Profile | Meet this year’s Senior Fellows: Christopher Klein
“Negotiation is the most violent form of conflict, short of actual fighting.”
Nicole Butler
This piece is part of ISD’s blog series, “A better diplomacy,” which highlights innovators and their ideas for how to make diplomacy more effective, resilient, and adaptive in the 21st century.
Q: Tell us about your path to the Foreign Service. What led you to become a diplomat? Why did you decide to pursue this career?
A: Well, thanks for asking, and thanks for the chance to talk today. Curiosity about the outside world and a really strong commitment to public service drove me to pursue a career in the Foreign Service. My personal journey started with my grandparents, who were big travelers. They also always had people from other countries at our Thanksgiving table. And they took me outside the country for the first time.
My study abroad experience in Paris in 1987–1988 addicted me to international life. It was a full-year program — and the program itself had a light touch. We had to do everything for ourselves, including finding a place to live. I spent a lot of time (maybe too much time?) at my local cafe defending the United States and trying to battle stereotypes; also, it was an election year in France, and I loved seeing how a different democracy chose its leaders.
I wound up majoring in French, but I took Russian as well. It was the ’80s, and right around the time I graduated, the Tiananmen Square protests happened, the Berlin Wall fell, and then shortly after that, the first Gulf War happened. It felt to me like the world was just calling. I needed to get out there. So I moved to Moscow in 1992 to help launch The Moscow Times, an English-language daily newspaper. Seeing how huge historic events such as the USSR’s collapse affected regular people’s lives was fascinating and sometimes pretty chilling. And journalism was great preparation for the Foreign Service. It taught me how to write for deadlines, how to talk to people who didn’t necessarily want to talk to me, and how to defuse tense situations and put people at ease.
Eventually a friend of my dad’s who knew about my travels said to me, hey, you should take the Foreign Service exam. But I had never heard of it. I thought that diplomats were somehow magically chosen by some hidden official hand.
But I took it and here I am. It’s been such an honor, and I have loved my career.
Q: Where has your career taken you over the past few decades? What have been some of the most rewarding and challenging postings you’ve experienced so far?
A: My first assignment was in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. It will always be very dear to me. It was a small post, so I learned up close how an embassy operated. It was great for a newly-minted officer, because in addition to doing consular work, I was basically everyone’s backup — I did everything from public affairs to econ work to human rights reporting. Often I was the first American whom many people had ever met. That was a neat feeling.
Afterward, I served in Beijing, Paris, and Baghdad, as well as Hanoi. I’ve served in New York twice, once early in my career as the special assistant, and later I went back to be the political chief. Like many FSOs, I’ve served in Washington a few times — but unlike many, I’ve really enjoyed it.
The assignment that I found most meaningful was my time in Hanoi. I was the Deputy Chief of Mission there. I have memories of watching TV news about the Vietnam War with my dad when I was little in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I was a news junkie from very early on. To be able to contribute even just a tiny bit to our reconciliation with Vietnam later in life was just the greatest honor, whether it was helping the Defense Department account for missing Americans and helping to shore up the cooperation with Vietnam on that, to advocating strongly with Washington for early and significant vaccine assistance for Vietnam during COVID. Plus, Vietnam is magical — so beautiful, with great people and delicious food.
Many posts weren’t easy. One especially tough place was Baghdad. I was there for just a year as the chief of staff for the ambassador. We lost people in the mission community who were killed in attacks, and there were a lot of attacks against Iraqis themselves during that period — there was a terrible bombing of the Foreign Ministry during my time there. The U.S. presence in Iraq was undergoing a huge military-to-civilian transition, so it was my first experience working with the military. I can’t lie — at first I had a bit of culture shock. But we all worked at it and I quickly developed the highest respect and affection for my military colleagues. We got things done together.
The other really challenging postings for me were my two times at the U.S. Mission to the UN in New York. When a crisis blows up somewhere, you can bet it will be considered in the Security Council, often on short notice. Crises do not respect personal or professional schedules. The gritty world of multilateral diplomacy can be a grind — the coalition-building, the resolutions that need to be worked out, going toe-to-toe with the Russians and others. A mentor once said to me that negotiation was the most violent form of conflict short of actual fighting; it can be exhausting. During my time, the Council was deadlocked on Syria and Russia’s seizing of Crimea, among other issues. But I feel we made a difference. We stood up a new peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic and wound a couple down. We brought new voices into the Council, such as Yezidi activist Nadia Murad, who was a featured speaker on human trafficking and sexual violence in conflict. There was some progress around the edges on Syria on humanitarian issues, but fundamentally Russia wasn’t going to let the Council do anything that would hurt [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad and his regime.
Honestly, it’s an impossible question because every assignment was great in its own way. I loved covering internal Chinese social stability and social change in the 2000s, which I did in the political section at Embassy Beijing. Focusing on internal politics in France, where elections are a contact sport, was a thrill. I’ve simply never had a boring day, and I’m so grateful and honored.
Q: You covered a variety of different postings, whether it was Hanoi or Beijing or Baghdad or New York. As you’ve gone through each post, how do you go about preparing for them? Especially when much of the work is unpredictable, as in the Security Council?
