The Foreign Service Journal, October 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2022 15 and will shape our future.” The strategy has four objectives. First, U.S. policy will seek to foster open societies by working with African governments, civil society, and publics to increase transparency and account- ability, expose corruption, and support reforms. The U.S. also pledged to assist African countries in more transparently leveraging their natural resources for sustainable development while helping to strengthen supply chains. Second, the U.S. will work with African partners to deliver democratic and secu- rity dividends. According to the polling organization Afrobarometer, more than 70 percent reject military rule and more than 80 percent reject one-man rule. By working with regional partners to respond to democratic backsliding and human rights abuses, the U.S. will seek to stem the recent tide of authoritarianism and military takeovers, and will leverage its development programs to enable part- ners to respond to the drivers of conflict across the region. Third, Blinken said the U.S. and sub- Saharan nations will “work together to recover from the devastation wrought by COVID-19 and lay the foundation for sustainable economic opportunity.” The U.S. will further pursue programs to bolster global health security. At the same time, the U.S. will partner with African countries to rebuild the human capital and food systems that were weak- ened by the pandemic and fallout from Russia’s war against Ukraine. Fourth, the U.S. pledged to support Africa’s efforts to conserve and restore the continent’s ecosystems, rich natural resources, and biodiversity. Although the region is responsible for extremely low emissions per capita, it stands to suffer from some of the worst effects of climate change, the strategy paper notes. “We recognize this imbalance places a greater responsibility on countries like the United States to reduce our own emissions but also to help other coun- tries make the transition to clean energy and adapt to a changing climate,” the Secretary said. As home to 17 of the world’s 20 most climate-vulnerable countries, a signifi- cant amount of the U.S. aid discussed by President Joe Biden at the U.N. Climate Change Conference last year, or COP26, will go to sub-Saharan Africa. In closing, Blinken said that every one of the priorities he has laid out “was champi- oned by Africans first. …And today, to the Diplomacy remains a contact sport, so there are things that can’t be done or cannot be done effectively remotely. How do we mix those two im- peratives, being able to work remotely, but then also being present—not only in the moment, but to build the kind of rapport that allows us to then go to our interlocutors, whether they’re here in the U.S. or overseas, when it’s time for the hard asks, or the need to really collaborate in a creative way? —Director General of the Foreign Service Marcia Bernicat in an Aug. 18 interview with Federal News Network. Contemporary Quote T he practicing diplomat must have a profound knowl- edge of history, not just of diplomatic history but history in the broadest sense, of his own country and of the world. …Only out of the past can you have a full understanding of the present. The most striking example in my own experience was Russia, because no one can hope to understand Russia who doesn’t appreciate the fact that the beginning of constitu- tional government in theWest, with the granting of the Magna Carta in the early 13th century, roughly coincided with the Mongol-Tatar conquest of the fledgling Russian state and the occupation and the despoliation of the Russian lands by these invaders over the next three centuries. The isolation of the Russians from the world thereafter under these Tatar Khans and a succession of Tatar-influ- enced tsars … goes far to explain to the Foreign Service officer Russian mental- ity and prejudices, and the difference in views between the Russian and himself. The greatest mistake you can make is to think that this civilization or this country started 50 years ago. —Career Ambassador (ret.) Foy D. Kohler, who served as ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1962 to 1966, in an article of the same name in the October 1972 FSJ . 50 Years Ago History and the Diplomat