The ‘Hillary Effect’ on Ambassadorships to the U.S.

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Mary Jordan writes 'Hillary effect' cited for increase in female ambassadors to U.S. for WaPo (January 11, 2010):

Quotable quotes from the article:

"Even when I say I am ambassador, people assume I am the spouse."

Meera Shankar, Indian Ambassador to the US  

(India's first female ambassador in more than 50 years)

"It's a disadvantage that I am here by myself […] but that means I can work late and not feel guilty."

Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo

Ambassador from Bahrain since 2008

"Hillary Clinton is so visible" as secretary of state […] she makes it easier for presidents to pick a woman for Washington."

Amelia Matos Sumbana

Ambassador from Mozambique.

"It's considered normal if a woman goes with her husband but it's not seen as the same if a husband goes."

Angele Niyuhire

Ambassador from Burundi

Jordan writes that Ambassadors' wives have historically played a huge role in entertaining -- a key part of an envoy's job -- so that duty falls to the female ambassadors. "We need a wife, too!" several remarked.

Other tidbits from the article that you might find interesting:  

• “There are 25 female ambassadors posted in Washington -- the highest number ever, according to the State Department.”
  
  

• “Eleven of the 25 female envoys in Washington are from Africa. Four are from Caribbean nations. The others are from Bahrain, the Netherlands, Croatia, Kyrgyzstan, Singapore, Oman, Colombia, India, Liechtenstein and Nauru, an eight-square-mile Pacific island with only 14,000 people.”
  
  

• “Women remain a distinct minority -- there are 182 accredited ambassadors in Washington -- but their rise from a cadre of five in the late 1990s to five times that is opening up what had been an elite's men club for more than a century.”
  
  

• “While male ambassadors are usually accompanied by wives, female ambassadors are often here alone. Of eight interviewed, four are divorced and four said their husbands did not accompany them to Washington because of their own jobs.”
  
  

• “More than half of new recruits for the U.S. Foreign Service and 30 percent of the chiefs of mission are now women, according to the State Department. That is a seismic shift from the days, as late as the 1970s, when women in the Foreign Service had to quit when they married, a rule that did not apply to men.”

Read the whole thing here.

More than half of the new recruits in the Foreign Service are women.  That may not be a great conundrum for the FS now, but before too long it will be. 

What would they do with the husbands?

Quickie: Obama, Diplomat-in-Chief

Kenneth Weisbrode, author of the The Atlantic Century: Four Generations of Extraordinary Diplomats who Forged America's Vital Alliance with Europe (Da Capo, Nov. 2009) has a new piece in the History News Network (Obama, Diplomat-in-Chief | 1-11-10). Excerpt below: 

[…] The consensus seems to be that Barack Obama and his team have achieved something important, namely a “reset” of America’s international image, but have done less than what they promised. However premature it may be to reach such a verdict, Obama’s actions strike some as overly tentative, even ambivalent—the implication being that he is still learning on the job.



He probably is, as should even the most experienced chief executive. Issuing annual report cards on his handling of foreign policy, issue by issue, may overlook this point, as well as three others: American presidents are rarely able to get all they want; Obama hardly assumed office with a clean slate; and America’s relationship with the rest of the world amounts to much more than the decisions and actions of a single American president, especially after one year.

Moreover, both Obama and his Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, have spoken often of the long term and, to repeat a Washington cliché, of keeping their focus on the important as well as the urgent. But just what is the “long term”? And how does a president focus upon it while also dealing with the massive daily workload, not to mention a 24-hour news cycle?

[…]

The global America that Obama personifies is very much a work in progress. Its relations with the world need as much order as its relations in the world need broadmindedness. Obama has done much so far to change the tone of the latter. One can only hope that he will succeed with respect to the former as he pursues what looks to be a rather pragmatic foreign policy of continuous adjustment. But 2010 is likely to force his and America’s hand; and the thoughtful, deliberate executive may come to find greater use for the inspirational mover of the masses who so dominated the headlines little more than a year ago.

It is an interesting read.  See the whole thing here.

Quickie: Is This Really An Intelligence Failure?

