19 September 1997
TEXT: GLOBALIZATION AND DIPLOMACY: A PRACTIONER'S PERSPECTIVE
(Foreign Policy magazine Fall 1997 Strobe Talbott article) (4120) (Permission has been obtained covering republication/translation of the text (including the Agency's Home-Page on the Internet) by USIS/press outside the U.S. On title page, credit author and carry: Copyright (c) 1997 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Reprinted with permission from "FOREIGN POLICY" Magazine, Fall 1997.) Following is the text: (begin text) Globalization and Diplomacy: A Practioner's Perspective By Strobe Talbott It was the early morning of Monday, October 4, 1993, and there was a new kind of trouble brewing in Moscow. Tanks had surrounded the White House, the giant parliament building on the banks of the Moscow River, where deputies of the Supreme Soviet, some of them heavily armed, were holed up in defiance of President Boris Yeltsin's order to dissolve the legislature and submit to new elections. Just hours earlier, at the urging of the insurgents inside the White House, armed mobs had attacked the Moscow mayor's office and the city's main television station. I had spent the night camped on the couch in my office on the seventh floor of the State Department. At 3:00 a.m., I went down the corridor to the department's Operations Center, our communications hub, where we had established a round-the-clock task force to monitor the crisis that was coming to a head. Using one of the phone banks in the OpsCenter, I called Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi Mamedov, who was in his own office in the ministry's Stalin-gothic skyscraper on Smolensk Square, less than a mile from the besieged parliament. We had been in frequent touch since the showdown began 24 hours earlier. Suddenly, in the midst of our conversation, we both fell silent. After a long moment, Mamedov asked: "Are you watching what I'm watching?" I was indeed. We both had our television sets tuned to CNN, which had begun a live broadcast of Russian commandos and armored personnel carriers moving into position to storm the White House. For the next half-hour, Mamedov and I watched transfixed, exchanging occasional impressions as the battle came to its dramatic and bloody denouement. Following a phased assault that gave those inside the White House several opportunities to surrender, government forces retook the building and arrested the leaders of the opposition. The United States and Russia had come a long way from the era of Cold War brinkmanship over Berlin and Cuba. Now, the point of crisis was an internal power struggle in Russia, a showdown between a democratically elected leader and a reactionary legislature. Moreover, rather than being waged in secret behind the Kremlin walls, the struggle was being broadcast live to a worldwide audience of tens of millions. Here was the famous "CNN effect" at its most emblematic. Just as the network had made it possible for Mamedov and me to watch an event unfold in real time as we discussed its implications over an open phone line, so the communications revolution had contributed to the transformation of his country and of our world. FROM BRETTON WOODS TO DENVER By the 1980s, self-isolating dictatorships from Chile to the Soviet Union had yielded to democratic and free market ideals spread by radio, television, the fax machine, and e-mail. Since then, in addition to undermining the Berlin Wall and shredding the Iron Curtain, the powerful technological forces of the Information Age have helped to stitch together the economic, political, and cultural lives of nations, making borders more permeable to the movement of people, products, and ideas. When President Bill Clinton visited Bucharest in July, his host, Emil Constantinescu, a democratic activist and reformer who had been elected president of Romania seven months before, took him into his study and proudly showed him the desktop computer that gave him access to cyberspace. For many millions of people, globalization has meant greater freedom and prosperity. But for millions of others, the same process has brought economic disadvantage and social disruption. Striking workers in South Korea and Argentina have opposed changes that their national leaders insisted were necessary to meet the demands of the global economy. The unexpected victory of the Socialist Party in last spring's French legislative elections stemmed in part from voters' apprehensions about globalization. In the United States, political figures such as Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan have tapped into similar anxieties. Not all those who are within reach of television consider themselves better off as a result -- in fact, often quite the contrary. There are satellite dishes in the slums of the world's megacities, and the signals they suck in from Hollywood and Madison Avenue can trigger resentment and anger: The communications revolution has the potential to foment revolutions of a different sort. Globalization itself is neither inherently good nor bad. Governments cannot block its effects on their citizens without also cutting them off from its opportunities and benefits. But they can shape it to their national and international advantage. While this task is an increasingly important and explicit theme in U.S. diplomacy in the post-Cold War era, it is not new. In the economic realm, it goes back at least to the immediate aftermath of World War II and the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund at Bretton Woods. Three decades later, in 1975, the leaders of France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and West Germany took another step forward together. They met in the picturesque French farming town of Rambouillet to discuss how they could increase trade, coordinate monetary policies, and reduce their vulnerability to rising oil prices. This was the first of what became, with the addition of Canada the following year in London, the annual summit of the Group of Seven major industrialized democracies. When the successors of those leaders met for the 22nd time in Denver last June, they were joined by Boris Yeltsin -- the first time that the president of the Russian Federation participated in the summit from beginning to end. Just as the cast of characters at Denver had grown since Rambouillet, so had the agenda. Transnational threats such as climate change, the spread of infectious disease, and international organized crime received almost as much attention as the economic aspects of interdependence. Patterns