The New York Times
Shining, without leaving home, trying to fix fences with allies abroad
WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Antony Blinken began his first month in office with a spate of diplomacy. As part of his effort to rekindle US alliances weakened by the Trump years, Blinken spoke to dozens of his peers around the world and joined the rallies of Asian and European leaders – all without ever leaving his office. to leave on the seventh floor at the State Department. . As the world struggles to control the coronavirus pandemic, most diplomatic journeys remain delayed. In normal times, Blinken would have housed a stream of visitors and had already recorded thousands of air miles; instead, he relied on the phone and video screens, just like Zoom-dependent workers everywhere. Sign up for The Morning Newsletter of the New York Times ‘It’s good that we’re in the family plan here at the State Department, otherwise I’m broken,’ Blinken told NPR this month. Behind the jokes, however, there is frustration. Blinken and President Joe Biden say the United States faces a major challenge in restoring ties with key allies, re-establishing US leadership against rivals such as China and Russia, and confronting threats such as climate change and a nuclear Iran. Although Blinken has been vaccinated against the coronavirus, Foreign Ministry officials say they are wary of his foreign trip, which includes a succession of assistants, security personnel, support staff and journalists, many of whom are at risk of contracting the virus or to distribute. . No trip is currently planned for Blinken, and a senior administration official said he might not go into the air before the end of March – though even the timeline is uncertain. It is, according to former government officials and diplomacy experts, an unmistakable constraint, especially at a time of such a great flood in the world. Many things can be done through phone calls and video conferencing. But diplomats say proximity cultivates an unrepeatable familiarity fueled by body language, eye contact and handshakes, shared meals, cultural events, gifts exchanged, and the eredipity of meetings in the hallway, outdoor walks and other moments away from neurotic, agenda clamps. Blinken, for example, was unable to speak in person at the annual Security Conference in Munich, a forum hosted virtually last week by American and European elites to talk, discuss, strategize and confirm trans-Atlantic ties. On Monday, he held a video call with European Union foreign ministers. In normal times, these events could have ‘been part of a comprehensive trip through Europe to include the Munich Security Conference and a trip to NATO’, Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, executive director of The Future of Diplomacy Project told Harfer University’s Belfer Center for Science, said. and International Affairs. The loss of events personally ‘is a lost opportunity at this moment of resurgence for the trans-Atlantic relationship in particular,’ she said, not due to the many gatherings taking place around the Munich event. “You think of all the photos of the summit, where the leaders leaned over each other,” Clüver Ashbrook said. “This is where the real details are ironed out.” The current stance is remarkable compared to Blinken’s predecessor, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who along with other senior State Department and White House officials during the Trump administration slowed the pace of their journey during the pandemic. But the travel agenda was part of a general ethos towards the virus that was criticized by health experts, and it did not stop travel at all, which brought predictable results. After returning from meetings in London and Paris in October, Pompeo’s director of policy planning, for example, tested positive for the coronavirus, exacerbating allies over their potential exposure. The beginning of a chief diplomat’s term of office is usually a moment for particularly ambitious journeys. When Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State in January 2009, following the Iraq war and President George W. Bush’s “cowboy diplomacy,” she also felt that the United States urgently needed to replant diplomatic seeds worldwide. By mid-February, Clinton was in the air for Japan, China, South Korea and Indonesia. A few weeks later, she visited the Middle East before attending a summit of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels in early March, and then meeting with the Russian foreign minister in Geneva before moving to Turkey. has. In early April, Clinton visited 15 countries plus Ramallah, West Bank. It is not only Blinken that is grounded, but its broader team. (Biden also has no plans to travel abroad soon, the White House said.) Climate envoy John Kerry, a former foreign secretary known for his limitless appetite for foreign travel, has not yet left the country. and has no specific plans to do. so. The same goes for Blinken’s Iranian delegate, Robert Malley, who would otherwise probably commute between Europe and the Middle East to meet with allies. In contrast, President Barack Obama’s special delegates, including those for the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, set off almost immediately in 2009. One exception is the envoy of the State Department for War-torn Yemen, Timothy A. Lenderking, who is leaving on Monday after his second trip to the Persian Gulf region in pursuit of a Yemeni peace agreement. In remembrance of the complications of the COVID era trip, he underwent a mandatory quarantine period after returning from his last trip to the Gulf this month. A senior official said Lenderking’s travels were justified by the urgent relief for Yemen’s humanitarian disaster, and because he did not need a major response. State Department officials say while this may not be ideal, there are benefits to virtual diplomacy. When Blinken spoke by telephone last week to the foreign ministers of Australia, India and Japan – who together with the United States form the so-called Quad, a group implicitly set against China – he was able to call tens of thousands of peers. miles away without disruptive travel time and jet lag. ‘Of course, it’s always better to have your foreign counterparts face to face. “Nobody wants to live in this world permanently,” said Nicholas Burns, a former secretary of state and NATO ambassador. But, he added, ‘it’s easier. You can do much more on short order than before. ‘Burns said the Biden team suffered little by staying home; he argued that early public remarks by Biden and Blinken indicated a clear break with the Trump era and a return to powerful multilateral diplomacy. Just as employers are reconsidering whether their employees can work from home more frequently after the pandemic, Burns suggested diplomats could see a new appeal in saving time on travel and the challenge of coordinating schedules. “I think video conferencing will still be an option in the future,” he said. But there are other pitfalls. Journalists will argue about the shift to virtual meetings that do not provide the same opportunity for questions that many diplomatic meetings offer at the highest level. And then there is the question of keeping video meetings safe. In April, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted a picture of a Zoom meeting he was chairing. People quickly noticed that the image contained the ID of the meeting, which could have allowed uninvited guests. While senior officials like Blinken and Biden rely on methods that are much safer than Zoom, they would be wrong if they were complacent, Clüver Ashbrook noted. “We just got the biggest hack in American history with Solar Winds,” she said. “It will give us a while.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company