The Foreign Service Journal, March 2006

about and manage all that happens on their territory. Iraq and Afghanistan are prime examples of key countries in which this model does not work. But even before the war in Iraq, the traditional approach had begun to come under scrutiny. The Canadian government, for exam- ple, has come to the realization that many of its core interests with the United States cannot be successfully managed through Washington alone because of the diffusion of power in the American political and judicial systems. Canada has initiated a major push to establish small consulates throughout the U.S. to promote its interests from the bottom up, starting with states that are involved in water and key trade issues. Some Canadian officials even speak of the need to have a presence in all 50 states. The case for a new architecture to manage our nation- al interest is being made by others as well. In what he refers to as the “post-Westphalian world,” security policy analyst Sebestyen Gorka suggests that “for centuries the tools of national security matched the threat. Today the threats operate in a milieu that is transnational and not limited by the shell of nation-state architecture. The foe moves in a world that is unrestricted by international con- vention, by physical borders, or the dictates of govern- ment. Yet the members of the transatlantic community that won the Cold War inherited a toolbox to provide for security that has not changed and which is very much still bound to the architecture of the Westphalian nation-state.” Gorka envisions more flexible and inte- grated intelligence, law enforcement, and diplomatic and counterterrorism institutions, all placed where they are needed as opposed to where they have always been. The Idea of Micro-Posts Such a horizontal model for diplomacy — as opposed to a verti- cal one — has similarly been sug- gested by a number of senior U.S. policy-makers and analysts, includ- ing, most recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. While serving as U.S. envoy to Moscow, Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering traveled extensively throughout the Russian Federation. The vastness of the country left him sobered, especially considering that he was attempt- ing to gather information and represent U.S. interests from the embassy in Moscow and the consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinberg and Vladivostok. Amb. Pickering was determined to expand the U.S. presence in Russia through the establishment of micro- posts — consulates with two or three American officials who could explain U.S. policies, coordinate with local officials and civic groups, collect information and provide a platform for U.S. programs. He was especially inter- ested in filling in the gaps in the vast, remote corners of Russia, where local developments were having an impact on national developments and policies but the United States was flying blind. He explored the idea further while serving as under secretary for political affairs during the mid-1990s, but always came up against the centralizing tendencies of the foreign affairs bureaucracy and the reality of cost and security concerns. Several new posts were established in France through the initiative of Ambassador Felix Rohatyn, but not, presumably, on the scale Pickering envisioned. If anything, in the wake of the Dar es Salaam and Nairobi bombings, the drive was to further consoli- date our overseas presence. Some senior officials believed the U.S. could get by with regional embassies in Africa: as the Brazil desk officer in the mid-1990s, I was asked to justify why the U.S. needed consulates in both Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro — an astounding question, given the size and activity of these key posts. Another push for micro-posts came from Hoover Institution Fellow and former NEA Deputy Assistant Secretary Charles Hill in an interview with the Hoover Institution Newsletter (Fall 2004). Focusing on the lack of good information about the pre-9/11 terrorist threat, he suggested that “opening small, inexpensive three-to- F O C U S M A R C H 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 51 Keith Mines joined the Foreign Service in 1992. He has served in Tel Aviv, San Salvador, Port-au-Prince, Budapest and Washington (Brazil desk), and done tem- porary duty in Mogadishu, Kabul and the Al Anbar province of Iraq. He was the 2004 winner of AFSA’s William R. Rivkin Award for constructive dissent by a mid-level FSO for his May 2003 Dissent Channel mes- sage, “Let the U.N. Manage the Political Transition in Iraq.” Even before the experience in Iraq, the traditional approach had begun to come under scrutiny.