Episode 8. Ambassador McCarthy Interview With SIRIUS POTUS Eric Ham

Episode Transcript:

Eric Ham: [00:00:00] In studio our Ambassadors roundtable. And we have Ambassador Peter Romero, who served as ambassador to Ecuador. Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, who served as ambassador US ambassador to Lithuania. And we also have with us Laura Bennett, who is the producer of The American Diplomat, which Peter runs. And it's a podcast. And so we're going to talk about all these things for the next 30 minutes. So thank all of you for being with us today. So much to talk about. And even we've got 30 minutes. It's just not enough time to. Right. Exactly. But we really we really appreciate you all being here. And so you all are doing some really fascinating things. Ambassador Romero, you're running this American Diplomat series. And Ambassador McCarthy, you have the the American know, you have the American diplomat. Now I've got.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:00:45] No, I've got the General and the Ambassador.

Eric Ham: [00:00:46] General and the and the Ambassador. Right. And so we and so we've got some clips from all of those from from both of your podcasts that we're going to play. So, Peter, let's just start with you and you tell us about the podcast that you're running and how how you guys came about putting this together. And Laura, I want you to feel free to jump in as well because you're the producer. So you're like you're like the driver. Peter just gets all the credit for it. But we know. We know where all the works get. All the work gets done, correct. That's how it is with this show. We know I'm just a voice, but Jenna is basically the brains behind everything.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:01:21] Well, you nailed it because Laura is the storyteller. And we've got this great font of American diplomats, active duty and retired, that tell their stories. The news behind the news. It's to to us, not revelatory, but to the rest of the world who doesn't know much about how we conduct diplomacy and why we do what we do. I think it is quite a revelation.

Laura Bennett: [00:01:48] It is to me. That's why I love it.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:01:49] Yeah.

Eric Ham: [00:01:50] And and so how long have you guys been running this series?

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:01:53] We've got about how many? 30. Some.

Laura Bennett: [00:01:55] 30? Probably five, if you don't count 1 or 2 reposts.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:02:00] Okay. So 35. We we post every week on Thursdays and we've gotten a tremendously good response.

Eric Ham: [00:02:07] And how long have you guys been doing it?

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:02:09] Since November.

Laura Bennett: [00:02:10] Since November? About six.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:02:11] Months. Yeah, about six months.

Eric Ham: [00:02:13] And and tell us, what exactly does the series entail? It's the American Diplomat. And it's talking about is it is it is it stories of a bird's eye view inside the world of an American diplomat overseas.

Laura Bennett: [00:02:27] Not bird's eye. No, no. It's like the fly on the wall view. That's the idea. The idea is these are human stories that they relate to policy and that these are people who are implementing and helping form policy. But these are the human stories about their lives, the diplomats lives, and also the lives of those whose who are impacted by the work that the diplomats.

Eric Ham: [00:02:46] So this is like sausage making. So we actually get to see how the sausage gets made.

Laura Bennett: [00:02:49] You do get to see how that's exactly what we were just saying the other day, how the sausage is made. We were thinking that should be our tagline, but it's really not appropriate.

Eric Ham: [00:02:57] That's great. And so Ambassador McCarthy, you're running the the General and the.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:03:04] The General and the Ambassador.

Eric Ham: [00:03:05] Ambassador conversation. A conversation.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:03:08] Yeah, that's a slightly different series, though, targeting some of the same audiences. We're doing both of these through the Academy of Diplomacy. And the second series talks about how our top military officers work with our top diplomats because we have military power and we have diplomatic power and we need both. One threatens the use of force or uses force. The other one negotiates so we don't have to use force or after we've used force. And so we took examples of our top generals and our top ambassadors like Petraeus Crocker in their time in in Iraq, Breedlove, Victoria Nuland in their time working NATO and Russia, and talked about how they worked together both overseas and also domestically with the constituencies back here at home.

Eric Ham: [00:03:50] And so how many of these conversations have we seen so far that that you've had? And you mentioned Petraeus, Crocker, Now, these are actual people. You've actually had on your podcast?

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:04:02] Right, great conversations.

Eric Ham: [00:04:03] And then there's also been one with General Skip Ward. I thought that was a report.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:04:08] Kip Ward and Mary Yates to talk about why we're in Africa and the importance of our footprint in Africa, both from a military and diplomatic point of view.

Eric Ham: [00:04:14] And so how many how long has this been, this series been running, and how many have you?

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:04:18] We've been running about five months and we've done ten as I have to track down everybody. Some are in retirement and we have to adjust to the schedules, but we've got another ten coming up in the near future.