This one excerpted from one of Spencer Ackerman’s recent posts: 

… And the rationale for the all-source, multi-agency NCTC is all about intelligence sharing. But remember: the inputs are that the guy’s dad says he’s dangerous; he’s Nigerian; he might be in Yemen; and al-Qaeda in Yemen may be looking to use a Nigerian in a forthcoming attack. Is that really enough?

The answer to that question most certainly requires a policy decision, not an intelligence decision. The intelligence community is drinking from a fire hose of data, a lot of it much more specific than what was acquired on Abdulmutallab. If policymakers decide that these thin reeds will be the standard for stopping someone from entering the United States, then they need to change the process to enshrine that in the no-fly system. But it will make it much harder for people who aren’t threatening to enter, a move that will ripple out to effect diplomacy, security relationships (good luck entering the U.S. for a military-to-military contact program if, say, you’re a member of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq, since you had contacts with known extremists), international business and trade, and so on. Are we prepared for that?

Active links added above. Continue reading Spencer Ackerman’s post, Is This Really an Intelligence Failure? Real Talk on Abdulmutallab

Quote: The Neglected Art of Diplomacy

Image by The Falafel via Flickr

"An generation of American leaders has been brought up with a kind of Manicheanism: to some, bombs are the necessary catalysts to negotiation; to others, bombs are just evil. To only just a few traditionalists, it seems, dropping bombs represents a diplomatic failure, however necessary it may be as a last resort.

Such reductionism in foreign policy thinking is compounded by the periodic rivalries between the State and Defense Departments (and the White House), and the widespread but bizarre perception that negotiations (and “diplomacy” itself) are the weapons of the weak. Obama has rightly ridiculed the perception. But he will need to show some results for his critique to take hold. He won’t get those results if his diplomacy continues to be as tentative and under-managed as it has been to date."

Kenneth Weisbrode History News Network: The Neglected Art of DiplomacyDecember 7, 2009

Mr. Weisbrode is the author of The Atlantic Century: Four Generations of Extraordinary Diplomats who Forged America's Vital Alliance with Europe (Da Capo, Nov. 2009)

Book description (from Borders): Historian Kenneth Weisbrode reveals for the first time, warts and all the insider's story of such well-known figures as Dean Acheson, W. Averell Harriman, and Henry Kissinger. It is the story of how and why the State Department's Bureau of European Affairs (EUR)the "mother bureau" as it was called, the nerve center of the Atlanticists rose to become the U.S. government's preeminent foreign policy office.

Insider Quote: Ranks and Pastry Forks

Image by Le Petit Poulailler via Flickr

"Rank within diplomatic culture is not merely indicated by how the diplomat holds him or herself. There are many subtle signs that a trained eye will pick up upon to determine a diplomat’s rank. It is not just the salary grade and title that are changed when a diplomat is promoted. There is also a change in the number of rooms and bathrooms in the home and the contents of drawers and cupboards, all in line with to the Ministry’s strict rules. According to the Danish Foreign Ministry, the embassy counsellor must have eighteen stainless steel pastry forks of the Erik Rosendahl A/S brand. A commercial counsellor need only have twelve pastry forks, while an attaché is provided with eight. The most distinguished ambassadors have three pepper pots while the others must be content with two."

Source: The Hidden Culture of Diplomat Practice: A Study of the Danish Foreign Service - Mette Boritz –via

Insider Quote: Competitive Nature in Diplomatic Culture

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"Attention is drawn to the particularly competitive nature found in diplomatic culture. It begins with attempts to enter the foreign ministry and there an emphasis is placed on how difficult it is to be chosen for one of a few jobs. There is a feeling of elitism within the profession that starts in these early stages and is by no means subdued upon entry into the ministry. The vast majority of diplomats strive for not only positioning within an embassy, but eventual appointment to Ambassador. It then progresses into competition as to who has the ‘ear of the Minister’ (i.e. influence over the Minister of Foreign Affairs) as well posting locations. The difference between being sent to a small African country and NATO, the UN, Washington or Brussels is immense."

