Episode 56. The US & Azerbaijan: The Role of Geography with Colonel Keith Felter and Ambassador Robert Cekuta

Episode Transcript:

Amb. McCarthy: [00:00:11] From the American Academy of Diplomacy. This is The General and The Ambassador. Our podcast brings together senior U.S. diplomats and senior U.S. military leaders to discuss their work together in advancing U.S. national security interests overseas. I am Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, the producer and host. The general and the ambassador is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy in partnership with UMC Global at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Today, we will focus on the U.S. and Azerbaijan. Our guests are Ambassador Robert Cekuta, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan from 2015 to 2018, and Colonel Keith Felter, who served as a defense attaché and senior defense official at the U.S. Embassy in Baku from 2015 to 2017. In full disclosure, Bob and I know each other from our time together in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs at the State Department, and we both share ties and a love for the great state of Maine. Welcome to both of you. And thank you, Colonel, for beaming in via Zoom from Helsinki, Finland, where you're currently posted as the U.S. defense attache. I want to start explaining a couple of things to our listeners. As way of background, Azerbaijan is located at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is bordered by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north Georgia, Armenia and Turkey to the west and Iran to the south. At one point it was ruled by various Iranian dynasties, by Russia, and it was incorporated into the Soviet Union until 1991. Early on in the U.S. war on terrorism, Azerbaijan was one of the first countries that allowed the U.S. to overfly its territory. And as we will discuss, it, has been supportive of NATO's in Afghanistan. It has significant oil and gas reserves, and major U.S. companies have invested in that sector. So let me start with you, Ambassador Cekuta, as the U.S. ambassador. Bob, you managed our entire relationship with Azerbaijan as a senior defense official. Keith, you were charged with advising the ambassador on all military matters. What are U.S. strategic interests in Azerbaijan and how did you work together to achieve them?

Amb. Cekuta: [00:02:36] First of all, it's good to see you again, Deborah, and good to see you again, Keith. In terms of the relationship between the US and Azerbaijan, it's really sort of a triad of three intersecting sets of interests first security, second energy, economics, and third, good governance, rule of law, progress in any one of those advances, progress in the other two in terms of the security arrangement, which is really the area that Colonel Felter, Keith and I worked most closely together. The basic point here where I think a couple of different things. One is the US is strongly interested in the independence, territorial integrity, prosperity, democratic development and well-being of Azerbaijan. This is true really of the whole of the region. And the seeing the states that emerged out of the old Soviet Union, out of the old Soviet space, take their rightful place in the world and be able to act as independent actors, as their people want them to move forward. Our security, really, American security is really tied up in the idea of a whole free, prosperous, peaceful Europe. Azerbaijan is the key piece of that, as you noted, Deborah. Azerbaijan was a good partner in fighting terrorism, violent extremism. Azerbaijan is an important energy producer, oil and natural gas. And so one of the interests which we had was seeing that oil and natural gas produced and being able to move freely to Western markets. Azerbaijan is a key supplier of oil to Israel, for example. It is key in terms of increasing European energy security through its production of natural gas. And finally, the same sort of sense of Azerbaijan as a straight satisfies Iran as a choke point perhaps comes into effect in terms of oil pipelines, but now increasingly surface transportation and even Internet. There's idea of a Trans Caspian cable, fiber optic cable. This enables us it enables information. It enables energy to be just commerce, to move in a way that is not interdicted or can be interdicted either by Russia or Iran.

Col. Felter: [00:04:50] Ambassador McCarthy and Ambassador Cekuta, first, I'd like to thank you for inviting me to participate in this podcast. If I could, I'd like to preface my remarks by reminding your audience, as you said, that I served from the summer of 2015 until the summer of 2017. So all my answers today will be based on my experiences during that period of time. As Ambassador Cekuta said, Azerbaijani troops have participated in several NATO led missions, including in Afghanistan. They actually are serving as part of a Turkish unit that provides security for the Bagram Airport. We also want to gain access to a country's air, land and water routes for the transport of our troops and our military systems. Azerbaijan's geographic location is very important for that.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:05:35] Well, I wanted to ask from a military perspective, the country was part of what was called the Northern Distribution Network, whereby vital supplies were sent from the U.S. to Afghanistan. Can you explain the role of Azerbaijan in the Northern Distribution Network and what you each had to do to keep it open? I understand that during your time, that route became essential when another major route through Pakistan was cut off.

