51吃瓜

In this edition of听The Interview, 51吃瓜 talks to former US ambassador David D. Pearce.

President Donald Trump鈥檚 鈥淎merica First鈥� policy has been met with criticism both at home and abroad, not only for its perceived protectionism on economic issues, but also for heralding听a new era of American isolationism in international affairs.听The US has stepped back from multilateral accords like the Paris Climate Agreement and announced a funding cut to the UN budget.听Albeit US commitment to NATO was reconfirmed to be 鈥�,鈥澨齈resident Trump鈥檚 skepticism toward the alliance has created a sense of unease.听Adversaries like Russia have been emboldened, carving out new spheres of influence.听Time-honored friends and partners wonder where they stand.

Nowhere is this uncertainty about America鈥檚 place on the global stage, as well as the perception that the US is stepping back from its leadership role, felt more acutely than in the halls of the US Department of State.听Here, the Trump administration has proposed major and instituted a hiring freeze, leaving many of the senior positions unfilled.听This marginalization and hollowing-out of the institution on the frontlines of American diplomacy has, in turn, led to declining morale and a drastic mass of career diplomats.

Meanwhile, President Trump has kept up his attack on another major American institution:听the media.听This tension comes in tandem with a broader crisis of credibility for mainstream outlets as traditional news competes with proliferating social networks for consumers鈥� attention.

In this edition of The Interview, 51吃瓜 talks to David D. Pearce, a career diplomat and former US ambassador to Greece and Algeria, about the importance of maintaining diplomatic partnerships, commitment to civic duty and how a changing media landscape is affecting democracy.

Athanasios Dimadis:听The strategic question that has come into focus over the past year is whether US foreign policy should maintain its high level of engagement with other countries around the world, or whether it should step back from its leadership role.听What is your view on what the role of US听foreign policy should be in the 21st century?听

David D. Pearce:听There’s been a lot of talk in the past year about this, and especially about the role of the State Department, where I worked for nearly 35 years.听Some wonder to what extent we even need diplomats in this day and age.听You will not be surprised to hear I firmly believe that US engagement abroad is vital to our national defense, prosperity and security.

Let me cite two bits of history, one old, one more recent.听First, the story of the hair of Muawiyah:听The Umayyad Caliph Muawiyah was one of the top generals of the Prophet Muhammad.听In the 7th century听he ruled听over famously fractious Syria for 40 years without discord, first as governor, and then as the leader of a Damascus-based empire that stretched from Spain to India.听He was once asked how he managed to do this.听鈥淚f there were but a hair between me and the others,鈥� he replied, 鈥淚 would not cut it. If they let go a little, I will pull. If they pull, I will let go a little.鈥� The moral of the story for the wise leader or administrator is:听stay engaged, avoid complete ruptures with your adversaries and adjust methods as circumstances require.

The second example is World War I:听Last year was the 100th anniversary of our entry into the Great War.听When it was over, there was a new world order, a new Middle East, and the US had emerged on the world stage as a global power.听Except we didn’t want to be听鈥� we refused to ratify the postwar treaties or even join the League of Nations.听We wanted to turn our backs on entangling alliances and overseas commitments and go back to the way we were.听Over the next 20 years, as we turned away, we saw the rise of Nazi Germany in Europe and Japanese aggression in the Pacific.听The upshot was that in World War II my dad went off to fight a war in Europe in the very same places where his father and my other grandfather had both fought, just a generation before.

The lesson is, we need to be engaged in the world, not as a favor to others, but because it is in our national interest to do so.听 We keep that hair of Muawiyah in place to advance our interests and to safeguard our national security.

Dimadis:听Many Americans I meet seem to think that, because of US dominance, other countries need America more than America needs them.听听How important is it for the US to tend to its relationships with its friends and allies?听

Pearce:听Well, that is the lesson of World War I, and of World War II.听We need allies and partners.听Our allies and partners need us.听NATO has kept the peace in Europe for over 70 years.听But, like a garden, important relationships need tending, and nothing good happens if they are neglected.听You need to show up at a senior level, listen and consult. When I was the US ambassador to Algeria and to Greece, I put a very high priority on getting senior administration officials to visit and engage with the Algerian and Greek leaderships.听It鈥檚 not a one-way street.听You don’t just come when you need something.听You have to build relations when you don’t need people so they’re there when you do.

A little humility goes a long way.听We need to recognize what we know and what we don’t know.听No matter how good you think your information or intelligence is, chances are the people who actually live in a region know a heck of a lot more about it than you do. So you talk with your partners.听You listen. If you want them in on the landing, you’d better have them in on the take-off.听It’s really just common sense.听Good business.听You don’t take friends for granted.听You tend the garden, and that constant听gardening is diplomacy.