Eric Ham: [00:04:29] And so neither the neither of these series actually overlap one another, correct?

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:04:35] Not really. I think they touch upon the what what Deborah's trying to do Ambassador McCarthy's trying to do in terms of of political military collaboration overseas at home and that sort of thing. But most of our stories are just diplomat practitioners in the trenches and how they do what they do. And I don't think that there's a lot of Americans, particularly outside the Beltway, that really understand what it takes to do things. At a time when, quite frankly, we need diplomacy more than ever as a nation.

Laura Bennett: [00:05:06] And so the stories we tell try to help a listener understand how it works, that the human experience is impacted. These are stories much more so than a discussion of policy or strategy.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:05:19] We get into strategy how they strategize to be able to negotiate locally, negotiate on the Hill, get resources, work together. And sometimes, as some of them say, one played bad cop, one played good cop in a scenario to advance interests and to protect the US.

Eric Ham: [00:05:33] So we're getting not only are we getting a a fly on the wall view, but also we're getting a deep dive into strategy and actually how the process is being implemented across the globe.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:05:46] That's exactly right. And as I said, we need diplomacy now more than ever and we need to support our diplomats. Certainly, they are part of a of a of a three legged stool, if you will, with intelligence and with military. They've got to work in sync. And I was just flabbergasted that the current administration gave a supplemental to the Department of Defense back a couple of months ago that was not asked for by the Department of Defense. It was about $60 million or pardon me, $60 billion, which is more almost double the whole State Department budget. Okay. So that's that's a scary that's a scary proposition in that if you're going to sideline our diplomats, you're going to hamstring yourself diplomatically.

Eric Ham: [00:06:34] Ambassador Romero, you're going exactly where I where I want to take this conversation. You're making me seem like a master here. That's great. Thank you. Make me look good. So this is actually because this is actually what I want to get into, because, Ambassador McCarthy, you're running the General and the Ambassador, which looks at the two D's of our three D approach to US foreign policy. And so I'm pretty sure these conversations are very eye opening because for many people who don't understand how this works, they probably don't recognize that, that the two actually attempt to work together, both.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:07:10] Like we have military bases overseas while our embassies are our bases overseas. We got military in the ground. We need our diplomats on the ground. And may the numbers continue to increase because we need to negotiate. They're the ones who go out in the population whether to provide assistance or to negotiate agreements, because we're above all, we're negotiators.

Eric Ham: [00:07:27] And then also, Peter, you just mentioned how the the Pentagon just got this $60 Billion plus up and how Foggy Bottom is usually scrimping and scratching, trying to get resources. Does that conversation ever come up, Ambassador McCarthy, in your conversations between the general and the diplomats? Because the the Pentagon's always I don't want to say flush with cash, but they always have what they need in terms of resources. And even when I was working on the Hill, that just wasn't the case for Foggy Bottom, right? Absolutely.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:08:01] It comes up, it comes up every single time with our senior military officers, the four stars, the three stars saying you have to resource the State Department. You have to because it's not about military force all the time or military intervention or whatever term you want to use. It's also about the other side image and negotiations, development assistance, fighting, poverty and so forth. The two go hand in hand. So they are big supporters.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:08:28] Absolutely. I lecture at Marine Corps headquarters in Quantico, and my first question to colonels who are being groomed to become Marine Corps generals is of all of the conflicts around the world and we fill the basket and the basket gets overflown lately, and that is Yemen, Syria, Iraq, conflicts in Venezuela, elsewhere. Are there any of these? And many of these people have served two and three and four tours in Afghanistan and other places. Are there any of these that can be solved militarily? And I never had one hand come up to affirm because they can't be. If there's anything that we've learned over the years, you need to have diplomats in place to negotiate a before a war breaks out and during the war to keep the lines of communication open. But even more critically afterwards, because people don't go home and be good people after that and just obey the law, sometimes you have to.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:09:27] Rebuild the rebuild the nation.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:09:29] And you've got to win hearts and minds.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:09:31] Well, we have one disadvantage as diplomats. In one of the podcasts we did with Admiral Kirby and Ambassador Hammer, Admiral Kirby talked about it's so easy for our military to show exactly what they do. You've got equipment, you've got action, lots of things. Diplomats negotiate. It's behind the scenes. And as negotiations are taking place, you're not going to say everything that's going on because you could blow the deal. And so it less it lends itself less to a public relations campaign. But our military colleagues are helping us, which is appreciated.