Amb. Cekuta: [00:06:04] This is one of the areas that Keith and I got to work very closely together on. We had to get annual reauthorization from the Azerbaijani government for the Northern Distribution for, for the blanket overflight clearance. It was not something that was necessarily easy. Just remember, Azerbaijan's geography, North Russia, south Iran. And so things that would help in terms of relations with the United States might not always work well with some of their neighbors. So they were under a certain amount of pressure. Keith And the defense attache office really had the sort of lead on sort of working the process through the system. But at a certain point, we sort of hit a difficulty in closing the deal. This was a matter that really affected the lives of American service people because they couldn't get out if they were, say, injured. We need to fly over people's lives, could really be on the line. And so one of the things which we sort of hit was sort of the point of Ok, it's time now to go in to the top levels. And that's what I would frequently have to do, is go in to the top levels of the Azerbaijan government. Explain why this was important to the United States, to NATO, but also Azerbaijan was a good partner in trying to sort of help stabilize and improve the situation in Afghanistan. There's a lot of bilateral work that went on between the Azerbaijanis and the Afghans. And so how they're agreeing to this, to the annual renewal was something that really benefited all of us. But again, I have to say that in doing that, it was not a zero cost decision for the Azerbaijanis. I think maybe Colonel Felter has probably got a lot more detail in terms of what could be said about this.

Col. Felter: [00:07:47] I'm a pilot and like most pilots, I'm a visual learner, so I normally answer this question using a map of Asia. And when you're looking at the map, it's actually possible to draw almost a perfect circle around Afghanistan. And that circle passes through only five countries. So if you want to reach Afghanistan, you have to be able to cross at least one of these five countries. Those five countries are Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran and Azerbaijan. Now, you can guess that sometimes having a US military aircraft get permission to fly over Russia, China or Iran might be a bit of a challenge. And so therefore, that really leaves two options. Ambassador McCarthy As you said, occasionally that option has not been available to the United States. And so in those times it's been very important that Azerbaijan supports the United States and allows that access because that was our only option. Luckily for us, the Azerbaijanis did they did support us through those times, as Ambassador Cekuta said, it's not something their neighbors may be necessarily agree with, but they've still supported the United States. And it's extremely critical. Of course, the United States is, I think, very grateful for that support.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:09:15] Bob, you mentioned that the Northern Distribution Network also served to bring personnel service members who needed medical attention. Can you and Keith talk a little bit more about this aspect of the network?

Amb. Cekuta: [00:09:31] Very often, governments will agree on a case by case basis to overflight. But if you have someone who's wounded or someone who's in a health situation that is an emergency minutes count. And so if you're sort of waiting for a bureaucratic process to sort of percolate the system through and Keith can probably remember, I think if we did it the normal way, they had some sort of period of advance warning that they wanted to be able to move through the system. That can mean the difference between life and death for a service person. And this was something that obviously is exceedingly important, again, something that was not widely. August, but is something that we understood in the embassy that the military, I think, understood and the Azerbaijani leadership understood why this was so important. 

Col. Felter: [00:10:21] In terms of medevac and treating our service members who are injured in Afghanistan. The United States has gone to a philosophy of doing the sort of immediate care in Afghanistan and then evacuating as soon as possible to a major medical facility for the rest of the treatment. The closest facility to Azerbaijan, where they normally do this is in Landstuhl, Germany, next to our Ramstein Air Base. And so the fastest route to the launch tool from Afghanistan is over Azerbaijan. Oftentimes, those requests were very little notice and well within the timelines that were required. But the Azerbaijanis were always very supportive and always approved those requests so that we could get our people treated. It saved many, many American lives.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:11:15] I wanted to turn back to the country's geographic location, as you mentioned, Bob. Azerbaijan is the only country that shares a border with both Russia and Iran. What are Russian and Iranian interests in Azerbaijan and how did this affect the relationship?

