“As General James Mattis, then-commander of U.S. Central Command put it in 2013, if the State Department budget were to be cut, ‘I have to buy more ammunition.'” Well, the State Dept definitely has a lot fewer staffers. But it’s more than just that. Professor Duffy Toft on the shift from diplomacy first, and armed force as a last resort, to armed force first – or kinetic diplomacy. “While U.S. ambassadors are operating in one-third of the world’s capitals, special operations forces are active in three-fourths.”