An Interview with Kenneth Merten, U.S. Ambassador to Croatia
http://thepolitic.org/an-interview-with-kenneth-merten-u-s-ambassador-to-croatia/
Kenneth Merten joined
the diplomatic corps in 1987 and has served at Department of State facilities
in Washington, DC and on international assignments. His
international experience includes service in the U.S. Embassy in Paris, the
U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels,
and the U.S. Embassy in Bonn.
He also served in Haiti
as vice consul and economic counselor between 1988 and 1990 and between 1998
and 2000. In 2009, Merten was appointed ambassador to Haiti and in 2011, was awarded the Ryan C.
Crocker Award for Outstanding Leadership in Expeditionary Diplomacy for his
leadership in the wake of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. In 2012, he was
appointed the ambassador to Croatia.
He has also served as a Deputy Executive Secretary to US Secretary of
State Clinton and earlier to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Merten
holds degrees from Miami University in Ohio
and American University.
The Politic: What was your inspiration for joining the
Foreign Service?
On one side of the family, I am a first generation American.
My father was an immigrant, so we always had people from overseas coming in
through the house. I was always interested in things beyond our borders. I think frankly, that was the earliest sort
of push for that. Like a lot of people, I studied overseas. I took a gap year
after college and before graduate school.
I studied in France
and in Austria,
each for a semester, to work on languages. That is really where it came from. I
come from the very middle of the United States. I am originally from
St. Louis,
which is about as far away as you can get from any place foreign. So it made
things overseas seem particularly exotic to me.
The Politic: What sort of challenges do you face when
working in the Foreign Service?
In terms of the nuts and bolts work of the Foreign Service,
the hardest thing people have to deal with is finding professionally satisfying
work for partners and spouses. That’s not unique to the US Foreign Service by
any stretch of the imagination but it is an issue.
You know a lot of people have husbands or wives that are
attorneys, physicians, or marketing directors and it is difficult for people
like that to just sort of pick up, move and leave the United States
for two, three, four years, sometimes longer. It interrupts their careers.
There are some people who can do it, and that is great, but for many it means
either a leave of absence or a career interruption of some sort. That is a
problem for us as we move forward because it is difficult to imagine a foreign
service made up of single people, people who don’t have partners or spouses.
That is the single greatest challenge we have.
Obviously, another big challenge we have in the Foreign
Service is how to strike the right balance between making sure diplomats get
out and lead people, understand the country they are posted to, and how they
get out and advocate U.S.
views on things at a time when the world can be a dangerous place. And how to
keep those people safe while they do that work. It is a challenge.
The Politic: I noticed that you served as the Ambassador to Haiti and you
were there at the time of the 2010 earthquake. Could you describe that
experience?
I knew, as everybody did, that Haiti was on a fault line but they
had not had a serious earthquake for 200 plus years. Obviously, it wasn’t at
the top of my mind that something could happen. I was more worried about
hurricanes, which can be very problematic there, or political instability. But
an earthquake was something that was much further down on the list of things I
was concerned about.
It was a terrible experience. Several hundred thousand
people died. We were caught in a situation where many of our embassy employees
were on their way home. They didn’t know if their loved ones had survived or
were safe or not. Port-au-Prince looked like Hiroshima after the
atomic bomb was dropped on it. You had block, after block, after block downtown
that was completely leveled with buildings that had fallen in the streets,
which made roads impassable except to people on foot or on motorcycles.
We did not know, for the first couple of days, what we were
going to do for food because we couldn’t get the airport open. The port was
damaged beyond immediate repair and we were very grateful that the U.S. military
was able to come get the airport open within 36 hours of the earthquake. We
were starting to be able to get shipments in within 48 hours.
But it was terrible. The Haitian people deserve a lot of
credit for their comportment in those first days and weeks after the
earthquake. The United
States in particular, but the international
community in general, saved thousands of people’s lives by our quick response.
I am very proud of the work the Untied States, in particular, did. I am very
proud of our cooperation with the Haitian government, Haitian organizations and
other international elements on the ground.
