The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2020

38 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL example. I also began to understand the sometimes-frustrating limits to diplomacy, particularly when all the U.N.’s five perma- nent members do not agree. When back in London in the early 2000s, I was private sec- retary (deputy chief of staff) to two Foreign Secretaries—Robin Cook and Jack Straw. I was one of the officials in the back of the room in their regular meetings with their U.S. counterparts, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell. And I was the guy who often took the records of their multiple phone calls at all hours of the day. As a relatively inexperienced British foreign service offi- cer, I don’t think I understood until that point just how extensive our cooperation was with the United States across all the main global issues, and just how important personal relationships at every level were to our work together. When I met Colin Powell again in Washington in 2013, it felt remarkably familiar even though it had been 10 years since I was listening in to his calls with Jack Straw in the run-up to the second Iraq War. I developed huge respect for the “behind the scenes” professionals of the State Department Operations Cen- ter, too. I spoke to them on a regular basis to set up calls between our Secretaries of State or to track down senior U.S. officials to discuss the agendas or logistics for meetings. They seemed to be able to fix anything at any time of day. It was a model the Foreign and Commonwealth Office soon worked to replicate in its Global Response Centre, albeit on a smaller scale. As deputy head of mission (DHM) in Poland in the mid- 2000s, I worked closely with my U.S. opposite number. We routinely shared analysis of the country as it grappled with post- communist transition, joined the European Union and began to dabble with the kind of populism we now see gaining strength in many Western countries. I have no doubt that the advice I sent back to London was better as a result of this cooperation. But more than that, the U.S. deputy chief of mission and I also shared our experiences of how we tackled many of those “DHM head- aches” of running an embassy, including working within the constraints of obscure local laws and finding yet more “efficien- cies” in the operation of our missions. We joked at times about our “mutual therapy” sessions. Tackling shared global challenges is, of course, front and cen- ter of the work Brits and Americans do together. But the relation- ship is much more than that. A wider sharing of best practices and supporting each other was a key part of my experience of working with U.S. diplomats throughout my career. This col- laboration, born out of the depth of the relationship and mutual trust, helped to make our diplomatic services more effective and, ultimately, made us all better diplomats. In my last London-based role before moving to the United States to be deputy ambassador in 2013, I traveled regularly to Washington, D.C., as head of the Foreign Office’s Near East Department to coordinate the international response to the unfolding crisis in Syria. In partnership with the United States, we were trying to work out how to bind Russia into a peace pro- cess to stop the fighting. And we spent many hours constructing sanctions that might garner enough international support to be widely implemented and therefore increase the pressure on the Syrian government to come to the negotiating table. We weren’t successful: Russia instead chose to step in and prop up the Assad regime. But the experience reinforced my view of the United States as a huge force for good in the world; even if it doesn’t always get it right, its diplomats play a leading role in trying to make the world a better place by plugging away at the most intractable global problems. Differences and Challenges The only time in my career when I didn’t work routinely with American diplomats was while posted to Iran in 2009-2010. The United States, understandably, had not had a presence in Tehran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the ensuing hostage cri- sis that had the world on tenterhooks for more than a year until the American hostages were released in January 1981. But being in Tehran did not stop coordination altogether. I simply shared my experiences and insights with American colleagues whenever I traveled outside the country, to help ensure our closest ally had an accurate picture of developments inside Iran. There was an insatiable appetite for information in Washington, particularly as Green Movement protesters turned out in the tens of thousands to demonstrate against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s stolen re-election in 2009 and were violently suppressed by a brutal regime. My last posting in Washington, D.C., took working with the United States to another level. Like everyone in the embassy, I engaged with U.S. colleagues across the whole administration Tackling shared global challenges is, of course, front and center of the work Brits and Americans do together.