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Begin New Search Topic Foreign Policy Content Type Journal Article Publication Year within 3 Years

21. Considering a Career with the State Department

Author:
George Sibley
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
The editors of the American Diplomacy Journal have asked me to answer two questions about careers with the U.S. Department of State that resulted from their October 2021 webinar entitled “How Does U.S. Diplomacy Benefit Americans?”  Before doing so, let me introduce myself. My name is George Sibley, and I am a senior Foreign Service Officer currently serving as the Diplomat in Residence (DIR) for the Mid-Atlantic Region, covering North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. In this position, I provide information and assistance to persons interested in student and career opportunities with the Department. We offer a variety of student programs, including internships, fellowships, and study programs. For careers, we offer a plethora of options. You can choose to work in the Civil Service, which would have you based in the U.S.; or in the Foreign Service, which would have you working abroad, rotating among our more than 270 different U.S. embassies and consulates.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Career, and Civil Services
Political Geography:
United States of America

22. Rebuilding Diplomacy: DACOR Conference Summary

Author:
John Harbeson and Keith McCormick
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
With debate over proposals to restructure U.S. foreign policy becoming ever more urgent, DACOR’s annual conference in 2021 focused on “Rebuilding Diplomacy.” The Washington-based organization of foreign affairs professionals convened experts from the State Department, academia, and Congress to discuss how U.S. foreign policy could be rebuilt after the drastic budget cuts and disregard for international cooperation of the previous administration. Three panels at the one-day conference centered on: strengthening the Foreign Service; the State Department’s role in the foreign affairs community; and strengthening the actual practice of diplomacy in the field – the critical “last three feet.”
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Conference, and Civil Services
Political Geography:
United States of America

23. Launching USAID Programs in the New Independent States

Author:
Desaix Myers
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
We were in the dark. Launching an aid program as the Soviet Union collapsed, covering 12 countries across 11 time zones from Kiev to Vladivostok, took the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) into totally new territory. Most of us had spent careers in the tropics. Almost no one in USAID knew anything about Russia or the former Soviet Union. No one spoke Russian. In June 1992, I joined USAID’s recently formed New Independent States (NIS) Taskforce as Russia Desk Officer. My knowledge of Russia consisted of what I had learned from “Russian Lit in Translation” sophomore year and a one-week trip with the University of California to see about a possible partnership with the university in Puschino, a small town dedicated to microbiology 90 kilometers south of Moscow. Concerned that Puschino, formerly a closed city, might be a center for research on biological warfare, we went to the CIA for reassurance—they said it wasn’t.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Memoir, USAID, and Post-Soviet Space
Political Geography:
Europe and Post-Soviet Europe

24. Public Diplomacy in Newly Independent Kazakhstan

Author:
Renee M. Earle
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
The U.S. raised its flag in Alma-Ata in February 1992, the first country to do so after the Republic of Kazakhstan succeeded the Kazakh SSR with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Following two years at Embassy Moscow supporting broadcast media throughout the USSR with satellite dishes and new programming as glasnost relaxed control over media, I arrived in Alma-Ata in late summer of 1992 for a new adventure as the first permanent Public Affairs Officer in newly independent Kazakhstan. Under the leadership of Ambassador Bill Courtney and DCM Jackson McDonald, the American diplomatic team pioneering our efforts there was energetic, inventive, and full of can-do spirit. Everything was possible, and a lot was difficult. And, I fell in love with this beautiful country and people.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Memoir, and Post-Soviet Space
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Kazakhstan, and United States of America

25. Telling America’s Story in Communist Times

Author:
Jonathan B. Rickert
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
During my three tours of duty in communist Eastern Europe (USSR 1960s, Romania 1970s, and Bulgaria 1980s), U.S. diplomats were inhibited in their contacts with local citizens. Most of us spoke the local languages and longed to establish links with a broader range of people. Although that was not impossible, any relationship that was outside of accepted channels was likely either terminated by the local authorities or came to be controlled by them. Visits to post by American experts in the cultural, educational, scientific, and other fields were always welcome, since they helped open doors to people whom it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to meet otherwise. In the case of the USSR, the 1958 U.S.-Soviet Cultural Agreement was a great boon. The size and importance of the Soviet Union meant that relatively large numbers of prominent Americans, including politicians, passed through Moscow. Those visits gave at least some local citizens a window on our country that helped to contradict the pervasive anti-American propaganda that the government promoted. Traveling U.S. exhibitions during my time there, such as “Hand Tools U.S.A.”, exposed ordinary citizens in provincial cities to Russian-speaking American guides and to our culture and values.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, and United States of America