The Politic: How has diplomacy evolved since you first
joined the Foreign Service? How do you see it evolving in the next ten years or
so?
Since I have been in the Foreign Service, I have gone from a
period where things were the way they had been for many, many years. For at least probably 75 years or a century.
When I came in, international phone calls were rare, terrifically expensive and
something that was used pretty sparingly. Most of our communication with Washington, and between
embassies, was done via telegram.
We moved into a period of a cumbersome State Department
e-mail system and during the 90s we moved into the Internet Age. Our own
communications have changed significantly since then, for the better, because
at the end of the day we are in the information business. We’re in the
information business in terms of getting information about foreign countries
and getting it back to the United States and getting information from the
United States and informing foreign countries about what our views are and what
our hopes for partnership are.
A lot of what we did then has changed. We’re able to use a
lot more tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and general Internet websites to get
our messages out to publics in countries, which is a good thing and makes it
much easier for us to reach larger groups of people. One thing that has not
changed though, in all this time, is the personal touch. I think those personal
relationships that they send us overseas to make with, not only our
counterparts in our host country governments, but people in the countries we
are posted to, the friendships we make, these are important things.
That is something I do not ever really foresee changing in
diplomacy. I think the human element, establishing trust and building
relationships, is something that does require person-to-person, face-to-face
contact. While you can maintain those relationships over time with other tools
such as Facebook and email forming those relationships on a face-to-face basis
is going to remain a key component of what we do.
The Politic: What do you do if you do not entirely agree
with the instructions or advice you receive from Washington?
We have a formal system of what they call dissent channel
telegrams, which we can send back to Washington.
I would not say they are used super frequently, but they are used. On a lot of
issues, we’re part of the deliberation in the U.S. Government on given policies
especially if they are directly related to the country we are serving in. We
can offer advice on how to package things, on what will and will not be acceptable,
and how best to tailor our goals to get our host country on board.
At the end of the day, our responsibility is to advocate for
US Government policy and to convince foreign governments, whenever possible, to
support our views whether that is in the UN, the WTO or various other
international fora. We aren’t always going to agree on all issues with our
friends and allies and even less so with those countries that don’t necessarily
wish us well. But a lot of what we do is try and find as much common ground as
possible and make sure that Washington is aware of that and in their policy
forming stage they do take that into account. But at the end of the day, we’re
here to do the U.S. Government and the American people’s business and we do the
best we can to represent U.S.
views overseas.
The Politic: Is there
one experience, person, or event that has influenced the way you develop
policies and how did it influence you?
That is a great question. American Foreign policy over the
past twenty odd years has developed from something that was heavily seeded
primarily in the State Department and to an extent in Department of Defense, to
something that involves a host of other agencies. The example in Haiti is a
pretty good one. Because of our interest in preventing infectious diseases
coming to the United States, despite our huge military footprint after the
earthquake — that was there for a brief period — we also had increasingly
important CDCs (Centers for Disease Control) in Haiti, which remain to this day.
Their role is twofold: to help Haitians help themselves and
develop the public health policies and activities that they need to develop to
help protect their own people, but also to identify problems that they have and
advise them on how to address them. By doing so, they protect the American
people from diseases and health problems that could affect American citizens
through travel and Americans visiting Haiti
and bringing things back to the United
States.
We have a lot of other agencies that are deeply involved in
foreign policy issues. We have the Commerce Department and USTR, which are
deeply involved in American economic statecraft, to use a term that we use in
the State Department, which quite simply means making the most out of our
relationships overseas to increase our own economic activity in the United
States. This means not only regarding exports but also regarding investment and
increasing economic growth in the United States. This also means
helping to build strong partners who can be good customers for us.
Even the Justice Department, in some cases, helps advise
foreign countries when they’re putting together police departments or special
investigating units or helps countries combat drug trafficking. These are all
agencies that have become increasingly important on the diplomatic playing
field that say fifty years ago they were largely absent from.
The Politic: Do you think there will be any changes in US
Foreign Policy towards Croatia
after it accedes to the European Union?
