Dispatches From Exile: Weekly Mind Dump, 7/9-7/15, 2023
Diplomacy requires more than a good complexion and a capacity for absorbing without derangement vast quantities of intoxicating liquor.
This has been a fast-paced week on the diplomatic front. NATO leaders met in Vilnius, Lithuania to hammer out a unified path forward on Ukraine. And G-7 countries agreed to a joint declaration on security guarantees for Ukraine. It is par for the course in diplomacy for governments to sometimes come to verbal blows over differences and vent publicly their dissatisfaction over some aspects of the issue at hand. The Ukraine negotiations were no different, in particular the Vilnius meeting.
Headlines regarding the NATO summit highlighted differences — thanks, in part, to Volodymyr Zelensky, who launched into a major adolescent-style snit over the pace of NATO membership, irresponsibly denouncing the agreed roadmap as “unprecedented and absurd” — and to disparities between Eastern and Western European governments over the same issue. Instead, the news media missed the key point that 31 countries arrived at unanimity on Sweden becoming a member, Ukraine joining following a streamlined membership process, additional military and economic support and firming up of NATO’s strategic vision. Frankly, expecting Ukraine to be able to immediately join NATO while 20 percent of its territory is occupied by some 300,000 Russian troops makes no sense. Article 5 kicks in automatically when “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” Welcome to World War III.
The G-7 nations, which include Japan, covered much the same territory, with the significant addition that Russian assets will remain frozen until reparations are paid to Ukraine.
President Biden gave a forceful delivery in Vilnius, insisting, “The defense of freedom is not the work of a day or a year. It’s the calling of our lifetime, of all time. We are steeled for the struggle ahead. Our unity will not falter.”
In short, the NATO members’ achievement is noteworthy for a sprawling organization comprising 31 nations, 22 key committees, a 274-member NATO parliamentary assembly and four commissions. The diplomats who labored behind the scenes for months to bring it about deserve recognition.
Here’s where the art of diplomacy is central to successful statesmanship. It’s a craft for whom those outside the ivory tower of policy wonkdom have little appreciation. My parents and other family members, for example, never understood what I did for a living. “I work to carry out the president’s foreign policy and seek to improve relations with other countries” means as much to your average citizen as reciting the Bhagavad Gita in ancient Hindi.
In any case, much has been written about what it takes to be an accomplished diplomat.
Venetian diplomat Ottaviano Maggi wrote in 1596:
An ambassador should be a trained theologian, should be well versed in Aristotle and Plato, and should be able at a moment's notice to solve the most abstruse problems in correct dialectical form; he should also be expert in mathematics, architecture, music, physics, and civil and canon law. He should speak and write Latin fluently and must be proficient in Greek, Spanish, French, German and Turkish. While being a trained classical scholar, a historian, a geographer, and an expert in military science, he must also have a cultured taste for poetry. And above all he must be of excellent family, rich and endowed with a fine physical presence.
And according to legendary British diplomat Harold Nicolson,
The Princess of Zerbst, mother of the Empress Catherine of Russia, writing to Frederick the Great advised him to choose as his ambassador to St. Petersburg a handsome young man with a good complexion; whereas a capacity for absorbing without derangement vast quantities of intoxicating liquor was considered essential in any envoy to Holland or the German Courts.
I’ll confess I failed on most of these counts. In fact, I’d venture to say that the great majority of my colleagues did as well. In retrospect, I might have given more care to my complexion and striven to perfect a fine physical presence. As far as absorbing without derangement vast quantities of liquor is concerned, I’ll confess as well that I killed more potted plants with discreetly dumped glasses of alcohol than I can shake a démarche at (true!).
I give the Biden administration an “A” for its diplomacy (though an “F” on Afghanistan). Joe Biden was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for twelve years. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has rebuilt a seriously damaged State Department. He and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan have managed fast-moving foreign policy events with deftness and little drama. Kudos also go to the military and intelligence agency chiefs. I am not alone in regarding Biden’s foreign policy team as the best since that of Scowcroft and Baker under President George H. W. Bush.
By contrast, that of Donald Trump, and his entire administration for that matter, amounted to little more than (to borrow the words of attorney George Conway) “a shitshow in a dumpster fire.”
Compare Joe Biden’s handling of Russia with Trump’s when at the disastrous and embarrassing 2018 Helsinki summit with Putin — in reference to Russian meddling in our elections — he blathered, “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.” Which calls into question not only his competence but also his loyalty to the country.
Should the plain folks of America, to paraphrase H. L. Mencken, reach their heart's desire and again adorn the White House with the downright moron that is Donald Trump, our two-and-a-half century democratic project will be finished.
And study of Mandarin will become de rigueur — not only for diplomats.
The opinions and characterizations in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of the U.S. government.