What Diplomats Really Do | Alexander Karagiannis | TEDxIndianaUniversity

[Music] well thank you and good evening so it's great to be back in Bloomington and I oh I you as he said I got my degree here in 81 so I'm old and soon thereafter joined the State Farm we became a diplomat so when I say the word diplomat what image pops up for you old men determining the fate of Europe after World War one more old men sitting around a dreary meetings maybe shouting and pointing at each other big conferences lots of flags what if I were to tell you that is incomplete and inaccurate we also engage directly with people sports diplomacy that's my former boss now ambassador to Bangladesh we contribute to cultural preservation around the world we plant trees as far away power station projects we help kids with disabilities so are we all neil palin Yale my wife's a diplomat pretty good one all seven of my previous supervisors are women or minorities some have been and others are now ambassadors my current boss is the director general of the Foreign Service and the Bureau of Human Resources he oversees a global workforce of 80,000 not bad he traces his family back to the 1700s to New Spain me first-generation immigrant dad came over in 55 legally nama 958 legally we didn't have the honor or the fortune to be born American we chose to be American we raised our hands and took the citizenship of our founders crafted a remarkable oath of office that I took when I became a diplomat it is not to a government or to a person it is to a set of ideas and ideals codified in a constitution a blueprint for good government system and structure and a guide to good governance accounting for human frailty and human virtue it's a remarkable document for a remarkable country it's the country of tomorrow country one direction forward one speed fast we cherish our traditions and we reinvent ourselves constantly so who are we who are in the Foreign Service now they're only 14,000 of us only 8,000 of those are the frontline diplomats former Secretary of Defense gates pointed out that there are more members of military bands and there are Foreign Service officers years ago we only reflected a small slice of America today we are determined to capture a larger part of the sweep and majesty of the American people it's the right and smart thing to do so we're going to recruit retain sustain and empower capable talented diverse workforce equipped for the challenges of 2025 and beyond we have an ambitious goal to recruit on merit and diversity knowing that we're in a challenging situation with other US government agencies in the private sector we're going to pay special attention and puts especial emphasis on inclusion diversity is a fact inclusion is a choice a must-do choice to fuel engagement drive performance and build leadership and adaptive capacity so what is it that we do as diplomats well in the 16th century Sir Henry wouldn't describe the diplomat as an honest man such brought to life or his country so I don't believe that not for a second I think diplomats live by three rules first never lie lies cannot build this trust confidence and credibility upon which effective diplomacy rests second don't tell the complete truth we don't share our secrets and we don't blurt out everything we think or believe about the other person in the country or their positions it's called tact we hold fast to our position and leave space or for their dialogue so Sir Christopher Mayer former UK ambassador to the u.s. summed up but diplomat this way a quick mind a hard head a strong stomach a warm smile and a cold eye so I believe diplomacy is a means by which we prevent preempt contain manage and solve problems and for us to advance u.s. values interests and goals how do we do them we do information we gather it make sense of it report it make recommendations we network we identify and cultivate programmatically important people influential people irrespective of their field and we do advocacy we persuade and convince people to do things with and for us in such a fashion that they believed it was their idea where do we do it well of the 14,000 or so about two-thirds serve overseas on 195 countries 275 embassies and consulates 55% serve in places that we deemed to have substandard or difficult health conditions public safety security problems a thousand servant places that are too dangerous to allow families to go and in today's world it's more volatile and dangerous than ever before you have all the traditional components of foreign policy state to state relations provocations challenges to international peace and security economic prosperity democracy to the environment to health and many issues that are new trans-regional transnational global the Zika carrying mosquito does not care about borders the digital domain does not care about borders so that's the new world that we face so that's the big picture stuff so let me bring it down to the personal on human my most searing and rewarding assignment was in Turkey 1989 to 92 Berlin Wall fell Soviet Union collapsed Ayatollah Khomeini died Tiananmen Square happened Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait the u.s. led an international UN sanctioned coalition liberated Kuwait at the end of the war Saddam brutally put down a Kurdish rebellion just a few years earlier he had used poison gas on the Kurds so there now they were not going to wait around for a repeat about a million people fled cities towns villages farms half a million wound up on the turkey rock border pretty desolate terrain so think about Bloomington multiplied by six and that's what you have in the space of about a month no cover no shelter no food precious little water and what there was was not safe to drink a true humanitarian disaster in the making the Turkish people and government reacted but the scale was overwhelming so the United States stepped in initially with airdrop supplies and I was on the one of the first missions that did that and the scene from the air was truly incredible people had driven as far up the hillsides as they could abandoned their cars and kept walking in terrain that would make you weep so you're looking at half a million people under these circumstances and look at that terrain so we knew we had to act quickly and we marshal the immobilised an international force the UN arrived international NGOs came ordinary citizens contributed food blankets supplies of all sorts but scale is pretty big I was part of a team responsible for a cold chain I didn't even know what a cold chain was I learned some medicines have to be chilled well getting them to our air hub I was pretty straightforward getting them the last kilometers to that location was more difficult and then once you're there well you have to refrigerate it so you needed portable refrigerators but that meant you needed electricity which meant that you needed portable generators which meant that you needed gasoline which meant that you need two places the store the gasoline and once you used up the medicine you needed places to safely dispose of it so one small thing to get packages of medicines this size meant that we were doing lots of big things and we were doing this constantly we knew that we had turned the corner and stabilized the situation when the refugees started throwing away the food that we were providing and literally overnight a black market developed in basic consumer goods first and foremost cigarettes which became the de facto currency in the camp but we couldn't leave them there can't leave them in this desolate place we had to find a way to get them to go back home to northern Iraq so we set up a safe zone we set up other waste stations and we've slowly persuaded them to go back that was a months-long 24/7 effort of the UN international aid organizations NGOs US diplomats and US service members working side-by-side and often grueling conditions if you got four hours sleep there was a lot so we turned it around so please do not let people fool you into believing that diplomats only sit in ornate offices and write long elegant telegrams or that we attend fancy receptions and nibble and find delicacies we do much more than that for me diplomacy is a verb make a difference listen learn think that lead act produce outcomes that matter serve the American people advance our values our interests our goals I a one of those people that believes that no is only an interim answer it is not know why is yes how if you believe that civilization is a story about people doing things too but also with and for one another that diplomacy is a means by which we find common cause and common purpose much as we humans are individuals were also free spirits in the words of Nietzsche we're also people who value civic virtue we cooperate we collaborate as Aristotle first on us we are political and social animals and as we know painfully too well the human Enterprise the human condition the human proposition is not perfect and to return to nijam it requires to be sure a more penetrating eye and a more favorable inclination to advance what is imperfect and evolving that the see through it in its imperfection and denial when we combine purpose and principle we can and sometimes must do extraordinary things that is human and if I can make one request of you in whatever you do in your life make a difference thank you so much you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 61,701

Rating: 4.9446115 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Global Issues, America, Developing World, Foreign policy, Global issues, Government, International Affairs, Middle East, Positive Thinking, Refugee, State-building, Teaching, War

Id: UQ8c0mGgsWI

Length: 13min 13sec (793 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 21 2016