The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2023 17 TON GABROADCASTING The ceremonial flag raising at the new U.S. embassy in Tonga took place on May 10. reopening in the Solomon Islands in February. Additional U.S. embassies are planned for the Pacific island nations of Vanuatu and Kiribati, as is reopening of the U.S. embassy in the Seychelles after a 27-year absence, according to State Department press releases. A significantly cooler clime is also slated to host a new mission. On June 1, Secretary Blinken announced plans to open “an American presence post” in the Norwegian town of Tromsø, above the Arctic Circle, according to a press release from the U.S. embassy in Oslo. Blinken described the outpost as part of a strategy “to make sure that the Arctic remains an area of peaceful cooperation.” The post will open later this year and will be staffed with just one U.S. diplomat. The high north is becoming strate- gically more important as a shrinking ice cap opens up new sea lanes and attracts other nations seeking its natural resources, Reuters reported. Blinken’s announcement comes three weeks after Norway took over from Rus- sia the rotating chairpersonship of the Arctic Council, a forum created in 1996 to discuss issues affecting the polar region. It comprises the eight Arctic states: Rus- sia, the U.S., Canada, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and Denmark. Cooperation between the Western Arctic states and Moscow on the Arctic body has been frozen since the invasion of Ukraine. Former Diplomats Sign NYT Ad O n May 16, The New York Times ran an open letter appearing as a full- page advertisement signed by 14 former national security and military officials challenging the Biden administration’s Ukraine policy. Retired diplomats and State Department officials on the list: Ambassador (ret.) Jack Matlock, Matthew Hoh, Larry Wilkerson, and Ann Wright. Titled “The U.S. Should Be a Force for Peace in the World,” the ad urges Presi- dent Joe Biden and Congress “to end the war speedily” by “forging a diplomatic settlement.” The letter states: “The immediate cause of this disastrous war in Ukraine is Russia’s invasion. Yet the plans and actions to expand NATO to Russia’s bor- ders served to provoke Russian fears. And Russian leaders made this point for 30 years. A failure of diplomacy led to war. Now diplomacy is urgently needed to end the Russia-Ukraine War before it destroys Ukraine and endangers humanity.” It continues: “Why did the U.S. persist in expanding NATO despite such warn- ings? Profit from weapons sales was a major factor. Facing opposition to NATO expansion, a group of neoconserva- tives and top executives of U.S. weapons manufacturers formed the U.S. Commit- tee to Expand NATO.” Asked why the group chose to express its dissent through this medium, Hoh told the FSJ : “While there have been some opinion essays in the major media arguing for cease-fire and a negotiated solution to the conflict, arguments for a policy based on military victory have dominated in the U.S. Running the letter as an ad would allow us to reach readers that we would not have reached if we had published an op-ed on a platform in agreement with our views.” citizens of ally nations, Bloomberg wrote. According to Foreign Policy , the U.S. government has no plans to continue evacuation efforts even though hun- dreds of additional U.S. citizens and permanent residents who wish to leave remain stuck in Sudan. At least two American citizens were killed in the fighting, the White House confirmed on April 26. One victim was identified as Bushra Ibnauf Sulieman, a doctor and father of four helping to educate physicians in Sudan, who was stabbed to death by looters. The identity of the other victim has not been made public. An estimated 16,000 Americans— most of whom are dual U.S.-Sudanese citizens—remained in Sudan as of late April, according to National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby. In a May 10 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing evaluating options for a policy response to the conflict, lawmakers from both parties called for a special envoy to Sudan to elevate the issue. New Embassies, from Polynesia to the Arctic T he U.S. opened its newest embassy on May 9 with a ceremonial raising of the American flag in the Polynesian archipelago Kingdom of Tonga. Announced in July 2022 by Vice Presi- dent Kamala Harris, the intent to open the mission, as well as additional embas- sies in the region, is part of an effort to broaden the U.S. diplomatic footprint where China has sought to increase its influence in recent years. The embassy in the Tongan capital Nuku‘alofa—based on one of the nation’s 171 islands—is the second the State Department has opened in the Pacific islands this year, following the embassy