The Foreign Service Journal, June 2018

18 JUNE 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Two Ears, One Mouth, Two Hands: Diplomacy 101 BY JASON CR I SS HOWK Jason Criss Howk, a retired foreign area officer and major in the U.S. Army, served 23 years as a soldier (and at times a soldier-diplomat) in interagency, intergovernmental, multinational and nongovernmental organization arenas. He spent more than a decade working on Afghan and Pakistan issues, serving in the Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan and the International Secu- rity Assistance Force headquarters. He retired in 2015 and continues to write, speak and advise on current national security and foreign policy topics. These observations are his own and do not represent the views of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government. His new book is The Qur’an: A Chronological Modern English Interpretation (Old Stone Press, 2017). “W hat is the best advice for people who want to become diplomats?” a young adult in my college class asked the other day. Without hesitation, I shot out an answer: Listen . A diplomat’s job is first to under- stand, I explained, and then relay the situation from the country they are in. Understanding will allow them to know the limits of American policy aims and the boundaries for their host nation’s leaders. If diplomats use their senses in proportion to the quantity of their sensory organs they can more easily and effectively do their job. In a word: Listen twice as much as you speak, and com- municate what you know twice as well as you think you understand it. I write this article because, unfortu- nately for the world, too many diplo- mats fail to understand why the human body was designed as it is. They talk more than they listen, and that hurts our diplomatic efforts and the relationships between nations. Poor relationships between nations can often lead to the worst of human endeavors—war. Having lost many col- leagues to war and having seen the dead in the streets and the wounded in hospi- tals, I know the price of poor diplomacy. Some background is in order. I spent a few years engaged in the diplomatic and policymaking arena as an Army officer assigned to assist or handle U.S. and foreign senior leaders (e.g., gener- als and admirals, ambassadors, cabinet secretaries, lawmakers, vice presidents and even a few presidents, prime minis- ters and a king). I was often serving in a position that normally required someone of higher rank, so I was the most junior person in the room. That meant two things: First, I was the assumed if not delegated notetaker; and second, it was often for- gotten that I was in the room. Thus, as a proverbial fly on the wall, I observed diplomacy for many SPEAKING OUT years. I saw good diplomats and great diplomats; but too often I witnessed disgraceful attempts at diplomacy by actors pretending to be diplomats or senior leaders. I won’t name any names here, but I do want to discuss what I believe makes great diplomats success- ful and what traits poor diplomats have in common. Let’s start with the great diplomats and work our way back down the ladder to the things that should be avoided. The Greats Great diplomats listen closely to what all their foreign colleagues say. They work all day and night, turning every event into a useful diplomatic engage- ment—every meal of the day, cocktails, sports, sight-seeing and, of course, official meetings. They don’t just meet with people they like; they meet with all the key stake- holders on the most important national security issues, and they truly listen. A novice might accuse such diplomats of “going native”; but they are “native” only in their complete understanding of the country and region in which they operate. Further, they don’t just listen; they record. They take notes and every day summarize the notes into a format that is easily shared with others and that helps them to paint a clearer picture of the issues. They make sure that people know they are listening. Nothing gets