Globalization and Diplomacy: A Practitioner's Perspective

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Global Diplomacy Who's Overseas: U.S. Government Positions Overseas under Chief of Mission Authority: 1986 vs. 1996 U.S. Agency for International Development -23.9% Agriculture -10.5% Commerce -2.3% Defense +7.7% Health and Human Services +250% Justice +76.3% Transportation + 11.6% Treasury +5.8% U.S. Information Agency -14.1% Source: U.S. Department of State. have worked with Justice Department personnel stationed in key regional embassies like Moscow and Bangkok to negotiate bilateral extradition treaties, as well as agreements that help governments share information on criminal investigations. And consular officers stationed at every American diplomatic post have cooperated in person and via computer with agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the FBI, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the intelligence community to track suspected drug smugglers, terrorists, and criminals and deny them entry into the United States. In Budapest, we have opened an International Law Enforcement Academy to help the new democracies of the former Soviet bloc establish the rule of law that is essential to a healthy democracy. The academy, which is funded and managed by the State Department, brings together experts from the FBI, the DEA, Customs, the Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Department of Energy to share the latest anticrime techniques and technology with their counterparts from Central Europe, the New Independent States of the former Soviet Union, and Western Europe. Later this year, we will establish a similar institution in Central America. Taken together, these new forms of cooperation have significantly raised the number of U.S. government personnel stationed overseas who are not employed by the traditional foreign affairs agencies. In fact, 63 percent of those now under the authority of our ambassadors and other chiefs of mission are not State Department employees. As globalization moves forward, that number is likely to grow, as will the challenge of coordinating the American government's presence abroad. 78 FOREIGN POLICY
Talbott Working "Multi-Multilaterally" Paradoxically, while globalization induces international cohesion and empowers international enterprises, it also accentuates the limitations of national power. Governments are often too cumbersome to respond effectively to transnational threats-including when those threats are manifest within their own borders. Partly as a result, political authority is devolving from the top down and from the center outward, to local and regional governments, and to community organizations working at the grassroots. Therefore, many governments, including the U.S., have sought to leverage scarce resources and improve their ability to address transnational threats by forming coalitions with "nonstate actors"-multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international institutions like the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. These coalitions allow the United States to work not only multilaterally, but multi-multilaterally, through several organizations and institutions at the same time. In Bosnia, nine agencies and departments of the U.S. government are cooperating with more than a dozen other governments, seven international organizations, and 13 major NGOs-from the Red Cross to the International Crisis Group to the American Bar Association-to implement the Dayton Peace Accords. In the Middle East, the United States chairs the Multilateral Working Group on Water Resources, a group of 47 countries and international organizations that are working to ensure that the region's shared dependence on a scarce resource does not become a threat to political stability. The governments of Israel, Japan, Oman, South Korea, and the United States have established the Middle East Regional Desalination Center in Muscat to support research to reduce the cost of desalination. An interagency Food Security Working Group co-chaired by the Department of State, Department of Agriculture, and USAID is looking at new ways to apply American knowledge, technology, resources, and influence to ensure that there will be adequate food to meet the demands of the next century. Under this group's auspices, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is leading an international initiative that brings together governments, private companies, and NGOS to begin experimental forecasting of seasonal climate patterns, so that crop planting can be adjusted to anticipated annual rainfall, thereby helping to reduce the severity of food emergencies. FALL 1997 79
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