Trumps’s government efficiency staff went through Peace Corps offices recently. Trump tried to dismantle the Peace Corps in his first term. And he has already “eliminate[d] key pillars of America's soft power,” including the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Voice of America and attacked the depth of knowledge and experience at the State Department. Let me draw on my Peace Corps experience to explain why I think Trump’s attack on America’s international agencies is very dangerous.
We got a TV in 1950. I was 9. By 1954 I was seeing war footage of the Vietnamese defeat of the French army in Dien Bien Phu. Here that seemed like a Communist victory. But the Vietnamese hated both colonialism AND Communist China. Their leader, Ho Chi Minh, admired and wanted to imitate George Washington.
But then we made war on North Vietnam, thinking of them as Commies. And later Secretary of State Kissinger tried to prevent diplomats from extended stays in any country, thinking they'd get too much expertise and "go native." But the problem in Vietnam was too little information and misunderstanding. When we got tired of war we discovered we could trade with and had no need to fear them. But many of our soldiers lost their lives first. And it’s a big mistake to lose sight of the many very decent Vietnamese who also lost their lives in the conflict.
Peace Corps volunteers weren’t trained diplomats. But we knew what was going on. We lived with the people, shared their lives and tried to be helpful. People respected that and It shaped an image of a friendly America. Plus we knew what was happening long before our diplomats did. We picked up the turmoil in Iran long before the Revolution and before the hostages were taken. It helps to get immersed in and understand other cultures. No one of us knew everything by any means, but collectively we knew quite a lot.
Peace Corps had a small budget and a smaller impact than the conflicts we got into. But people noticed. And we mattered, people to people. We weren’t competing, like Olympians. We weren’t trying to unearth secrets, like the CIA. We weren’t reporting on who’s doing what.
Understanding the cultures where we worked meant we understood the local impact of American behavior. We tried to bring that knowledge home to help our fellow Americans understand the likely impact of our diplomatic decisions. Some of us went into the foreign service after our Peace Corps experience or worked with non-government agencies where we had a lot to contribute.
Many people don’t like to recognize value in people with different experiences, or that serving abroad can increase understanding. We make mistakes like everybody else. But we have a lot to offer those willing to listen. As it makes no sense to make decisions about agricultural policy without talking to farmers, industrial policy without talking to workers and their unions, women’s health without talking to women and their doctors, so it makes no sense to construct foreign policy without knowledge from those with broad experience in the countries affected.
As this is written I don’t know yet what will happen to the Peace Corps, but his attack on America’s diplomats and international staff strikes me as arrogance masquerading as intelligence. I’m not impressed.
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran.
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