Dimadis:听听You joined the Foreign Service in January 1982, meaning you have seen many changes.听What would your message be to those, especially from the younger generation, who aspire to a career in public service?听

Pearce:听We need the best candidates possible for our national security work, whether it’s the Foreign Service, or the military, or the CIA, or the Agency for International Development, or the Foreign Agricultural Service, or the Foreign Commercial Service, or the Treasury Department, or the Justice Department or the various law enforcement agencies that maintain important liaison relationships abroad.听So whenever I am asked to make some remarks or do an interview, I always make a pitch for public service, and for the Foreign Service in particular.听It is critically important that we enlist our most talented to learn the hard languages, go to the hard places and do the hard things.

Dimadis:听听What is the meaning of public service today?

Pearce:听 I don’t think the essential meaning of public service changes much over time.听To me, it means a strong sense of duty, discipline and service above self.听I know of no greater honor than to serve and represent one鈥檚 country overseas.听Most of us want lives of meaning. There are lots of ways to do that, but public service is one of the very best.

Dimadis:听Some people don’t know that before becoming a diplomat and US ambassador, you had a career in journalism with The Washington Post and Associated Press.听听From your perspective as a former journalist, how do you understand the significant structural changes that have taken place in the media landscape over about the last 20 years?听

Pearce:听When I began my career as a reporter in the early 1970s, there was no Facebook, no cell phones, no cable TV, no internet and no email.听Long-distance telephone calls were very expensive.听The reporting of international news in the United States was dominated by the two major wire services, a few large metropolitan newspapers, the weekly news magazines TIME and Newsweek and three national broadcast networks.听Most of these organizations maintained networks of correspondents and news bureaus overseas.听Foreign correspondents generally filed their reports by Telex.听Computers were just beginning to appear on the scene, but they were large and clunky and used mainly for word processing and data storage.

By the time I wrote听my book,听,听about 20 years later, the internet was well along on its march into the broad spaces of commerce.听Email, cell phones and computers were coming into more general use, and personal devices were getting smaller and cheaper by the year.听CNN鈥檚 live coverage of the听1990-91听Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and its aftermath signaled a profound challenge to the old journalistic order, bringing world events to consumers in real time.

As the media scene changed, advertising revenues also shifted in new directions.听Traditional revenue structures came under increasing stress, and major media outlets began to rethink the way they covered the international news.听Organizations cut back on expensive overseas bureaus.听The result:听more 鈥減arachute鈥� coverage of events by journalists and instant experts, less expertise and analytical input from regionally-based foreign correspondents.

Dimadis:听I was impressed by your prescience in Wary Partners, written 23 years ago: “The fast-evolving communications and technology revolutionizing nearly every aspect of international relations are also reshaping the way governments do business with one another.听In this whirlwind of change, it is plain that more information than ever will be available to publics in the twenty-first century and that this will profoundly affect the conduct of international affairs.听Not only will information media and technology play a central role in the shaping of public policy, but the efficacy of diplomacy as a tool of policy will depend to a large extent on how well diplomats adapt to this reality.”听Do you have any concerns about the way information is disseminated and consumed today through social media?听

Pearce:听In the years since I wrote that, these trends have accelerated.听What I regret most is the decline of editing, and especially the blurring of the formally sacred distinction between news coverage and editorial opinion.听I have always taken it as an article of faith that the quality of a news organization’s product is a direct function of the quality of its editing.听But the atomization of information via social media effectively means that there are now comparatively fewer real gatekeepers to safeguard the quality and accuracy of what the general public sees and hears.听Today鈥檚 readers and listeners pick and choose information from a broad, ever-proliferating, 脿 la carte menu of outlets vying for their attention.听And in many respects, this luxury of choice is a tremendous advance.听But in the marketplace of ideas, it also allows people, if they are so inclined, to hear and see only what they like.听Short form, social media and multitasking are up; long form, print media and reading are down.

Dimadis:听Is the displacement of听the old-format media and press by online and social media a positive development for the industry, the consumers and, more broadly, for democracy itself?听

Pearce:听Many will argue that this is a good thing.听Not me.听I own a 1972 book on news editing by Bruce Westley of the University of Kentucky.听Its definition of the role of the individual copy editor seems almost quaint by today鈥檚 standards.听It says the copy editor must eliminate errors in spelling, grammar, sentence structure, style, taste, fact and organization.听In addition, the editor must guard against unwarranted reportorial bias, verbosity, repetition, wearisome detail, overlooked facts, incongruities, advertising in disguise, libel, lottery, hoaxes, old news, axe-grinding and duplication.听News organizations and decision-makers alike must now contend with a social media environment that has made everyone a reporter and everyone an editor.

The practical effect of this is to flatten and atomize distribution of information in a hurtling blend of fact, error and opinion.听So the media landscape has been reshaped dramatically over the past three decades.听This has had the effect of speeding up pressure on decision-makers, reducing the time for deliberation, delegitimizing authority figures and polarizing audiences 鈥� all of which hampers the kind of careful deliberation, compromise and accommodation that is essential for the effective functioning of democratic institutions.

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.

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