Episode 72. The US, Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean

Episode Transcript:

Amb. McCarthy: [00:00:15] Welcome to a Conversation in the American Academy of Diplomacy podcast series, The General and the Ambassador. Our podcast brings together senior U.S. diplomats and senior U.S. defense officials in conversations about how they work together on a major international crisis or foreign policy challenge. I am Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, the producer and host. Today, we're going to talk about Cyprus in the context of U.S. engagement in the eastern Mediterranean. I'm very happy to be joined today by our guests, Ambassador Kathleen Doherty, the former U.S. ambassador to Cyprus from 2015 to 2019, and Rachel Ellehuus, who served as acting deputy assistant secretary of defense and principal director for European and NATO Policy at the Department of Defense during much of that same period. Ms. Ellehuus is currently the senior civilian representative of the Secretary of Defense and the defense advisor for the u.s. mission to NATO. She is joining us from Brussels. Ambassador Doherty is currently the chief strategy officer at the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. The General and the ambassador is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy. This podcast has been sponsored by Dataminr, a leading artificial intelligence platform that delivers real time breaking news alerts to help you make critical decisions and respond with speed and confidence. Ambassador Doherty, Defense Advisor Ellehuus, welcome to the General and the Ambassador. And thank you for taking the time to join the series.

Amb. Doherty: [00:01:49] Thank you, Deborah. Looking forward to our conversation.

Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:01:52] Thanks for having us.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:01:55] Well, often in these podcasts, we start by giving our listeners a basic outline of the foreign policy problem that our senior officials have worked on. Interestingly, in this case, there is something known as the Cyprus problem. Bottom line, the island of Cyprus is divided into two parts, separated by U.N. monitored buffer zone. The northern part calls itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and is only recognized by Turkey. The southern part is the Republic of Cyprus, which is recognized internationally and is a member of the European Union. Politically, the two clashed constantly, and now that hydrocarbon deposits have been found offshore, the issue has become even more complicated. The Cyprus problem goes back decades when the island became independent from Britain in 1960. A complicated power sharing agreement between the two was set up. The island's territorial integrity was guaranteed by an agreement between Britain, Greece and Turkey. But things deteriorated between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots in 1964. The U.N. had to step in with a peacekeeping force that has been there ever since. In 1974, after a military coup in Greece, Turkey sent soldiers to defend the Turkish Cypriots and occupied about a third of the island. They are still there. That same year, the US ambassador to Cyprus, Rodger Davies, and a consular employee, Antoinette Varnara, were shot dead during a Greek Cypriot protest against Turkish actions. Since the early seventies, there have been many UN-led negotiations to solve the problem, as well as direct negotiations between the two governments. At times over the years, both sides have come close to an agreement, but all attempts have collapsed. I was in Greece as deputy chief of mission during the Christofias-Talat negotiations. And Ambassador Doherty, you were the U.S. ambassador during the last unsuccessful round. So today, Turkey has thousands of troops deployed in the north. The UK has two sovereign bases in the south, in the Republic of Cyprus, and Greece has troops stationed there as well. So let me start with you, Kathleen. What role has the U.S. played over the years in the Cyprus problem and what was the U.S. involvement in the negotiations during your time?

Amb. Doherty: [00:04:22] As you correctly stated, it's an enormously complicated situation. Throughout the years, we've had special envoys, including Richard Holbrooke, who was one of our most foremost diplomats, who is a special envoy to help in the peace negotiations. When I was there from 2015 to 2019, we did not have a special envoy. I played an active but behind the scenes role in encouraging all the parties to try to reach a consensus agreement on common areas. Sometimes I played a behind the scenes role in helping explain the positions of the respective sides. I also worked very closely with the UN how we could get UN National Security Council support for the negotiations. Any agreement would have to go to the UN Security Council for an ultimate approval. So the P-5 ambassadors, which were the ambassador of the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and the United States, we met regularly with the U.N. representative in Cyprus to talk about strategy.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:05:24] Well, the UK, Greece and Turkey are all members of NATO, but Cyprus is not. Rachel, let me ask you, how does the Cyprus problem affect NATO and U.S. security interests in the region?

Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:05:39] Well, thank you, Ambassador. I mean, we face such organizational mismatches with a lot of countries where one's a member of NATO but not the EU and vice versa. Your listeners will be familiar with the current example of Finland and Sweden who are invitees to NATO but not yet members, but are members of the EU. So in the case, the case, you note that UK, Greece and Turkey are members of NATO. I'd add that likewise the UK, the US and Turkey are not members of the EU. So these two things together are what makes it especially complicated. Of course, you can't change geography. It's imperative that we find ways to work around these themes. So the transnational nature of many of the threats in that particular region require us to to really engage. And Kathleen already mentioned some of the ways we use bilateral engagements, coalition of the willing, like the P-5 or even smaller groups outside the European Union and NATO's. Those are all ways that we build consensus and try to get past some of these practical problems. In a NATO context, though, there are some practical problems that these divisions create. For example, on intelligence sharing, it's often very difficult for data in the EU to share intelligence, even when they're operating side by side in operations in the North Atlantic or the Eastern Med because of those strange arrangements. It has also been very difficult for Cyprus and other sort of scene members to participate in exercises that Naito or the EU might be having. So there is a practical impact.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:07:12] Well, we have this U.N. peacekeeping force on the ground which is tasked with maintaining the peace and the buffer zone. Can you each talk a little bit about how you engaged with the U.N. peacekeeping force, both in the DOD side and the Department of State side?

Amb. Doherty: [00:07:28] In Cyprus, there is a civilian head of the U.N. peacekeeping force, and then there's the military head, and there's also a police head. And I just mentioned a bit earlier, before we started the recording, when I was there, it was an incredible coincidence that all of us were women, which was an unusual I don't think of another precedence when you had all three senior leaderships and the UN women and the US ambassador was a woman, so it was great. We enjoyed the novelty. I think sometimes it was a bit disconcerting to our Cypriot partners to have so many powerful women on the island. But again, we worked very closely in terms of ensuring stability on the island. That was the closest. It's not an open conflict between the two sides and they're not shooting at each other or killing each other. But there's always a potential for escalation of tensions that could result in some type of violence. And so the US worked very closely with the UN in terms of ensuring its presence. We did have to vote on a mandate renewal every six months. It's an unusual mandate that it's a vestige from 1964. It's one I think it's the only peacekeeping mission that has to be renewed every six months. So we worked very closely with our DOD counterparts and our mission in New York about the mandate and its renewal and what its requirements would say in the analysis that would go behind it.

Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:08:48] I'd add that the success of the process is in its longevity. I mean, the United States fully supports the efforts of the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus through to today, despite the difficulty of the mandate renewal. In terms of the Pentagon role, that would be probably a supporting role of of State Department being in the lead. We'd mainly provide advice on the rules of engagement, as well as examples of how similar peacekeeping operations have been organized. So some of the particulars of things like the buffer zone and the cease fire lines, what's working, what's not working, what types of adjustments we might make in terms of force, posture or practices if there were tensions resulting from the way the mission itself was organized?

Amb. McCarthy: [00:09:28] Well, I can't help but ask on this buffer zone, what is the buffer zone look like?

Amb. Doherty: [00:09:33] It's real. It almost feels like a post-apocalyptic movie set. And if you go into the buffer zone and you have to go through the crossing points, it is a stuck in time since 1974. You'll see storefronts. You'll see all the men and residents abandoned. You're taken on a tour sometimes by the UN peacekeeping troops, official Americans and other official visitors. And you can see newspapers in the floor, furniture, clothing strewn all over the place, really stuck in time. There's a famous story of a car dealer that had just accepted a new shipment of cars that had to be abandoned overnight. And you go and see these brand new cars, which are no longer brand new in 1974. But you open the door of one of the cars and it still has a new car smell, which is really odd and disconcerting. And you can go on to the Nicosia Airport, which is no longer functioning. It's it's also been abandoned since 1974. And there are a few passenger planes that have gunshots in them. And then you can see the terminal has all the posters from 1974 up and it's a barricade with barbed wire. The tower control tower is also in a state of disrepair. As I said, it's kind of a post-apocalyptic view and really drives home what the cost of this separation and division is.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:11:00] Well, energy issues are now part of the Cyprus problem, for there are hydrocarbon resources off the coast of Cyprus. Both sides of the island have issued permits for exploration to various companies, but there's a vigorous dispute over the sovereignty of the zones where the drilling is occurring. Turkey has vigorously supported the Turkish Cypriots, has issued its own licenses and has even gone so far as to send the Turkish navy into contested areas in 2018. I understand things came to a head. Catherine, let me start with you. The U.S. became involved in this energy resource feud. Can you walk us through the role of the U.S. and your own diplomatic engagement to get all parties to calm down?