of energy consumption, child vaccination rates, and drug treatment programs -- once thought to be almost exclusively domestic issues -- had become topics of international concern and targets of concerted action. While other nations have long paid close attention to the U.S. government's monetary and fiscal policies, there are now growing international implications to U.S. domestic actions in countless other areas. The European Union initially objected to the proposed merger between the Boeing and McDonnell Douglas corporations, arguing that it would undermine competition in the global aircraft market. Senior Mexican officials have said publicly that the new U.S. immigration law that went into effect earlier this year violates the rights of Mexicans living in the United States. Regulatory agencies around the world often take their cue from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in approving or banning foodstuffs and medications, with consequences for thousands of companies and millions of consumers. By the same token, the internal policies of other nations have a growing impact on the United States. The extent to which Mexico enforces the environmental provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will affect the quality of air and water in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. The extent to which China is prepared to protect intellectual property rights will provide, or cost, jobs for American workers. Colombia's ability and willingness to crack down on narcotics production will affect the balance of forces in the war against illegal drugs in the United States. And conversely, only if the United States can reduce its domestic demand will Colombia and other nations on the supply side of the international narcotics trade succeed in their part of the struggle. THE IMPERATIVE FOR CHANGE Global interdependence is affecting the way virtually all governments think about international relations and practice diplomacy. The more engaged in and affected by the process, the more they must change. For the United States, therefore, the imperative for change is especially powerful, and it is felt most acutely in the building where I work. The Department of State is a proud institution, and it comes by its pride honestly. But the susceptibility of an institution to reform is inversely proportional to its venerability, and the State Department is no exception. We are located in a neighborhood of Washington called Foggy Bottom, a designation that has become a sometimes affectionate, sometimes sardonic nickname for the department itself, with unflattering implications for the mindset of the 13,000 people who work there and in our 249 posts abroad. Even as the State Department strives to overcome the inertia that is built into a large organization with a long history, it must also do more -- and better -- with less financial support from the nation it serves. Since 1985, in real dollar terms, the international affairs budget of the United States has plummeted by 50 percent. It has also declined in relative terms. In 1984, foreign affairs spending amounted to 2.5 percent of the federal budget; today it constitutes roughly 1 percent. In the past four years, we have had to close 32 embassies and consulates around the world. Although the budget agreement between the White House and Congress for 1998 partially restores these damaging cuts, we will be operating under severe limitations for the foreseeable future. Only by leveraging our resources and being smarter in the way we marshal them can the State Department meet the challenges posed to American diplomacy by globalization and interdependence. Going Global The bilateral, government-to-government approach that has traditionally been the staple of American diplomacy is often insufficient to address threats like terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and environmental degradation, which are almost always regional -- and very often global -- in scope. These new challenges will yield only to an internationally coordinated, long-term effort. In response to these changing realities, at the beginning of his administration, President Clinton created the position of undersecretary of state for global affairs, which was given responsibility for several of the State Department's bureaus dealing with cross-cutting "functional" areas: the protection of the environment, the promotion of democracy and human rights, the management of population and migration issues, and law enforcement. The effect has been to elevate the attention those goals receive in the policymaking process and in diplomacy. At the beginning of the second term, Vice President Al Gore announced a broader plan for reform and consolidation of the nation's foreign affairs agencies that is also in part a response to globalization. By integrating the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the U.S. Information Agency into the Department of State, and by laying the ground for the partial consolidation of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), we will be better able to weave the core missions of these agencies into the fabric of U.S. foreign policy. The multitude, magnitude, and complexity of transnational issues and the collaborative arrangements through which we are working to address them also require that we rethink the way we recruit and train the department's human resources. We are stepping up our efforts to hire people who already have experience in areas such as international finance, labor, environmental science, and law enforcement. We are broadening what might be called the core curriculum in the training of entry-level officers. The Foreign Service Institute, the department's center for instruction in languages, area studies, and technical skills, has introduced a survey course that covers issues like narcotics trafficking and refugee flows, as well as classes on subjects such as the expanding global market for U.S. environmental technologies. Meanwhile, our diplomats abroad, while still giving priority to U.S. relations with individual host governments, are nurturing regional and transregional relationships to a greater extent than ever. Our embassies in Lima and Quito have worked with the governments of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to resolve the border conflict between Ecuador and Peru. Our embassy in Pretoria has devoted much of its energy to working with the South African government on peace in Angola and Congo. And whatever our other differences with