Source: The Hidden Culture of Diplomat Practice: A Study of the Danish Foreign Service - Mette Boritz –via

Measuring Success in Afghanistan

Afghanistan by the NumbersTom Engelhardt has just published his Tomgram on Measuring Success in Afghanistan. He writes that "metrics in war almost invariably turn out to occupy treacherous terrain. Think of it as quagmire territory, in part because numbers, however accurate (and they often aren't), can lie -- or rather, can tell the story you would like them to tell." It is quite long so I am only excerpting the section on the Diplomats and the Civilian Surge:

Cost of new "crash" program to expand the U.S. "diplomatic presence" in Afghanistan and Pakistan: $1 billion. ($736 million of which is slated for the construction of a massive new embassy/regional headquarters in Islamabad, Pakistan.)

Number of additional U.S. government personnel reportedly slated to be sent to Pakistan to augment the 750 civilians already there: almost 1,000.

Expected number of U.S. government civilians to be posted at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan by the end of 2009: 976. (There were 562 at the end of 2008 and there are now reportedly more than 1,000 diplomats, staff, and Afghan nationals already working there.)

Estimated total number of civilians to be assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as part of a proposed ongoing "civilian surge" by 2011: 1,350 (800 to be posted in Kabul, 550 outside the capital).

Cost of the State Department's five-year contract with Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) to provide security for U.S. diplomats in Afghanistan: $210 million.

Cost of the State Department's contract with ArmorGroup North America, a subsidiary of U.S.-based Wackenhutt Services Inc., to guard the U.S. Embassy in Kabul: $189 million.

Number of private guards provided by ArmorGroup North America: 450, based at Camp Sullivan, several miles from the embassy compound where they reportedly engaged in Lord of the Flies-style behavior.

Read the whole thing here.

Quickie: Relearning Where the Alligators Are By Being Bitten Again

Lessons Not Learned

David T. Jones, a retired Senior FSO, participated in a State Department study of the last two years of the Clinton administration’s Middle East peace process. In the September issue of the Journal, Mr. Jones pens Strengthen the Process for Middle East Diplomacy. Excerpt below:

Between 1999 and 2001, many senior members of the Clinton administration’s Middle East peace process team wrote neither reporting cables nor memoranda of conversation. Much of the material in the files was undated, had no classification, and lacked drafting and other identifying information — the epitome of the “nonpaper.”[…]George W. Bush’s administration performed no better, though it repeatedly proclaimed its intention to approach the region differently. Yet during its eight years in office, it did not engage there (diplomatically, at least) with anything approaching the intensity of its predecessor. And its much-touted “road map” for Middle East progress proved the diplomatic equivalent of the Alaskan bridge to nowhere. To the extent that it did engage, Washington continued its highly secretive, keep-no-records approach.[…]The rationale for this approach is twofold: a fear of leaks in politicized circumstances and a desire to honor requests, often from foreign government officials, that no records be kept. Yet even if our negotiators are blessed with total recall, such skills are not transferable to a new negotiating team; brain implants are still science fiction, after all. And giving in to the desire for deniability only puts Washington at a severe disadvantage compared to those parties that did keep records, forcing us to relearn where the alligators are in the swamp by being bitten again.

Read the full text here (see FSJ | p.15):

H.R. 2410 Foreign Relations Authorization Act Passes House

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H.R. 2410: Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 “To authorize appropriations for the Department of State and the Peace Corps for fiscal years 2010 and 2011, to modernize the Foreign Service, and for other purposes” passed last night in House Vote #328 in 2009 [see govtrack page here or primary source].


Vote summary: Aye:235 (54%); No:187(43%); Not Voting:11(3%). A simple majority of 422 votes (=212 votes) was required.

Check out the Summary of Amendments Submitted to the Rules Committee for
H.R. 2410 - Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 here.

Read more on H.R. 2410 page in Govtrack.

See H.R. 2410 page in Thomas.

The text of the bill is here and the CRS summary can be accessed here.


Since the bill has passed the House, it now goes on to be voted on in the Senate. Sounds like this is on a fast track, we'll see what happens next.

