Author: Brian Carlson

The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Under Secretaries

~ Brian Carlson ~ 4 Comments

By Brian Carlson
The following originally appeared at the Public Diplomacy Council and is republished here with permission.  

Tara Sonenshine was confirmed Thursday night by the Senate, and she will probably take office officially early this week.  (She can be sworn in privately by some current official and begin work, even as a more formal ceremony is planned for a few weeks hence.)

It is a new beginning down at Foggy Bottom.  Tara becomes only the seventh Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs since the job was created upon the merger of USIA into the Department in 1999.

It is a propitious time to consider what habits lead to  success at the State Department, as well as what experience teaches about being the nation’s Olympic spear-catcher when they think we’re being out-communicated by some guy in a cave.  Here are a few suggestions for how to succeed at this job, all gathered from my time working directly with five of the six previous Under Secretaries.  (I had no contact with Margaret Tutwiler.)

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Best Thing for State Department Since General Marshall

~ Brian Carlson ~ 1 Comment

By Amb. Brian Carlson

Click photo for screen-resolution image"The Administration’s intention to put General James Mattis in charge of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is the best thing to happen to the State Department since General George C. Marshall showed up in Foggy Bottom to become Secretary of State.

Mattis is one of the "outliers" — one of the few top commanders who understand that America’s enemies will not be defeated in a pitched battle on a field, but rather through the slow change of hearts and minds around dinner tables and tribal councils in countries in conflict.

General Mattis used to lead the "Pinnacle" seminars at Joint Forces Command in Norfolk. Pinnacle is the week-long, intensive leadership grooming for two- and three-star officers who are thought most likely to rise to the very top in the near future. Indeed, General Stan McChrystal was a participant in one of the Pinnacle courses where I was the State Department representative. The free-flowing and candid discussions between these senior, achievement-oriented military officers and a select group of current and former senior Administration national security officials is designed to get the participants thinking about all the levers of national power that may one day be in their hands. Pinnacle is the kind of rigorous intellectual preparation that you can only dream of State giving to its senior officers and future ambassadors, be they career or political appointees.

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