The Foreign Service Journal, March 2006

50 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 6 F O C U S O N I R A Q A N D T H E F S A H ORIZONTAL M ODEL FOR T RANSFORMATIONAL D IPLOMACY n describing the contem- porary world, Thomas Friedman offers three images — sumo wrestlers, sprinters and a flat world. The Cold War world, Friedman suggests, was akin to two sumo wrestlers, each jostling for position until he could push his opponent out of the ring. The post-Cold War world was a series of sprints, where at the conclusion of each the runners quickly lined up and raced again. The “post- post–Cold War” world is simply flat, a “global, Web- enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration in real time without regard to geography, distance or language.” If there were any doubts that the world has indeed gotten flatter, the 9/11 attacks should have dispelled them. The fact that a demented Saudi jihadist living in the mountains of Afghanistan could pull together a net- work of educated terrorists, whose travels took them through Europe and into America where they mounted the most spectacular terrorist attack in history, speaks volumes about how global hierarchies are crumbling. The post-conflict realities in Iraq and Afghanistan have only sharpened the point. Stabilization and recon- struction operations in the context of weak and failing states appear increasingly to be the central foreign poli- cy challenge of the new, post-post–Cold War world. And this demands new thinking and new approaches to diplomacy — approaches that are invariably more “hor- izontal” than “vertical.” Two Models of Diplomacy Friedman’s message is a simple one, and it would seem to apply just as well to the business of diplomacy as it does to the business of business. To be successful, organizations must spread out, and it is the horizontal concerns, not the vertical, that own the future. Successful players in today’s world are those who are on site when something happens — able to influence events, report on them and immediately engage key players. And those who require engaging are no longer clustered in capitals. The latter point could be key. The core function of diplomacy has traditionally been to influence govern- ments — something that is done in capitals by embassies, largely through formal channels. Consulates in this model are an extension of embassies, and exist primarily to offer a geographic augmentation of the embassy’s reach in limited core functions. This organi- zational chart rests on the assumption, however, that all of a nation’s interests can be met by other central gov- ernments and that national governments are informed I T HE POST - POST –C OLD W AR W ORLD DEMANDS NEW THINKING AND NEW APPROACHES TO DIPLOMACY THAT ARE INVARIABLY MORE “ HORIZONTAL ” THAN “ VERTICAL .” B Y K EITH W. M INES