The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2006

of a small group set up in 1993 by George Soros to advise him how to spend $50 million in relief for Bosnia. I still vividly remember flying into Sarajevo on Jan. 5 of that year, amid shelling on a terribly cold day, to meet the Bosnian president and as many others as we could on that brief occa- sion. The group also included Mark Malloch Brown, nowU.N. deputy sec- retary general. On the plane ride home we agreed that the Western response to Bosnia was abysmal and the humanitarian effort was also insufficient. We hypothesized whether a private orga- nization could help stimulate a better Western response to preventing or containing conflict. In 1995, the ICG was established, and it has grown into a $14 million enterprise working in 30 countries. It tries to do three things: provide con- tinuing, on-the-ground analysis of con- flict or pre-conflict situations, offer prescriptions on how to deal with them and conduct advocacy to turn that prescription into public policy as best it can in those countries that have the resources to do something. Its reporting is sensational and, I suspect, in some cases far more useful than Foreign Service reporting. I am pleased to say [former Ambassador] Tom Pickering recently joined Chris Patten as co-chair of the organization. FSJ: In 1997, you left Carnegie and became acting president of the International Crisis Group. What did that involve? MIA: I was acting president of the organization for about six months. Our first president had suddenly died in Croatia, and my principal job was to find a new one. We have been lucky to have former Australian Foreign Minis- ter Gareth Evans as our current presi- dent. He is a force of nature. FSJ: What was next after you left the ICG in 1998? MIA: At that point I decided I really didn’t want to run any organiza- tions anymore or work full-time for anyone. [Still,] my wife and many oth- ers told me I made a serious mistake leaving Carnegie. Sometimes I agree. I also miss the money. For the last nine years I have been associated with The Century Founda- tion, where I have written or edited three books and spent a lot of time in both speech and word pontificating. FSJ: Tell us about your latest book, co-written with retired Ambassador Stephen Bosworth— Chasing the Sun: Rethinking East Asian Policy , just pub- lished by The Century Foundation. MIA: In some ways, that was a more difficult project than we imag- ined, but it was fun. Basically, Steve and I wanted to do a book that would provide a fresh, broad analysis of East Asia, what the U.S. was doing in the area and what it might do better. It is a rather unique effort to try to do all that in one brief book. FSJ: Early on in the book, you observe: “Concern about how others see us is mirrored in increasing Ameri- can self-criticism over the U.S. govern- ment’s failure to win support for its policies and calls for a more effective ‘public diplomacy.’ The problem, of course, often lies with the policies themselves.” Do you see any signs that Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes are addressing that point? MIA: I don’t follow that closely; but yes, I have the impression they are aware of the difficulties. FSJ: In a later chapter, you note that after 9/11, top American officials frequently proclaimed that they’d learned the lesson that “weak and fail- ing states can serve as breeding grounds for terrorism, as well as drugs and HIV/AIDS.” But you then go on to observe that in reality, the U.S. pays little or no attention to many weak and fragile states. “At most, Americans look at such states in a narrowly focus - ed, short-term context.” What can be done about that tendency? MIA: I’m not sure we can do much about it, unfortunately. We always end up having priorities, and there are just too many failed states around the world for us to fix them all —whatever we might say. Remember, “failed states breed terrorism.” Just look at what has happened now in Somalia, and recall all the rhetoric we once expended on it. How quickly we all forget. FSJ: Whenever you talk to bright young people today, college graduates, do you recommend the Foreign Service to them as a career? MIA: I don’t have many opportuni- ties presently to promote the Service, but I do so when I can. However, an FS career is not for everyone. There are serious problems of recruitment andmaintenance, of being able to mas- ter the increasing number of subjects that are now involved in foreign rela- tions, of tensions within the organiza- tion over fears of politicization. But the Foreign Service offers great oppor- tunities and challenges to work on great public issues, which are simply not available on the outside. FSJ: Any final thoughts, Amb. Abramowitz? MIA: No. I have talked too much. 38 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 6 “Chris Hill always used to say, ‘Mort never saw a city in the Balkans he didn’t want to become independent.’”