Amb. Doherty: [00:11:45] Well, the U.S. has long had a position that the Republic of Cyprus has the right to exploit its natural resources. And so we would make that point vigorously and continuously that that Republic of Cyprus, as the recognized state, has the right to first issue licenses and to exploit these resources. We also did say repeatedly that we hoped if there were to be any resources extracted, which they have not yet been, they've just been minor discoveries with the potential for large discoveries have been identified in Cyprus that in the context of settlement, in the context of unification, those revenues should be shared equitably between the two sides. It's all in the abstract. Until there are sizable extractions, it becomes much more of a relevant issue nowadays because with the attempt to try to get Europe independent of Russian gas, any discoveries in the east and mid and that's just not those in Cyprus. It's also between the coast of Israel and Lebanon and others. They become a potential solution, not the only solution to Russian gas. And so this issue, I believe, will continue to be fraught and will be a source of tension, not only between the two sides in Cyprus, but also between Turkey and Greece and the international community.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:13:03] Well, Rachel, as I noted, the Turks sent in their navy into the contested areas and even as I understand, blocked an Italian drill ship. How did you work both within DOD and with our embassies in Ankara and Nicosia to defuse this crisis?

Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:13:19] One of the strains in both the bilateral US, Greek and US Turkish relationship is that military angle. So even in periods where there's been internal turmoil in each of those countries or the political side of the relationship has been less than stellar. The mil-mil has been a bit of a rock, so we've always been able to draw on those to encourage all sides to refrain from any sort of escalatory rhetoric, unilateral actions, and instead turn to communications to resolve those tensions. My impression has been that that one of the benefits and reasons the US has succeeded here is because they've approached this problem set as more of an overseer of what's going on in the energy exploration area and have been careful not to sort of cross that line into being an enabler or financer or taking sides. So as Kathleen said, we have recognized the right of the Republic of Cyprus to exploit those energy resources that are in its area. But when it comes to those more complicated or disputed zones, I think we've gone to great pains not to take sides or dictate a solution or push a particular agenda. And I think that has had success and continue to continues to have success both for DOD and state.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:14:31] Other countries, such as France, Egypt, Israel and the UAE have also become involved in energy exploration and investments in the Eastern Med. We have this long standing issue of conflicting claims between Turkey, Cyprus and Greece on their maritime borders. How does the US work on both the diplomatic and defense side with these other countries interests to help address the energy challenge in the region and the Cyprus problem?

Amb. Doherty: [00:14:59] And Rachel mentioned it. I mean, I think our role is as much to de-escalate any tensions as it is to provide solutions, because it is an extraordinarily complicated issue. It involves law of the sea and maritime border boundaries and who's a signatories and who are not. So our role is to really try to deescalate so that it doesn't become an an active, open, physical conflict between any of the parties. That said, when, you know, you do have other European Union members, Italy and France, as you mentioned, have active drilling in Cyprus and as EU members, they also try to work respectively with Cyprus and in times with Greece to de-escalate tensions.

Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:15:43] I would add that it actually complicates the picture in many ways to have different actors with different motivations coming in. Some are in there for the economics, some have historical ties, some claim sort of political and security affinity. I mean, we saw France, for example, saying they had an obligation to aid fellow EU member Cyprus and then proceeding to make a number of bilateral security and defense agreements with both Greece and Cyprus in 2020, 2021. So from a naval perspective where I'm sitting, that actually sort of undermines Article five security guarantees for Greece and creates different competing interests in a region where we're really just trying to keep tension low. And that got to the point where I think in June 2022, we had to call in the NATO's secretary general and get him involved, not quite mediating, but the energy disputes, but more importantly, trying to resolve some of the the back and forth and tit for tat in the Aegean, whether that was having maritime incursions, air incursions, angry words. But I'm not a huge fan of individual countries getting involved. I am, despite the institutional difficulties that we talked talked about in the beginning, I prefer finding ways to work through multilateral, multinational organizations like the UN and whatnot.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:17:05] Well, the US itself launched what is called a "3+1 dialogue," which is between Israel, Cyprus, Greece and the US. It focuses on energy and economic issues. Kathleen, can you talk a little bit about how this 3+1 dialogue helps our interests in the region?

