The New York Times
Blinken, without leaving home, tries to mend fences with allies abroad
WASHINGTON – State Secretary Antony Blinken has started his first month in the job with a burst of diplomacy. As part of his effort to revive America’s alliances devastated by the Trump years, Blinken has spoken with dozens of his counterparts around the world and attended meetings of Asian and European leaders – all without ever leaving his office on the seventh floor of the State Department. . As the world struggles to control the coronavirus pandemic, most diplomatic travel remains delayed. In normal times, Blinken would have hosted a stream of visitors and registered thousands of flying miles; instead, he relied on the phone and video screens, just like Zoom-dependent workers everywhere. Sign up for The Morning’s newsletter from the New York Times “It’s a good thing we have the family plan here at the State Department, otherwise I’d be broke,” Blinken told NPR this month. However, there is frustration behind the jokes. Blinken and President Joe Biden say the United States faces a huge challenge in re-establishing ties with key allies, re-establishing U.S. leadership against rivals like China and Russia, and tackling threats such as climate change and a nuclear Iran. . Although Blinken has been vaccinated against the coronavirus, State Department officials say they are cautious about his overseas travels, which involve an entourage of assistants, security personnel, support staff and journalists, many of whom are at risk of contracting the virus. run or disperse. . Blinken has not currently planned a trip, and a senior official said he may not be airing until the end of March, although even that timeline is uncertain. That, say former government officials and diplomacy experts, is an undeniable handicap, especially at a time of such a change in the world. Much business can be done through telephone calls and video conferences. But diplomats say closeness breeds a familiarity that cannot be replicated, fueled by body language, eye contact and handshakes, shared meals, cultural events, gifts exchanged, and the serendipity of hallway encounters, outdoor walks, and other moments away from neurotic, agenda items. For example, Blinken was unable to attend in person the annual Munich Security Conference, a forum held almost last week for American and European elites to speak, schmooze, develop strategies and reaffirm transatlantic ties. On Monday he held a video call with the foreign ministers of the European Union. In normal times, those events may have been “part of a sweeping Europe trip that included the Munich Security Conference and a trip to NATO,” said Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Executive Director of The Future of Diplomacy Project at the Belfer Center for Science. from Harvard University. and international affairs. Missing the events personally “is a missed opportunity at this moment of reviving the transatlantic relationship in particular,” she said, not least because of the many side meetings taking place around the Munich event. “You think of all the pictures of the summits, where the leaders are leaning over each other,” said Clüver Ashbrook. “That’s where the factual details get smoothed out.” The current stasis 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 that travel agenda was part of an overall business-as-usual ethos towards the virus that was being criticized by health experts, and it by no means stopped the trips, which came with predictable results. For example, after returning from meetings in London and Paris in October, Pompeo’s director of policy planning tested positive for the coronavirus, exacerbating allies about their potential exposure. The beginning of a senior diplomat’s tenure is typically a time for particularly ambitious travel. 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. In mid-February, Clinton flew into the air for Japan, China, South Korea and Indonesia. A few weeks later, she visited the Middle East before attending a NATO summit of foreign ministers in Brussels in early March, and then met the Russian Foreign Minister in Geneva before going to Turkey. By early April, Clinton had visited 15 countries plus Ramallah in the West Bank. It is not just Blinken who is on the ground, but his wider team. (Biden also has no plans to travel abroad anytime soon, the White House says.) Climate envoy John Kerry, a former secretary of state known for his boundless appetite for foreign travel, has not yet left the country and has no specific plans to do so. The same is true of Blinken’s Iranian envoy, Robert Malley, who would otherwise likely be shuttling between Europe and the Middle East to consult with allies. In contrast, President Barack Obama’s special envoys, including those for the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, took to the road almost immediately in 2009. An exception is State Department envoy to war-ravaged Yemen, Timothy A. Lenderking, who left Monday for his second trip to the Persian Gulf region under a peace deal in Yemen. In memory of the complications of travel in the COVID era, 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 urgency of emergency response to the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, and because he did not need major follow-up. State Department officials say that while it may not be ideal, there are benefits to virtual diplomacy. Last week, when Blinken spoke by phone with the foreign ministers of Australia, India and Japan – who together with the United States form the so-called Quad, a group implicitly opposed to China – he was able to get in touch with tens of thousands of colleagues. miles away without disturbing travel time and jet lag. “It is of course always better to be face to face with your foreign colleagues. No one wants to live in this world permanently, ”said Nicholas Burns, former Secretary of State and NATO Ambassador. But, he added, “it’s easier. You can get a lot more done with a short order than before. Burns said the Biden team had suffered little by staying at home, arguing that early public comments from Biden and Blinken marked a clear break with the Trump era and a return to vigorous multilateral diplomacy. Just as employers are rethinking whether their employees can work from home more regularly after the pandemic, Burns suggested that diplomats could see a new appeal to gaining time on travel and the challenge of coordinating schedules. “I think video summits will continue to be an option in the future,” he said But there are more pitfalls. Journalists will protest a shift to virtual encounters that do not provide the same opportunity for questions that many top-level diplomatic gatherings present. And then there is the issue of securing video conferences. Prime Minister tweeted in April. Boris Johnson of Great Britain portrays a Zoom meeting he is leading ing had. People soon noticed that the image contained the meeting ID, which could potentially allow uninvited guests to join. While senior officials such as Blinken and Biden rely on methods that are much safer than Zoom, it would be wrong to be complacent, Clüver Ashbrook noted. “We just made the biggest hack in US history with Solar Winds,” she said. “That should give us a break.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company