Ronan Farrow has made a name for himself of late as an investigative reporter, particularly with exposes of sexual predators in our society. But he actually spent time working for the State Department under Richard Holbrooke, looking into ways to try to bring peace to Afghanistan. As such, he has some insights into the state of American diplomacy in recent years.
He put those thoughts into War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence, and if he is right, it’s not a pretty sight.
Farrow’s contention, and not one I haven’t heard before, is that in recent years the United States has let the Pentagon and CIA become the main focus for our foreign policy decisions. As such, the State Department has been getting less and less in the way of funding and focus. Now, Farrow points out this is not something that started under the Trump Administration, though he does concede the treatment accelerated under Trump’s and Rex Tillerson’s watch. Farrow, over the course of his investigation, does manage to interview all the living Secretaries of State, including Tillerson, still holding that post at the time of Farrow’s writing.
Farrow does make a convincing case for how, when you view the world entirely through the eyes of the military and the spies, it can lead to problems. He also concedes that State’s way of doing things was far from perfect and could use some modernizing. That said, there is a real problem if diplomacy is allowed to wither on the vine, particularly if diplomacy was such an important “weapon” in America’s arsenal during the Cold War.
However, much of the first third or half of the book is dedicated to Farrow’s old boss, the late Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke had a rather impressive career at State over various periods of time, but he also has bad habits that put him at odds with the Obama Administration’s goals and style. The problem there is I don’t think Farrow sticks much to his central ideas here. Is Holbrooke an example of how the past few presidents have neglected State, or is just about how this one man was perhaps not used in a useful way before he died suddenly?
That said, the second two sections work out just fine, showing places where American diplomacy was sorely needed but underfunded and neglected. Those sections are highly effective at proving Farrow’s point. It’s just a bit of a shame the rest of the book didn’t reach that potential, instead looking more at one diplomat’s fading career, some of which was self-inflicted by the author’s own estimation, as well as a look at the Afghanistan situation. These ideas don’t connect well with Farrow’s central ideas.
Like I said, this isn’t the first time I’ve come across these ideas, and I happen to think he’s right, but he could have made his case better.
Grade: C+
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