Eric Ham: [00:10:03] But even if even if that's difficult to to show or to see, why is it so difficult to actually be able to communicate that, particularly to appropriators? Because they if anyone should get it, they should get it. Appropriators, lawmakers. But if I could. But they're the ones who. They're the ones who are actually doling out the money and the resources. And they're saying, okay, we need to give this. In fact, we've seen instances where during the Bush administration, where it was we'll give money to the Pentagon and the Pentagon wants to give the money to State Department.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:10:35] State They will. Yeah. Yeah. The Pentagon is a pass through. I think there's a number of reasons. And these go way, way back. They're not they're not just recent phenomenon. There's veterans all over this country and they belong to veterans groups. And they lobby, they do all kinds of things for the defense budget and for for benefits for GIs. Okay. The second thing is that, as you were saying and as Deborah is saying, it's easy to see what the Department of Defense does. You know, they move in, they blow things up. They you know, they do things. You can put your hands on it with the with the State Department. And we had an interesting episode with the which involved the death of a of a American Foreign Service officer in southern Afghanistan. And she was there for a book ceremony. Okay. We were we were buying it was.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:11:23] Part of the outreach. Right?

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:11:24] Part of the outreach in southern Afghanistan to the Pashtun tribe community. And they had decided they needed books. And so we had crates and crates of books that we were that we were passing over to them. And in the process of walking back to the base, which was just across the street, a suicide bomber came rolling down, down, down the street, blew himself up, blew, blew her up. And I was thinking, you know, we we as a nation call our American soldiers heroes that are trying to take the Hill, trying to guard the base, trying to do all of those things that are easy to see. And yet she was doing something as critical, if not more critical than someone that's carrying a gun. And yet she's an unknown commodity.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:12:07] And she if you walk through our national security strategy, which is a long list of what we want to achieve in the world, diplomats do a bit of all of it. And sometimes it's hard to measure the bottom line as, for example, the negotiation on XYZ trade deal, whatever is taking years. So it's hard to go to appropriators and say, okay, we've achieved the following. Again, look at our trade negotiations. That's one example. But others or you're trying to transform a society so there is less disease, there is less corruption that takes years. Whereas, you know, in terms of other actions, short, medium and long term, on the military side, they're more measurable. And that's the difference in terms of arguments that are made on the Hill.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:12:48] But warfare is becoming less measurable. Okay? You can't you can't measure hearts and minds as easily as you can, who controls what terrain. And even that's becoming more difficult. So what Deborah is saying is it doesn't our business doesn't lend itself to an easy understanding. But I like to say that our that our business involves more child psychology than anything else. Certainly, the issues are really complicated.

Eric Ham: [00:13:15] You're going to break that one down. I will.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:13:17] Absolutely will. When you're when you're dealing with a five year old and Laura knows this, she's got a five year old. Okay. I had a five year old. Deborah had a five year old at one point.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:13:27] Thank God they grow up.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:13:28] Thank God they grow up. But the the solution is to try to get the kid to make the decision that you want the kid to make, own that decision and feel good about having made that decision and maybe even take the bow or get the trophy or whatever it is the little kids do now. Okay. And that's what you want to do internationally. The best case scenario internationally is you've got something that you want to have done. It's in a priority of the United States to get something done. You get like minded countries interested. They start coming up on the net. You, you, you, you are able to basically get them to take the lead out front. Okay. They work this, you work, you work it, too. And you get to a point of critical mass where you've got enough people to to to to to work this thing, whatever the policy initiative might be. And it's successful. They take the ballot. You're standing back in the background, they own it. They're part of the implementation of the monitoring or whatever it is. They feel good about it. It sets up success for the next thing you want to work on with them because you're not taking over the stage. You're letting them take over the stage and they take the bow and you're standing in the back. And that is a that is a beautiful diplomatic outcome.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:14:41] But that's not to say we don't do stuff on the hard side. I mean, we negotiate all sorts of agreements in counterterrorism. We run a drug program, a massive program. We do police training around the world. And one of the most fascinating podcasts we did was to talk about the transition of DOD giving up the security. Responsibilities in Iraq and turning it over to the civilians both locally and to our embassy there. So one of the things we tackled in the podcast with General Austin and Ambassador Jeffrey was precisely that transition and how that was carried out. But that's not to say and I want to reinforce that the State Department doesn't do the hard side as well.

