How to Save the Power of Diplomacy

Well said. This isn’t about just Trump - it’s about our value system and the definition of power. We have gotten sidetracked by the belief that we have to show power over someone to win and be in control. Therefore we value bullies who use their power to get their way. We start wars to prove how powerful we are. However, what is the end result of these power struggles? Diplomatic peace talks. We can no longer react to confrontations with wars - it doesn’t result in anything but a loss of lives and no real solution. The unfortunate thing is that we no longer value diplomatic solutions and thus we haven’t elected them lately. As a result, there is no one in our congress who knows how to use diplomacy to compromise. It is all about conflict and power over each other. I ask - is that working?

As a former career diplomat with more than three decades of government service, I would like to thank Nick Burns for once again making a solid case for the importance of American diplomacy. Sadly, it's unlikely that our "I alone can fix it" President or his senior advisor son-in-law (who, despite a dubious security clearance, appears to be running his very own Department of State out of the West Wing) will heed Burn's advice. They wouldn't even listen to Trump's former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who warned, "If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.... It's a cost-benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department's diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene."

Our problems with diplomacy is as much structural as it is modernization. Beginning in the Nixon administration, when Kissinger held both the positions of National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, presidents increasingly have sought to not only make policy, but to implement those policies, ignoring the departments, especially State. The National Security Council, was born in 1947 with the National Security Act. The act legally required the Executive Branch to have an NSC, but didn't provide mush guidance on the role the NSC would play, beyond coordinating policy making. Most recently, from Bush/Cheney, Obama and not Trump, the White House has preferred controlling implementation. VP Cheney created his own shadow NSC and ignoring the real one. Obama used dozens of special envoys under his control. As for Trump, his first SecState simply gutted the department, rendering it and its web of embassies irrelevant Any realistic solution would legally restrict the White House from policy implementation overreach, protecting the original roles of the departments and their secretaries. The best recent model is that of George H.W. Bush's NSC, with General Brent Scowcroft as NSA, the workings of which are still considered the gold standard.

"Diplomacy at its best rarely swaggers. It’s about quiet power." We need a 180° course correction from the one we have recently accorded ourselves in order for the several other 'sine qua nons' enumerated by Mr. Burns to follow.

Tillerson tried to do everything Burn’s recommends but he tried to do everything at once and failed. But he really failed in the kiss up of Trump. This next generation of Cabinet secretaries has learned this art. I have nothing but memories of State Department screw ups. Not admitting Jewish children in FDR’s time because there might be Nazi spies among them. Dean Acheson saying that Korea was outside of our protection zone which led to Grandfather Kim invading and killing 33,000 Americans. Clark Clifford working against LBJ and helping the North Vietnamese. Condi and Colin going along with Cheney to invade Iraq for the oil. (The war will pay for itself) The last thing that State did right was in Coolidge’s era when Kellogg outlawed war.

Donald Trump does not engage in diplomacy. He engages in verbal brutality, and with the wrong people. At least when it comes to Americans and allies, his modus operandi is a life-long approach that considers any opposition as disloyalty, any difference of opinion as unpatriotic, any self-interest of other countries as unacceptable, and the friendship of allies as cynically suspect and opportunistic. He presumes to parrot hollow platitudes about American exceptionalism while dumbing down what he considers acceptable to reward those who manifest behavior that is anathema to long-held American ideals. Exacerbating disaffection from our nation's institutions for his own benefit, he exploits differences instead of seeking accommodation for the greater good. Where this all leads is anyone's guess, but his propensity to turn a blind eye, cold shoulder and deaf ear to our friends, and those who are better informed and more experienced than he will leave America in a challenging position. It's just how he rolls. The longer he is in office, the worse it will be. Whether a sufficient number of voters in 2020 realize this remains to be seen, but if they don't, it could take a very, very long time to dig our country out of the deepening hole that Trump is digging us into.

If Mr. Burns was involved with prior diplomatic efforts, it shows in our many failures. The idea that Trump's willingness to meet with Kim, and then walk out when Kim failed utterly to bargain in good faith -- and not budging a centimeter on sanctions -- shows anything, it's that the U.S. is not to be trifled with and conned. Of course, the last great con job was the Iran nuclear deal, and as long as we stick to our guns, it won't happen again. My guess is that Kim is biding his time and hoping for another feckless Democrat to step into the White House in two years. God help us if that happens.

For diplomacy to succeed the fundamental assumption of "indispensible nation"and the right to dominate has to change.As other nations have risen, they are demanding greater role in shaping the rules and decision making. IMF, World Bank were formed after ww2 when other nations were devastated and US was the strongest country. We have the veto, appoint the head of world bank and a European head of IMF with our approval. Everyone else can be cheerleader. China's economy is equal or slightly larger than US( US GDP is higher at US prices, prices are lower in China) demand a major role in shaping and managing the world order. We don't want to accommodate other countries. UN has become totally ineffective in settling disputes because of undemocratic decision making with five countries having a veto. All these instituitions were shaped after ww2 with US playing huge role in shaping them. Even the intellectual giant, John Maynard Keynes of Britain, had his arguments dismissed by US because Britain was in debt and seeking more loans from US. Now it is a different world. Diplomacy is much better than the use of military force but it has to be give and take. It is no longer my way or highway. Once an agreement is reached it should be adhered to unlike TPP, climate change accord and Iran nuclear deal. "I don't like it" is not a good reason to repudiate those agreements or any other.

