The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2019

12 JULY-AUGUST 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL international community has doggedly pursued political solutions that prove ephemeral because those holding guns have little interest in peace. By default, peacekeepers are then forced to remain indefinitely—with steadily diminishing effectiveness. The lesson is not that peacekeeping does not work, but rather that it cannot work alone. Larry Wohlers Ambassador, retired Amissville, Virginia Identity We read with interest the article written by self-identified Indian-American FSO Sandya Das about “navigating the rocky waters of ethnic and gender identity” in the May issue of FSJ , and congratulate Ms. Das for arranging a meeting between a group of Americans and the Dalai Lama. Nevertheless, we were dismayed to read that when the holy man asked Ms. Das where she was from, she first responded, “California,” before changing her response to “Kerala, India” after the Dalai Lama repeated his question another way: “No, where are you really from?” Ms. Das is really an American Foreign Service officer fromCalifornia. We’re not hyphenated Americans when we’re over- seas representing the United States; all of us are Americans, and proud of it. Identity politics has no place in the U.S. Foreign Service. Guy W. Farmer & Fred LaSor USIA FSOs, retired Carson City & Minden, Nevada CORRECTION The June letter “Speaking of Father-Son Ambassadorships” is from Ambassador (ret.) Jack Binns of Tucson, Arizona—not John Treacy (who had a letter in May). We apologize to both for the mix-up. n appear to be the cause of the problem. What Mali, CAR and the DRC do have in common is violence with regional dimen- sion. All have long, inaccessible borders they cannot afford to adequately defend—and across which flow guns and fighters, often sup- ported by external actors prepared to profit from the illicit trafficking that ensues. The origins of instability in these coun- tries are complex, and its drivers are con- stantly evolving. Like a virus, uncontrolled violence constantly sucks in new parties and grievances until the nature of the conflict barely resembles its original shape and form. Under such circumstances, it is just as unrealistic to expect states to simply fix themselves as it is to believe that an external peacekeeping force will be a magic bullet. Truly failed states cannot begin to recover without security on the ground; and a failed state, especially one with assets others covet,cannot provide that, even if its leaders have the best intentions. That peacekeepers cannot be a defini- tive solution does not mean they should not be a part of the mix. By placing a tem- porary, albeit imperfect, lid on the level of violence, peacekeepers ideally create breathing space that enables others to act. That, in turn, requires an unvarnished view of the challenges. Too often, the