The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2022

62 JULY-AUGUST 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The great Russian novels, a critic wrote, “added something to the nation’s knowledge of itself” and, during Tolstoy’s reign, were sources not just of pleasure but also “guidance and deliverance.” We should open War and Peace in this spirit, seeking an enlarged knowledge of our diplomatic profession. Thus, we can nod at our literary forebears, recognizing traits that still have purchase on the profession. We can shake our heads at the recurrent follies of the diplomatic corps. Above all, we should face Tolstoy’s insights and take to heart his les- sons, including in connection with Putin’s spetz operatsiya in Ukraine. Puns are not policy. Cleverness is not wisdom. Intuition can be a better compass than information. Humility in the face of complexity is a virtue. Time and patience, Kutuzov’s two strategic principles, should be cultivated. The craft of How is inferior to the quest for Why. Diplomatic Note No. 178 does not belong in an anthology, nor Talleyrand’s chair in a museum. Sometimes silence is the best response. St. Petersburg is not Moscow. Nor is it Borodino, nor the vast countryside. The capital (read: the Beltway) may be the room where it happens, but it is not the front line, the realm where it happens, where History really happens. And literature, especially a magnificent epic, is a marvelous teacher. It can offer guidance. Maybe even deliverance. n We should resist the temptation, out of wounded pride, to wave away the novel’s diplomats as shallow stereotypes.