Amb. Cekuta: [00:11:33] Both Russia and Iran will make public statements about respecting Azerbaijan's independence and so forth. But the unfortunate reality is there is a history from both meddling in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan was part of the Persian Empire. It was part of the Russian Empire. Today, Azerbaijan's total population is about ten and a half million people. It borders two provinces of Iran. So there's a natural sort of connection there. Russia, and particularly under President Putin, has repeatedly made remarks about special areas of influence, special spheres of influence in the former Soviet space. The United States does not accept that. We firmly believe that all countries have the right to their independence, their sovereignty to make their own decisions, self-determination. There is this strain that comes across in the relationship between Russia and Azerbaijan. Iran also has meddled in Azerbaijan at various points in its history and not in the terribly distant past. I mean, both Russia and Iran did various things as Vietnam sort of re-emerged as an independent country in 1991 playing different ethnic groups in Azerbaijan. Iran, for example, would send mullahs into the mosques in Azerbaijan to preach. There's a tension, even though Azerbaijan works hard to sort of have good relations, both sides recognizes it needs to have good relations with both sides. There's a tension in the relationship. Iran strongly objects to Azerbaijan. Very good, very warm relations with Israel. Azerbaijan is a Shia majority state, but it has very good relations with Israel. There's a large Jewish population in Azerbaijan. There has been a large Jewish population, Azerbaijan, for a very, very, very, very, very long time. And the Azerbaijanis are very proud of this fact. And one of the things I did with as Ambassador to Azerbaijan was go to a celebration of the completion of a Torah in a synagogue in Baku, not what you would normally be expecting to do with the ambassador to a muslim country. But the Iranians were not necessarily happy about that sort of thing. And so that was a factor they need to do. Azerbaijan constantly treading or trying to sort of deal with the ambitions of their neighbors.

Col. Felter: [00:13:50] In your question, you ask about the relations of Russia and Iran with Azerbaijan. But there's another country who I think is very important to consider as well, and that's Turkey. The Azerbaijanis have a very close cultural relationship with Turkey. They consider themselves each other's brothers. Azerbaijani is actually an older form of the Turkish language. Before it was modernized by Ataturk. Azerbaijan also has relations with the West, Europe and the United States. So there are sort of four relationships that Azerbaijanis would have to manage out of those for the one that I would say had the least interaction with Azerbaijan from a security perspective was Iran. They would cooperate to manage their border, but we didn't see a lot of cooperation amongst the military forces. People often ask me, are the Azerbaijanis leaning more towards the West or more towards Turkey or more towards Russia? From what I saw, the Azerbaijanis would have been happy. Just stay in the middle and have great relationships with all three.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:14:55] Let me turn back to the issue of our relationship in terms of security assistance. What kinds of security assistance does the U.S. provide to Azerbaijan and how does the provision of this? Assistance help advance U.S. interests in the country and the region.

Col. Felter: [00:15:16] Before I describe various sorts of security assistance that we were able to provide Azerbaijan, I'd like to discuss some of the special circumstances which surrounded this work. Looking back to the early 1990s, Azerbaijan fought a war with their neighbor Armenia, and as a result of that conflict, the US Congress passed a law called the Freedom Support Act. In this law, there's a Section 907 which forbids all security assistance to Azerbaijan. This law was later amended to allow the President of the United States to grant an annual waiver to Section 907, which would allow us to do security assistance with Azerbaijan if some of the following criteria were met. One is that the work supports the United States efforts to counter international terrorism, or it supports the operational readiness of the United States Armed Forces or coalition partners to counter international terrorism, or it's important for Azerbaijan's border security. And then in any of those cases, the last criteria is it has to not undermine or hamper any of the efforts to negotiate a peaceful settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan or be used some way offensively against Armenia. So before we could undertake any security assistance with Azerbaijan, we had to make sure those criteria were met. As I mentioned earlier, that Azerbaijanis are serving in Afghanistan, so we were able to help that unit with communications gear and training that allowed them to be able to do their mission and interoperate with NATO's troops in Afghanistan.

Col. Felter: [00:17:00] We did a lot of maritime security work with Azerbaijan. Ambassadors talked earlier about the oil and gas. Those reserves are largely located in the Caspian, allowing Azerbaijan to ensure the security of those resources helps not only Azerbaijan, but all of our partners who rely on those energy reserves as well. One example of this is the United States installed maritime radars pretty much along the entire Caspian coast in Azerbaijan. This allowed the Azerbaijani Navy and Coast Guard to have an awareness of what was going on in that maritime domain. We also did a lot of work in the humanitarian sphere. This type of work was typically done in communities of people who had been displaced by the fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia. A lot of these were as simple as providing potable water to these residents. An example of this, Ambassador Cekuta got to attend a ribbon cutting ceremony. But we had a team repair the water infrastructure in the village. That water was then supplied to a local factory which was able to make juice and compost, and they in turn bought the fruits from the local farmers. So not only did they employ villagers in the factory, but they also supported the farmers around the village, all based on this one water project. 

