The Foreign Service Journal, April 2011

A P R I L 2 0 1 1 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 13 I n her December 2010 President’s Views column, “Thinking About the Unthinkable,” Susan Johnson focused on some important implica- tions for the future of the Foreign Service found in Joshua Cooper Ramo’s 2009 book, The Age of the Unthinkable. Her comments were particularly timely in regard to Ramo’s observation that American governmental and corporate institutions, including our diplomatic apparatus, are locked in an outdated vi- sion of the world. In his 2010 book, Magic and May- hem: The Delusions of American For- eign Policy from Korea to Afghanistan , Derek Leebaert goes a few steps fur- ther, illustrating how a pattern he calls “magical thinking” has warped Ameri- can foreign policy for many decades now. He points out that every govern- ment has its own illusions — its own magical thinking in which leaders and their advisers often suspend reality and overestimate their capabilities and re- sources. Our government’s traditional sys- tem of staffing senior positions with political appointees tends to lock in such illusions and can lead to a greater focus on immediate crises, at the ex- pense of developing strategies for ad- dressing longer-term problems. Typical of what such disconnects can produce is our current 30-year schism with Iran, founded on and re- inforced by each side’s myths and mis- perceptions about the other. (Ambass- ador John Limbert explores this phe- nomenon in his excellent 2009 book, Negotiating with Iran: Wrestling the Ghosts of History .) The Power of the Familiar Ramo and Leebaert concur that people tend to revert to what is most known to them through their personal experience, rather than relying on ab- stract arguments. In addition, most of us follow the leader in any hierarchy. As a result, contrary thinkers tend to be branded as eccentrics and marginal- ized. For many years now, Congress has formed special commissions to study the foreign policy process after major failures like the 9/11 attacks, while suc- cessive presidents and agency heads have charged blue-ribbon groups to make recommendations for improving cooperation and efficiency among competing factions. (The recently completed Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review is just the latest example of this approach.) In addition, countless think-tanks and nongovernmental organizations regu- larly issue studies full of ideas for ad- vancing our diplomatic objectives more effectively. Occasionally, an individual — the late Richard Holbrooke comes to mind —has such charisma that he or she can singlehandedly change perceptions and attitudes for the better, at least temporarily. But the usual fate of rec- ommendations for systemic change to an institution, however worthy, is sink- ing without a trace beneath the en- trenched bureaucracy that Ramo and Leebaert describe so well. Making matters worse, the re- sources that our foreign affairs agen- cies and the Foreign Service receive are woefully inadequate for keeping abreast of fast-breaking developments around the world. So Washington pol- icymakers continue to rely on old methods and outdated views of the role of diplomacy, rendering them ever less effective at reacting to crises — let alone foreseeing and defusing im- pending challenges. Just a few months ago, a young Tunisian’s self-immolation and the beating death of a young Egyptian by police triggered popular uprisings against dictatorial regimes that had long been allies of the United States. Out with the Old, In with the New B Y B RUCE K. B YERS S PEAKING O UT Washington policymakers continue to rely on old methods and outdated views of the role of diplomacy.