The Foreign Service Journal, November 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2022 63 The task of the ambassador is not to establish rule over his rivals, but to build bonds of trust with the host-country elite. a perfectly informed decision. The problem of knowledge is compounded, as Machiavelli well understood, by the tendency of governments to veil their communications and decision- making. The able ambassador’s only choice in a situation characterized by ignorance is to spread the contact net as widely as possible, draw in every bit of information available, even the wildest rumors, and form a hypothesis that can be further tested about what might be happening on the basis of the information available and on the ambassador’s best instincts. The use of an embassy’s entire staff in the effort is essential. The new American ambassador or the inquiring American diplomat, curious about the intellectual foundations of his or her calling, may be tempted to turn first to international relations theory for an understanding of the relations among states. Or one might turn to think tank or war college strategists for a view of how they, as diplomats, relate to the other tools of statesman- ship: the economic policymaker, the military officer, and the spy. Or one might explore American diplomatic history to determine how our policymakers have addressed historic issues in U.S. for- eign relations. But all of these avenues converge in the thoughts and actions of the actual practitioners of diplomacy, and it is the experience and wisdom of the practitioners, like Machiavelli or Benjamin Franklin, any of the Adamses, or Henry Kissinger, that have the most to tell us. And because we practice such an ancient art, the words of Machiavelli seem as fresh to us now as they no doubt did to Ambassador Raffaello Girolami. n