Amb. Cekuta: [00:18:25] If I could just build a couple of things that Keith said. There are benefits here that really accrue to the United States. One of the things that is important is that our partner countries be used to working with us is important in Afghanistan and in other operations. So that joint training is very important and has a real benefit for the United States and for the United States military. Second thing I want to sort of build off of something Keith said in terms of these projects that were done. One of the things that is really important in diplomacy is outreach to the people of the country. I used to sort of go nuts when I was being trained in a foreign language, and the teacher said, We talk to the foreign ministry like, No, I'm going to be out all over the country. And so when we go out and Colonel Felter and his counterparts in the Office of Defense Cooperation, I will go out and my wife and I would be out there would be in a village. These were people in many cases. Some had grown up in the Soviet era, and they're seeing people in American military uniforms and they're seeing them as helpers. They're seeing them as people who are bringing concrete improvements to their lives. This gives a huge boost to the relationship. It undercuts so much negative publicity that gets out about the US. It shows Americans caring. I think that that's really something. It may sound soft, but it has a huge beneficial impact in our relationship and beneficial impact for the US taxpayer.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:19:59] Well, the Oklahoma National Guard also operates in Azerbaijan. Can you tell us a little bit more about the effect that this training has had in. In terms of U.S. interests.

Amb. Cekuta: [00:20:12] First of all, their partnership with the state National Guards is very important in helping people in Azerbaijan. And we have programs in other countries as well, understand how to work with the United States, understand the values of a modern Western military that includes things like the role of civilian authorities, which is not something that's necessarily been internalized from the old Soviet period. It's also something which has a lot of follow on effects. Again, post my time as ambassador, I was at a conference in Oklahoma City with the governor, with the Azerbaijani ambassador, where Azerbaijan was reaching out to Oklahoma to find out how to improve its livestock production and marketing. And so there was ironically, a sort of interesting commercial angle that came out in terms of building up a relationship between the state of Oklahoma and the country of Azerbaijan. 

Amb. McCarthy: [00:21:07] In our podcast series, we have often highlighted the role of National Guards. In my time in Lithuania, we had the Pennsylvania National Guard. We did a podcast with a member of the Vermont National Guard. So maybe, Keith, I can ask you about the value of these partnership programs in general.

Col. Felter: [00:21:27] The State Partnership Program is really an outstanding resource for the Department of Defense in order to build these relationships with our partner countries and increase their defense capabilities. So the program matches partner nations with the National Guard of a US state. Like you mentioned, Azerbaijan is partnered with Oklahoma, so personnel from the Guard unit would come out and conduct periodic visits with the Azerbaijani military and participate in training and exercises with them. One of the big advantages that I see that the National Guard has over, let's say, an active duty unit doing the same thing, is that the men and women in the National Guard tend to have much more continuity in their positions, whereas in the active duty we rotate every 2 to 3 years to a new assignment. In a country like Azerbaijan, the relationships are often built on a personal level, and when a new person comes in, that relationship is starting over. So to be able to have that continuity allows that relationship to progress. So the Azerbaijanis in working with the Oklahoma Guard, they could see familiar faces and build those relationships. But there's a second big advantage to using the guard I see for these type of interactions, and that is that many of the Guardsmen, they have civilian careers that they're able to draw from. So they're professionals and their civilian careers and they have the military experience and they also have contacts throughout their states. So what they may be a military member in their guard, they might be an educator or they might be in state government or in an economic area, as Ambassador Cekuta mentioned, agriculture or oil and gas. The embassy, the country team benefit not only just from the military experience, but also from the civilian professional experience of these Guard members in advancing our US strategic interests in many different areas.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:23:31] For years there's been a major ethnic and territorial conflict between Azerbaijan and its neighbor Armenia. This dispute is over a region called Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict dates to the early part of the 20th century. It turned into a war in the late 1980s, during which an estimated 1 million Armenians and Azerbaijanis were displaced, a cease fire mostly held until 2016. But then a second war broke out in November 2020. After 44 days of fighting, a peace deal was brokered by Russia. Can you explain to our listeners what this dispute is about and why does it matter to the United States? 