Laura Bennett: [00:15:21] I would also like to add that the reason I have no idea how to influence lawmakers or decision makers in matters of policy, but I do understand how to tell stories, I hope. And one of the things that we're trying to do is help people, not just policymakers, understand, as you say, how the sausage is made. And everyone has human experiences. Not that many of us have experiences in policy outside of the Beltway. And so we're trying to help people understand from the human experience level what it is that what is the value, what is the commitment, what is the integrity and the risk that diplomats take on in order to protect Americans and their interests?

Eric Ham: [00:16:00] We have with us in studio Ambassador Deborah McCarthy. She's former US ambassador to Lithuania and Ambassador Peter Romero, who served as US ambassador to Ecuador, and Laura Bennett, who is the producer of the podcast American Diplomat. Let's play a clip from the General and the Ambassador and come back in on the other side.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:16:18] You both are top experts in public affairs and have represented our military and our diplomatic corps. The American people know why we have a military, but they don't always know why we have diplomats. Why do you think one service is better known than the other?

Amb. Michael Hammer: [00:16:33] Well, Deborah, it's great to be here this morning with my good friend, Admiral Kirby. We worked together for several years, and now it's great to share with the American people some perspectives on public affairs and public diplomacy. What I would say again, from the State Department perspective is that it's a challenge for us for a number of reasons, to connect with the American people. The military is fantastic, and almost everyone in the United States has either a relative who has served a close family member, a friend, and so their daily lives are connected in some way to our wonderful men and women in uniform. Beyond that, I would say that the military also has all the really incredible hardware that attracts a lot of eyeballs, whether it's having an aircraft carrier come down and visit while I was ambassador in Chile and see the Ospreys taking off or looking at a Raptor when we were promoting defense sales, that gets a lot of attention. And frankly, there's a lot of connectivity. I'm sure Admiral Kirby can talk about it between the military and Hollywood and the production of movies and so forth. For the State Department, it's kind of hard.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:17:39] And our budget is much smaller.

Amb. Michael Hammer: [00:17:41] Well, it is. And a series about diplomats writing cables or back door negotiations just doesn't catch the excitement.

Eric Ham: [00:17:48] And that was a clip from the podcast The General and the Ambassador, and that featured Ambassador Michael Hammer explaining why it's hard to sell the hard work of the State Department. And also there was and that was Rear Admiral Kirby and Ambassador Michael Hammer speaking. And so he was talking about all the shiny toys that the the Pentagon has and how those toys are able to, I guess, beget more toys. And the Pentagon and the and and Foggy Bottom typically goes at a loss. And I think there's also one other aspect of this that we haven't really brought in, and that's the development piece to all of that, who gets even more shortchanged than the State Department? So we're talking about the lion's share of resources going to the Pentagon and then what's left goes to the State Department. And then maybe if there's anything left from that, it goes to the USAID and to development resources. And so has there been any conversations that you all have had in your in your your respective podcast that actually speak to the role of development?

Laura Bennett: [00:18:51] Yeah, we had that's what Jonathan Addleton was. He was a USAID, he was an ambassador, but he also was in USAID, right?

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:18:58] Yeah, he was in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. And essentially we have a process in places like Afghanistan, but also Iraq, where local military and their diplomatic counterparts can can work with local officials to to empower local officials by basically giving them small grants that they can show are benefits to to to their constituents in these very rural areas. And it's been highly, highly successful. But, you know, there's other things that we do. We did a podcast called Dreadlock Diplomacy where we had an American Foreign Service officer with dreadlocks down to his waist and a Johnny husband was his name or is his name. And he got to Eritrea on his first tour right outside of A-100 class, our beginning class, and found out that the Eritrean government did not talk to American diplomats for a variety of historical reasons. And so he's there by himself on his first. Or nobody. Nobody's talking to him. And he notices that there are these youth community centers in town that that have attracted both Eritreans and Ethiopian youth, along with South Sudanese youth. And so he goes there and he hangs out and he gets to know a lot of people. And he, after a couple of weeks, is teaching a course on nonviolent political activism using Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King as examples of nonviolent political change. What does that cost? If you can influence the whole next generation of political activists and that whole part of the world, and it costs you probably the $60,000 or whatever his annual salary is. Isn't that worth it?

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:20:45] And that development piece is critical in terms of our projection overseas for all sorts of reasons and is a critical part of our national security. So there is a huge component in that in that area, which, you know, our ambassadors have have managed as part of what they do in responsibility. It's critical for that to be sustained, not only in terms of US leadership and and and other elements, but also because in today, official development assistance is not the big bear in the room. The private sector gives from around the world. And therefore, that's why we're seeing more and more cooperation and new ideas coming across between our private sector and our official development assistance sources. And for our development assistance, we need to be extremely nimble. We need to be to adapt. It doesn't cost a lot in a lot of places, as Peter just explained. But if we don't have that tool and it is also a tool in the toolbox, we are at a great disadvantage. And so it must be funded.

