Money quote(s):
"For many years, observers of the US State Department on both sides of the American political spectrum have agreed that State Department officials suffer from a malady referred to as "clientitis." Clientitis is generally defined as a state of mind in which representatives of an organization confuse their roles.
Rather than advance the cause of their organization to outside organizations, they represent the interests of outside organizations to their own organizations."
As Ms. Glick correctly observed, the accusation of "clientitis" is not exactly new.
CAA was just a young(er) junior FSO, still in orientation, the first time he heard the story of the "Schultz test."
("Twenty years ago, the then Secretary of State George Schultz used to welcome the Reagan administration’s ambassadorial appointments to his office and invite each chap to identify his country on the map. The guy who’d just landed the embassy in Chad would invariably point to Chad. ‘No,’ Schultz would say, ‘this is your country’ — and point to the United States." - Mark Steyn via Ed Driscoll.com)
That's a very good point to make to new FSOs. In intelligence work, the caution is to "don't fall in love with your source." In other words, keep your objectivity and remember who you work for.
The hazard is especially pernicious because part of a diplomat's job is to serve as a conduit for communication from the client (or target).
"Diplomats who speak to foreign government officials on a daily basis often simply ignore the context in which these foreigners operate. They become friends with their interlocutors and forget that the latter are also agents of their governments tasked with promoting foreign interests in their dealings with US diplomats."
It can happen. Part of the context in which a diplomat operates is that the whole point of face-to-face diplomacy is establishing personal connections and relationships with foreigners, official or otherwise.
"Since the scourge of clientitis among diplomats is widely recognized, governments are often able to consider its impact on diplomats when they weigh the credibility or wisdom of recommendations presented by their professional diplomats.
LESS WELL recognized and therefore largely unconsidered is how clientitis has negatively impacted the positions of military commanders.
Clientitis first became prevalent in the US Armed Forces and the IDF in the 1990s. In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the Clinton administration began transforming in earnest the US armed forces' role from war fighting to nation building."
&
"Since September 11, 2011, the US military has vastly expanded its nation building roles around the world. US military commanders are promoted more for prowess in acting as diplomats-in-uniform than for their capacity to train and employ soldiers to kill and defeat the enemy. Commanders deployed to train the al-Qaida-infested Yemeni or Afghan militaries; liaise with the Hizbullah-dominated Lebanese Armed Forces; or train the Iranian-penetrated Iraqi military have little personal incentive to warn against these missions.
So, too, in working with their local counterparts on a daily basis, like their State Department colleagues, these US military officers have a marked tendency to ignore the broader context in which their local colleagues operate. And so, like their civilian colleagues at the US embassies in these countries, military commanders have a tendency to become the representatives of their foreign counterparts to the Pentagon and to Congress."
Again, concomitant with their "diplomats-in-uniform" role, military commanders working with local colleagues are supposed to serve as conduits for information, and communication, between those local colleagues and their own governments.
(Of course, that shouldn't be their sole function.)
"THE IDEA that governments gain leverage over other governments by assisting them is not a new one. And it is certainly true. However, in all cases, the leverage gained by assisting foreign governments owes entirely to the other governments' understanding that such assistance can and will be ended if they fail to meet certain benchmarks of behavior that are dictated from the outset.
Once a government's threat of aid cut-off to another government is removed or is no longer credible, then the leverage the provision of aid afforded that government is lost."
Ayup. Just like negotiating a treaty or other agreement: if you're not willing to walk away from the table, then you're a hostage, not a diplomat.
"Proof that a state's ability to leverage its foreign aid owes entirely to the credibility of a threat to cut off that aid came earlier this month in the aftermath of UNESCO's decision to grant full state membership to "Palestine." Due to US law, the Obama administration had no choice but to cut off all US funding to UNESCO in response to the move. As a consequence, the PLO's bid to gain full membership in other UN institutions has floundered.
Not wishing to suffer UNESCO's fate, no other UN institutions are willing to repeat UNESCO's action. And so the Palestinians' great victory at UNESCO has become a Pyrrhic one. "
The U.S. doesn't pay for as much of the UN as the average American citizen probably thinks (75-100 percent?), but it's still a very significant amount, somewhere between 20-30 percent. The threatened withholding of which would certainly tend to focus the attention of UN staffers whose salaries are paid from member countries' assessments.
"(B)ecause the law is not subject to interpretation, US leverage over the UN actually increased in the aftermath of the UNESCO vote. Recognizing that actions have consequences, other UN agencies have buried plans of granting membership to "Palestine.""
Bureaucracies can learn. (Just like mules.)
"Governments must give due consideration to the positions of their professional diplomats and military commanders as well as to those of allied countries when they weigh various policy options. But while doing so, legislators and policymakers must also take into account the built-in biases influencing the judgment of these professionals. Clientitis is a serious impediment to good judgment. And it is found wherever professionals are charged with building relationships, rather than achieving concrete goals."
That's true as far as it goes, but policymakers and other elected/appointed officials would do well not wholly discount the counsel of their on-the-ground representatives.
11/23
