I have thought about it, and I can see arguments in favour of the status quo and arguments in favour of a merger.
My own view, having watched past efforts to divide Foreign Affairs from International Trade and then put them back together, is that you create a lot of work for public servants simply by reorganizing the chairs. I happen to think that in this time of international crisis--and we are in multiple international crises--a reorganization focusing on the management dimension is a bit of a wasted effort given the opportunity costs this would create. It's not a question of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, it's a question of avoiding the icebreaker ahead, and I think we can do that with the current configuration, provided there is leadership and an understanding of the changing international paradigm, which includes most centrally Mr. Obama's move into a much more multi-faceted conception of international affairs.