Skip to main content

Diplomacy as Risk Management

April 2018

Remarks to the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs
by Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)

Jazz Ambassadors

April 2018

The United Nations designates April 30 as International Jazz Day in order to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe. The U.S. has used jazz in diplomacy since the 1950s, when the U.S. Information Agency created the Jazz Ambassadors program to send leading American Jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington to perform overseas. An exhibit commemorating this program, created by Meridian International Center, is now on view at the U.S. Diplomacy Center in Washington, DC.

Diplomacy on the Rocks

March 2018

by Ambassador (ret.) Barbara K. Bodine At Minneapolis Council on Foreign Relations Minneapolis, MN November 21, 2017 The News You Have Not Heard On my way here I heard a news report that the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman … Read more

The Voice of America and Public Diplomacy

December 2017

by Hans N. Tuch Currently there is no  institutional functional or operational relationship between the  Department of State and the Voice of America, a relationship that  served  the successful conduct of U.S. public diplomacy for many years—from the early 1950s … Read more

The General & the Ambassador A Conversation

December 2017

    Our aim is to have Americans see how important it is that the United States be present on the global stage.  We hope the series encourages people to join public service to represent our great nation abroad in … Read more

American Diplomacy Spoken Word Links—September/October 2017

October 2017

“US-ROK Strategic Forum 2017” On September 5, 2017, the Center for Strategic and International Studies hosted the US-Republic of Korea (ROK) Strategic Forum 2017, to discuss and analyze the key issues facing the alliance. Speakers included Michael Green, Richard Armitage, … Read more

Why Diplomacy

October 2017

Why Diplomacy American Academy of Diplomacy by Ronald E. Neumann http://www.peoriamagazines.com/ibi/2017/jun/why-diplomacy Permission to reprint courtesy of Ms. Kristin McHugh, Executive Director and It’s essential to the successful pursuit of national security, foreign policy and economic goals. Why should Americans pay … Read more

American Diplomacy Links—March/April 2017

September 2017

“The Twilight of the Liberal World Order” In recent years, the liberal world order that has held sway over international affairs for the past seven decades has been fragmenting under the pressure of systemic economic stresses, growing tribalism and nationalism, … Read more

Applying Diplomacy

April 2017

by William Harrop When I arrived as Chief of Mission to the Republic of Guinea in May 1975, Sekou Touré, the father of “African Socialism”, had been president for 17 years. He had founded a repressive Communist dictatorship. Guinea was … Read more

American Diplomacy Links—January/February 2017

January 2017

  “Confirming Team Trump: Tillerson and Mattis Face Changing Global Dangers” No president, says the author, has faced the welter of challenges awaiting Donald Trump on January 20: “the simultaneous unraveling of the U.S.-led world order; loss of confidence among … Read more

Moon Rocks at Home

January 2017

by Robert Baker In 1976, I requested from NASA a special collection of three moon rocks. NASA had offered to send them to U.S. Embassies for public exhibition for one month in each foreign country. I hand carried them all … Read more

Making Peace in Syria: Economic Diplomacy

January 2017

by Abdallah Al Dardari Aleppo is a landmark in the Syrian conflict and has become the strongest signal of the failure of the western approach to diplomacy and other means of influence to end the conflict. This failure calls for … Read more

American Diplomacy Links—October 2016

October 2016

“Does Trump’s Rise Mean Liberalism’s End?” The “Liberal Story” says that if we liberalize and globalize our political and economic systems, we will produce paradise on earth, or at least peace and prosperity for all. This is the paradigm that … Read more

Beyond Benghazi: U.S. Public Diplomacy in Troubled Times

October 2016

  http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2013/0912/ca/pickering_beyond.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6Yy8Qc_KbU Interview: Ambassador Thomas Pickering at George Washington University  12/2013 Intro: Despite a VERY rough transcript, this interview with one of the State Department’s greats is well worth the slog. Better yet, listen to the audio. Thomas Pickering … Read more

Notes for American Diplomacy on Civil-Military Relations

October 2016

by David C. Litt POLAD: A Global Warrior-Diplomat I served as the State Department’s Political Advisor (POLAD) to two US military combatant commands during a watershed moment of the post-Cold War era: 1998-2004. To make these political-military assignments even more … Read more