Related Posts:

• H.R. 2410 Clears HFAC, Sec. 333 Stricken from Bill
• H.R. 2410: Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011

President Obama in Cairo: Video and Transcript

CSPAN still wins this race hands down. It's been slightly over an hour since the Cairo speech ended, slightly after 8 am EDT and no video or transcript have been posted in the official websites yet. But cspan has both! See the transcript here of President Obama's Cairo speech (pdf). Or you can read the speech online here.

President Obama delivered a speech at Cairo University and spoke about U.S. relations with, and outreach to, the Muslim world. He spoke about finding “common ground” and “a new beginning” with the Muslim world. He also characterized the military occupation of Iraq a "war of choice," called on Muslim nations to confront "violent extremists," encouraged Iran to negotiate with the West on the future of its nuclear program, and said the U.S. was committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At the CO.NX webcast, 600 participants from 30 countries came together in a State Department sponsored "room" to discuss the speech prior to and after the President's delivery. There would have been space for 400 more. After the speech, an online poll indicates the following: 97%: speech met their expectations; 3%: speech did not meet their expectations. One participant says: "it represented what we have always thought the American people were, but the last 10 years were too much for all of us." The discussion started about two hours before the speech and continued for well over an hour after the speech concluded. The State Department CO.NX moderators were excellent, and only kicked out one disruptive participant from the online event.

Quote: Maybe diplomats are more like mice than cats...

“The point about diplomacy is that life goes on. Host governments have the hearty but fleeting pleasure of looking tough by heaving supposedly errant diplomats and their policies overboard but, after an interval, the public dust settles and diplomatic business needs to be done. Maybe diplomats are more like mice than cats: you chase them away but they always quietly move back in to your house.”

Charles Crawford
Read “Kick the Cat: Going, Going, Gone”
Three-times British Ambassador on Diplomatic Expulsions
Diplomat Magazine │ May 2009
Charles Crawford’s Blogoir

Quote: Who conducted diplomacy during the war?

"Who conducted American diplomacy before and during the war? The answer is: most definitely not Cordell Hull, our longest-serving Secretary of State (1933-1945). Mr. Hull is remembered best for two things: setting policy on trade tariffs and getting out of the way when the White House wanted to make policy. Harry Hopkins, Sumner Wells and other special agents were FDR’s real policy-makers at that time. As Hull himself put it, “If the President wishes to speak to me, all he has to do is pick up that telephone of his, and I’ll come running. But it’s not for me to bother the president.” The State Department was very much out of the loop for much of the diplomacy of World War II. For example, at the Tehran Conference, which decided much of the structure of postwar Germany, no State Department representative was present, only military officers from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This trend has since continued, with growing influence of the military in foreign policy decision-making."

Jack Zetkulic
Senior Foreign Service Officer
Excerpted from U.S Diplomatic History in Brief – a Foreign Service Perspective
(From Historical Sketches: US Diplomacy)

Insider Quote: State Department, Future Perfect

"We are looking for people who have the skills needed in a country which has a very poorly functioning government, who have a sense of adventure to join the Civilian Response Corps. We’re looking for people who are able to provide oversight in areas like engineering, the people involved in the rule of law, policemen, judges, corrections officials, attorneys. We’re looking for public administrators, public health officials, for city planners, port operators, agronomists. We’re looking for people with these skills, a sense of adventure, and willing to contribute to American national security by helping countries where we have great national security interests at stake to stabilize. This is the future, I think, of the State Department – this expeditionary capacity to put people on the ground in dangerous situations where American interests are on the line."

Reconstruction and Stabilization: Civilian Deployments to Hot Spots
April 1, 2009

by Ambassador John Herbst

Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS)
U.S. Department of State

A Confirmation Grilling - - But Was Not Hot

Spencer Ackerman of The Washington Independent live-blogged the confirmation hearing of Ambassador Hill today. See below for a quick read since it will probably take a day or so for the SFRC to post the opening statements online or check out the statements here (boy! I have not seen them post a testimony this fast!). I’m looking for the transcript but don’t know how soon that will be available.


