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Congratulations on Your New Job!
So, it’s Wednesday, November 9, 2016.
Perhaps you slept in, after staying up late to watch the results of the elections. The results are okay. They suggest shy grounds for hope among those of us who dearly love our country and pray it will retain those qualities that cause us to love it — or hope, at least, that it will continue to exist, because as you’ve probably noticed, things are getting awfully hairy out there, and we’re all kind of wondering.
The phone rings. You answer groggily, but you pull yourself together fast when you realize, to your surprise, that the voice on the other end of the phone is the president-elect’s. For a second, you’re baffled — is this a hoax? Why me? — but no, the voice quickly persuades you that it’s not a joke at all: He (or she) has been reading you on Ricochet, likes the cut of your jib, and feels you couldn’t possibly make a worse hash of our foreign policy than the last few we’ve had, so why not?
You accept. What else can you do. Your country needs you. (Don’t look at me that way. Somebody has do it.)
You’re now the United States Secretary of State.
So, Mr. or Madame Secretary, what will your first 100 days on the job look like? If it’s this bad today, I reckon it’ll be a lot worse by then. How do you plan to sort out this infernal mess?
Published in Foreign Policy, General, History, Military
No, you would not. He’s absolutely right. Every word. He’s exactly right.
One additional note that I’ll make: consequences in foreign policy usually take about 5 years to really implant themselves. At least, those that don’t involve immediate conflict. So, to make the next SecState’s job even worse, we could be getting a virtuoso performance, and it’s going to look like the world is falling apart.
(As a corollary, what we’re seeing now are the consequences of Obama’s first term… ie. those for which Madame H is responsible)
Great speech, but nobody would believe Obama should he head in this direction, not Putin not our NATO allies, so it would be war would it not? Moreover this won’t happen so what is it likely to look like when we put an adult in the White House? It seems Putin needs to work fast.
He seems to understand the need for speed. And he is not wasting any time. I was surprised at how fast he drafted 150,000 new military personnel.
Yes, my bad. No hysteria here.
Manfred,
You have been trained by a generation that assumes that any talk of war or the use of force anywhere anytime must involve some hysterical miscalculation. Think clearly about what I’m talking about and you will realize that there is nothing hysterical here.
My recommendation to move American Warships to the Eastern Mediterranean is the most obvious move. It would be a clear warning to those who are already clear aggressors. The only principle that Obama is following is “Do nothing. That way you can’t be blamed.” Each time he does this our strategic position gets worse and worse.
Regards,
Jim
I have no problem in principal moving in warships to sober up Putin – but to what point? Obama isn’t going to assert himself. I don’t know what you think “out strategic position” is, that you find it getting worse and worse. We don’t seem to have a “strategic position”. We don’t know whether to fight Assad, or ISIS – who is fighting Assad – or other jihadi groups – who also fight Assad.
If Putin wants to retain his client state in Syria, one the Russians have had for decades, what’s the beef? Assad is pure evil, according to the divine Ms. B, but his evil has tended to be confined to his country – which is more than we can say for the other two groups. You could make the case that the Russians are choosing the lesser of three evils to back.
Manfred,
You are quite right here. However, one must try to start somewhere. There is an old saying in the carpentry business. “You can’t nail into rotten wood.” For some reason this always comes to mind right after a Josh Earnest presser or an Obama speech.
Regards,
Jim
I agree that we’re at very real risk of full-scale war, and personally, I’m hysterical about it. My being hysterical doesn’t solve a thing — obviously — but every time I look at the news it gets worse.
I don’t know if we can say with any level of assurance how likely full-scale war really is — none of us have access to the information we’d need to assess that — but the risk is pretty clearly far too high for anyone to go about his or her day thinking, “All is well.”
“we’re at very real risk of full-scale war”? Why is that? What vital interests are the Russians threatening of ours? It seems to a lot of folks that their program in Syria (however dimly we appreciate it) is as good as anyone else’s. What do YOU think we should be doing in Syria? I think the only risk of war is that Obama projects abject weakness. But were vital interests involved, you’d have to expect he’d grow a backbone.
