In this episode of International Horizons, Ralph Bunche Institute Director John Torpey interviews Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Bill Russo.  Assistant Secretary Russo commented on the role of the United States in the ever-changing dynamics of global politics and how it is perceived as a leader in conflict resolution and often called to act as an arbitrator in wars.  Moreover, Assistant Secretary Russo explains how the “dissent channels” in the State Department, which originated during the Vietnam War as a way to offer opportunities for State Department personnel to criticize Department policy, continue to do so in the context of the Israel-Hamas war.  Finally, the Assistant Secretary highlighted the importance of the recruiting process into the Foreign Service to ensure that the ranks reflect the demographic composition of the United States and explained how the democratization of the foreign service has been carried out in the past two decades since Colin Powell was Secretary of State in the early part of the 21^st century.

International Horizons is part of the New Books Network of academic podcasts. Subscribe to the RSS feed or find it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. A lightly edited transcript follows below.

John Torpey 

What does the State Department do? Who populates its ranks? And how has that changed over time? What happens when officials in the department disagree with the department’s policies? All these questions have come to the fore in the context of the war between Hamas and Israel that began after the Hamas attacks of October 7.

John Torpey 

Welcome to International Horizons, a podcast at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly and diplomatic expertise to bear on our understanding of a wide range of international issues. My name is John Torpey, and I’m director of the Ralph Bunche Institute at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. We’re fortunate to have with us today Bill Russo, who’s Assistant Secretary of State in the State Department’s Bureau of Global Public Affairs during 2015-2017. Mr. Russo previously served as the Department of State advisor to then Deputy Secretary Anthony Blinken. Earlier in his career, Mr. Russo was an adviser to Mr. Blinken. In his role as deputy national security adviser at the National Security Council. He began his time in government service in the office of then Vice President Joe Biden in August 2011. Working in multiple roles, including senior adviser to then National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Mr. Russo holds an MA in environment development and Policy from the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, and in an honours BA in Political Science, history and English from the University of Delaware. He’s originally from Exton, Pennsylvania. Thanks for joining us today, Assistant Secretary of State Bill Russo.

A.S. Bill Russo 

Thanks for having me John.

John Torpey 

So let’s start with a very basic question you serve as Assistant Secretary of State and the Bureau of Global Public Affairs at the State Department, could you just describe for us what the State Department does and why it’s important.

A.S. Bill Russo 

So happy to start there, you know, each and every day, not just here in Washington, not just to other sites around the country, but of course, at consulates, and embassies and posts all around the world. The role of the State Department, the role of American diplomacy is to of course, to pursue our national security interests make the lives of American people a little bit safer, more prosperous, more secure. And the way that we do that is to try and end conflicts where they have started and prevent them before they before they’d be done to the extent that we can. And so we rely on rely on our on our embassies, our diplomatic staff all around the world, as well as a number of professionals located here in Washington and our headquarters to help make sense of the world and help make sure that each and every day, we’re working to make the world safer and more secure.

John Torpey 

So the department is in a very prominent role in some of the current political developments in the world. Obviously, I’m talking about the Hamas Israel conflict, and also, of course, in the Ukraine, Russia conflict. So but in either case, are we really directly involved? I mean, you could dispute the extent to which it’s direct, indirect, etc. But in any case, we don’t have boots on the ground really, in either of these places. So I guess the question is, what does the State Department do in a context such as that?

A.S. Bill Russo 

No, you’re exactly right. And, you know, I suppose I would start with the answer that going back to something I think Madeleine Albright maybe first said, or nearly 1990s, when she referred to the United States as an indispensable nation. And so I think, particularly if you’re looking at kind of the post cold war era, one of the realities is that, as you mentioned, there are there are no shortage of conflicts where, or potential conflicts where the United States is not itself, a direct participant or combatant, but where we have number one, an interest in preventing that conflict or ending that conflict. And number two, the capacity to do so. And so I think what you see now, in Ukraine, what you see with Israel Hamas conflict is that the world looks to the United States to help resolve conflicts to help get out to help prevent them. Because we are still in many ways that indispensable nation we’re certainly in a different world than we were in the late 1990s; power has shifted, both among states with non state actors, but there is still this perception that the United States has a meaning called play as an international arbiter, and that’s again were the State Department’s work comes in.