I thought the hearing went quite well – Hill was upfront, candid and I think persuasive. All those media interviews, especially during the Six Party Talks must have been pretty good practice for the confirmation grilling. The senators asked some good questions and no one appeared to be scoring points for politics. Senator Lugar plus a couple others put in questions based on the issues brought up by Senator Brownback, and a couple newspaper items -- all were answered and explained well, I thought.

Something I did not know – he has a son in Iraq; not in the Army but with DIA. He talked about looking into staffing, on whether the embassy is right-sized, and if we have the right footprint in the country.

On the PRTs in Iraq where we currently have 26, he said it will go down to 16, then to 10, then to 6. At some point after this, Senator Dodd gave a shout out to our civilian employees working in Iraq.

Senator Isakson asked how Hill sees his role in replacing Ambassador Crocker. Ambassador Hill gave the same answer from their private conversation, “I just don’t want to screw it up.”

Another senator – had a question about private contractors. In his response, Hill talked about DS and perimeter security. A follow-up question on whether this was Green Zone or embassy perimeter. This gave Hill a chance to talk about his experience as ambassador to Macedonia when protesters breached U.S. Embassy security in 1999 over NATO airstrikes in Yugoslavia, and they had no Marines. Here is a related account from that time in Macedonia that I have not read before: One Riot, One Ambassador.

Read the rest of it from Spencer Ackerman’s posts:

Chris Hill’s Iraq Showdown
By 3/25/09 9:06 AM

Chris Hill Confirmation Hearing: Highlights From Hill’s Opening Statement
3/25/09 10:15 AM

Chris Hill Confirmation Hearing: The Six-Party North Korea Talks And Iraq
3/25/09 10:16 AM

Chris Hill Confirmation Hearing: Hill Takes Up Brownback’s North Korea Criticism
3/25/09 10:27 AM

Chris Hill Confirmation Hearing: ‘I Just Don’t Want To Screw It Up’
3/25/09 10:55 AM

Chris Hill Confirmation Hearing: Wicker vs. Hill on North Korea
3/25/09 11:26 AM

Chris Hill Confirmation Hearing: Will the United States Get Out of Iraq Entirely by 2011?
3/25/09 11:33 AM

Chris Hill Confirmation Hearing: Hill Hearing Wraps Up
3/25/09 11:44 AM

Ambassador Hill said this once: "Your best diplomacy should start at home," he said. "As a professional diplomat, if I can't deal with that, then what am I doing talking to foreigners?"

I think he's going to Baghdad, it's a matter of when; let's see what happens next week.

Update: 3/26
Spencer Ackerman: This Is the Hill Sam Brownback Wants to Die On

Quote: The Difficult Task of Fighting Terrorists

“Fighting an unconventional war against a terrorist enemy is a difficult task, and the sad truth is that it almost always results in some brutal and illegal acts. This is as true of our country as it is of Sri Lanka. The important thing is that the country's leadership not condone these acts, and that an atmosphere is set from the top that they will not be accepted, and that those who commit them will be held to account.”

Letter to His Excellency Mahinda Rajapakse
President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
January 19, 2009

Signed by the following former US Ambassadors to Sri Lanka

Marion Creekmore, 1989-1992
Teresita Schaffer, 1992-1995
Peter Burleigh, 1995-1997
Shaun Donnelly, 1997-2000
Ashley Wills, 2000-2003
Jeffrey Lunstead, 2003-2006

A Future of Honest and Respectful Diplomacy

President Obama released a special video message for all those celebrating Nowruz. Translated "New Day," Nowruz marks the arrival of spring and the beginning of the New Year for millions in Iran and other communities around the world.

Read the transcript in English or Persian

Quote: Diplomats and Their Dark Arts

"The best diplomats get results by keeping their dark arts very dark."

Charles Crawford
Former British Ambassador to Sarajevo, Belgrade, Warsaw

Quickie: Beltway Views on Compromise and Negotiation

"Compromise is not treason. Negotiation is not appeasement."

"The problem with American foreign policy goes beyond George Bush. It includes a Washington establishment that has gotten comfortable with the exercise of American hegemony and treats compromise as treason and negotiations as appeasement. Other countries can have no legitimate interests of their own. The only way to deal with them is by issuing a series of maximalist demands. This is not foreign policy; it's imperial policy. And it isn't likely to work in today's world."

