"The Task of Diplomacy Today"?

Eighty-five years ago this evening, on October 27, 1933, the first 21 students of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy gathered with diplomatic and academic grandees for the formal opening exercises of the first graduate school of international affairs in the United States.

The keynote address that evening was delivered by the diplomatic historian James T. Shotwell. Although he had refused an offer to serve as the school's inaugural dean, the consolation prize was a keynote address entitled "The Task of Diplomacy Today" that, nearly a century later, still sounds remarkably prescient.

In his remarks, Shotwell declared the school's founding to be "of more than academic interest," for it was to be "a new enterprise which is to point the way to the wider setting of national life in relation to the world outside." Today, with isolationism and nationalism once again alive in the discourse of the nation and the world outside, it is worth revisiting Shotwell's words to see what interest they might still hold.

Competing Conceptions of History

The heart of Shotwell's argument is a discussion of one of the oldest debates in international affairs: what is the lesson of history and human progress?

In October 1933, the question could not but have been on the minds of all present. The Great War was only 15 years past, and the institutions designed to ensure a new political order based on negotiation rather than war were already being challenged by Imperial Japan on the march in Manchuria and the new Nazi regime in Germany. The question, therefore, was whether, over the centuries, humanity tended to raise itself slightly above past circumstances by innovation, or whether it was doomed to a Hobbesian world of perpetual enmity made all the more apparent and deadly by advances in communications and technology.

"To many," said Shotwell, the latter view "will carry ready conviction, because it states the case for the world they have known best, the institutions of which are most deeply rooted in the past. It presents to them the realities of history; over against it the plans and efforts of today seem relatively unreal because not yet fully realized. Its conclusions ring like axioms on the anvil of experience."

In contrast, he posited the the "different conception of history" held by the peace movement of the interwar years, with which he himself was aligned. This view is not static but rather based on an increasing "interdependence of nations, an interdependence which has been chiefly brought about through the inventions and discoveries of science." As evidence, he marshals a brief history of innovations in finance, trade, and communications that have remade domestic and international modes of government over the centuries.

Eight and a half decades (and another World War) later, this debate is raging once more. Pundits, politicians, and a bitterly polarized public are putting forth and fighting over variations on the ancient themes of a world ruled ultimately by force versus a slow, barely perceptible evolution toward fragile interdependence.

Thus hammered by the axioms of either side, it is especially important to judge them carefully on the anvil of study and experience. For certain things in history change while others do not, and a big part of a diplomat's job is to decide which is which. Confronted by a daily stream of competing (often shoddy) historical analogies, data points, and opinions, the first task of diplomacy remains the same: to seek an answer to this eternal question in the face of apparently changing circumstance.

"The Riddle of This Present Hour"

Part of the problem in determining which conception of history is true is the persistent repetition of crises and wars, which neither side denies. Assessing the world situation in October 1933, Shotwell made this remarkable observation:

"[T]he test itself, this crisis through which we are now passing, is a historical fact in its own right and not merely an incidental chapter in the history of nationalism on the one hand, or internationalism on the other. Some turning points in history are more than turning points. They bring to light forces which had hitherto lain darkly in the background, and reveal by a flash the nature of commonplace things which have long been taken for granted. ... The great crises of history have their own hidden meanings, which are seldom what one would expect them to be. It is, therefore, not without risk that we attempt to read the riddle of this present hour, and to discern, if possible[,] what lies behind the screen of the stage of history today."

There has probably never been an age that did not pass through its share of crises. In the course of a career, most diplomats will encounter a handful that have at least the potential to rise above the background noise of the daily grind of international politics to the level of (world) historical fact. And each, in addition to adding another data point to the overall "anvil of experience" by which we adjust our conception of history, demands answers to the questions Shotwell implies here: Is the current crisis merely incidental, or actually or potentially historical? What previously hidden forces and natures of things do they reveal, and what does the revelation mean? And, in the long term, what might be the hidden meaning of the moment at hand?

"To read the riddle of this present hour" might be the most succinct definition of diplomacy, and it is never without risk. In Shotwell's time, the challenge was to consign powerful but known forces to the background; today, when old forces of war and geopolitics threaten to break free and the forces of globalization show meanings contrary to those long taken for granted, diplomacy requires not only judgment on the basis of lived experience but — perhaps even more than usual — sound historical judgment to reckon with forces intimate to the human experience but perhaps unfamiliar in an individual lifetime.

Foreign and Domestic

Advancing to his conclusion, Shotwell offered another lesson that seems to speak directly to today's world:

"Nations cannot achieve justice in the international sphere unless they are trained in its practice at home. A society which permits the exploitation of its citizens will all the more tolerate the exploitation of foreigners. A government which is the instrument of tyranny within the state is not a fit agent to help safeguard the liberty of nations from external aggression. It is in proportion as nations develop the ideals of justice and tolerance in their own home affairs that they are capable of playing their full part in the creation of a community of nations."

In the past several years, as the gap between "establishment" foreign policy consensus (long taken for granted) and "everyday" citizens' views has widened into open rupture (revealed as if by a flash), the diplomatic community has once again (belatedly) begun to consider the ways in which a state's internal and external character are related to each other. A certain amount of "do as I say, not as I do" has long been tolerated in foreign relations; post Abu Ghraib, post Ferguson, post (or mid) #MeToo, in the midst of a global migration crisis that sort of relativism has come due for a reckoning.

"The Task of Diplomacy Today"?

The context changes, yet each generation must confront this question in its own time, based on its conception of history, and then live with the consequences of its choices. For his part, Shotwell — who had stood near the treaty signing table at Versailles and "saw everything close at hand," only to see that peace rent by even more destructive war — kept his faith in scientific and social progress toward more peaceful interdependence and played a leading role in drafting the United Nations Charter after World War II.

In a time of seemingly unending crisis, we might take a lesson from his optimism and determination. "What lies behind the screen of the stage of history" lies also somewhat within our control. Our beliefs about what is possible can affect what is in fact possible. Still, as Shotwell himself acknowledged, there are natural limits to what is possible, especially in only one career, or one lifetime: "miracles do not happen in secular history."

This is so, but the best alternative yet devised is skillful, principled diplomacy. And today, 85 years after Professor Shotwell surveyed the task of diplomacy, the need for for good diplomacy — and good diplomats — has never been greater. Moreover, if Shotwell could say in 1933 that "there can be no doubt that the applied science of today has radically changed not only the substance of political debate but the very structure of government itself," the intervening years have brought so much more change that diplomacy is now no longer only or even primarily the purview of government. Our economy and our society cry out for the study and practice of diplomacy "conceived in the spirit of justice and ... of law in that for those ideals which make for the welfare of the whole community it serves."

The tasks of diplomacy today are immense: to learn how to talk to each other again; to determine what is really possible; and to bring the reality of interdependence into closer harmony with the desire for liberty and justice — at home as well as abroad.

This is no small or neat task, as Shotwell knew: "The creative movements of history do not run smoothly toward their goal; failure and frustration accompany them at almost every turn. ... But the very obstacles to progress have proved the best of stepping stones." Nor will we necessarily finish the work in our own time — but that is no reason not to begin. In the words of Edward R. Murrow, another Fletcher icon, "difficulty is the excuse history never accepts."

And so, despite the difficulties, let us begin, just as Professor Shotwell encouraged us to 85 years ago: by choosing our conception of history wisely, by attempting with humility and in spite of difficulty to read the riddle of the present hour (and to respond with courage to what we read), and always remembering that there is a relationship between the behavior we conscience amongst ourselves and our moral influence amongst the nations.