Excellent guide to a decaying enterprise

Posted in Daniel Serwer - January 2, 2018 - 0 Comment

My friend Harry Kopp and his co-author John Naland have encountered a perfect storm in launching their third edition of Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the US Foreign Service just as interest in State Department careers collapses and the institution itself goes through unanticipated trials in a new Administration that took office after the manuscript was finalized. It’s a shame the likely market of Foreign Service aspirants has contracted, because this book is a fine testament to the glories and challenges of Foreign Service life. It really is a life, not just a career.

Caveat emptor: I spent 21 years committed to it, moving my family every few years and occasionally risking life and limb in service to the United States. Mine were admittedly great posts: Brasilia once and Rome thrice, plus being Sarajevo’s most frequent visitor during the last year of the Bosnian war and two stints at the State Department working on global energy and later European issues. Harry Kopp was my deputy chief of mission in Brasilia. We also went to the same big high school but didn’t know each other then.

You won’t find a better or more readable account of the US Foreign Service as an institution, profession, and career than this. I’ve delayed publishing this review because I found the book so interesting I read it all with some care. You’d think 21 years would suffice for me to become my own expert and able to skip a few things, but I still found this book put things in a structure that enlightens. It also includes vignettes based on interviews with active duty and recently retired diplomats that illustrate in personal terms important themes.

Harry and John Naland, whom I don’t know, are keenly aware of the Foreign Service’s not always illustrious history and try to keep it in focus as they discuss its present and possible future. Even without the Trump Administration, there were already a big question marks:  what is to become of an institution, profession and career in the digital age of wide open access to information, an age when women and minorities are claiming their rights and everyone is expecting better and more equal treatment? How does diplomacy deal with civil war, insurgency and terrorism, all of which are a far cry from the state-to-state relations that traditionally dominate diplomatic discourse?

Those questions have become enormously more complicated with the advent of the Trump Administration. Diplomats thrive on objectivity, accuracy, and reliability. They seek to strengthen the country’s position internationally, or at least protect its vital interests and slow its relative decline. What is the fate of the Foreign Service in an age of Fake News, when America’s president thinks the country has to be made great again and tries to upend its alliances and the norms-based international order America constructed so assiduously after World War II?

I won’t pretend to have the answers. What I’m sure of is this: as presently constituted and in this Administration, the Department of State and the Foreign Service that staffs so much of it are not today well-equipped to meet these challenges. As Kopp and Naland suggest, the Foreign Service needs more training and less conformity, more risk-taking and less reliance on tradition, more innovation and less continuity. Instead, our diplomats are being ensconced in well-protected fortresses that prevent them from doing what many of them joined the Service to do: get out and talk to foreigners, understand other cultures and countries in depth and on their own terms, and use that knowledge to further US interests.

In Brasilia more than 35 years ago, I was the science counselor of the US embassy. Brazil has forsworn nuclear weapons and its barriers to computer imports have changed, though I suppose the Amazon is still a sensitive issue. I would have new tools available: access to the internet and much better and cheaper communications. But I would still want to do what I did more than three decades ago: visit laboratories, climb over and around nuclear facilities, attend a missile launch, speak at universities, take a small boat with Brazilian scientists to the meeting of the waters at Manaus.

Terrorism has made that kind of outreach perilous, and “Benghazi” has made the State Department more nervous and risk-averse than ever. The Trump Administration is cutting both staff and budget. The Pentagon, used to running risks and endowed with far greater and rapidly expanding resources with which to meet them, is taking over large swathes of diplomatic work, making State every more beholden to military priorities and perspectives. The diplomatic career is appealing less, others are encroaching on the profession, and the institution is enfeebled. The Foreign Service this book so ably describes is in trouble.

