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James D. Nealon's avatar

Dan, as I've said before in commenting on your previous articles, they are a very useful contribution to answering the question, "How do we know we're being effective?" Unlike a lot of people who tackle this, you have a deep understanding of the complexity of this world and the difficulties associated with measuring success. U.S. policy is usually an important but very seldom a determining factor in what happens in Country X. And, as we all know, foreign policy is indeed an art, and it's in part the art of managing rather than solving issues, challenges and crises. It's hard to measure the productivity of the Public Affairs Section and their management of the IV Program, Fulbright, the arts, and so on except over decades, and always anecdotally more than measurably. How do you measure maintaining relations with all political parties? I gave this a lot of thought over 34 years, participated with relative enthusiasm in GPRA and every other initiative, but I learned a lot more about what worked from the gut than from GPRA. When you walk in to the Vice Minister's office, and you learn that she had a Fulbright at Duke 20 years ago - that's evidence of effectiveness! Anyway, a great piece and a great contribution to a challenging discipline. Keep writing.

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Mohammed Elsoukkary's avatar

Excellent as usually, and broadly applicable to the field of foreign relations and diplomacy. The challenges you point out are a common denominator across ministries of foreign affairs across the globe; I've experienced it first hand throughout my own diplomatic career, as have many of my many friends an colleagues from MFAs across the world.

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