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.