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Six questions about Iran’s protests

Posted in Daniel Serwer - January 2, 2018 - 0 Comment
Edward P. Joseph, a lecturer at SAIS, sent me this after I posted mine on Iran:
News often catches us off guard.  Once we recover from our initial astonishment, we typically spot reasons why developments were predictable all along.  The collapse of the Soviet Union is one example.  The Arab Spring (and subsequent Winter) is another.
Iran’s incipient wave of sometimes violent protests demand better explanation than those on offer.  Here’s why:
Explanation 1: ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’
Yes, Iranians appear to be fed up with longstanding economic deprivation.  But typically it isn’t the absolute economic standing of a country that drives protest — particularly violent protest — but rather the trend lines.  With the lifting of sanctions, the opening of Iran to foreign trade and investment, and the infusion of frozen assets, how is it possible that the economic trend lines in Iran are worse than when Rouhani entered the scene or when the nuclear deal was signed in the summer of 2015?  Yes, corruption has no doubt siphoned off some or much of the anticipated benefit, but all of it — to the point that the public discerns virtually no improvement?  That’s not straightforward at all; it would take hard work and skill to mismanage an economy to that degree.  Is that what’s going on Iran?
Explanation 2: ‘Rouhani raised public expectations with lofty rhetoric.’
Again, a seemingly straightforward expectation that defies common sense.  Sure, when he was running for re-election, it is likely that Rouhani — like politicians anywhere — inflated expectations.  But that election took place last May.  Why would any political leader continue to inflate expectations that he knew — and Rouhani surely knew this — were unlikely to be met?  To the contrary, the Iranian President has had seven months to dial back public expectations.  Why wouldn’t he do that?  How would that earn him the ire of his hard-line opponents, which is widely seen as his greatest constraint?
Explanation 3: ‘Rouhani was going to cut subsidies to the poor, raise fuel prices, introduce fees including a departure tax.’
This is a more plausible explanation.  Even as astute a politician as Margaret Thatcher got whacked for introducing an unpopular tax.  The baffling thing here is why Rouhani — whose hold on power, we are told, is tenuous due to those hard-line opponents — would make deficit-cutting and structural reforms a near-term priority.  Why not wait for the public to realize some of those ballyhooed benefits before taking away the punch bowl?  Surely, Rouhani and his advisers knew that there would be risk of public push-back; Iranians are not quiescent.  Iranians defied even the hardliners with massive protests in 2009 and have shown their mettle at times since.  What on earth was Rouhani thinking with these austerity measures?  Why didn’t he look to the infusion of long-frozen Iranian assets — up to $50 billion worth according to former US Treasury Secretary Lew — to address deficits?  If the answer is that the funds haven’t arrived, or that Khamenei or the IRGC siphoned them off, or Rouhani thought he could get away with only austerity and no progress, then that all needs to be explained.
In addition to these inadequate, question-provoking ‘explanations’, there are several other head-scratching puzzlers:
4.  Why haven’t Rouhani, Khamenei and the IRGC been able to distract public attention from economic problems given the perfect foil they have in Donald Trump?
It’s the go-to move for any beleaguered leader: distract the public by pointing to a foreign enemy.  And Donald Trump is a central casting, made-to-order foil:
— he spews anti-Iranian invective at a rate and intensity that would offend the national pride of even moderate Iranians.
— he refused to certify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal, putting the Iranian economy in jeopardy.
— he has slavishly embraced Iran’s arch-rivals, the Saudis.
— he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, implicating an issue on which Iran (with its aptly named Al-Quds force) has utilized to expand its influence.
It would be different if Trump were somehow ‘winning’ on these issues, but they have left Washington — not Tehran — isolated.
We know that Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif routinely tweet about Trump.  Indeed, Iran’s Foreign Minister has already chided Trump for his expression of Schadenfreude on Twitter.  It’s stunning that Tehran cannot better exploit this walking, talking caricature of the overbearing American foe to engage the public’s passions.  This would be true in any country; it’s particularly puzzling given that Iranians have been exposed to nearly four decades of enmity with/from the US.
5.  Why can’t Rouhani deflect criticism?
 
