The world of high-stakes international diplomacy can be rough and tumble, but it's more often than not a procession of suits and summits, protocol sessions and photo ops.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Diplomacy is fundamentally working with people, bringing people together to deal with difficult issues.
I think it's fair to say that diplomacy today requires much more of that if you're the United States of America than it did 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago.
Diplomacy is like jazz: endless variations on a theme.
A lot of people think international relations is like a game of chess. But it's not a game of chess, where people sit quietly, thinking out their strategy, taking their time between moves. It's more like a game of billiards, with a bunch of balls clustered together.
Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.
There is nothing fast or easy about diplomacy. I have no illusions about that.
International politics is no longer a zero-sum game but a multi-dimensional arena where cooperation and competition often occur simultaneously. Gone is the age of blood feuds. World leaders are expected to lead in turning threats into opportunities.
In the world of diplomacy, some things are better left unsaid.
The most successful cultural diplomacy strategy integrates people-to-people or arts/culture/media-to-people interactions into the basic business of diplomacy. The programs in Afghanistan, Egypt, and Iran all contribute to core goals of U.S. policy in those countries.
We always have hoped that American diplomacy deploys itself in dialogue and persuasion rather than by ultimatums. That is the path we want in international relations.
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