An ambassador should be ‘an honest (wo)man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country’ according to Sir Henry Wotton, a seventeenth century British diplomat, writer and politician. It is something of a surprise then that this sage advice was unheeded by the seasoned British diplomat Sir Kim Darroch, lately UK Ambassador to the US.
His failing was to tell the truth about the court of Donald Trump, and even boringly, to be caught stating the obvious. At least, the outgoing, flamboyant French Ambassador to Washington Gerard Araud waited till he had retired to speak his mind (‘unpredictable’, ‘uninformed’, ‘America Alone’).
Darroch’s resignation, in diplomatically unusual circumstances following the President’s decision to boycott him, tells us much about the conduct of diplomacy today, the demise of Britain as a world power and importantly, America’s place in the world today.
Historically, since the foundation of nation states and the rise of the idea of the balance of power, the role of the diplomat emerged in the middle of the 17th century, with Venice as a particular centre of power. Then, diplomats were a mixture of spies, messengers, entertainers and persuaders and many still are today. Comfortingly, commentary on Sir Kim reveals that holding decent parties is still a prerequisite for the job.
A more formal definition of the role of diplomacy comes in Sir Harold Nicholson’s book ‘Diplomacy’ where he pins responsibility for foreign policy on elected governments, and assigns ‘negotiations’ as the preserve of diplomats. In the US today, we might well hold that the foreign policy of the government is very hard to identify while the art of negotiation has become the sole preserve of the President.
In days gone by, the opposite was the case with certain diplomats setting foreign policy and negotiating it. One example that comes to mind having just read George Packer’s excellent book ‘Our Man’ is Richard Holbrooke. The book tracks Holbrooke’s career and illustrates how his ambition and intensity were both his strengths and failings. Holbrooke was far more forceful and cutting in his views than most other diplomats, but in the end his career too was cut short by a President (Obama). There are relatively few characters like Holbrooke in world diplomacy today. Financial crises, social media, cyber espionage and the cult of the political personality have made the job of the diplomat more difficult and arguably more important.
I am biased but one success story of recent years is Irish diplomacy, which was mobilized on the European and world stages in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, and then again more recently in the case of Brexit and is now adding new embassies in countries like Columbia.
The same cannot be said of the State Department which has been denuded of talent and expertise under the current administration, and its budget curtailed to such a degree that it has needed the helping fiscal hand of the Pentagon. Outside the State Department though, there are interesting developments in the ‘science of diplomacy’ notably at Harvard’s Belfer Centre where for example there is now a very interesting Economic Diplomacy Initiative spearheaded by Profs Nicholas Burns and Larry Summers.
I am not sure if ‘divorce through diplomacy’ is on the curriculum at Harvard but the UK could do with some help in the area of geopolitics. To my mind, the resignation of Sir Kim destroys once and for all the notion of the ‘special relationship’ and confirms that what ails Britain is not Brexit per se but a national identity crisis in the contest of a decline in power. Britain and its political class need to urgently open up a debate as to what its place in the world is, and how realistically it can remake and reposition itself diplomatically.
One person whose advise might be worth listening to is Henry Kissinger. At 96 he is still going strong, and while I recognize that some will object to his views, his written work is superb and a great example of pithy, thoughtful writing.
On hearing of Sir Kim’s exit I picked up Kissinger’s book ‘Diplomacy’ and found it remarkable in two respects, one for its foresight (it was written in 1992/93) in international relations, and the other, for the way the values driven American foreign policy that Kissinger described is now being undermined by the current President.
Kissinger wrote that America was the first country to adopt a values based approach to foreign policy and that in this context there were two schools of thought as to how to prosecute this – either America would simply be a beacon of democracy that would inspire others or that it would be an active crusader for democracy abroad. Sadly, that beacon is fading.
Have a great week ahead,
Mike
The Levelling 