In Venezuela (which is only to be compared because of its restive, much more seriously deprived population and its oil economy), the public has only one target: the regime of President Nicolas Maduro.  But in Iran, President Rouhani is not ‘the Supreme Leader.’  That makes the protests — which seemingly are aimed at both — all the more baffling.  Why can’t Rouhani effectively portray himself as ‘the good guy trying to do his best against an implacable, overly conservative foe’?  Yes, if he goes too far in that vein, he risks arousing Khamenei or IRGC ire; but surely Rouhani is deft enough to get away with distancing himself and doing a bit of scapegoating of his rivals.
6.  Where are all those French and German businessmen?
We are told that Trump’s non-certification puts US trade and investment with Iran at risk, i.e. gives the advantage to Airbus over Boeing and the like.  One of the reasons the Europeans look the other way on Iranian malfeasance in the Middle East is due to their economic interest in the country.
If that’s the case, then where are all those French, German and other European investors?  If they are present in the numbers suggested, then why on earth hasn’t Rouhani trotted out the images — photo-ops and ribbon-cuttings and the like that are the staple of politicians everywhere, even in much poorer, less sophisticated countries? If they are not present in such numbers, then why is that?  What is going on with investment and trade with Iran?

Unwise

Posted in Daniel Serwer - January 1, 2018 - 0 Comment

In response to protests in Iran, President Trump is calling for regime change:

The entire world understands that the good people of Iran want change, and, other than the vast military power of the United States, that Iran’s people are what their leaders fear the most….

Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the Iranian people will face a choice. The world is watching!

He is also suggesting that the United States might do something about oppression:

Big protests in Iran. The people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism. Looks like they will not take it any longer. The USA is watching very closely for human rights violations!

Iran is failing at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by the Obama Administration. The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years. They are hungry for food & for freedom. Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being looted. TIME FOR CHANGE!

Is this wise?

As regular readers will know, I am an enthusiast for civil resistance. Not only because people have the right to express their views, but also because nonviolent protests are the safest and best way to promote democratic reform. While Iran experts are still debating the character and significance of the last week of protests in Iranian cities, it is clear that at least some of them, while triggered by economic disappointment, are also seeking political change, targeting in particular the Islamic Republic and its Supreme Leader.

Supreme Leader Khamenei has so far been silent. President Rouhani has defended the right to protest but also warned against violence and disorder. The internet has been either blocked or slowed. At least a dozen people have been killed, apparently by the security forces. They could still react more forcefully. The last time widespread protests erupted in Iran, in 2009, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps rolled out the pro-regime paramilitary forces known as the basij, who beat and shot protesters into submission.

Former Obama Administration official Phil Gordon thinks Trump speaking out in favor of the protesters will do more harm than good. I agree. It tars them with an American brush that many Iranians despise: a president whom they perceive as unreliable and reprehensible, because of his opposition to the nuclear deal and his concerted efforts to deny Tehran the benefits of it. In order to be effective, the protests need to have an entirely indigenous flavor. The regime will rejoice if they come to be seen as instruments of American foreign policy, especially if the source for that impression is Trump.

No doubt the President figures he is a winner either way. If the protests succeed and lead to real change in Iran, he’ll claim credit and point to the contrast with President Obama’s restrained reaction in 2009. I can hear the chest thumping already. If they fail, he can complain bitterly about repression and heighten his rhetoric against the Islamic Republic.

But the truth is the President is undermining pillars of democracy at home and abroad by harsh attacks on the US press and independence of the US judiciary as well as his affection for would-be autocrats in Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, Russia, and elsewhere. He has no standing at home or abroad for a pro-democracy Twitter campaign that lacks any serious follow-through. Rested from five or six days of golf at one of his own resorts, Trump is starting the New Year with the same lack of wisdom that has characterized his presidency since last January 20.

PS: Vice President Pence has now chimed in:

As long as is POTUS and I am VP, the United States of America will not repeat the shameful mistake of our past when others stood by and ignored the heroic resistance of the Iranian people as they fought against their brutal regime.

