last week. “They are reducing the capacity for oversight at a time when they are saying efficacy is the priority.”
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