Beijing, we are engaged with the Chinese, together with the Japanese and South Koreans, in an ongoing effort to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula. New Policies, New Partners Globalization has also increased the need for other departments and agencies of the U.S. government to play an active role in pursuit of American interests abroad -- and for the State Department to cooperate more systematically with them. That cooperation has been particularly close on matters of economics, defense, and law enforcement. -- Economics. As trade and international investment have become more important to the U.S. economy, the department and the U.S. government's economic agencies have expanded and deepened their collaboration. The agreements reached over the last two years at the World Trade Organization to eliminate tariffs and increase worldwide trade in information technology and telecommunications represent one such collaborative effort. Working with the Department of Commerce, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the Federal Communications Commission, State Department officials at home and abroad have played a crucial role, meeting with local representatives of U.S. companies to refine our negotiating strategy and pressing foreign officials in more than 60 countries to accept U.S. positions. While American diplomats are helping to write the rules and build the institutions that govern the global economy, they are also aggressively advocating the interests of U.S. businesses around the world. The department works with the Export-Import Bank and other federal agencies to ensure that American firms compete on a level playing field. In 1995 our embassies and the Department of Commerce helped NYNEX win a $1.5 billion undersea fiber-optic cable project that will link countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe and is expected to support nearly $650 million in U.S. exports and several thousand American jobs. -- Defense. There is nothing new about vans shuttling back and forth across the Potomac between Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon. Still, the end of the Cold War has brought a new dimension to the cooperation between the State and Defense Departments. We are working far more closely together to promote the institutions and habits of democracy around the world. Through peacekeeping operations in areas that are critical to U.S. interests and through new security arrangements like the Partnership for Peace, we are encouraging the subordination of military forces to civilian command, respect for international borders, protection of minority rights, and free movement of people. When the United States sent troops as part of an international coalition to restore democracy to Haiti in 1994, the U.S. government created an innovative, unified political-military operations plan. Its purpose was to ensure that the civilian and military aspects of the operation were implemented in concert and with equal precision. As a result, when the peacekeepers disarmed members of the Haitian military, USAID had programs in place to help the demobilized soldiers develop the skills they would need to reintegrate into civilian society. -- Law enforcement. The burgeoning threats of international organized crime and narcotics trafficking require our diplomats to join forces as never before with U.S. law enforcement authorities. Political officers have worked with Justice Department personnel stationed in key regional embassies like Moscow and Bangkok to negotiate bilateral extradition treaties, as well as agreements that help governments share information on criminal investigations. And consular officers stationed at every American diplomatic post have cooperated in person and via computer with agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the FBI, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the intelligence community to track suspected drug smugglers, terrorists, and criminals and deny them entry into the United States. In Budapest, we have opened an International Law Enforcement Academy to help the new democracies of the former Soviet bloc establish the rule of law that is essential to a healthy democracy. The academy, which is funded and managed by the State Department, brings together experts from the FBI, the DEA, Customs, the Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Department of Energy to share the latest anticrime techniques and technology with their counterparts from Central Europe, the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union, and Western Europe. Later this year, we will establish a similar institution in Central America. Taken together, these new forms of cooperation have significantly raised the number of U.S. government personnel stationed overseas who are not employed by the traditional foreign affairs agencies. In fact, 63 percent of those now under the authority of our ambassadors and other chiefs of mission are not State Department employees. As globalization moves forward, that number is likely to grow, as will the challenge of coordinating the American government's presence abroad. Working "Multi-Multilaterally" Paradoxically, while globalization induces international cohesion and empowers international enterprises, it also accentuates the limitations of national power. Governments are often too cumbersome to respond effectively to transnational threats -- including when those threats are manifest within their own borders. Partly as a result, political authority is devolving from the top down and from the center outward, to local and regional governments, and to community organizations working at the grassroots. Therefore, many governments, including the U.S., have sought to leverage scarce resources and improve their ability to address transnational threats by forming coalitions with "nonstate actors" -- multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international institutions like the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. These coalitions allow the United States to work not only multilaterally, but multi-multilaterally, through several organizations and institutions at the same time. In Bosnia, nine agencies and departments of the U.S. government are cooperating with more than a dozen other governments, seven international organizations, and 13 major NGOs -- from the Red Cross to the International Crisis Group to the American Bar Association -- to implement the Dayton Peace Accords. In the Middle East, the United States chairs the Multilateral