Tom Fletcher (4)

Naked Diplomacy by Tom Fletcher is a book that makes the case for better engagement in social media by diplomats. That's a fairly niche subject but Fletcher does have experience as Her Majesty's Ambassador to Lebanon. The book was first published in 2016 and has already become slightly out of date thanks to the Twitter fixation of people like Donald Trump. Nevertheless there are some sound ideas just not particularly well established. It doesn't help that Fletcher has a fairly limited range of experience to draw from having not had a lengthy or varied career to fall back on with anecdotes.

Naked Diplomacy is written in three parts. The first part is about the history of diplomacy. There is a fictional Ug the caveman, the early diplomacy of China, and the Congress of Vienna. It is the Congress of Vienna that dominates the early section of the book which is fine except those interested in diplomacy presumably know about that subject. In any case there is no way Fletcher could put together as interesting an analysis of the people and time as a professional historian such as Adam Zamoyski with his Rites of Peace work. Fletcher says in his introduction that he does not intend to write a history of diplomacy yet proceeds to do so for the opening third.

Fletcher refers back to the Congress of Vienna repeatedly through his work. Some of the character of that time were so much more flamboyant than those we live with and in particular most diplomats nowadays so it is not surprising Fletcher seems to hark back to a more exuberant moment. He is at pains to stress the lack of ferrero roche in diplomacy yet seems to idolise some of those who led that kind of lifestyle.

Part two of the book is where the argument is supposed to be constructed. The argument is for greater openness and engaging in the social media world. Fletcher does put out some of the problems to such openness from the likes of Julian Assange and others who would seek to take advantage of information transparency. It is though in this section that Fletcher puts forward his vision of what a connected diplomat would do. It is a highly optimistic perspective and at times naively so.

Some of the text is a little excrutiating. Reading Fletcher quote his own words at quite some length is frankly just odd. He posts the entirety of a couple of his statements and they don't make for the kind of reading he probably hoped. In particular his overly optimistic vision of Lebanon upon arrival and how quickly he thought things could be turned around in that country speak more to a lack of true vision than optimism. Over-promising is a bad trait.

It doesn't help that Fletcher's self-quoting comes in a chapter called Naked Diplomat. Along with the title of the book, Naked Diplomacy, it is a weak concept because it has been over-used. Only a lack of imagination could lead to coming up with that as a hook line. Quentin Crisp used the same sort of tagline in a similar line of work nearly 30 years ago as the Naked Civil Servant and nowadays a Brit using that kind of term will seem like they are just copying Jamie Oliver's Naked Chef.

The positive in all this though is that Fletcher really is a dynamic user of social media. His aggressive use of Twitter to make his case to a much wider audience than he could have achieved through other means is really a great use of public diplomacy. Taking on the Iranians and Russians via Twitter is an excellent way for an Ambassador to have impact. The case is not made well but it is the right case to make.

Unfortunately the final third of the book does not wrap things up the way it should. Fletcher is still making the argument for Twitter use during the closing section rather than moving on to what it all means and what should be done about it. Fletcher's vision stops at which medium to use for engaging rather than anything particularly groundbreaking. Fletcher himself does not take the opportunity to showcase what this means for the diplomatic business and how to go about doing it. There are tidbits here of what he has done but this is not a guide to doing things differently, just a call to arms to do so. Fletcher's idea of citizen diplomacy is not fleshed out at all for instance.

For a neutral crown servant, Fletcher is also surprisingly partisan. He calls for promotion of a worldview that sees people wanting to join together rather than live apart. This is all fine but what about those of us who choose to respect the cultures and beliefs of our ancestors and want to experience the diversity of life from the differences we have,

For all the flaws in this book it could have been saved with more anecdotes or amusing tales. Unfortunately Fletcher just does not have enough of them because his career has been relatively short and relatively junior. He also mis-speaks at times such as when he says he did not write a valedictory to conclude his time in Lebanon. He in fact did produce exactly that and even used the word valedictory while doing so, saying he did not expect to have written one at the age of 40.

Fletcher talks a good game and that is important. It means he is a really effective user of Twitter and can get his message across online to a wide audience and create a real buzz about it. That's good public diplomacy. He is a less astute writer of a book for a different audience even if the case he is making is the right one.… (plus d'informations)

Tom Fletcher spent the greater part of his Civil Service career as a high-ranking member of the diplomatic service (including several postings as British Ambassador), before ending up working in Downing Street supporting both Gordon Brown and his successor David Cameron. Such an impressive CV has given him considerable insights into the role of the diplomat, which he shares here, together with his speculation as to how the role of the diplomat might evolve with the rapid proliferation of digital technology to replace traditional methodology.

Having been a senior civil servant, he writes with great clarity, and communicates his message very effectively. The book is, consequently, fascinating. He starts by giving a potted history of diplomacy, starting from early examples in China several hundred years ago. As the prototype of successive diplomats succumbed to the death of a thousand cuts, it becomes clear that the penalty for failure has always been severe.

Fletcher’s central contention is that the explosion of social media and digital technology means that the role, and the aspirations, of the professional diplomat must change. He details how, as British Ambassador to Lebanon, he used focused social media campaigns and interactive services to promote Britain and British trade.

Following a terrorist attack on the Iranian Embassy, he tweeted a picture of himself giving blood to help the victims. This was immediately retweeted by the Iranian president. That simple exchange did more to cement relationships between the two countries than thousands of hours of negotiation in formal summits and meetings.

He writes at length about the value of national leaders using Twitter and Facebook to help to communicate their objectives more quickly and to audiences that they might not normally be as easily able to reach. It should be borne in mind, however, that the book was originally published in 2016, before the Twitter-happy President Trump was elected. I would be interested to know how that development has affected Fletcher’s view of the concept of the social media savvy leader.… (plus d'informations)

My main complaint about this book is its lack of depth, while the author has some talent to select quotes he keeps on repeating the same three subjects on pretty much every chapter without ever getting to develop any of them. Those are the decline of the nation state, the impact of the internet on diplomacy and politics in general, and the turn towards a more individualistic and transparent society.

For example, with reward to the internet he's solely focused on Twitter. Only once mentioning uploading a video to Youtube, dedicating only a couple of lines to mention Moses Brown, and acknowledging the power of Facebook but never describing its uses or implications.

And don't expect to enjoy any anecdotes about his days in Lebanon either because they are not there. If you haven't read about Lebanon before you will walk away without knowing even the main sectarian groups or their leaders. Don't expect any descriptions of the cities or the countryside, and the people get reduced to be described as offering the best hospitality in the world ... time and again, so he doesn't say much but what he says he likes to repeat ... the decline of the nation state, the decline of the nation state, the decline of the nation state ...

The book would have been bad even if I wasn't expecting a book in the style of David Kilcullen but centered on the diplomatic side of things, Kilcullen's books in general being my standard for depth with adequate entertainment value.

I'll finish with a couple of quotes:
"we can cooperate with people we don’t know, or who share little of our DNA" ... really? ... people like aliens? or newly discovered human species with different DNA?
"There aren’t many films about diplomats (Lawrence of Arabia being a notable exception)" ... aha ...… (plus d'informations)