I do not really. Our policy with Croatia
over the past twenty years has been focused on working with Croatia bilaterally, to do what Croatia needed
to reach its stated goal which is its integration in European or Euro-Atlantic
institutions such as NATO and the EU. Croatia joined NATO in 2009 and
they will be joining the EU in a couple of weeks. In many respects, that can be
seen as a success for the Croatian people and the Croatian government, but also
a success for American Foreign Policy because we have been partners with Croatia along
that road.
As we move forward, this is a period of transition where we
now look at Croatia
as a country firmly embedded in these Euro-Atlantic institutions and as a
partner. We hope to be able to work with them not only here in Southeastern Europe but globally where they can help us
and help their neighbors address some other issues. We think that Croatia’s experience as the first country that
was involved in the war that took place during the breakup of Yugoslavia can
serve as a good model to several other countries in the region. Croatia
demonstrates that somebody who has participated in that war can actually get
over these hurdles, which are pretty significant, to join the EU, to join NATO,
and hopefully get and stay on the road to increased prosperity. We look forward
to working further with Croatia.
They’re good partners of ours as we work with other countries in Southeastern Europe to train policemen and train
prosecutors so we can help stop things like organized crime, terrorism, and
drug smuggling.
The Politic: In
recent history, the Balkans has been gripped by ethnic conflict and war. Do you
see Croatia
and the surrounding nations overcoming this challenge in the next ten to
fifteen years?
We certainly hope so. If you look at Europe
as a whole, there has been a long history on this continent of wars and
conflicts between ethnic groups, not least between the Germans and the French.
Say what you will about the EU and the difficulties that some countries in the
Eurozone may currently be having, the EU has done a good job of keeping the
continent at peace. It could serve the purpose of the Balkans and certain other
parts of Europe. That is one of the reasons we
see this as the path forward for this region.
The Politic: To what extent do you feel that Croatia has been affected by sovereign debt
crises in Europe?
So far, not much. The Croatian banking sector seems to be
very well managed and seems to be reasonably strong. As you know, Croatia is not
a member of the Eurozone. The export markets and potential inward investment
has been affected. I believe Italy
is Croatia’s
largest trading partner and certainly one of its largest investment partners. Italy, like
many countries, is going through a difficult period right now. That has
knock-on effects on Croatia.
We have been urging the Croatian government to make some
structural reforms that will make this market a more attractive place for
potential investors. They have taken a few steps down that road but they need
to take more and we continue to urge them to do more. I think Croatia’s friends are unanimous in their desire
to see Croatia
make the most of its EU membership and the time is now for them to move on some
of these reforms. That is a lot of what we are urging them to do here on a more
bilateral basis.
The Politic: Given the United
States’ involvement in Syria,
what sort of role do you think Croatia
can play in that conflict?
Croatia
has been participating in a lot of the European Union discussions on this
issue. I suspect that when they formally join, they will become even more
deeply in EU discussions and debates on the subject. I’m not aware, however,
that Syria
has been a huge priority for them thus far as a bilateral issue. They’re concerned,
as other countries are, about regional stability and knock-on effects to other
countries in the area, which after all isn’t so far away from here. But over
time they are going to be looking to work with their partners in the European
Union to find a common approach to Syria.
The Politic: How do you feel America is represented abroad and
are there any elements of current American foreign policy you would change?
At the risk of patting my colleagues and myself on the back,
I think the United States
is represented very well abroad. We have a diverse and effective Foreign
Service that reflects our country very well for a number of reasons. We have
well trained people overseas in our embassies. We do a lot of good things with
our partners overseas that they might not be able to otherwise do, due to lack
of funds or lack of expertise.
While we’re cognizant of the fact that not everybody is
going to agree with every position the United
States takes all the time, we do a good job of
representing the United States
and getting as much support as we can in a world that has a lot of very
different and competing interests. The United States for many people is
very attractive. Some people don’t understand us well and they have problems
with some of the things we stand for, but we do a very good job of showing the
good side of the United States
and how what we do in the United
States works for the benefit of the American
people and others.