What do diplomats actually do? That is what this text seeks to answer by describing the various stages of a typical diplomat’s career. The book follows a fictional diplomat from his application to join the national diplomatic service through different postings at home and overseas, culminating with his appointment as ambassador and retirement. Each chapter contains case studies, based on the author’s thirty year experience as a diplomat, Ambassador, and High Commissioner. These illustrate such key issues as the role of the diplomat during emergency crises or working as part of a national delegation to a permanent conference as the United Nations. Rigorously academic in its coverage yet extremely lively and engaging, this unique work will serve as a primer to any students and junior diplomats wishing to grasp what the practice of diplomacy is actually like.

This book of memoirs is not like most. George Lambrakis, an American Senior Foreign Service Officer with over three decades of service, and two decades of teaching international relations and diplomacy, tells it in detail exactly as it was – and still is, fun, warts and all. His vivid anecdotes take us through live and dangerous action interacting with world leaders and common folks as we visit Vietnam and Laos, West Africa’s pro-Communist Guinea, Middle Eastern hotspots like Israel and Lebanon during civil war (where he has policy disagreements with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Director of Personnel Ambassador Carol Laise), and on to Iran before and after its revolution, passing through Munich, Rome, London, the U.N. in New York and Geneva, Africa’s Guinea-Bissau and Swaziland. All this with assignments of great variety in Washington, culminating as director of an office that is trying to limit the political fall-out of the U.S. military build-up in the Middle East - a build-up which later reverses Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, but leads to the tragic invasion of Iraq and probably invites Osama Bin Laden’s attack on America.

In his new book, Lessons from a Diplomatic Life: Watching Flowers from Horseback, retired State Department official and career diplomat Marshall P. Adair recounts and reflects on his time in the US Foreign Service. The story of his assignments throughout the world reveals important details about significant foreign policy issues and historic events, including Bosnia, American policy toward Tibet, the 1988 Burmese uprising, and the foundations of the current US-China relationship. It provides the reader with an inside look at the history of the US State Department, US diplomacy, and US foreign policy of recent decades, during what was often an unstable and uncertain time. This first-hand, detailed account of the author’s work with foreign governments and populations provides a unique outlook on US relations around the world that has critical policy implications for the situations we face today. Through this retelling, Adair illuminates how the depth and accuracy needed of diplomats and Foreign Service agents requires a close and intimate understanding of the cultures and governments they work with.

Inside a U.S. Embassy is widely recognized as the essential guide to the Foreign Service. This all-new third edition takes readers to more than fifty U.S. missions around the world, introducing Foreign Service professionals and providing detailed descriptions of their jobs and firsthand accounts of diplomacy in action. In addition to profiles of diplomats and specialists around the world-from the ambassador to the consular officer, the public diplomacy officer to the security specialist-is a selection from more than twenty countries of day-in-the-life accounts, each describing an actual day on.

We diplomats have a strange life, don't we?We move around the world. We work hard.Competition for postings, promotions and opportunities is fierce.Our resilience is tested often.We meet so many people but can lose connection with many of our friends.It's hard for others to truly understand. It's in this weird environment that I started my mid-life crisis. I realised that I was lonely. I did not recognise who I'd become after years of seeking approval from others for the next posting, promotion and big career opportunity. I was surrounded by people, but I was so good at wearing masks that I'd become disconnected with myself. I needed help, but there was no one who I thought really understood what it's like to live far away from home, to always be 'on' and be ruled by the desire for the impossible levels of perfection for which many who work in diplomacy strive. I got that help. I reconnected to myself and to the world around me. In doing this, I saw that there were so many others around me who were also struggling with the same pressures. I decided to do something about it, and The Lonely Diplomat was born. This book tells my story and the stories of other people are - or have been - diplomats or been a diplomatic spouse. Sharing our stories helps us normalise the crazy demands and unrealistic expectations placed on us. This includes the crazy demands we can place on ourselves in our desire to be the best and to make our marks. I'm convinced that we are our best source of encouragement, advice and support.You're no longer alone as you live your diplomatic life. I'm here. Let's go together. Once you've read the book, come and join me at www.thelonelydiplomat.com. Read the blog, listen to the podcast and let me help you through my coaching and speaking services.

Who will be in power in the 21st century? Governments? Big business? Internet titans? And how do we influence the future?

Ronald Neumann, former US ambassador and president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, called the second edition of Career Diplomacy a "must-read for those seeking understanding of today's foreign service." In this third edition Kopp and Naland, both of whom had distinguished careers in the field, provide an authoritative and candid account of the foreign service, exploring the five career tracks--consular, political, economic, management, and public diplomacy--through their own experience and through interviews with over one hundred current and former foreign service officials. The book includes significant revisions and updates from the previous edition, such as: Obama administration's use of the foreign service; a thorough discussion of the relationship of the foreign service and the Department of State to other agencies, and to the combatant commands; an expanded analysis of hiring procedures; commentary on challenging management issues in the Department of State, including the proliferation of political appointments, the rapid growth in the number of high-level positions, and the difficulties of running an agency with employees in two personnel systems (civil service and foreign service); and a fresh examination of the changing nature and demographics of the foreign service. Includes a glossary, bibliography, and list of websites and blogs on the subject.

Who will be in power in the 21st century? Governments? Big business? Internet titans? And how do we influence the future?

Ever wonder exactly what the Foreign Service is and what goes on inside a U.S. Embassy? A U.S. embassy is home to a dynamic team of professionals committed to public service and the value of diplomacy. Inside a U.S. Embassy gives an up-close and person look into the lives of the diplomats and specialists who make up the U.S. Foreign Service. Gain a sense of the key role played by each member of an embassy team from Paris to Kabul, from Bogota to Beijing, and places in between. Travel into the rainforests of Thailand with an environmental affairs officer, face rampaging militias with a political officer in East Timor, and join an ambassador on a midnight trip into a Macedonian refugee camp to quell a riot. A Foreign Service career offers the experience of living in diverse cultures and the challenge of making a difference in the world. Come along inside a U.S. embassy and learn how the Foreign Service works for America.

"An "inside the room" memoir from one of our most distinguished ambassadors who--in a career of service to the country--was sent to some of the most dangerous outposts of American diplomacy. From the wars in the Balkans to the brutality of North Korea to the endless war in Iraq, this is the real life of an American diplomat. Hill was on the front lines in the Balkans at the breakup of Yugoslavia. He takes us from one-on-one meetings with the dictator Milosevic, to Bosnia and Kosovo, to the Dayton conference, where a truce was brokered. Hill draws upon lessons learned as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon early on in his career and details his prodigious experience as a US ambassador. He was the first American Ambassador to Macedonia; Ambassador to Poland, where he also served in the depth of the cold war; Ambassador to South Korea and chief disarmament negotiator in North Korea; and Hillary Clinton's hand-picked Ambassador to Iraq. Hill's account is an adventure story of danger, loss of comrades, high stakes negotiations, and imperfect options. There are fascinating portraits of war criminals (Mladic, Karadzic), of presidents and vice presidents (Clinton, Bush and Cheney, and Obama), of Secretaries of State (Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton), of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and of Ambassadors Richard Holbrooke and Lawrence Eagleburger. Hill writes bluntly about the bureaucratic warfare in DC and expresses strong criticism of America's aggressive interventions and wars of choice."--