By PHK
As I jump up and down and chant “soft power,” “soft power,” “soft power,” I am reminded of that mantra’s weak links. I shudder to think about how many fundamental reforms are needed on the traditional and public diplomacy sides of America’s foreign policy house before this country’s “soft power” can truly be made effective again. That is providing the next administration eschews from the outset the Bush administration’s over-militarized approach to foreign policy.
Ambassadorial Featherbedding
One of the myriad of reforms needed to stop the US from remaining the world's laughing-stock is the substantial reduction of political appointee Ambassadors.
I know, I know . . . I’ve heard the tales of fabulous people who were far more effective as American Ambassadors than the professionals, but I could probably count them on the fingers of one hand. Most of the 30-35 percent of US political appointee Ambassadors are business people, lawyers or defeated politicians who buy their positions outright regardless of party in power. You can be sure those Ambassadorships are in Embassies that are in particularly nice places, too. The larger the campaign contribution – now often obtained through bundling the money of others thanks to a quirk in the campaign finance law – or bigger the political IOU, the larger the Embassy and the plusher the residence.
Damage Control
There’s no way in you-know-where that 99 percent of these newly minted Ambassadors can begin to oversee even the smallest Embassy in the tiniest country or effectively represent US interests abroad. The State Department, therefore, assigns careerists to mop up after them, run interference with host country officials and fill in during a political Ambo’s often lengthy absences when said individual is back in the States tending to his or her own private affairs.
Like, for instance, US political appointee Ambassador to Switzerland Pamela Willeford’s Texas quail hunting expedition with Dick "Pepper" Cheney when he shot his friend in the face with buckshot in February 2006. Why wasn’t she in Bern where she was supposed to be working? Or how about the absence of Robert Strauss, the new political appointee Ambassador to the Soviet Union when the coup against Gorbachev took place in 1991? If I remember correctly, Strauss, a lawyer and prominent Democrat who had just been sent to Moscow by GHW Bush despite his party affiliation to replace career Soviet-hand Jack Matlock, had already returned to the US to tend to his own business affairs. Rumor had it that Strauss didn’t like Moscow – or maybe his wife didn’t. Whatever, he was over his head, out of his depth and didn’t belong there.
His Moscow absence during those three fateful days in August turned out to be fortuitous: James Collins, his career deputy and later Ambassador to the Russian Federation himself and the competent Embassy staff in place at the time couldn’t have handled the crisis better. The last thing they needed was a political neophyte overlord around while attempting to figure out what was happening in a country that was literally spinning apart.
The assignment of talented career officers like Collins as “deputy ambassadors” or deputy chiefs of mission is the traditional way the State Department contains and deflects damage done to relations with host countries by clueless political appointee “chiefs of mission” while simultaneously seeing that Embassies are managed properly, finances are in order and staff perform what needs to be done on a daily basis.
Or this latter was the case, at least, before the appointment of the apparently scurrilous “Cookie” Howard Krongard as the State Department’s current Inspector General. After his Foggy Bottom arrival, abiding by the law seems to have flown out the State Department’s seventh floor window and landed in the muck of the nearby Potomac.
In a recent post on Avuncular American, Jerry Loftus, another retired Foreign Service Officer, explains why he finally threw in the towel five years ago and added “ex” to the FSO initials – or as he says, "left the priesthood" in 2002 – after 24 years.
He had finally had it with a Bush administration “Pioneer” who was appointed US Ambassador to Luxembourg after he, Jerry, had run the Embassy well for 18 months before this personal manifestation of W’s campaign chest arrived on the scene. Actually, State’s mistake was not immediately assigning Loftus elsewhere – it’s very difficult to step down from a job you’ve performed well and move into someone else’s housekeeping department even if your replacement is competent. If they’re a blithering idiot spewing an ill-begotten ideology based on downright falsehoods – as apparently happened in Luxembourg in 2002 – there are only so many evening events featuring rolled eyeballs and snickers from guests that one can take before heading for the hills, or in Jerry’s case, retirement to Brussels.
Now I realize career Ambassadors are not all perfect – just read Brady Kiesling’s description of Tom Miller, a particularly egregious careerist Brady was subjected to in Athens, Greece, for example. Overall, however, the Millers of the service tend to be the exception rather than the rule.
America’s Persona
It seems to me then that the practice of appointing all too many spoils system political Ambassadors needs to come to a screeching halt if the US is to repair its tattered image, sponge off the eagle’s bedraggled tail-feathers and be taken seriously abroad again.
US Ambassadors are the persona of America in whatever country they serve. In my experience, the task of polishing the image of duds is inordinately trying and rarely, if ever, successful. At this stage in particular, the US has far too many serious image problems abroad without sending in yet another wave of the politically well-heeled but diplomatically incompetent to make matters worse.