Amb. Cekuta: [00:24:14] This is a conflict that really goes back to the late 19th, early 20th centuries. By and large, Azerbaijan and Armenia could live together, but they were periods in late 19th and early 20th century. So violence between the two communities. There were claims throughout the Soviet period. And then really one of the factors even coming into the collapse of the Soviet Union were disputes between ethnic Armenians and ethnic Azerbaijanis over this piece of territory, Nagorno-Karabakh. It was a autonomous oblast in the Azerbaijan Soviet Republic. Azerbaijan is part of the Azerbaijani internationally recognized territory because the Soviet Union broke up. We recognize territories across the lines of where the borders were, but again, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been living together and each began to go back to all of the how it got there, because it gets it's really too complicated. But essentially from ethnic violence in the late eighties to open warfare. Bear between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. In the early part of the 1990s, Azerbaijan lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh. It also lost control of, I think, seven different regions around Nagorno-Karabakh. Because Nagorno-Karabakh does actually border Armenia, it's within Azerbaijan. So the pieces again said early, it'd be great to have a map, but over a million Azerbaijanis were displaced or became refugees as a result of this conflict. Again, if you think of population about ten and a half million people, this gives you an idea of the percentage of Azerbaijanis who sort of come out of this conflict, making Azerbaijan on a per capita basis one of the countries with the most refugees and displaced people of any country in the world.

Amb. Cekuta: [00:25:50] The United States was along with Russia and France is part of what is called the Minsk Group. This is a group of countries which were charged by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. We're trying to find a way forward for peace between the Azerbaijanis and Armenians. The United States did try, along with the other parties, the Minsk Group, to bring the two sides together. But there was very, very, very little progress. This boiled over when the situation started fighting this past summer in July on the international border between Azerbaijan and Armenia and then into open warfare in late September through October, and finally culminating with a peace agreement that was reached, brokered by Putin in November with the presidents of Azerbaijan and the prime minister of Armenia. The Azerbaijanis regained control of the surrounding territories and of much of Nagorno-Karabakh. Change took place as a result of this agreement. Yes, the Armenians lost control of this territory, but there are now almost 2000.

Amb. Cekuta: [00:26:55] I think it's 1125 Russian peacekeepers in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan had been the one country in the South Caucasus where there were no Russians. The Russians have invaded and taken pieces in Georgia. They had bases in Armenia, but they did not when we were there, have troops on the ground in Azerbaijan. That has now changed. Russia sort of has brokered this agreement. What we're looking at now is where does this go next? And this is one of the things I think is important piece of our relationship here. If we think about American history, we've fought bloody all out wars with the UK, with Germany, with Italy, with Japan. They're now our closest allies. We look at Europe and look at what happened after World War Two, where there was no guarantee in 1945-46 we'd never see another Franco-German war. It's now unthinkable. So it's possible to sort of move things forward. And so one of the things which I think now as we look at the situation on the ground there, we have this conflict, We've had this history of conflict. We have a cease fire in place, but it's not a peace. So I think where we need to be looking now is how we can sort of help those two sides come together towards a peace. 

Col. Felter: [00:28:03] Like Ambassador Cekuta, I wish we had a map. In addition, I wish we could be standing on the ground near the line of contact and really see the terrain and understand how it affects the people on both sides. There's really kind of three different geographic areas that are around Nagorno-Karabakh. So that first is Nagorno-Karabakh. But as you look on the map, the area controlled by Armenian forces, as Ambassador Cekuta said, is much larger. When the fighting ended in the nineties, the Armenians held the upper hand and so they could sort of establish the lines, the contact lines where it was easiest for them to defend so they could stop the fighting at the edge of the mountains, which was well outside Nagorno-Karabakh in many places. And then from there they'd be able to command the little lands that the planes that go out into Azerbaijan. So the second area was much larger than Nagorno-Karabakh, but there was a third area. If you're an Azerbaijani behind the Azerbaijani lines, that's not safe for Azerbaijani civilians. So it could be unexploded ordnance in that area or sniper fire or mortar fire, know the many hazards in that area, and it's not safe to be used for agriculture or any kind of economic means. So the big Azerbaijani frustration wasn't just that Nagorno-Karabakh area was controlled by the Armenians, but they lost all this other territory that was in some cases, well, well outside of Nagorno-Karabakh that they no longer had access to. So an example, the city of Ogden, a very large city, but it was a moonscape. When I was in Azerbaijan, there was absolutely nothing living there, not even a building really to be seen. So really a situation which impacts a lot of the civilians in the area and has for a very long time as well.