The bold and growing resistance of the Iranian people today gives hope and faith to all who struggle for freedom and against tyranny. We must not and we will not let them down.

This certainly implies that Washington will do something more than tweet. What is that? Where is the game plan? How will we not let them down?

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Pretense doesn’t govern well

Posted in Daniel Serwer - December 30, 2017 - 0 Comment

I’ve been hesitating to post this, fearing someone would demonstrate that it’s not really Nikki Haley and that the scam is on me. That could still happen, but I am doubting it. It certainly sounds like her. Nor has she denied it so far as I can tell. The American press hasn’t given this scam many electrons. They are being extra-cautious these days to prevent Fake News accusations.

That’s Nikki Haley, the Republicans’ great female hope, scammed by two Russian prankster comedians pretending to be the Polish Foreign Minister. Binomo, the country she claims to be watching carefully, doesn’t exist.

I don’t know how this call was placed and why she accepted it. Usually senior government officials take their foreign calls either through the State Department executive secretariat or the White House switch. It’s foolish to do otherwise. The bureaucrats have good ways of checking on the identity of the caller.

What is striking about Haley’s behavior is how ready she is to pretend that she knows what she is talking about. A diplomat can’t know everything going on worldwide every day. I’ve often had to ask foreign government officials to explain in more detail what they are talking about–not the least because their perspective on the news could be different from ours. Saying “I’ll have to get back to you about that” is perfectly acceptable. Haley gets there eventually, but not before she has been well scammed.

Pretense, which is akin to lying but intended to make something appear true, is a distinguishing characteristic of this Administration. Trump pretends his first year in office was a successful one, hoping that saying will make it so. He pretends that he understands the details of legislation. He pretends to have good relations with Republicans in Congress. He pretends to have an agreement with China’s President about North Korea. He pretends that the Special Counsel investigation has demonstrated no collusion with Russia, repeating it 16 times. hoping the idea will stick.

It is not surprising to see others in the Administration take up this habit. Hierarchies model themselves on the top. It may even work–Nikki Haley likely pulled this “I know what you are talking about” act many times before getting caught. Not everyone will have been fooled, but that hasn’t deterred her. She’ll continue to play her pretense game. She, like the President, is more concerned to appear knowledgeable than to understand what is really going on.

This is a serious vulnerability in the diplomatic world, where there are a lot of people scamming every day of the week. Knowing the difference between true and false is a key diplomatic skill. Nikki Haley has had a lot of good press for her coherence and verbal skills, two qualities President Trump lacks. But she’ll need to get a lot better at detecting bullshit if she is going to succeed in diplomacy, never mind fulfill Republican expectations that she will break the glass ceiling in 2020 or 2024 to become president. Pretense doesn’t govern well, as Trump demonstrates every day.

 

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This interview is too long

Posted in Daniel Serwer - December 28, 2017 - 1 Comment

Ivan Angelovski of the Belgrade weekly NIN did this excessively long interview with me last week. I gather it was published yesterday or today: 

HOW DO YOU SEE THE WORLD IN 2018? WHAT ARE THE HOTTEST SPOTS?

The world is in bad shape in 2018. The big issues confronting the United States have to do with North Korea and Iran but apart from the success against Daesh in Iraq and in Syria there isn’t a lot of good news for the United States. There’s a lot of concern I think in Washington and beyond that the president is weakening the United States internationally rather than strengthening it.

North Korea and Iran are the key hotspots in the near term. In the longer term we face a big adjustment to Chinese power, especially in the Pacific but also elsewhere in the world. We obviously face some challenge from Russia as well, but I think it’s a very different challenge. Putin is looking large today but when his bubble bursts he will not look all that large. In the meanwhile we face real challenges, especially from their expertise on the Internet.

There are lots of other challenges. Challenges in Africa and the Middle East especially in Yemen and Libya. The world is not in good shape.

HOW DO YOU EXPECT THE NORTH KOREA ISSUE TO UNFOLD?