A: To me, speaking the local language is incredibly important, so I prioritize that. Even at the UN, if you do have a language, make sure it is in good condition before going. With 193 countries at the UN, you’ll have a chance to practice whatever language you know. Out in the field, speaking the language provides a direct route into understanding a place better, which makes you better at your job — and leads to a more fun time for you and your family.
My other priority is to read, read, read. I often read histories and political books about current affairs, but memoirs and novels are great too.
I learned so much about the Cultural Revolution and Chinese domestic sociopolitical pressures through reading Wild Swans (by Jung Chang) and Life and Death in Shanghai (by Nien Cheng). For Vietnam, I’ve read the big nonfiction books, but I also devoured a novel before I went called The Mountains Sing, by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, and it was about the lives of three generations of Vietnamese women from the 1930s to the 1980s. I had never read a book from a Vietnamese person’s perspective about not just the wars of the 20th century, including the war with the United States. It was incredibly eye-opening.
Finally, to prepare for an assignment, I talk to people, a few types of people in particular.
One is Congressional staffers. It helps to hear what their (and the Members’) priorities are and to create a connection — you can help them deepen knowledge about the place you’re going, and they can help you understand the political winds at home — especially how Congress views the place you’ll be serving.
Members of Congress have been great allies as well in building relationships with countries. We wouldn’t have the relationship we have with Vietnam today if it weren’t for Senator Kerry and Senator McCain. And staffers have done so much to promote relations and understanding.
I try to prioritize consultations with people in the intelligence community, State Department offices responsible for the region, friends who have served in my upcoming post, possibly people from there. Other ISD fellows recently talked about how useful it can be to speak with historians — so I will definitely add that to my list! And of course it’s important to go out and try some food, right? And sample other culture, like music, TV…
Q: Earlier you mentioned how you’ve often read books, not only historical or political non-fiction but also memoirs and novels, to prepare for postings. In retrospect, are there a few books that have most influenced your career and your life?
A: Oh gosh, yes, so many. I guess I’m kind of a cold war kid, but I think the first one, the one where I realized what a meaningful responsibility public service is and what a difference you can make, was The Wise Men by Evan Thomas and Walter Isaacson. It tells the story of how the post-World War II international system was constructed. Not necessarily a smooth road. The characters were larger than life. The results — the Marshall Plan, IFIs, the UN, NATO — were historic.
The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam was important to me because it was so heartbreaking. Unpacking a failed policy, U.S. involvement in Vietnam, taught me a lot about the costs of hubris and that the smartest person in the room doesn’t always have the best ideas. It also provided an early introduction for me to the interagency. It’s different now, but the give and take the book depicts is still relevant.
I’m a junkie for Foreign Service memoirs. The three I’d recommend above all others are Bill Burns’ The Back Channel, Chris Hill’s Outpost, and Marie Yovanovitch’s Lessons from the Edge.
Some other books that have meant a lot to me are To End a War by Richard Holbrooke, 1919 by Margaret MacMillan, and The Boxer Rebellion by Diana Preston.
And of course, nothing compares to reading newspapers and The Economist regularly. Including the arts and culture sections!
Q: Shifting focus a bit to your time here at Georgetown: you co-taught a course last spring, “Global Governance in an Age of Great Power Rivalry,” and you’re teaching the same course again. What did you enjoy most about the course earlier this year, what are you most looking forward to in the spring, and what do you hope students will get out of it?
A: I absolutely loved it. It was revelatory to me because I had never taught before. I was so impressed with the students. They were smart, of course, but they were also very creative in approaching some of these intractable problems that I’ve been facing as a multilateral specialist over the last few years. Take our simulation on Security Council reform: they asked such good questions and had excellent proposals, including what to do about the veto and how to reform the Security Council’s membership. I never came away from a class without learning something from the students. The goal is the other way around, of course. But I’m extraordinarily grateful to the students for their enthusiasm and curiosity. When they start their careers and become leaders, we will be in good hands.
I’m hoping for even more creative and critical thinking by all of us this term. The multilateral system is at a turning point. Everyone likes to say that about whatever historical moment they’re in, but I really believe it now. For the UN in particular, it is not just because of the headlines about Security Council deadlock. It’s also because the geopolitical landscape has changed considerably even over just the last five to 15 years. China is a much bigger player. Is China trying to undermine the current system or reshape it so it better serves Beijing’s interests? Is Russia more than just a spoiler? What drives the middle powers? So many crises are unfolding that require collective responses. We will delve into whether the global governance system is fit for purpose, ready for reform (and what kind), or simply obsolete.
We will have a lot to discuss, which leads me to my last point. I’d like to see the students interact a lot with each other and learn from each other. For graduate students, networking is invaluable, and I plan to gently force the issue by having a lot of group exercises and simulations. If we’re lucky, we will make friendships and connections that will last a lifetime.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Nicole Butler is a research assistant at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. She is also a graduate student in the Security Studies Program at the Walsh School of Foreign Service concentrating in international security.
While Christopher Klein is a career U.S. diplomat, the views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of State or the U.S. government.
Read more in our series, A better diplomacy, and check out Christopher Klein’s medium article about UNESCO:
