Diplomacy and America's Purpose in a Changing World

At this event, Outgoing United States Ambassador to the United Nations, the Hon. Zalmay Khalilzad and New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program Director Steve Clemons discussed the role of diplomacy in American foreign policy, as well as President Obama’s most likely foreign policy challenges.

Ambassador Khalilzad on the importance of respect in foreign policy:

“I believe it’s very important to show respect, to be respectful. Not to have the attitude that you have the answer for every problem in the world, but to engage people and see whether we agree that we have a problem, and see what are the alternative ways to deal with the problem, do they have a better option and why do they think that’s a better option. And I think the mere fact of engaging and listening gets them into your domain, because you’re talking about the problem.”

On the United States’ role at the United Nations:

“The US Ambassador in the age of the Blackberry, the word plenipotentiary is no longer a relevant concept, you know you try to negotiate and there are three or four people sending messages to assistant such-and-such and assistant to such-and-such, but a lot of other ambassadors are not like that. A lot of ambassadors are sent with a broad mandate, and if you have good relations with them, and you’ve listened to them, and you’ve gone to their national day, you’ve invited them to an event, or you have even called on them in their office, I think a lot of people were surprised I called on them… I thought that the UN would be a far more hostile place, there’s a great yearning there for US involvement and leadership.”

On Afghanistan:

“I believe that success in Afghanistan will not be achieved in any reasonable time frame without the Afghan government doing its part. That is, institutions of the state acting increasingly effectively -- it can’t go from nonexistent to functioning overnight, but the trajectory is important to keep giving people confidence. I went to Afghanistan and found a great deal of enthusiasm and excitement about the future, and that made my job so easy, because when I sat across the table from people who were causing trouble I had not only the authority of the United States, which was quite credible at that time…but also they knew that I had the people of Afghanistan…now we see a problem of a legitimacy of change, because of the corruption, because of the institutions…there are so many that are doing worse than they were just a little ago, so any strategy going forward has to have three components. What is it that we’re going to do to adjust? What is [delete “it”] the Afghan government’s responsibility, and how this is going to happen, not just theoretically? And three, the regional dimension, specifically Pakistan. We need to move on all three.”

Participants

featured speaker
Zalmay Khalilzad
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan
Former U.S Ambassador to Iraq

moderator
Steve Clemons
Director, American Strategy Program
New America Foundation
Publisher, TheWashingtonNote.com