Deterrence has worked and it probably will continue to work. It’s very clear why Kim Jong-Un wants nuclear weapons. It’s for regime preservation.That’s quite rational.Attacking the United States unprovoked with nuclear weapons would be an obvious and serious error because we would respond. But by the same token an American attack on North Korea would be a serious mistake because they can respond not only with nuclear weapons but also with conventional artillery against Seoul and kill hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. So what options do we have? The main one is to sit down and negotiate with the North Koreans.

YOU DIDN’T MENTION THE ISSUE OF JERUSALEM?

The issue of Jerusalem is a self-imposed wound by the United States. There is no issue with Jerusalem that has to be solved tomorrow. There are many other issues that have to be solved between the Israelis and the Palestinians first. The president chose to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem in order to satisfy domestic constituencies, apparently without any serious thought being given to the international repercussions. Why would he do that? Because the Christian evangelicals and a limited number of his big donors wanted it. I also think that he had come to understand that his peace initiative was going no place so he wasn’t ruining anything by doing this, at least in his mind. That said it would have been very easy to do this in a way that was palatable to the Palestinians and to the Arabs had he added a sentence to the decision that said “I look forward to the day when there will also be a capital of Palestine in Jerusalem”. Arabs and Palestinians would have applauded, everybody in the world would have been happy with the addition of one senstence. It’s very telling that he didn’t end that sentence. He’s completely hard over on the Israeli side. Not just on the Israeli side but on the Netanyahu side of this dispute. Netanyahu doesn’t want a Palestinian state and certainly not now. Trump committed an own-goal. It’s just fantastic that a hundred and twenty-eight countries voted against us in the General Assembly. What more evidence do you need that this guy is weakening the United States?

USA NEVER LOOKED MORE ALONE THAN TODAY.

It’s not surprising. This is a guy who puts America first, who’s criticized our closest allies, at this point I don’t think he can even visit Germany or maybe even London. I think the demonstrations in London against him would be truly massive.They know that and that’s why they’re not scheduling that visit. But Germany feels the same way. He is intentionally alienating our closest allies. The negotiations with Mexico and Canada over the North American Free Trade Agreement are going badly, he’s made the South Koreans very nervous.The Japanese seem to get on ok with him because their inclination is to move in the direction of doing more on defense.Trump wants that so I think there there’s a meeting of the minds, the Saudis obviously like him, the Emiratis like him, but everybody else in the Middle East is pretty grumpy about him, including even Sisi, who Trump declared his best friend.

One problem that isn’t so visible abroad is if that the Americans are having trouble speaking with one voice. You hear very different things out of the National Security Council, out of

the president, the State Department and the Defense Department.That alone causes nervousness around the world and makes people hedge against the possibility that what the president said yesterday isn’t going to be true tomorrow.That’s a big problem.

USA ALWAYS HAD DIFFERENT VOICES FROM THE CONGRESS AND THE ADMINISTRATION IN THE WHITE HOUSE, BUT NOW IT SEEMS THERE ARE DIFFERENT VOICES IN THE ADMINISTRATION ITSELF

You don’t usually have six or seven voices coming out of Washington. There’s a big deterioration in mental and verbal discipline. ThePresident himself is not mentally or verbally disciplined, he doesn’t say the same thing from one day to another, so why should anybody else be disciplined if he isn’t?

TO WHAT DO YOU CREDIT THIS?

His lack of education and bullheadedness are important factors. He simply did not get a good education. I don’t care if he went to Wharton.He doesn’t show much more than a sixth-grade education. He doesn’t read much, he doesn’t learn easily, he learns from things that affect him personally but not from things people tell him about something else. He has made a career of lying – he lies about his real estate projects, he lies about how much money he has, he’s unreliable in paying his contractors. He has gotten away with it. So why would you expect him to be different at over 70? He enjoyed success for 50 years by lying. Read more

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A weakened America

Posted in Daniel Serwer - December 26, 2017 - 1 Comment

Is America stronger after 11 months of Donald Trump or not?

