Introduction American Diplomacy

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 6 (2011) 231-234 brill.nl/hjd

This collection of articles on American diplomacy has its origins in the travails of the United States’ foreign and military policy during the administration of George W. Bush (hereafter the Bush administration). As the special issue’s editors, we organized two panels at International Studies Association conventions in San Francisco in 2008 and New York in 2009, together with a panel for a conference on diplomacy at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingen- dael’ in The Hague in 2009. From the start, we sought a combination of academic experts and practitioners, all of whom were asked to reflect on the place of diplomacy in the Bush administration’s conduct of its foreign policy, as well as the United States’ long-running difficult relationship with diplomacy and efforts to reform it, and to suggest what the future might hold for American diplomacy. The project received a huge boost, however, from the emergence of diplomacy as a key issue separating parties and candidates during the US presidential cam- paign of 2007-2008, and the commitment of the incoming Obama administration to reviving and reforming the American diplomacy after what it regarded as years of neglect. The result was a stream of developments that forced our authors to keep requesting opportunities to update their work. In this regard, the revela- tions about American diplomatic practice from WikiLeaks were merely the cherry on the sundae, and, as editors, we are well aware that the essays had to be put to bed with many of the stories covered by them far from played out. The collection begins with two essays that set the scene and establish some of the basic themes that surface in any discussion of American diplomacy. Geoffrey Wiseman1 identifies seven characteristics of American diplomacy whose sources are to be found in the United States’ historical experience and political culture. He argues that these characteristics have made the United States less effective at diplomacy than it might otherwise have been and that the United States’ changing international circumstances require a re-evaluation of its orientation towards diplomacy.

1) Geoffrey Wiseman, ‘Distinctive Characteristics of American Diplomacy’,The Hague Journal of Diplo- macy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 235-259, this issue.

David Clinton2 examines the American tendency to elide the ideas of diplomacy and foreign policy by revisiting the international thought of George Kennan and Nicholas Murray Butler. Like Harold Nicolson, Kennan noted the dangers of refusing to give diplomacy its due in terms of its own codes and requirements. Butler, in contrast, seized hold of the other end of the stick. If international politics are to be made more peaceful like domestic politics, then the narrow, national interest-based grounds on which most diplomatists proceed are just one of the constraints from which they must be freed. The collection’s focus then shifts to how others see American diplomacy and diplomats. CHEN Zhimin3 notes how important it is to the Chinese that they are treated with respect and that their positions are taken seriously by their American interlocutors. In this regard, he notes the Bush administration’s success and Chi- na’s early concerns regarding a possible revived focus on human rights by US President Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Michael Smith4 revisits longstanding differences between the ‘warrior state’ image of the United States and the ‘trader state’ image of the European Union. He identifies three areas of interaction: bilateral special relationships; transatlantic governance issues; and matters of world order diplomacy. Smith concludes that those who want the hybrid characteristics and ambiguities of contemporary transatlantic relations to be tidied and resolved are likely to be disappointed for the foreseeable future. Karin Esposito and S. Alaeddin Vahid Gharavi 5 examine the theory and practice of ‘transformational diplomacy’, which originated in the United States, only from a recipient’s or target’s perspective — in this case Iran. They argue that transformational diplomacy is experienced not as an attempt to induce a country to conform its internal arrangements with universal values, but with another country’s foreign policy preferences, in this case those of the United States. Transfor- mational diplomacy should therefore, they argue, be understood in terms of continuity rather than innovation, coercion rather than persuasion. Continuity is also a theme of David Bosco’s 6 treatment of American diplomacy at the United Nations (UN). Bush’s diplomacy at the UN was never as unilateral and dismissive