Working Group on Water Resources, a group of 47 countries and international organizations that are working to ensure that the region's shared dependence on a scarce resource does not become a threat to political stability. The governments of Israel, Japan, Oman, South Korea, and the United States have established the Middle East Regional Desalination Center in Muscat to support research to reduce the cost of desalination. An interagency Food Security Working Group co-chaired by the Department of State, Department of Agriculture, and USAID is looking at new ways to apply American knowledge, technology, resources, and influence to ensure that there will be adequate food to meet the demands of the next century. Under this group's auspices, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is leading an international initiative that brings together governments, private companies, and NGOs to begin experimental forecasting of seasonal climate patterns, so that crop planting can be adjusted to anticipated annual rainfall, thereby helping to reduce the severity of food emergencies. The organizational chart for these kinds of collaborative efforts is a patchwork of boxes connected by overlapping and intersecting solid and dotted lines. It often falls to the State Department to coordinate the work of the other agencies of the U.S. government to make sure that their endeavors serve an overarching and coherent strategy. The department also works to integrate the American governmental effort into what other governments -- and, increasingly, NGOs and others -- are doing in the same areas. THE END OF FOREIGN POLICY In the context of the many global problems facing the United States today, and also in the context of their solutions, the very word "foreign" is becoming obsolete. From the floor of the stock exchange in Singapore to the roof of the world over Patagonia where there is a hole in the ozone layer, what happens there matters here -- and vice versa. That is not only a fact of life and a useful shorthand definition of globalization itself, it is also a key selling point for those of us, inside the government and out, who are trying to make foreign policy less foreign, and more relevant, to the American people. In the absence of a compelling, unifying threat like the one posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the need for American engagement in the world seems less obvious. Largely as a result, the interest of the American public and media in world affairs has waned markedly in the last decade. In an effort to reverse this trend, the department has, over the past three years, sponsored 40 "town meetings" at which our diplomats have discussed topics from the Middle East peace process to advancing human rights. In her first 20 weeks in office, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled outside Washington 15 times to talk about foreign policy with the American people in schools, at presidential libraries, and from the deck of an aircraft carrier. She -- like President Constantinescu of Romania -- has also made use of the World Wide Web, where the secretary's and the department's home pages average 1.7 million hits a month. All this "outreach," as we call our public education programs, is far more than special pleading for the State Department or its budget. It is a matter of making the case on the home front for American engagement and activism abroad. In the coming year, the United States faces a number of critical decisions, each of which will be, in a larger sense, a decision about how our country will respond to the opportunities and challenges of globalization. We must persuade Congress -- that expanding the NATO alliance to include several of the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe will enhance the stability of a region in which more than 500,000 Americans lost their lives in this century -- that extending NAFTA to other nations in Latin America will create jobs in the United States and spur economic growth -- that accepting binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions at the climate change conference in December in Japan is essential for the long-term ability of the planet to sustain its environment. Opponents of these and other initiatives often argue that they compromise or dilute our national sovereignty. In fact, the opposite is true. Well-crafted international commitments and a comprehensive strategy of international engagement enhance rather than dilute our mastery of our own fate as a nation, which is the most pertinent definition of sovereignty. NATO, NAFTA, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Partnership for Peace, and our participation in the United Nations -- different as they are in composition and function -- all have one thing in common: They help the United States to channel the forces of interdependence, bending them to the advantage of our own citizens and of other nations that share our interests and values. When we agree to abide by common rules of the road, we gain the commitment of others to live by mutually acceptable standards in areas like labor law, intellectual property rights, environmental protection, aviation safety, and public health. In so doing, we also establish the means to measure compliance meaningfully, fairly, and enforceably. Other nations are willing to adhere to these standards not just because they seek access to the U.S. market, or because they want to be on good terms with a major world power. They do so because they recognize that a system of equity and openness based on those standards is key to their own ability to benefit from the phenomenon of globalization. And that means working together to guide the evolution of the phenomenon itself in the direction of equitable economic development, manageable levels of population growth, sustainable use of our natural resources, and the spread and consolidation of democracy. Six years after the end of the Cold War, it can be said that, in a sense, we still live in a bipolar world. But the dividing line today is not an iron curtain between East and West. Rather, it is between the forces of stability and instability, integration and disintegration, prosperity and poverty. The United States has a central role to play in that new struggle, just as it did in the old one. And once again, success will require full use of America's diplomatic resources around the world -- and in Foggy Bottom. Strobe Talbott is Deputy Secretary of State. (End text)
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