Earlier this week, Alex linked to a blog-post by Tyler Cowen on why diplomacy is a “a stressful and unrewarding profession.” I’m afraid I found much of the post a bit silly.
Diplomats, we learn, work with “little hope for job advancement, serving many constituencies, and having little ability to control events.” The same is presumably true of a lot of plumbers, dog-walkers and Anglican bishops. Tyler observes that diplomats suffer from a “false feeling of power” because their authority is “borrowed power from one’s country of origin rather than from one’s personal achievements.” Well, yes, welcome to the nature of existence in modern bureaucratic society. A car salesman would be lost without car-makers. A best-selling author requires the framework of editors, PR folk and Amazon to advance their personal achievements.
But Tyler does capture a real complaint about the life of the modern diplomat. Whereas ambassadors of yesteryear enjoyed a lot of autonomy, the current generation are dependent on their capitals and struggle to influence decisions at home. Our Person in X is at the mercy of turf wars back home between junior officials. Now, individual ambassadors can hardly make up their own policies on climate change. But there are still times and places where old-fashioned diplomacy is required.
I’m thinking, as I often do, of the nastier backwaters of the globe – places where old-fashioned conflicts bubble away, and you need personal political contacts if you want to affect the bubbling. In a paper published in July, Bruce Jones and I argued that the UN and other international organizations have lost sight of the political dimensions of conflict, relying instead on the placebos (or pabulum) of semi-scientific conflict indicators. The same is sadly true of a lot of diplomatic services today.
In a significant new report for RUSI Richard Teuten and GD alumnus Daniel Korski argue that its time to tilt the balance of British diplomacy back towards the guys on the ground, at least in conflict zones:
The report suggests developing the function of the National Security Council (NSC) to take on a stronger coordinating role, with British ambassadors taking the responsibility as the ‘whole-of-government’ representative in-country. They propose the systematic development of a more robust supply of civilians and military officers ready to work together in hostile environments, including closer integration of civilian-military personnel and assets, with structured career incentives to encourage collaborative, cross departmental work.
Amen to that! I have questions: in a lot of cases, the real challenge is not just joining up UK initiatives towards a country at risk, but combining everything on offer from the EU, UN, World Bank, etc. Daniel and I have previously argued in favor of shifting greater responsibility to the EU’s people in the field to do just that. But aren’t we swimming against the tide of history? Diplomatic services, not least the UK’s, are going to keep on getting cut left, right and center in the name of austerity in the next few years. Next time we have to deploy a bunch of over-educated but ill-prepared interns to some failed state that we’ve ignored for years, don’t blame Korski or Gowan.
NB: you can see Teuten and Korski live at RUSI in London on 24 September. Register here!