There are some other mundane, cultural, and institutional problems even before Trump. Why does the State Department stop hiring Foreign Service Officers at age, 59. Some of us realized, later in life, our interest in diplomacy, feel we have some things to offer, but are simply blocked out. Further, my letters, even during the Obama Administration, to two Secretaries of State, as well as the Administrator of their sister agency, USAID, and middle managers there containing new ideas were not answered. I guess I don't count. Any eventual renewal of diplomacy, especially one that espouses innovation, as USAID does, has to be open to what is preventing it, such as cutting off possible sources that don't fit their expectations. Routine courtesy would be nice, too.

Well, it’s been a long, very long two years.

How to Save Diplomacy. For Dummies edition. Rely on, use talented and proficient diplomats! Don't send in the ball boy at the crucial moment. Trump is simply not a diplomat. He thinks he's a project deal maker. Making diplomatic deals is not the same. Trump believes everyone else in the world thinks (god help us) the same as he. That other cultures see a diplomatic deal in the same zero-sum-gain manner he does. That the processes to arrive at outcomes are all the same. Which shows how ignorant he truly is. He's like an American tourist who doesn't bother to learn the local trading traditions and behaviors, and therefore pays full or more-then full prices on items in a bazaar, or souk. He strutted into Hanoi with a one-time only deal. That's not diplomacy. That's not even how dating works! (since they're now in love) That's not how international deals are made, its not diplomatic negotiation. It was a whole lot of "how not to," with little on "How To!" Trump truly believes his Brand is a power source. That when he walks in a room, people are bedazzled and struck stupid and therefore his to manipulate and beat. He doesn't realize, never will, that his excessive, obsessive love of his Brand is viewed by others as his Achilles heel. (Does Trump know who Achilles was?) Self-love is a weakness. Don't for a minute think Kim and advisors, weren't watching "game tapes" on Trump, and knew his strategy. While Trump obsessed on the love-letter, and self-inflated "skills".

Every dollar reduction to diplomacy requires $100 in increased military spending.

The article is OK. But it's not the state department's job to define how Americans see their country in the world. It's job is to project that image in the world.

Putin as social secretary doesn’t help.

You make it sound like diplomats in previous administrations were the ultimate pacifists. Obviously, diplomacy like everything else is dead or dying under Donald Trump and his criminal administration. But if I recall correctly, under President Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, we bombed Libya which is now a completely failed state. And under his predecessor George W. Bush and his Secretary of State Colin Powell, we invaded and occupied Iraq which is another failed state. I think America has done enough damage to the Middle East and the world for that matter, so maybe our military industrial complex and our current and former diplomats need to do a little more soul-searching about our “exceptional” country’s long history of misdeeds overseas.

"Everything Trump Touches Dies" Were truer words ever spoken? Our depraved and ignorant POTUS has caused decades worth of damage to our nation in just two short years, God help us all if he gets reelected.

Sounds like we urgently need educational incentives to train the next generation of diplomats. And it also sounds like we need new and expanded protocols to deal with this: “Over the course of my career, information exploded in pace and volume; the near-monopoly on power of states was steadily eroded by nonstate actors — from the benign, like the Gates Foundation, to the malign, like Al Qaeda; and the near-monopoly on presence and insight that diplomats used to have in foreign capitals also shrank.”

President Trump is far from the first to debase diplomacy by installing ambassadors on the basis of their monetary contributions to election campaigns. An important reform would bring an end to this nefarious practice.

A stirring defense of diplomacy and a reasoned argument for it's long term solutions to global problems. Our problem is Trump doesn't think globally. He doesn't think locally either. He thinks individually and he is individual 1. There is no individual 2. Just him. The exact opposite of the attitude one needs to compromise with others. He puts the "dip" in diplomacy.

"At precisely the time when diplomacy matters more than ever to American interests — when we are no longer the only country calling the shots — the president is engaged in unilateral diplomatic disarmament: hollowing out the idea of America, retreating from international commitments and disdaining the institutions and practitioners of diplomacy. Amen. Rex Tillerson treated the State Dept. like a new acquisition in need of urgent downsizing. His cuts decimated the morale of downsized careerists, with many others leaving of their own volition. I've read it will take years, if not decades to repair the damage of such a brain drain occurring on Trump's watch. It's impossible to have a successful foreign policy without the strong preparation, education, and rationale only a well-staffed State dept can provide those conducting it. we have numerous embassies still unstaffed since 2016. How can US leaders have ears and eyes to help them know what's going on important areas of the world, without ambassadors? The proof of all this is the total mess the president created in North Korea last week. The president had no prep, no strategy, no Intel and as a result, no deal.

