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January 3 - January 30, 2023
The value of American leadership is no longer a given—at home or abroad.
Donald Trump didn’t invent all of these trends and troubles, but he has fed them and made them worse. His erratic leadership has left America and its diplomats dangerously adrift, at a moment of profound transformation in the international order.
SHORT OF WAR, diplomacy is the main instrument we employ to manage foreign relations, reduce external risks, and exploit opportunities to advance our security and prosperity. It is among the oldest of professions, but it is also among the most misunderstood, and the most unsatisfying to describe. It is by nature an unheroic, quiet endeavor, less swaggering than unrelenting, often unfolding in back channels out of sight and out of mind. Its successes are rarely celebrated, its failures almost always scrutinized.
A diplomat serves many roles: a translator of the world to Washington and Washington to the world; an early-warning radar for troubles and opportunities; a builder—and fixer—of relations; a maker, driver, and executor of policy; a protector of citizens abroad and promoter of their economic interests; an integrator of military, intelligence, and economic tools of statecraft; an organizer, convener, negotiator, communicator, and strategist.
The central function of diplomats is to try to manage the world’s inevitable disorders and crises.
Diplomacy is a human enterprise, rooted in interactions between people. Americans are often tempted to believe that the world revolves around us, our problems, and our analysis. As I learned the hard way, other people and other societies have their own realities, which are not always hospitable to ours. That does not mean that we have to accept or indulge those perspectives, but understanding them is the starting point for sensible diplomacy.
“Nothing, really,” he said. “I admire American ingenuity. But diplomacy is more often about managing problems than solving them.”
