As the partial government shutdown stretches on with no clear end in sight, it’s affecting US embassy staff around the world — and making it harder for the US to conduct diplomacy abroad. Many of the State Department’s roughly 75,000 employees — 50,000 are employed locally in US embassies abroad — have found trouble progressing with their work and even, in some cases, struggling to put food on the table while they wait for the White House and Congress to strike a deal. That’s a big problem, since the State Department is America’s leading foreign relations agency. It now means...