A.S. Bill Russo 

And so I think what you need to look at the two conflicts that you mentioned, maybe start kind of chronologically, first with with Russia, Ukraine. What you’ve seen there throughout is the United States working in American diplomacy, working across a whole number of actors to try and support Ukraine, and that support Ukraine, goes back to kind of some of the founding principles of the UN Charter, about sovereignty and respectful borders. And so what the United States has tried to do throughout is first and foremost stand with Ukraine globally through the UN, from other international organizations to provide Ukraine with the security assistance that they need to make sure that they can defend themselves. We’ve been trying to provide you with the economic support and assistance to make sure that they can keep the power on throughout a cold winter, and to make sure that they can pay salaries for teachers and other civil servants that are necessary to help keep the country going.

A.S. Bill Russo 

And then, of course we’ve also just kind of one of the parts of the world that is a little bit closer to what I work in the realm of public diplomacy, is that we have sought to support the Ukraine’s culture, because it’s not simply just that Vladimir Putin has been trying to take Ukraine off the map as a sovereign state. But it’s really tried to eliminate the the identity of Ukraine and Ukrainians off the state as well. And so whether it’s cultural, economic security, kind of more multilateral, diplomatic, all of that is the work that the stakes are going to change every day. And it’s work that obviously takes place with our incredible team on the ground and teeth, but also in capitals, throughout Europe and throughout the world. One of the realities of kind of conflict with diplomacy and during this era is that everything quickly becomes global. And so it’s been a really my pleasure to kind of mobilize globally. We are obviously (more recently, with Israel-Hamas) been kind of working across multiple vectors all at the same time, all at the same kind of level of a high level of urgency in terms of providing Israel with the security support that it needs to ensure that a terrorist attack like October 7 can’t happen again.

A.S. Bill Russo 

But equally at the same time, you can sure that we are first off pressing the Israelis to to live up to their responsibilities for protection of civilians, working with the Israelis, the Egyptians and others to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, working with other partners in the region, like Qatar having a huge degree of influence with Hamas to try and get hostages out. And then of course, working with everyone throughout the region to try and make sure that again, once this conflict is started, that it does not spread further, because the only thing worse than a kind of concentrated conflict in the region would be a full regional conflagration. And so again multiple parts of the State Department, from the humanitarian side to the provision of security assistance are incredible diplomats on the ground, throughout the region, day in and day out, are working across all of these sectors all at the same time. And that, to me, is actually is kind of the real story of the State Department is that it’s not simply just that there are a few diplomats sitting in a room sitting across the table talking to try and hammer out agreement around  the conflict that might be the kind of traditional view of base level view of what diplomacy is and what diplomacy does. The reality is that it is incredibly complex, it’s it involves working on multiple issues across multiple sectors, all at the same time, because they all ladder up to the same thing, which is again, making the world a little bit more safe and more secure.

John Torpey 

Right. So I mean, needless to say, there’s been an enormous amount of controversy about this conflict  in Israel, and in terms of the US posture and its role, even if it’s, you know, there are no boots on the ground, and obviously, the United States is involved in a huge, indirect way. And this is leading to protests and demonstrations around the country around the world. And, indeed, it’s now become clear that this is true, even within the State Department. And I mean, the New York Times, among others, anyway, has reported that there are these so-called dissent cables, that employees of the State Department and I guess also USAID can use in order to explain or express their criticisms and displeasure about the US position and I thought that wasn’t a very interesting thing, I had known such a thing existed apparently goes back to the Vietnam War in a situation of similarly great contention. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what’s going on in those cables? And what’s happening? How is the administration or at least the department responding?