Amb. Doherty: [00:17:25] Over probably the last 5 to 8 years, there was a recognition that Cyprus is in a very fraught region. Its geography is everything. It's about 100 miles from Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and given its location and it is the easternmost country of the European Union. We believe that we needed to have look at Cyprus, the Republic of Cyprus, not just in the context of a divided island and reunification, but in a much broader context, which implies economic, political and security dimensions. This is something that the three plus one dialogue is focused on. On energy issues, again, to make sure that it doesn't escalate into active conflict. The potential is great. There's a lot of controversy about boundaries and this is a way to de-escalate the process.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:18:16] Well, I wanted to turn now to our own bilateral security cooperation. In 2018, the U.S. and the Republic of Cyprus issued a Statement of Intent on bilateral security cooperation. This led to a number of things, including the appointment of the first defence attache from the Republic of Cyprus to the U.S. in 2020 under what is called the Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act, the US partially lifted a 33 year arms embargo on Cyprus, allowing for the flow of non-lethal equipment. But it is only renewed on a year to year basis and for a full lifting of the embargo, the President must certify that the Republic of Cyprus is cooperating with the US on a number of issues, including denying Russian military vessels access to its ports for refueling and servicing. So this is a question for both of you. Can you walk us through how the Department of State and the Department of Defense work together to deepen the security relationship with the Republic of Cyprus?

Amb. Doherty: [00:19:21] This is something that I think Rachel and I worked very closely on during the deliberations. It was not an easy decision to make to shift our bilateral security relationship with Cyprus, partly because we were always cognizant of the two different tracks of our engagement. One was the process of reunification of the island, and one was this separate bilateral relationship. But if you recall, back in 2017-18, there was the active war in Syria going on. There was, was and continues to be a huge refugee crisis. Cyprus, again, given its geography, is a focal point of some of this activity. Russia was sending vessels, refueling them in Cyprus to go to Syria. The refugee crisis, a lot of refugees were coming to Cyprus as their first point. So collaboratively, the State Department and the Department of Defense decided to take a deep dive in a relationship and decide. What should change and what should stay the same. And we worked very closely together in deciding kind of a series of cascading steps to change our security relationship. And one was this bilateral security agreement that we did sign in 2018 that led to this really radical shift in our engagement with Cyprus, which has led not only to this exchange of defence at this phase, but there's been some joint training and search and rescue. We just invested $5 million US government in creating a search and rescue center in Cyprus, which is called CYCLOPS, which is rather an interesting acronym, if nothing else. And so a lot of it's focused on search and rescue given again, given where Cyprus is, but it is a fundamentally different change. And the arms embargo regulation that has been that is lifted on an annual basis is something that we decided that would be important. And it is important for search and rescue aspects to be able to provide some type of equipment to the Cypriots.

Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:21:21] I remember this episode very well, Kathleen, and I remember it not being easy. I mean, it was quite fraught. And there were there were good arguments on both sides of the debate as to whether and how far to go in rebuilding that US relationship with the Republic of Cyprus. I was in an office that dealt not just with Cyprus but with NATO and with Turkey. And our relationship with Turkey bilaterally was not the best. And of course we had no way to engage Cyprus in a context. So there were really a lot of debates for and against on both sides. But I think at the end of the day it came down to two things. The first was the recognition that Cyprus is integral to regional security in the Eastern Med. So whether we were trying to do counter-narcotics search and rescue, counterterrorism, combating disinformation, helping with humanitarian evacuations, we were missing an opportunity to have a relationship with the Republic of Cyprus because their geography and their positioning in the Eastern Med was just so critical to so many of our US objectives, and that was really harming U.S. security objectives. The second reason I think, was we were starting to notice that the absence of this relationship was creating a gap for adversaries to step in.

Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:22:35] So there's always been a close Russian Cypriot relationship and a Russian presence, economically and otherwise, on Cyprus. But that was sort of bleeding over into the security sphere, and we were starting to notice that. And I think that's what prompted folks in the Pentagon to adopt. I think this cascade approach, as Kathleen characterized it, something that was pragmatic but also gradual, although it didn't all happen overnight. First it was the later it was later the lifting of the arms embargo. And then you had that conditionality built in. I think there was an expectation that in return for rebuilding and reopening this relationship, we could extract greater cooperation from Cyprus on pushing back on Russian so called port visits or get some cooperation on on illicit financing or money laundering then. But in terms of the broader relationship, I would note that Cyprus has been a strong partner on humanitarian operations, including humanitarian support to US citizens in Lebanon and then again in the Afghanistan evacuation effort. And then more recently, Cyprus has been a very valuable partner in support of Ukraine and among other things, they've been in full alignment with the EU sanctions against Russia.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:23:48] Well, if I can stay on the issue of Russia's interests in Cyprus, you mentioned, Rachel, the port agreement, which I believe dates to 2015, but Russia's had interests in the island for much longer. Can you each comment a little bit about Russia's interests in Cyprus?

Amb. Doherty: [00:24:08] Its deep in its decades. Long before Cyprus was a member, the EU was a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, which was under the Soviet sphere. A lot of Cypriots of a particular generation actually studied in Russia. The second largest political party in Cyprus is the Communist Party still, and it still uses the symbol of the hammer and sickle. It's the Orthodox churches which have a closeness to them. There was actually an enormous Russian Orthodox Church built in Cyprus. There was a political party for Russian Russians who live in Cyprus. There were Russian radio stations. City of Limassol kind of has a nickname of being Leningrad. There were so many Russians, there were so many Russians, as I should say, because the whole situation in Ukraine is completely upended. This there is not only just tourists, but 800,000 tourists would come to Russian. Tourists would come to Cyprus, second only to about a million Brits who would come each year. And then there was a lot of Russian investment and most probably interest infamously is that Cyprus had a very generous citizenship program where they would grant Cypriot citizenship by derivative than EU citizenship to anyone who invested a certain amount of money in Cyprus. A lot of prominent Russian oligarchs have participated in that golden passport regime. And Cyprus is now, I think, revoked 11 of those citizenships in response to Ukraine. It was a big issue there and it was a very generous scheme that benefited both Russians and Cypriots. So and then lastly, Russia being part of the P-5 and a UN Security Council member, historically very much supported the Republic of Cyprus in its positions on regarding the negotiations and settlement negotiations. So having Russia be supportive of a broader agreement was essential, but not always a given.

Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:26:12] I'd just add from a security perspective, if you zoom out and you look at the location of Cyprus and Russia's interest in the region, I mean, we often talk about a greater Mediterranean where you have if you if you look at the Mediterranean, the center, you've got the Balkans, you have West Africa, you have Middle East. And for Russia, access to that Eastern Med out of the Black Sea is really the key to so many things. It's key to their military operations. It's key to economic interests and commercial interests. So having that foothold and those relations with with Cyprus that that Kathleen outlined has really been a cornerstone for them for some time.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:26:52] And to turn back to something that, Rachel, you mentioned, which is the state of our relationship with Turkey during the period where you worked together and it obviously played some role in part of our effort to deepen the US security relationship with the Republic of Cyprus. I mean, what was the state of US Turkish relations during your time?

 Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:27:13] You know, as I said before, I think mil-to-mil relationship was was pretty strong. And when we had discrete objectives, even if it was on the ground in most places, we could we could work it out. So the Turks were one of the biggest contributors in Afghanistan. They were a framework nation for many years. So that was a more positive aspect of the relationship. I'd also say there were other areas of strategic alignment like Ukraine. We can see Turkey stepping up in Ukraine, in the Eastern Med and in terms of ensuring stability in the Western Balkans. But then there were some real irritants around that time period. One of those certainly was the US approach to Syria, where we decided to work with local partners on the ground, the SDF, which Turkey sees as akin to the PKK, which is a designated terrorist group in the US and EU and elsewhere. So really I think that was was a bit of a break in the relationship that then had a corollary effect of pushing Turkey a bit closer to Russia, whether that was in terms of arms purchases such as the SE 400 missile system or leaning more on Russia for its economic relationships or to back it up in terms of some strategic decisions in the UN and elsewhere.

 Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:28:31] I just think that complicated the bilateral relationship coupled with the attempted coup in Turkey, which really created a bit of mistrust between the US and Turkey, because many in Turkey I think, believed that behind that coup was a group called the Gulenists. The leader of of that group is based in Pennsylvania. And I think that always raised questions about how much or how involved the US was, rightly or wrongly, in the attempted coup. So a lot of things contributed to that. But I would say we've never really recovered. I'd say even today US-Turkey relations are not in their best period. The things I outlined are still irritants and are still unresolved. But what we can hope for is a pragmatic, if somewhat compartmentalised approach where we take the issues piecemeal and we find areas of cooperation like on Ukraine, like on Afghanistan, like Western Balkans, and we try to minimize the tensions around the more problematic issues.

 Amb. Doherty: [00:29:32] And if I may, just on the Cyprus aspect. And, you know, this debris from when you were the, uh, deputy ambassador in Greece, when tensions are escalated between Turkey and Greece, it spills over to the entire Eastern Med. And at the time, there was an attempted coup, as Rachel mentioned, and there was a number of Turkish soldiers who fled to Greece, and there was an issue of whether they would be returned or not. All this has an impact on the greater stability of of the eastern Mediterranean, as does stability between Israel and Lebanon. Again, this is an area, a strategic geographic area and an area that has so many potential hotspots that so much of our role as U.S. government officials, whether the Defense Department or the State Department, is to try to de-escalate tensions that is really first do no harm. And that really is our greatest challenge and I think probably our most important role.

 Amb. McCarthy: [00:30:27] I wanted to turn to another aspect of our embassies overseas, and that is as platforms to help American citizens. Our embassy in Cyprus played a very significant role in history in this respect. In the summer of 2006, nearly 15,000 American citizens were evacuated from Lebanon through Cyprus, one of the largest overseas evacuations of American citizens at the time. The evacuation was triggered by a major military assault on Lebanon by Israel. Within a few days, State and the Department of Defense moved the thousands of citizens out of Lebanon via helicopters and ships, first to Cyprus and then onwards to the U.S.. For our listeners, the Department of State has the lead responsibility for evacuating American citizens from overseas locations in times of crisis. But depending on the crisis, an evacuation can involve the Defense Department, as only the Defense Department can secure safe passage in war zones and has the resources to provide transportation for very large numbers of people, as we saw in the case of Afghanistan. So, Kathleen, let me start with you. Can you explain to our listeners how embassies prepare for emergencies and evacuations?

Amb. Doherty: [00:31:44] Well, the 2006 evacuation from Lebanon to Cyprus is one of those turning points again in our relationship with Cyprus. The Cypriots gave us so much support that even though I was not there at the time, I heard about it about an amazing solidarity. Both the government of Cyprus, but also the people of Cyprus. So I do want to just say that and really acknowledge that incredible support. But with the tensions always in the Eastern Med, we have to be prepared for the worst case scenario. And particularly when I was there, there was greater tension between Israel and Lebanon. And Lebanon is, as many of your listeners may know, has been in a serious economic crisis and political crisis for for quite a few years. So we did a lot of planning. I worked closely with my counterpart in Lebanon, the US ambassador to Lebanon, our counterparts in Israel, because again, if there was any kind of escalation of tensions between those two countries, our three missions needed to work very closely together. We also very worked closely with the European Command in terms of tabletop exercises, numbers, what kind of planes could be brought in, what is the capacity? We also worked with Central Command because Israel's divided between European Command and Central Command, which also complicated matters. And so we did an enormous amount of scenario planning to build to my great reassurance. I had a number of Cypriot colleagues in the embassy who were there in 2006 and were able to really go into depth of what they had learned from their lessons, from their perspective. And also the same in our mission in Lebanon. We had some Lebanese colleagues who also knew about worst case scenario. We repeated this continuously. Every time there was a spike in tensions, we would we gather as a group and plan these different scenarios. And again, I was very firm and great grateful to my US military colleagues who took this so seriously and gave such detailed analysis of what we could do.

Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:33:46] I think Kathleen covered it. We've got a role in in the pre-planning with the tabletop exercises and the drills and sort of educating our state counterparts about what it takes to make these assets available to State Department, because they're not just sitting on the ready, they're not owned by the combatant commanders. There's actually an executive order process that underpins that that is owned by the Secretary of Defense.

 Amb. McCarthy: [00:34:11] To close, I wanted to ask-- I wanted to ask your views on how U.S. embassies work with the office of the Secretary of Defense and what could be improved. Rachel, as you now sit in Brussels, working as both the Secretary of Defense’s representative in Europe and the Defense Adviser to the U.S. mission to NATO. It would be useful to hear your views on how the collaboration is working today.

 Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:34:38] Well, I've worked with many embassies, but I have never actually worked in an embassy until I turned up here in Brussels, which is technically the US mission to NAITO. But we are a very unique hybrid mission. We have both State Department and DOD colleagues comprising the mission as well as military officers on the military delegation who act similar to the Joint Staff. And so it really is this hybrid mission where even the ambassador is responsible toward both the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense. So it's been a real learning process. I'll give you one short term and one long term suggestion. I think in the short term, I would like to see more cross-pollination between State and OSD and within the interagency. Most of the issues that we're working today, whether it's climate, resilience, cyber, human security. All of those have sort of a hard security angle and a soft security angle. There's two sides to all of these issues. And the more integrated state and OSD and DOD can be, the better the outcome we will have. I've set many interagency meetings where one side or the other was was quite blind to the equities the other had. So I think the interagency collaboration is key. Longer term. I think too many people come to that experience of interagency coordination later in their careers. It would be really wonderful if we could almost overhaul the way the national security professional cadre is built up and force people to do rotations. I know we have the PMF program, the Presidential Management Fellows program, that creates some of that cross-pollination. I know that State Department has sort of Paul Mill officers who fulfill that function, but as a DOD civilian, you would not have that type of experience to quite late in your career. Similarly, a DOD civilian would not have an opportunity to become a POLAD. So those are some of the things I would like to see become a national security professional requirement rather than just a state or DOD opportunity.

 Amb. Doherty: [00:36:51] Now I would add just two other aspects of it. One is showing up, and that sounds kind of cliché, but one of the most impactful things we did with the Cypriots, the Harry S Truman was in the Eastern Med, and for the first time we invited Cypriot civilians and military officials to fly into the air aircraft carrier. And I also got to fly on it, which was truly a thrill, though I almost no, I won't say what I almost did, but by landing on an aircraft carrier is really quite an experience, but that was so impactful. Like that amount of trust and respect went so far that I think to this day it's still one of the highlights of many Cypriot officials. Secondly, and I'm going to put my hat on, is when I was the deputy ambassador in Italy. And Deborah, you know this from being the same in Greece, in countries in which we have US military installations and bases, it's very important when leaders in the US diplomatic in the embassies and in the combatant commands and in the base commanders all get to know each other personally because there's so many operational aspects that have potential political issues associated with it, that if you don't have a personal relationship with the leaders of the bases, personal relationship with leaders in uniform, things can go awry in ways that it didn't need to happen that way. If you do it earlier in your career, often you rise up in the ranks together and you have these long, deep friendships and relationships that actually can get you through some major crises. So that would be something that I wish we had a more systemized way of building those kind of relationships that we don't wait to a crisis to actually get to know someone.

 Amb. McCarthy: [00:38:31] I want to thank you both. Thank you, Rachel, for beaming in from Brussels. Thank you, Kathleen, for being with me in the studio. It's great to be back in the studio and I hope that soon we can all meet someplace and have a beer, as we mentioned before we started taping, but thank you. This has been an incredible and very important contribution to our series.

Amb. Doherty: [00:38:53] Great to see you. Thank you, Rachel, for doing this with me.

Def. Adv. Ellehuus: [00:38:56] Thank you both. That was a lot of fun.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:38:58] This has been a new episode in the series, The General and the Ambassador. Thank you for listening. The series is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy. This podcast was produced with the support of Dataminr, a leading artificial intelligence platform that delivers real time breaking news alerts to help you make critical decisions and respond with speed and confidence. You can find all our podcasts on all major podcast sites as well as on our website, www.GeneralAmbassadorPodcast.org. We do welcome input and suggestions and you can email us directly at General.Ambassador.podcast@gmail.com.