Ending Our Imperial Foreign Policy
Fareed Zakaria │Post Global
March 15, 2009

New Bureau Needed at State?

There's something about gifts that can well, backfire. Not the "funny strange" backfire but the "funny ha! ha!" kind that can easily become a staple for late night comedians. The good thing about that reset button gaffe was that the parties guffawed about it and they seemed like they did have have a good time. The bad thing about it is -- people, especially the Russians now have it in their memory banks of "remember when" -- as in "Remember when the Secretary of State gave Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that button with the mistranslated word for reset? Har! Har! Har!"


And they have the prop to show for it in their locked glass cabinet.


Furthermore, as David Smith recently wrote, Fresh Fish and Gag Gifts Go Only So Far: "The future test for Clinton will be to connect the toy "reset" button to some live wires." Live wires? It was just a gag!


On the DVD gift set reportedly given to Mr. Brown, what can I say? At least Mr. Brown did not have to report it to his ethics office? Or -- it was so cheap, Mr. Brown gets to keep it? Well, I'm trying to be helpful here -- who picked out that gift, an intern with a maxed out credit card? Okay, let's be charitable and just say they are on a learning curve here. But they better learn fast ... I think the Japanese guy and Lula are both coming soon for a visit.


Come to think of it -- what we need is a a new position at the State Department -- the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Gag Gifts and Foreign Gifting (GG/FG). He/She would be the subject matter expert on gifts and foreign gifting choices for all branches of the government. Wouldn't that be quite a gig? Armed with an Xtreme Geek catalog, I promised to promptly nominate myself through my back channel contacts.


I mean, blogging is fun but don't you just hate it when people talk about bloggers as either kids in pjs or bored, anonymous, and pathetic folks with no real lives? So -- I'm willing to do the gag gift gig, if only to show I'm not a kid! Will work for free if there is coffee and some respectability (i.e. corner office).


Not a lot of options here, people - get your act together, get a new bureau (and A/S), or get your daily dose of Comedy Central. Seriously.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Brown in the USA

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

Do Politicians Dream of Electric Sheep?

Perhaps in Bolivia ...

Photo by Luca Galuzzi - www.galuzzi.it
Licensed under CCA-SA2.5

In June last year, folks working for USAID in the Chapare region, a key drug-trafficking area, were expelled from the country. Apparently they had some success with farmers growing alternative crops to coca. The problem was they reportedly kept asking the question “Do politicians dream of electric sheep?” Eventually somebody suspected that they were up to no good; working on growing “off-world colonies” for green men smoking green coca. Green aliens smoking pot, c’mon, what can be scarier than that?

In September, the ambassador was asked to leave the country. He was in a meeting inside the ministry when he was PNG’ed; a diplomatic blitzkrieg if there ever was one. Some idjits were convinced that the embassy has now been infiltrated by Nexus-7 replicants spying for their home world Saturn.

Of course, those guys involved in the $450,000 bribery-murder scandal must also be space aliens from Saturn, in cahoots with the spies! Geez, now I’m wondering if the pro-president mob who stormed the home of a political rival in a town on the shore of Lake Titicaca and beat members of the man's family were actually part of the illegal Nexus-6 Saturnite replicants? If they were, could the blade runners be far behind? Because surely – you want them caught, right?

Recently, the embassy's second secretary, Francisco Martinez was also PNG’ed because he "was in permanent contact with opposition groups." If they keep at this, before long there won’t be any real earthlings left at that mission.

This must be a real troubling development that Senator Lugar of the Senate Foreign Galactic Relations Committee finally spoke up. Yesterday he released a statement condemning the expulsion of one more diplomat saying "It certainly does not bode well for efforts to solve our differences through honest dialogue and positive actions.”

Oh my goodness! I could write a whole series of books on this – aliens, politicians, replicants, money, bribery, murder, spies, blade runners, png’ed diplomats, coca, sex -- oops, er-- that last one is for a future news cycle.

Okay – but there’s one great formula for entertainment!