Eric Ham: [00:21:48] You know, I think what this is a very enlightening conversation because I think typically people when they think about our overseas engagement, most people probably think it's led by the military, that the that the military takes the lead on so much because that's what we talk about so much. And that's how it's and that's how it's portrayed.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:22:08] That's why we're doing the podcast series.

Eric Ham: [00:22:10] Exactly.

Eric Ham: [00:22:10] But but talking to you all and listening to this, it's clear that it's the diplomats that play such an integral role to what's actually happening in the US projection overseas. And I think that's fascinating and I think it's something that people need to learn more about. We're going to play a clip from The American Diplomat, and this clip is titled Go With God. And it explains a mother who sends her children off to school in a war zone. Let's play that clip and come back on the other side.

Amb. John Feeley: [00:22:37] We are allowed to bring a private car, but we're only allowed to drive it on approved routes. We go to and from work in armored vehicles. Our children get on to go to school. They were seven and four, get on a school bus and a guy comes out every day and he's got an Uzi machine gun that is slapped around his shoulder because as there are frequent kidnappings of rich kids and he's on the.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:23:04] Bus with the kids.

Amb. John Feeley: [00:23:05] Two of them actually. Two of them for each kid. No, no, actually, they.

Speaker8: [00:23:10] Weren't there for our kids. They were there for other kids. They were there.

Amb. John Feeley: [00:23:12] For every you know, our kids went to an international school, but the international school had had kidnappings where they kidnapped the kid. Were you.

Laura Bennett: [00:23:20] Terrified? I would be terrified.

Speaker8: [00:23:22] I used to look at them from the balcony and just say a prayer, you know, go with God. Children. Yeah.

Eric Ham: [00:23:27] Wow. That's the podcast American Diplomat. And that's led by Ambassador Peter Romero and Laura Bennett, who were with us in studio, and of course, Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, who runs who has the general and the ambassador, A conversation, also another podcast. So tell us a little bit about what's going on here and who is this that's talking in this podcast?

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:23:49] Well, this is Ambassador John Feeley, who just left the State Department in March as our ambassador in Panama. He's retired and his spouse is Cherry Feeley, who was a senior Foreign Service officer, very distinguished in the service. And they were talking about their second tour in Colombia about the same time that Pablo Escobar, the famed cartel cocaine cartel leader, was well, actually he was killed. But things were really, really bad in Colombia at the time and kidnappings everywhere. Like she said, children and basically the American community, the official community in particular, just had to hunker down and certain very small neighborhoods, kind of like Fort Apache and basically hope for the best. And her kids were the first kids back allowed back at post. And that was those were her thoughts as she saw her children riding off into the sunset in an armored vehicle with with guards, with with semiautomatic weapons.

Eric Ham: [00:24:53] You know, we give we give so much, I think, credence and voice to our soldiers and our military who put. Who put themselves in harm's way, and rightfully so and as we should. But I don't think and again, I think it all goes back to this this PR, if you will, but we never really take time to to think about also our ambassadors who also are putting themselves in harm's way for for the flag and the.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:25:19] Risks can run everything. Look at the health risks right now with what happened to some of our officers in Cuba, what's reportedly happening in China. So there there are a number of risks. There's security risks, there are health risks. And there's a lot of sacrifice because, after all, we're all public servants. Sure. And on duty 24 over seven, when we're out of the states.

Amb. Peter Romero: [00:25:39] There's a in the C Street entrance to the State Department, which is the main entrance. There are two walls, one on either side as you walk into this grand flag room. And there are tablets on both sides with with now, I guess, over 100 people listed on both who have lost their lives in the performance of their diplomatic duties worldwide. And you'll notice that the ones we it took us about probably about 100 and some years to fill up the first half. And we've been able to unfortunately fill up the second half within the last 20, 25 years. So American diplomats do die and they fall casualty to conflict abroad.

Amb. Deborah McCarthy: [00:26:18] But the point is not who suffers more. I mean, all our public servants and you know, we work we work together to defend the states and the United States and advance our interests.

Eric Ham: [00:26:27] Thank you, Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, Ambassador Peter Romero and producer Laura Bennett. Thank you so much for being with us in studio. We got to we got to have you guys back in here.