MikeM at Confederate Yankee ("Because liberalism is a persistent vegetative state") has some things to say about the state of U.S. diplomacy.
Money quote(s):
"The credibility of the State Department under Mr. Obama is so small that it may not be detectable by an electron microscope. In fact, American diplomats seem most adept at insulting and denigrating America in foreign capitals and convincing our enemies that they have nothing to fear from America."
Monday, February 7, 2011
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5 comments:
Most kind of you to post this. Thanks for the link!
Mike McDaniel
Confederate Yankee
I agree on the substantive note of the post. Diplomacy is, by its very act, the concept of negotiating or interacting with neighbors to come to an agreement through something other than armed warfare.
However, there is a question of how the US is presented when we go into these talks as well as our public position and condition. In short, if you appear weak, that is the position you will be negotiating from. Not a position to get many concessions out of the opposition or even allies.
"American diplomats" is a pretty broad brush to tar with; it covers a lot of ground, and unfairly so.
America's professional diplomats spend years learning languages and history and cultures, working abroad on the nation's behalf.
America's diplomats don't make America's foreign policy.
(That's the so-obvious-it's-apparently-a-secret truth.)
America's diplomats "deliver the mail" in face-to-face encounters with foreign officials. America's diplomats report back to Washington what they see, hear, and intuit about conditions and situations abroad. America's diplomats provide context and depth to America's foreign affairs expertise.
See where this is going?
Even at the ambassadorial level, it seems to be rare that much input is sought by the people who actually set our foreign policy. Those folks are people at the cabinet or perhaps sub-cabinet level.
For most of our American diplomats, at best we do the ground work, by our report and cable writing in the months and years we spend abroad, to build a context and knowledge base from which our foreign policy decision-makers can work.
Where US Diplomats can play a large role is defending the United States. I think US Diplomats have been American apologists more than America defenders. We shouldn't apologize for spreading freedom throughout the world.
@Anonymous: Thanks for commenting.
Actually, a lot of what rank-and-file (and ambassadorial-level) diplomats do is explain and defend the United States to foreign audiences, both person-to-person and using various media.
I know the frustration of the average citizen when he hears or sees a high-level political appointee or other envoy saying something that sounds like an apology or worse. I get that.
What I've also learned to "get" is that diplomacy is simultaneously both a means to interact with other nations non-violently as well as being a non-kinetic form of warfare itself. Some of that is theater, some of it is giving a little to get a little.
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