As the United States continues to pursue war with Iran, the infrastructure that would have helped respond to threats has been hollowed out by the Trump administration’s efforts to dramatically shrink the federal government. The overall loss in institutional knowledge wrought by massive personnel cuts and other efforts to decimate the civil service might not just affect the future of this war, it risks the government’s ability to manage an array of future conflicts.
President Donald Trump has expressed shock at Iran’s targeting of its Gulf state neighbors, saying that “nobody could have predicted” the attacks on countries such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. But that assertion comes as the agencies that oversee diplomacy and conflict operations have seen a significant loss in expertise. This brain drain could have long-lasting consequences beyond just the ability to predict conflict dynamics.
“You need good career, nonpartisan expertise for your policy to work and for your operations to be the most effective, and when you’re gutting that career federal workforce, you are really constraining your ability to get to good outcomes,” said Jeff Greene, who worked in the Biden administration as head of the cybersecurity division at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, and served as the chief for cyber response and policy on the National Security Council.
Over the past year, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and politically appointed agency leaders have worked hard to gut the federal bureaucracy. The Trump administration has made dramatic cuts to CISA, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security that works to protect cyber and physical infrastructure from attacks. Moreover, CISA currently lacks a permanent leader, and is chiefed by an acting director.
The FBI has also purged several high-ranking officials due to their participation in investigations against Trump while he was out of office. In the days before the U.S. began its operation in Iran, FBI Director Kash Patel fired dozens of staff from a counterintelligence unit that monitored threats from Iran because they were involved with investigating Trump’s alleged holding of classified documents.
The State Department decimated its Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, and worked hard to shrink the number of foreign service officials. The agency also reportedly fired a number of its oil and gas experts, leaving the government without resources to address the ongoing crisis of rising oil prices in the wake of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the Pentagon decimated the offices that would have investigated the lethal strike on an Iranian school that killed 165 people.
Since Trump took office last January, more than 380,000 people have left the federal workforce; although some of these “separations” occurred due to retirements or contract completions, tens of thousands were the result of layoffs, hiring freezes, and the “Deferred Resignation Program,” which provided employees with payouts to leave federal service. According to data from the Office of Personnel Management, more than 130,000 federal employees took the DRP, also known as the “Fork in the Road.”
“There is an approach by this president and the leaders around him not to value expertise, and that has implications above and beyond the reduction in talent that has existed and the morale that has been damaged,” said Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit that studies the federal workforce. “The sum total means that we are less safe as Americans under the leadership of this administration.”
Even if the White House changes hands in four years, there may be far-reaching consequences of the hollowing out of the federal workforce, including young people avoiding entering government service due to job insecurity. Federal employees are often mission-driven, and are willing to take lower pay to fulfill what they see as a calling. Future would-be employees will choose the safety of the private sector over the uncertainty of a federal job. Meanwhile, those employees who are remaining are working with fewer resources and support.
“Morale has been really hit by the constant rounds of layoffs, the punitive actions against some members in leadership, trying to transfer people as punishment. It shatters the ‘We’re all in this together’ type of mentality that you need when you’re working long hours on important things,” Greene said.
According to a recently released survey by the Partnership for Public Service, government employees are feeling less satisfied and engaged with their work in 2025 as compared to 2024. When asked how they would describe their work unit’s performance as compared to the previous year, 36 percent of respondents said they were worse at meeting deadlines, 36.5 percent said they were worse at delivering quality service, and 39.6 percent said they were worse at fulfilling stakeholder needs.
Losses in diplomatic infrastructure may also, in the long term, make it more difficult to receive support from allies. One former State Department official noted that, under normal circumstances, agency leaders would be “trying to coordinate with the foreign partners on what our strategy is, what our messaging is, what we need from them.” Although the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were internationally controversial, President George W. Bush and his administration did lay the groundwork to collaborate with other countries.
“We got a lot of countries to sign on and join in, not just diplomatically,” the former official said. “You need a bureaucracy to not only help shape that and coordinate with our allies … but keep everyone rolling in the same direction.”
Even seemingly unconnected cuts may have a major impact on the war in Iran and the future of conflict management. The Trump administration has decimated Voice of America, the government-funded outlet that has been crucial to broadcasting in foreign countries, particularly those with closed societies, including airing Persian-language broadcasts in Iran. (A federal judge this week ordered the administration to reinstate more than a thousand VOA employees on administrative leave.)
“They shut down and sidelined basically that entire agency, without any recognition of the consequences for something like a war that is being fought in Iran or an effort to influence what is going on in Venezuela or Cuba,” said Stier. “The larger web of impact is quite important to understand.”
Still, Greene cautioned against the belief that there were no remaining experts in the federal government. There may be fewer career officials, working with fewer resources, but Greene argued that their work is still critical for ensuring American security.
“The people who are there are still busting their ass to keep us as safe as they can,” he said.