There's a photo taken at a conference somewhere in Europe, it's outdoors with the leaders of the EU and the U.S. You can see President Obama speaking with Chancellor Angela Merkel, with others nearby, you can visualize the energy and vitality amongst the individuals. There is hope in that photo. There's another photo taken at a similar conference years later with a similar group, it's indoors. The leaders are on break, standing there chatting with one another, except for one. It's President Trump, sitting at a table, by himself. You can have the greatest diplomatic core of individuals, but without excellent leadership, you have nothing. Until 2021, we are wasting our time trying to improve the State Department.

The first thing one needs to do to bring American diplomacy up to date is for the 'diplomatic community' to divest itself of that elitist attitude. Your foreign service exam gives people that illusion that they are some sort of elite above the common riffraff. People who pass that exam, which consists of mostly sitting in the lobby of the State department for eight hours, have such a sense of superiority that they are perfect for keeping company with NYT reporters, who share a similar opinion of themselves. Too bad that the NYT reputation also is in the gutter because of their irrational reporting on the Trump presidency. American diplomacy is all about the ugly American (published 1958) and that was personified by Blackwater contractor Raymond Davis who killed two Pakistani citizens with an illegal gun while he was playing Jason Bourne or 007. Damage was compounded when the great illusionist Obama declared Davis a diplomat entitled to full diplomatic immunity reserved only for ambassadors, aided by the eminently qualified Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who violated Executive Order 13526 repeatedly while in office and even had her own communication service installed in her vacant vacation house. And then there are those two civil wars in Ukraine and Syria that the refined and decorous Barack Obama was unable to prevent. He threw buckets of gas onto the fires. No wonder Trump purged the State Department. It needed it.

I share many of Ambassador Burns' views on what is currently wrong with our foreign policy -- that is, if we can be said to have any foreign policy at all in the era of Trump. I do, however, think that this op-ed reads more like an audition for Secretary of State in a Democratic administration than a detailed road map for an entirely new and more effective approach to diplomacy. General prescriptions are fine for a start, but we all need much more, and we need specifics. For example, I would recommend that everyone read Ambassador Burns' excellent analysis of what went wrong in the US-Russian relationship (excerpted from his book "Back Channel") in the April 2019 edition of the Atlantic. In particular, we need specific recommendations for China, NATO, the Middle East, Afghanistan and the plethora of other areas where our foreign policy has gone completely off the rails -- especially with regard to our snake bit relationship with Russia. In the era of Trump, Pompeo and Tillerson, we have been trained to expect little or nothing of value from our foreign policy leaders. That needs to change fast, and one way to do this is for real leaders with real expertise to show the way.

Thank you to all the diplomats who act in good faith.

Well reasoned arguments for diplomacy...instead of listening to warmongers eager to destroy instantly what took decades to build. We do forget too easily that one ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of 'Trumpian' foolishness. I know we did neglect the art of diplomacy for too long, but the current pluto-kleptocracy seems to take pleasure, perhaps even 'schadenfreude', in trampling on our natural Allies and a defensive system propped up to show we are serious to stop any foolish aggressor, with the hope of not having to use force...because of our diplomatic efforts. You mentioned internal problems, i.e. a deep inequality at home and still harboring segregation, the enemy within, while trying to reflect a spirit of cooperation and solidarity. But how can it be done when we are so intent in removing a most valuable asset, our trust in democratic institutions, and the trust in each other?

Trump’s idea of diplomacy — like everything he does — is reduced to a slogan so the Fox audience can understand. Nothing intelligent, small words, and repeat how awesome he is. Fact is, he’s the loudmouth drunk at the of the bar with uninformed opinions on everything. That’s why we’re losing our stature.

William J. Burns is right about the need for the United States to get back to allowing well-trained experts to practice skillful diplomacy, as America’s first resort for solving problems in a dangerous world. Mr. Burns, however, overlooks the fact that while Donald Trump is the poster for the blustery amateur with a short attention span and the egoistic need to hit a home run in a one swing of the bat, many Americans have lost the ability in their private lives to concentrate on details. They are easily seduced by Trump’s promises of quick fixes. Whether it is the instant gratification of entertainment on demand through the internet or found from surfing a 24/7 television smorgasbord with a hundred choices for any taste, Americans have little patience to await behind-the-scenes diplomatic victories which come at a snail’s pace. This is why we must publicize and ridicule the foolish failures of Donald Trump, just as we needed to do with the poorly reasoned and violent revenge-based spasms of George W. Bush. The American public must be provoked into wondering out loud, “Isn't there a better way?”

Diplomacy should be simply American and not tied to any political party, but it is hard to imagine its survival under another Trump term. He has, in two years, alienated allies; trashed NATO; encouraged Brexit and diminished the EU; undone the painstaking multinational efforts of the Iran Accords; taken the US out of the Paris Climate Treaty; and more. This is no way to advance America's interests - making the world less safe. We need the strength and security that comes from 'soft power.'

I see, and hope for, a future Secretary of State William J. Burns, when we have a more enlightened and competent executive branch and a congress interested in doing some serious repair work. I hope that day comes soonish--Mr Burns and I are the same age and while I have the energy and inclination to give a few more years to good and rewarding work--I am hoping Mr. Burns might be willing to be placed back in diplomatic harness for the benefit of the United States of America for at least the first tour of the next administration.