2) David Clinton, ‘The Distinction between Foreign Policy and Diplomacy in American International Thought and Practice’,The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 261-276, this issue. 3) CHEN Zhimin, ‘US Diplomacy and Diplomats: A Chinese View’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 277-297, this issue. 4) Michael Smith, ‘European Responses to US Diplomacy: ‘Special Relationships’, Transatlantic Gover- nance and World Order’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 299-317, this issue. 5) Karin Esposito and S. Alaeddin Vahid. Gharavi, ‘Transformational Diplomacy: US Tactics for Change in the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2004-2006’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 319-334, this issue. 6) David Bosco, ‘Course Corrections: The Obama Administration at the United Nations’,The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 335-349, this issue.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 07:20:50AM via free access Introduction / The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 6 (2011) 231-234 233 of the institution as his critics and supporters alike maintained; nor has Obama’s approach been as soft and self-effacing as his critics and supporters maintain. Change has largely taken place at the level of atmospherics and style rather than strategy and substance. If the United States’ international position is changing with important impli- cations for how the nation conducts its diplomacy, it is also important to remem- ber that the very character of international relations may be changing too. As Bruce Gregory 7 argues, this latter development is no more clearly evidenced than by the rise of public diplomacy. The United States has long been an enthusiast for public diplomacy, but its efforts have been constrained by episodic attention, zealous application and domestic distortion. American diplomacy will have to develop a stronger culture of understanding, a more effective use of social media, and a more welcoming approach to the involvement of multiple and new actors if these constraints are to be overcome. We are provided with a snapshot of the world to which Gregory refers, and in which American diplomacy has to operate, by James Der Derian’s 8 reflections on his interactions as a filmmaker on diplomacy with a diplomat from the American Embassy in Berlin over German arguments about whether to rename a street after Ronald Reagan. The social world is not changing so much as our awareness of how it is all put together and reproduced. Diplomacies and diplomats who do not recognize this will be shunted to the side. Paul Sharp’s 9 article maintains the tone of cautious pessimism about whether the United States’ society and politics will allow it the sort of diplomacy that is required to cope with its relative decline in traditional balance-of-power terms and its diffusion in terms of evolving global political networks. The collection concludes with the reflections of three American practitioners on how the themes that have been identified by academics play out in the field of real life diplomacy. Chas Freeman10 recalls the architectonic role of US policy- makers and senior diplomats in creating the international institutions of the post- war era. The factionalism and hyper-pluralism of American politics have now soaked up to the highest levels of US government, he argues, making a US-led and inspired effort similar to that of the years following the Cold War all but impossible. Continuing partisanship at the highest levels of the American political system reinforces this pessimistic appraisal.

7) Bruce Gregory, ‘American Public Diplomacy: Enduring Characteristics, Elusive Transformation’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 351-372, this issue. 8) James Der Derian, ‘Quantum Diplomacy, German-American Relations, and the Psychogeography of Berlin’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 373-392, this issue. 9) Paul Sharp, ‘Obama, Clinton and the Diplomacy of Change’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 393-411, this issue. 10) Chas Freeman, ‘The Incapacitation of US Statecraft and Diplomacy ‘,The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 413-432, this issue.

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Thomas Hanson11 welcomes the new emphasis that is being placed on diplomacy by the Obama administration and reminds us how novel the willingness to recruit many new diplomats and to imagine a wider brief for them as the agents of civilian power actually is. Diplomacy’s elevation into a new trinity to join defence and development in US foreign policy is to be applauded, provided that it is not shot from the saddle by budgetary crises or costly failures abroad, which fuel the American public’s disenchantment with foreign affairs generally. If the revival and transformation of American diplomacy proves incomplete, however, it will not be from lack of effort on the part of its diplomats or their leaders. As Alec Ross’s 12 essay on the potentials of social media for affecting both good and bad developments demonstrates, the US State Department has a very clear picture of the new forces at work in international affairs and world politics. Whether its political leaders have the will or the time to imagine how America’s place in the emerging world will look, whether their constituencies will allow them to do so innovatively and whether US diplomats will maintain and develop the skills that are required in an interconnected world of mixed sovereignties are all big questions that this collection will help us think about more deeply.

Guest Editors Paul Sharp Co-Editor, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy; Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota Duluth, MN, USA [email protected]

and

Geoffrey Wiseman Professor of the Practice of International Relations, School of International Relations, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA [email protected]

11) Thomas Hanson, ‘The Traditions and Travails of Career Diplomacy in the United States’,The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 433-450, this issue. 12) Alec Ross, ‘Digital Diplomacy and US Foreign Policy’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 6, nos. 3-4, 2011, pp. 451-455, this issue.

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