26. Democracy in Africa is Like a Flashlight without Batteries

Author:
Mark Wentling
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Promoting democracy has been a central pillar of U.S. foreign policy for decades. This has been true for the dozen U.S. missions in which I have served in Africa over the past half century. Unfortunately, my experiences have left me doubtful about the results achieved by the hundreds of millions of dollars the U.S. has invested to promote democracy in Africa. I arrived in 1970 as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, West Africa. In my village, I learned that you obeyed the chief’s decisions no matter how illogical they might be. I also learned that it was considered impolite to criticize any of the chief’s decisions. Today it is still best to obey the chief, although he is now influenced by the central government. The overriding concern of the chief and his representative council of elders was to maintain a peaceful and stable environment, acknowledging that no progress could be achieved without stability. As central government influence increased, local leaders offered their support in return for new schools, water wells and health clinics. The goal of this tribute system of “patronage governance” was not democracy but justice, a concept embedded in the local culture while “democracy” was an imported notion.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Democracy, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Africa and United States of America

27. Don’t Leave the Russian People Behind

Author:
Renee M. Earle
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
When McDonald’s opened its restaurant on Moscow’s Pushkinskaya Square in 1990, a line of thousands of Russians eager to have a taste of the West snaked around several blocks. The company’s recent decision to suspend its operations in Russia is a sad symbol of the rapid deterioration of Russia’s links to the West caused by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. As we watch the increasingly horrific spectacle of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians dying in a senseless war, it may be difficult to think also of the Russian people. Nevertheless, in our support for Ukraine’s fight against its aggressor, we should not overlook their plight. Putin undoubtedly has supporters at home even as he engages in a war proving disastrous for his own country, but even more Russians are victims of a ruthless and relentless dictatorship. In the short term, they are unavoidably suffering as the global community levies harsh sanctions against the Putin regime. In the longer term, that same community should be prepared to offer the Russian people a way back. As a public diplomacy officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, I saw how many Russians welcomed the prospect of living as people in much of the rest of the world. In those years, a diplomatic tit-for-tat barred Russian nationals from working inside the embassy. American officers consequently not only carried out normal diplomatic functions, but also cleaned offices and cars. One great benefit of the do-everything-yourself period was answering all the phones ourselves, as it put us in direct contact with scores of average Russians. In the public affairs offices, we fielded calls from artists, writers, broadcasters, and educators proposing joint ventures with American counterparts. These budding entrepreneurs had mastered the term “joint venture” but not always the modalities required for a successful business partnership. Sadly, many of these ventures never materialized, but the ideas and enthusiasm were everywhere.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia and United States of America

28. Was NATO Expansion Really the Cause of Putin’s Invasion?

Author:
Ken Moskowitz
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
In March, 1999, while serving as the press attache at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, I hosted a full-day international conference to mark the 50 years since NATO was established. Speakers included the Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security Council Volodymyr Horbulin, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer, U.S. Principal Deputy to the Ambassador at Large for the New Independent States Ross Wilson, the chairman of the British parliamentary committee on national security, and Sergei Karaganov, a leading Russian expert on foreign policy and now a close advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin. One could argue that the goal of such a conference sponsored by the American Embassy was to promote NATO expansion, particularly to urge Ukraine to join the Western alliance. But that is not how I remember it. Typically, U.S. government public diplomacy like this does not bluntly advocate, but rather presents information or views that would be new to our local audiences. A more forceful NATO appeal for membership for eastern European countries, including Ukraine, emerged from the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, Diplomacy, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, and United States of America

29. Europe at War

Author:
Robert Cox
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
For the moment as western Europeans watch the nightly media display of Russian brutality in Ukraine, many instinctively feel it’s a long way away. An echo of British Premier Neville Chamberlain’s dismissal of Hitler’s threats to Czechoslovakia in 1938 as a “quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing.” One Czech emigrée saw the fatuousness of Chamberlain’s stance—Madeleine Albright. Balts and Poles, their memories fresh of Russian occupation, are clearly nervous. At greater distance, Portuguese, Greeks and Italians feel less threatened. French people show more concern with cost-of-living hikes—albeit driven by Russia’s actions. Yet the violence is happening on all Europeans’ doorstep. One false move, deliberate or careless, and NATO’s Article 5 activates. Perhaps. Let us look at the complexities of the context in which this war has come to pass.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, Conflict, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

30. Putin’s Challenge to NATO and to the Global Enterprise

Author:
Thomas E. McNamara
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the most powerful and destructive example in generations of a nation-state attempting to recreate its lost imperial history. This is not a defense of empire. It is Russia’s rejection of nationhood as a legitimate basis for sovereign existence in the world order. That this is being done by a major power with a long history of imperial ambition, expansion, and domination makes it a serious global issue. Putin’s actions are his rejection of the 20th century decline and extinction of empires and a challenge to the international order founded on and by nation-states.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, International Order, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine