Written evidence from Carne Ross
I am a former British diplomat who resigned after
giving evidence to the Butler Inquiry in 2004 (my last posting
had been as Britain's Middle East and particularly Iraq specialist
at the UN Security Council in New York). I then founded and now
head Independent Diplomat, the non-profit diplomatic advisory
group, based in five offices around the world, which advises various
countries and governments, and other political groups, on diplomatic
strategy. Our clients include the Government of South Sudan, various
island states (whom we advise on the climate change negotiations),
Eastern European states (on their relations with the EU), the
POLISARIO Front of the Western Sahara and Somaliland. In our work
around the world, my staff and I encounter the work of British
embassies as well as the FCO in London. We also hear the views
of foreign diplomats and others who deal with the FCO both in
London and overseas. The views below are my personal views, but
also reflect informal impressions gathered by my colleagues in
Independent Diplomat.
The impressions are these:
- The FCO has made significant progress in loosening
promotion and career progression, including by promoting talent
quickly to senior posts. For instance, the new High Commissioner
in Nigeria is a (very able) forty-something who began in the FCO
as a filing clerk at 16. The "buggins' turn" culture
has ended, although there is still a sense that some overseas
heads of missions are in place thanks more to the longevity of
their service than other qualifications. The FCO is still lucky
to enjoy in general a high quality of individuals in its staff,
who are widely esteemed within the diplomatic profession internationally.
(This however is a virtue that should not be taken for granted.)
- However, the promotion of younger staff has had
the knock-on effect of blocking career progression for many, with
a growing "log-jam" in promotions across the board.
Combined with the budget-driven downgrading of many slots, including
overseas, it has noticeable effects on opportunities for staff
and therefore morale. A number of FCO staff have approached Independent
Diplomat for work, or for advice about leaving the FCO, if that
is any indicator. This is on top of the wave of staff who left
in 2006-08, taking with them considerable accumulated experience.
- More seriously however, something seems to have
happened to the "brain" of the FCO in recent years.
I am not alone in noticing that the quality of UK foreign policy
thinking seems to have declined. In a number of
cases, UK policy-makers seem overly content to stick to superficial
generalities, rather than the more deeply-considered strategies
for getting from the current situation to the desired end-state.
- For instance, Independent Diplomat has followed
the diplomacy on Sudan very closely, in particular the North-South
issue and the just-passed referendum on Southern self-determination.
I have observed closely the work of the US State Department on
this question and have been struck by its thoroughness and openness
to outside thinking. The relevant offices of the State Department
have for instance organised weekend brainstorming sessions to
"game out" different scenarios in the North-South process;
they also regularly invite outside experts to their offices to
discuss policy ideas with great frankness and openness (I have
been present for such discussions)above all these discussions
are characterised by an atmosphere of invitation to criticism
and ideas. By contrast, despite the evident abilities of the UK
officials involved, the UK has not played a significant role in
this diplomatic process. At the State Department, the UK is talked
of in the same way as Norway, the other of the three-member "Troika"
on Sudanhelpful but not terribly significant.
- Of course, the American thoroughness is a function
of the very intensive role the US is playing on this issueitself
a function of US power and influencebut of course the one
reflects the other: in other words, influence is partly a function
of preparation and deep strategyand indeed the less influential
a country is, the more essential deep preparation of policy to
secure influence is. Another more provocative example illustrates
the same point: When I first attended UK-US bilateral discussions
on Iraq and the Middle East, the UK delegation would bring its
own agenda, and on each point its own developed ideas on the way
forward. This was in 1998. By the time I left the UK Mission in
2002, the UK delegation no longer brought its own agenda but simply
worked off and responded to US suggestions.
- This last example may help explain what is going
on. When I first joined the FCO in 1989, there was a real sense
within the "Office" that the FCO should look at the
world, decide its objectives and design strategy to reach those
objectives, while seeking to persuade others of those goals. These
days, the British diplomatic machine appears more reactive: responding
rather than shaping. And there is no doubt that the gross failures
of policy over the years since 9/11, and the subordination of
UK foreign policy to that of the US, have exacerbated a trend
that post-imperial decline was already evoking.
- To be frank, this is less a deficit of officials
than a failure of leadership and political vision, shared by both
major political parties. Officials reflect the ambitions of their
political masters. But this is also a vicious circle into which,
I'm afraid, the FCO has clearly sunk. With little political imagination
or willingness for risk at the top, officials are discouraged
from ambition and creativity, but also the hard grind necessary
for the thorough preparation of detailed strategy. I watched my
seniors carefully in the FCO during my years there, and realised,
as others have, that the quality most essential to promotion was
not risk-taking or creativity, but caution and an exquisite ability
to tune one's own views to the prevailing mood of the day (though
there were and are some notable exceptions to this generality).
The relative decline of the UK as an international power, inevitable
with the rise of China, India and the rest, should not provoke
a parallel decline in the ambition or strategic thinking of the
FCO, rather the opposite: indeed there are manifold opportunities
for exciting strategies and initiatives on myriad issues from
disarmament to democratization. But the self-confidence, imagination
and dedication required need to be rekindled, and deliberately
built into the structures and practices of the FCO. Independent
Diplomat would be happy to provide ideas if requested (we often
advise governments on the structure of their diplomatic system,
and are skilled in "building-in" practices that encourage
innovation).
- There is a final issue, which applies to every
government and not only the FCO. The world is becoming rapidly
more complicatedmore a Jackson Pollock painting than a
chessboard, and even a Pollock is inadequate to convey the multitudinous,
dynamic nature of the flows that are shaping events today. On
any particular issue, an extraordinary cast of players is on the
stage, many with growing influence. In Sudan, again it was clear
to Independent Diplomat that new actors have become more significant
than ever. One philanthropic foundation has supported huge numbers
of important NGOs in the South, some wielding considerable political
influence, often un-noticed; a film star has been more often quoted
on the conduct of the referendum than Jimmy Carter or Thabo Mbekiostensibly
in charge of the international process. Major oil companies have
been an important behind-the-scenes influence in Khartoum and
Juba, as has a telecoms billionaire. That same film star, supported
by a highly media-savvy coterie of activists, has influenced the
White House to emphasise the issue of Abyei over other North-South
issues in the coming negotiations before the new state will be
established. Governments that concentrate their energies mainly
on other governments risk missing the big picture (did the Embassy
in Cairo predict the current turmoil? What are their contacts
with the emerging new class of Egyptian leaders and youth activistsor
the Muslim Brothers?).
- This fragmented, globalised world of multiple
actors (where in fact few of them are states) is immensely difficult
for conventional structures to respond to: indeed ultimately this
world suggests a fundamental challenge to centralised decision-making.
I am increasingly convinced that it is no longer possible to sit
in an office (particularly a closed one) in Whitehall and produce
credible analyses of what might happen in Egyptor Chinaor
terrorism. The world is simply too complex. But to respond, qualities
like transparency, openness to new thinking (and outside advice),
and cutting-edge technological aptitude are clearly necessary.
From the frustration I hear from the ranks, the declining esteem
in which British strategic thinking is held, but above all the
nature of the world today, it is important that the Foreign Office
very deliberately review its structure and culture to ensure that
these qualities are the most manifest in British diplomacy in
the 21st Century.
8 February 2011
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