The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2014

28 JULY-AUGUST 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL pean integration. Ambas- sador Jim Dobbins’ rich reports from Brussels were always a must-read. Eastern Europe Trans- forms, 1989. This was the most eventful year of my career, as the East Euro- pean communist regimes began to topple starting with Poland, followed by Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Ger- many and, finally, Romania in December. In what seemed like a breathless sweep, the Warsaw Pact was history! A steady flow of useful diplomatic reporting, exceptional interagency collaboration and effective leadership from the White House—along with the refusal of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to resort to violence—minimized the risks dur- ing this rapid transformation of postwar Europe. Countless diplomatic reports contributed to this triumph for U.S. policy. I would single out Ambassador Mark Palmer in Hungary as emblematic of the best. 1990-1995: Yugoslavia Breaks Up and the Bosnians Go to War. After the collapse of communist regimes and the implosion of the Soviet Union, there was little appetite in the final years of the Bush 41 administration or in the first years of the Clinton presidency to intervene in the Balkans’ toxic eth- nic brawl. I saw firsthand how a steady stream of informative and insightful diplomatic reports educated policymakers on the complex issues, political minefields and increasing risks to broader regional stability of persistent volatility and ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia. I particularly recall Ambassador Warren Zimmerman’s thoughtful contributions to the U.S. policy debate on Yugosla- via and his willingness to engage intelligence analysts directly. On Bosnia, Dick Holbrooke assembled a team of workhorses, including Bob Frasure, Chris Hill, Jim Pardew, Nelson Drew and Joe Kruzel, who were especially skilled at reporting rapidly changing developments to Washington decision-makers. They were among the many talented diplomats and policymakers who helped bring about an end to the Bosnian conflict. China Rises, early 1990s. Government analysts, like diplomats, do not always come out of the gate with the right answer. But they play great catch-up ball! In the early 1990s, I remember mixed views on the impact of Deng Xiaoping’s measured opening of China to the outside world. How would this vast country of a billion people maintain its territorial integrity, internal stability, centralized authoritarian rule and robust economic growth against the stresses that would come with integration into the global economy? How would its military modernization programs affect stability in Asia? Focused, balanced and forward-looking diplomatic report- ing, in my view, has helped Washington to understand both the challenges and the opportunities in China’s rapid rise. The Sino-American relationship has a complex future with varying shades of partnership, competition and rivalry—but hopefully not violent conflict. A Year of Crises, 1998. The U.S. agenda was upended as India conducted a nuclear test in May, and Pakistan followed quickly; al-Qaida attacked our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in August; a global financial crisis that started in Thailand swept through East Asia, provoking serious economic and political turmoil in Indonesia, and eventually walloping President Boris Yeltsin’s Russia; North Korea tried unsuccess- fully to launch a satellite; and Saddam Hussein booted United Nations arms inspectors out of Iraq. Foreign Service reporting reduced the uncertainty associ- ated with all these overlapping events, and enabled policy- makers to scale appropriate responses. It helped them to get a hold on Yeltsin’s erratic behavior during an unstable period in the region. It educated U.S. government agencies to the grow- ing threat from al-Qaida terrorists. It shed light on the domes- tic and regional political implications of the global financial crisis, even though it was a mighty struggle for all of us to get ahead of this fast-moving curve. Three Revolutions All of these episodes occurred against the background of historic geopolitical and technological change that dra- matically affected reporting from the field. Three distinct yet intersecting revolutions took root in the early 1980s as closed societies began to open up, as both the volume and velocity of information flows increased exponentially with the advent of the Internet, and as the distinction blurred between foreign and domestic threats in a borderless world and in cyberspace. The first revolution was geopolitical . It swept away the Soviet Union, propelled the rise of China and forced both During the rapid transformation of postwar Europe in 1989, countless diplomatic reports contributed to this triumph for U.S. policy.