Amb. Cekuta: [00:30:04] These sorts of conflicts you have people are directly involved and you see people. We're farming very, very close to the line of contact schools that were very close to the line of contact, and the Azerbaijani saying, well, hey, we didn't hear this was our home. It's long been our home before this line of contact, which is where we refer to the border between the two was there. So why should I give up my home? And Armenians are making the same claim in terms of their ability to live in Karabakh or other areas. Again, there had been Armenians living in those areas for a long time. The question was really over the political control of it and the direction of it. One of the things I want to come back to a little bit here is in terms of the Minsk Group, and that was that the United States tried hard to sort of listen to the two sides, find ways to improve communications, to bring them together. There were times when at top levels of the US government, we tried to bring the two leaders together. But one of the things I think that is always important to remember and I think it sort of explains a little bit of how things kind of move in this neighborhood is that Russia provided weapons to both sides. They provided them on credit to Armenia and on cash to Azerbaijan. Same weapons. Keith can correct me, but I think relatively close weapon system, the United States would not do that. We saw our role is trying to bring about a peaceful solution based on principles set out in the agreements on Europe, on the Helsinki principles, traveling around the country and meeting with Azerbaijanis, who had been displaced, who wanted to go back home. And I know my counterpart in Armenia, probably the same sorts of conversations. It's very emotional, it's very difficult, but it also was not and we saw this in November, a untenable situation.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:31:50] In this conflict. The United States has a close relationship with Armenia, and there is a large Armenian diaspora in the United States. What role did this diaspora play in influencing what Congress was saying or how the policy was being made in the United States vis a vis this dispute?

Amb. Cekuta: [00:32:10] Armenian Americans care about Armenia and they cared about Nagorno-Karabakh, and they, like any American, Express their views, entitled to express their views, want to hear their views. Those views do get reflected in policies and legislation. One thing which I try to do is Ambassador, was help members of Congress get a better understanding of the situation, a fuller and saying situation. Again, they make their own decisions. But when we would have members of Congress come through oftentimes just for transit, I would make a point of going out and sitting down and answering questions from the members about what was going on in the region and encouraging members to come out and visit the region. 

Amb. McCarthy: [00:32:52] Well, to wrap up, I wanted to ask you both to comment on the relationship between U.S. senior diplomats and U.S. military leaders. You each have extensive experience in several embassies. What are the key elements of a successful relationship between a chief of mission and a defense attache? And what are the pitfalls to avoid. 

Col. Felter: [00:33:15] The first thing that a new attaché needs to learn when they come to an embassy or when they're heading to a attaché position, is that the Department of State and the Department of Defense have very, very different ways of operating. And so in the DOD and in the military, oftentimes when we're faced with a problem, we're pressured to do something. On the State Department side, the State Department is entrusted to manage the nation's international relationships. And some of these relationships span centuries. And some of them are very complicated and very delicate. And therefore, the State Department personnel oftentimes take great care not to damage a relationship. In some cases, the best way to avoid damage to a relationship is to do nothing. Now, I'm not trying to say that the State Department has a "do nothing" culture, but I am trying to say that as an attaché, we need to understand this viewpoint. We need to be able to communicate that back to our military chain of command. And that way we can avoid inadvertently damaging our international relationships with a hasty action. Another thing that I think is very important for an attaché to understand is the importance of open communications within a country team. It said that no one likes surprises. Well, ambassadors really don't like them. The third thing that I think is important for an attache to realize is the value that you as an attache and as a military member can bring to that country team and to the ambassador. In our work as military attachés, oftentimes we have opportunities to talk to people and travel to parts of the country that other diplomats don't normally get to talk to or get to travel. We may have experiences or information experiences that the ambassador would otherwise not have access to.

Amb. Cekuta: [00:35:17] One of the things that I really valued from Keith and his successors. They have a different history, a different experience growing up in their organization than we do in State, and it's really beneficial to have that different experience. As ambassador, you're the CEO. You're dealing with all the different pieces of the embassy and trying to sort of make sure they jive. They work together to sort of have an ongoing dialogue. Camaraderie among the senior people in the mission is really important. But I found that the defense attache group, the the military portion of the embassy really could sort of help with the cohesion of the mission. I'm of the generation that grew up, came into the State Department closely after Vietnam. Maybe we have more now, but we don't have a whole lot of State Department officials may or may not have ever served in the military. So the defense had to shape really helps them understand it and they understand what the military brings to the table.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:36:20] Well, gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you for being on The General and The Ambassador and providing your perspectives on this very interesting part of the world. And yes, we all need to pull out our maps as we listen to the podcast. This has been a new episode in the series The General and the Ambassador, A Conversation. Thank you for listening. Our series is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy in partnership with UNC Global at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can find our podcasts on all major podcast sites and on our website. General Ambassador.Podcast.org. Do follow us on Twitter and Facebook. We welcome all input and suggestions. You can mail us directly at General.Ambassador.podcast@ gmail.com. Thank you for listening.