The Foreign Service Journal, May 2022

72 MAY 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL and build a peace between the govern- ment and three rebel factions. Some things in the book, however, bear scrutiny. First, it may be overly infused with Vietnam, a quite different period with conditions that don’t exist in many places today. Second, there is often a blending of the local and national levels. With expe- ditionary diplomacy, Phillips is implying officers in the countryside; but many of the issues he raises about building national-level trust and support would be worked on by embassies in capitals. And third, there seems to be an assumption that the U.S. will always be the key player, when in many cases it simply may not be well placed to bring about the changes it seeks and others, notably the United Nations, could do it better. But when a persistent deficit has led to so many painful failures in so short a period, it is worth asking whether fixing the problem might be easier than fighting it or, even worse, denying it. Rufus Phillips’ gift on his way out was a blueprint for what fixing the problem could entail. We should debate it—and embrace much of it. And in our work, we should all be a bit more like Phillips, whom H.R. McMaster described as having “wisdom tempered by humility and empathy.” n Keith Mines is Director for Latin America at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He retired from government service in 2019 after a career that included military and diplomatic as- signments on the margins of nine conflicts. His book, Why Nation-Building Matters: Political Consolidation, Building Security Forces, and Economic Development in Failed and Fragile States (Potomac Books, 2020), recounts these experiences.