It is demonstrably weaker, mainly because of his diplomatic moves and non-moves, but also because Trump has done nothing to reduce American military commitments and a good deal to expand them. Let me enumerate:

The diplomatic front:

  • Trump withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) early in the game. The remaining negotiating partners have X-ed out the provisions the US wanted on labor and environmental protection and are preparing to proceed, without American participation. TPP was America’s ace in the Asia Pacific.
  • He is withdrawing as well from the Paris Climate Change accord. That is also proceeding without the US, which will be unable to affect international deliberations on climate change unless and until it rejoins.
  • He has withdrawn from UNESCO, which excludes the US from participation in a lot of cultural, scientific and educational endeavors.
  • He hasn’t announced withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but the negotiations on revising it are thought to be going very badly, mainly because of excessive US demands.
  • He has refused to certify that the Iran nuclear deal is in the US interest, which is so patently obvious that the Republican-controlled Congress is making no moves to withdraw from it.
  • His ill-framed appeal to the Saudis to halt financing of terrorists has precipitated a dramatic split among US allies within the Gulf Cooperation Council.
  • Through his son-in-law he encouraged the Saudis to try to try to depose Lebanon’s prime minister and embargo Qatar, making the prime minister more popular than ever and shifting Doha’s allegiance to Iran.
  • He has continued American support for the Saudi/Emirati war effort in Yemen, while at the same time the State Department has called for an end to the Saudi/Emirati blockade due to the humanitarian crisis there.
  • His decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem heightened tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, undermined his own peace initiative, and obstructed the rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia he hoped for.
  • He has done nothing to counter Iran’s growing influence in Iraq and Syria, or Russia’s position in Syria and Ukraine.
  • He initially embraced Turkey’s now President Erdogan but has watched helplessly while Turkey tarnishes its democratic credentials and drifts into the Russian orbit.
  • He has also embraced other autocrats: Philippine President Duterte, China’s President Xi, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to name only three.
  • He has failed to carry the banner of American values and preferred instead transactional relationships that have so far produced nothing substantial for the US.

The military front:

  • Use of drones is way up.
  • So is deployment of US troops in Europe, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, not to mention ships and planes in the Asia Pacific.
  • The Islamic State, while retreating in Syria and Iraq, is advancing in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are also holding their own.
  • Allies are hesitating to pitch in, because the president is erratic. Japan, South Korea, and the Europeans are hedging because the US can no longer be relied on.
  • The US continues to back the Saudi and Emirati campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, precipitating a massive humanitarian crisis.
  • Cyberthreats to the US, including its elections, have increased, without any counter from the administration.
  • Promises that North Korea would not be allowed to develop a missile that could strike the US have gone unfulfilled, and Trump did nothing effective once it accomplished that goal.
  • Military options against North Korea, which are all that Trump seems to be interested in, will bring catastrophic results not only for Koreans but also for US forces stationed there and in the region.
  • Russia continues to occupy part of Ukraine, with no effective military or diplomatic response by the US, and Moscow continues its aggressive stance near the Baltics, in the North Sea, in the Arctic, and in the Pacific.

The diplomatic record is one of almost unmitigated failure and ineffectiveness, apart from new UN Security Council sanctions on North Korea. The military record is more mixed: ISIS is defeated on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, but that is a victory well foreshadowed in the previous administration. It is also far from reassuring, since ISIS will now go underground and re-initiate its terrorist efforts. None of the other military pushes has done more than hold the line. Anyone who expected Trump to withdraw from excessive military commitments should be very disappointed. Anyone who expects him to be successful diplomatically without a fully staffed and empowered State Department is deluded.

The US is more absent diplomatically than present, and more present militarily than effective. We are punching well below our weight. This should be no surprise: the State Department is eviscerated and the Pentagon is exhausted. Allies are puzzled. Adversaries are taking advantage.

Where will we be after another three years of this?

 

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