Remarks on Transformational Diplomacy

[The following are excerpts of a speech presented at Gaston Hall, Georgetown University Washington, D.C., February 12, 2008.]

Two years ago, I spoke about how our world is changing and how we must change diplomacy as a result:

   To work in new ways, in new places, with new partners, and for new
   purposes.

I call this transformational diplomacy. And I have returned to Georgetown today not to review the work of the past, but to consider the work of the future.

In thinking through the future of our diplomacy, my team at the Department of State (DOS) and I have benefited from our internal efforts, but also from several external bipartisan studies that have been done, such as the Embassy of the Future project, the Helping to Enhance the Livelihood of People Around the World (HELP) Commission on Foreign Assistance, and my own Advisory Committee on Transformational Diplomacy. And last summer I gathered everybody, our major management team, and we had a retreat to talk about how to advance the future of diplomacy in our changing world.

In the three years that I have been Secretary of State I have had the honor of serving beside men and women of courage and dedication:

* The Foreign Service

* Civil Service

* Foreign Service Nationals

America has the finest diplomatic service in the world and I see the evidence of this time and time again. I see it in our many diplomats who are now living and working far apart from their families in difficult and often dangerous posts. I see it in our development professionals who make their homes in conditions that are often hard to bear, simply because they believe that no human being should suffer in poverty.

In that regard, I just want to note that I see Andrew Natsios, also a member of this great community and our former Director of USAID. Thank you for the great service that you did in the service of these goals, Andrew. I see also courageous diplomats and civilians who are embedded in combat units in Iraq and in Afghanistan, people who have to show up every day in Kevlar and who are defending our country, side-by-side with our men and women in uniform.

You see, America's diplomats and America's development professionals are up to any challenge. Still, change isn't easy, especially right now when the international system is reordering itself, when we're rethinking many of our assumptions about international politics, and when we must reorganize ourselves to succeed in the 21st century. There are no precedents or playbooks for this work. We are trying to do things, quite literally, that have never been done before and this is the work of a generation.

But we should be confident because America has risen to these challenges before. We recall, of course, the time of our founding when we forged relations with great powers as a young state, when we created the DoS and laid a foundation that sustained our diplomacy for many decades. And to think:

   Thomas Jefferson, the first Secretary of State, apparently did all
   of this with seven people, eleven by the time he left. Now I am
   going to assure you it took twice as many people to get me here
   today.

We recall also that in the early 20th century, when America emerged as a great power and created new institutions, we created the Foreign Service to advance our global interests. And we recall the early years of the Cold War when we expanded our diplomacy to dozens of new countries, created new agencies for development and public diplomacy, and summoned our young citizens to study Russia's culture and politics and language.

And one of those young Americans who answered that summons because it was the patriotic thing to do, to speak Russian, was a young girl from Birmingham, Alabama, me. Now it is true that I found my passion and I also found a way out of a dead end music major which was going to lead me to a future of playing at Nordstrom's or teaching kids to murder Beethoven. …

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