US Permanent Mission - briefing

I set up a briefing in advance for my Pol Sci students with the US permanent mission to the UN in Vienna.  The foreign service officer arranged for 3 different staffers to visit with us, including the Acting Deputy Chief (their office was still waiting for the confirmation of Trump’s appointed Deputy Chief).

One lady worked primarily with the IAEA and was a foreign service officer.  She said a lot of her work was with various attaches, who were the technical experts on nuclear and radiological issues.  She spent a lot of her time translating “Scientist” to “English” and vice versa - ha!  She shared with the students details about taking the foreign service exam, and some of the places she had been posted since she was hired seven years ago (Saudia Arabia and Canada).  She said her impressions of the shift between administrations was more about shifting the order of priorities rather than changing directions.  US interests abroad stay fairly consistent.  The Deputy chief affirmed this and explained that she was able to keep doing her work effectively because of her personal relationships with other diplomats who knew her.  While this is somewhat reassuring, it remains worrying over time since these diplomats rotate to new stations every 2-3 years and have to build relationships with new people in a diplomatic environment of remarkable uncertainty right now.

Both of them shared that the work done in Vienna is largely about building consensus and is on technical issues, so consensus is a little easier than it is in NY with the political issues.  When asked what you do when the final agreement doesn’t quite get what you want, she indicated that there was always wiggle room with the implementation.  The conventions and resolutions that are passed provide a broader framework, but those workers who actually carry out the tasks required have some latitude about how they are done.  This means they can slowly shift the norm through pushing the envelope, and the next time there are negotiations, the starting point is already a little closer to where you want it to be.  I loved this description, and recognize it to be true for domestic policy making as well.

The third woman had served in the peace Corp in Benin doing women’s empowerment and health issues.  She helped build a local market place for women to sell their goods instead of hauling them 6 miles down the road to the next market place.  She was finishing up her grad school and on a Presidential fellowship internship of some kind.

The Deputy Chief specialized on drug issues and spoke about how the work done in Vienna was not often in the headlines, but had a very significant impact on people’s lives (I think this is true of most of what the UN does).  She talked about how the UNODC is currently working on restricting access to dual use chemicals that are used to create fentynol which is linked to the opioid epidemic. They are even working to keep better track of this phramceuicals that are used for animals because they are crossing over to human consumption and causing death.

All three were so smart and interesting and I really appreciate that they took time to visit with us today.  They all remarked how nice it was to be speaking to a group of all women, not common in diplomatic circles.

We couldn’t bring anything with us, especially cameras, so take my word for it that the view from the 37th floor was quite good.  

This was taken by the Public Affairs officer who coordinated our visit.