Elsewhere in this issue:

A former director general of the Foreign Service, Ambassador Anthony Quainton, issues a strong call of his own for greater recognition in the Presidential election campaign of the role of diplomacy in the conduct of U.S. relations abroad and the need for a strengthened U.S. Foreign Service. [Commentary on Current Issues]
What others are saying about 'The State of American Diplomacy':

Jane Perlez, in As Diplomacy Loses Luster, Young Stars Flee State Dept." The New York Times Sept. 10:
"...the State Department, the institution responsible for American diplomacy around the world, is finding it hard to adjust to an era in which financial markets pack more punch than a Washington-Moscow summit meeting. It is losing recruits to investment banks, dot-com companies and the Treasury and Commerce Departments, which have magnified their foreign policy roles."
[Read full article at NYTimes.com.]
Previous speakers at Warburg 2000 Conference:
(Spring 2000 issue)

• Prof Erik Jensen, on the objectives of the Warburg 2000 Conference

• Sir Kieran Prendergast , on U.S. and UN roles in collective security

• Elizabeth Pond , on Europe's 20th Century transformation

• Amb. Denis McLean, on sharing responsibility in wars of nationalism and separatism

• Amb. Frank Crigler, on U.S. interest in conflicts far from our shores

 
 

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American Diplomacy

Special Report:
The State of American Diplomacy

An important and disturbing independent research study by a key FSO finds that “as institutions, neither the Department of State nor the Foreign Service is ready to meet the challenges to American diplomacy foreseen between now and 2010.” She proposes some fundamental remedies. [FULL TEXT]

A penetrating analysis by a distinguished retired U.S. ambassador and a succinct set of guidelines for the next U.S. President. “The Department of State apparently does not intend to pursue [several] urgently needed reforms. It is critical that the next administration vigorously carry out the modernization of its diplomatic infrastructure.” [FULL TEXT]

Also in this issue:
Chaos in the Congo

An old 'Congo hand' and former assistant secretary of state, Ambassador Cohen observes that "in a continent that is lagging further and further behind the rest of the world in economic development, this latest tragedy makes one wonder how and when Africa will finally hit bottom and start moving upward again." [FULL TEXT]

A veteran political scientist probes the roots of the Congo's instability in more detail, but his findings are no less gloomy. “In a word, war is still very much present, and peace is still only a hope. . . . [Meanwhile] hundreds of thousands of internally displaced civilian Congolese suffer endless afflictions from hunger to rape to massacres.” [FULL TEXT]
 

Posse or Global Cop?
Warburg 2000 Conference on Collective Security, Part II

“Pakistan will be bleeding India and India will be teaching Pakistan lessons. It is easy to imagine new clashes, new incidents escalating.” [FULL TEXT]

“If Western diplomacy has a role to play it will have to be discreet and carefully considered, always bearing in mind that the governing rule of diplomats, like that of doctors, must be ‘first, do no harm.’" [FULL TEXT]

As in both Vietnam and El Salvador before, the author sees U.S. actions in Colombia as being intervention in a civil war, with a clear danger that America will find itself in yet another quagmire. [FULL TEXTS]
American Diplomacy                Vol. V, No. 3                Summer 2000
Copyright © 2000 American Diplomacy Publishers, Durham NC
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/amdipl_16
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