My Dear Dr. Berlinski,
How is the weather in Paris? Our balmy sunshine continues unabated. However, out in the Atlantic a monster lurks at 160 mph gusts and 130 mph sustained. Yet Gd is on our side, at least so far. It appears that the monster shall miss the entire North American continent and expend its force safely in the polar North Atlantic.
It is OK to see the threats ahead clearly and be prepared for them. After a bit one overcomes the nervousness and then starts to roll with the punches. It is never all that predicable. In the trade it is called ‘the fog of war’. One might as well call it ‘the fog of life’.
Regards,
Jim
As Secretary of State, I would:
– Have an understanding of what skills worked for successful SoS in past, like James Baker, and avoid repeating mistakes of disastrous SoS’s: – you fill in the blanks.
– I would put a replica of the Scales of Justice on my desk, pictures of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on the walls of my office, as well as a copy of the Constitution and a Bible on my desk – politically correct or not – starting each day with a prayer for my country and its leadership.
– I would be the embodiment to what our country stands for, freedom, liberty and justice for all, to where it oozed from my pores and what that stands for, and those values and ideals preceded my walking into a room so that no one could ever be uncertain of where we stood as a country.
– I would never sit down with any leader that spouted “death” and demise to another country. If we were invited to come to terms, those terms would be what they have to lose if they do not comply with our terms, not the other way around. They would also have to give equally to what they are receiving, not verbatim, but for example, the opportunity to have nuclear energy would be met with hosting neighboring countries who have reason to worry, on a regular basis. I, along with our allies would negotiate the terms, not the other way around and have independent inspections.
continued below:
As SOS, you have to contend with the unfireable bureaucracy.
I would start a “Department of People Who’ve P*ssed Me Off” set up in a privately funded remote warehouse a minimum of 1 hour away from the beltway. It has a single guard posted next to a phone and hundreds of cubicles. No internet. You punch a clock, next to the guard, who is paid a bonus if he catches cheaters. You don’t show up, or are late, you get written up. By the guard. Who is paid a healthy bonus for writing up people leading to dismissal.
Get under my skin, and you are assigned duty at the DPWPMO until I can find something useful for you, which may take 4 years (or 8 if we are lucky).
– I would not sit down with anyone who held American hostages, until they were all released, to show their seriousness of wanting to cultivate change, honesty and good will.
– I would seek to communicate openly and frequently with the President, the American public and other world leaders to bring better understanding amidst rapidly changing world conditions. I would do this through TV, radio and social media so information would be available to all – not everyone has latest technology.
– I would boost our allies’ confidence in any way possible, especially those surrounding an adversary.
– I would keep a copy of my job description in my desk, to remind me of the magnitude of my responsibility to my country as well as ask for feedback on my job performance from both political parties.
http://www.state.gov/secretary/115194.htm
If I left the world a better place after my departure, I would know I did a good job.
If ever I were to lie, shame or put my country in danger in any way, I would resign.
Claire,
I have often wondered what it would be like if John Bolton was Secretary of State. Here is current sample of his thought.
Putin Unleashed: Russia’s move for dominance in the Middle East.
I like it.
Regards,
Jim
I have a close relative who is Senior Foreign Service. He works on the Admin side instead of the policy side. I was just talking to him a few weeks ago about the chaos breaking out all over the world, and he told me he’s glad he doesn’t work on the policy side or he would have had to resign in protest by now.
Cracks me up! The Ricochetti have a better handle on the SOS job requirements than the two ‘highly experienced’ nut-jobs Obama appointed.
Claire,
Would you mind serving under this new president as an assistant to his choice of Secretary of State? I think it would be a difficult job, but “somebody has to do it”. :-)
http://www.glennbeck.com/2015/10/02/rubios-prediction-for-syria-and-russia-just-came-true
Highly experienced? [g]
A politician’s wife/cattle futures trader and then a motorboat skipper.
Eric Hines
I don’t have the temperament for it. I truly do wake up thanking God that I don’t have to make the decisions our policy-makers have to make. I’d simply be paralyzed.
You have to be crazy — in a real, clinical sense — to do these jobs well.