A.S. Bill Russo 

Yeah. And so I think  one of the, when you have a 70,000 person workforce, like the State Department, it’s not only I think a reality, but actually a very good and healthy thing, that you aren’t going to have 70,000 people who all believe the same thing, you know, and have a diversity of thought, diversity of opinion and a diversity of perspective. And so, of course as it’s playing out now,  as played out throughout multiple other times, our past, as you mentioned, going back, certainly to the Vietnam War, there’s actually, in addition to (and I’ll get to this specific descent channel a minute) but I would say more broadly, there is a kind of culture of constructive dissent that exists within the State Department. And I think one of the best and perhaps most unique, and the healthiest parts of an institution like this is that there dissent is not simply exist. It’s not simply up to each individual to kind of find ways to express it, but that there are actual, bureaucratic tools that are in place for people to, to avail themselves and to create a conversation within our own institution. And so I think, the essential channel was perhaps the maybe the most unique element to that, certainly the most perhaps publicly known piece to it. But there are other ways other channels for that. And actually, one of the ones that’s been created in the course of this administration under Secretary Blinken’s leadership is kind of the counterpart to the dissent channel, which is the idea of policy ideas channel, which recognizes that there are a lot of people here with a lot of good ideas. And obviously, there are processes for those ideas that come up. But sometimes in any kind of bureaucracy like ours people can feel stymied, or it can be difficult to move a kind of new and innovative idea up.

A.S. Bill Russo 

And so one of the other things that we’ve started to do is to say that, “hey, we don’t only want your good ideas coming up, when they are in reaction to a policy that you disagree with them, they are dissenters to something that we’ve already decided, we actually want to create a proactive channel for some of these good ideas to come up.” And so we also have a counterpart channel that is kind of say, “Hey, if you have a good idea that isn’t getting traction,” or that is about something that might seem far removed, but that we need to start acting on now, there’s also an opportunity for you to put those ideas into our system. And then, of course, as the Secretary has reminded all of the kind of leaders of this department, throughout this conflict and, and others before it, is that it’s also all of our job to make sure that we are fostering a broader community of conversation and of constructive dissent. So that, again, the dissent channel is in some ways, hopefully not the option of first resort for people who have disagreements, but that instead, we can find ways to surface those ideas and channeling constructively through what we call the front channel. That kind of regular policymaking process. But as you mentioned, you have the dissent channel and there has certainly been public reporting on it is, is really unique and really interesting for a few reasons. First off, it is designed in a way to be as confidential as possible. So that the people who draft and sign on to those cables, do not get any blowback in their in their careers. Right. And that’s actually one of the most important parts of constructive dissent is that it’s not simply enough to give people space, it’s to make sure that they have space and freedom to express themselves in ways that will not cause them reputational harm or discipline or anything like that. And so the channel is constructed in a way so that people can, again, freely express these ideas in ways that will not get them a bad review at the end of the year or otherwise, damage their kind of credibility. But it’s also designed in a way that it is like is close to the secretary. And that means these channels are these cables that come up to the present channel all make their way to the secretary, all of them get a response. And that provides kind of an incredible amount of access and impact to those who take part in it. And so, again, it is not the only tool for constructive dissent within the State Department, but it’s perhaps certainly the most publicly known representation of what is a broader, I think, healthy culture constructive dissent that exists here.

John Torpey 

I mean, Secretary Blinken, as you’ve just said has said that he’s listening and, you know, responding to these things. I mean, can you think of any particular concrete policy that has changed as a result of, you know, what’s come up the dissent channel? I mean, that may not be so easy to do. I understand. But…

A.S. Bill Russo 

Yeah, and I suppose I could say that, again. They keep the distribution, again, to protect the kind of confidentiality reputation of the drafters and the signers, they keep it quite closely held among a small group that eventually goes to the secretary in part so that, that there is not for the damage folks. So I mean, personally I have I have seen tables that have made their way out to the public through other means, but the actual dissent channel, again, is protected in a way that someone in my role, who does not have a kind of need to know is not part of the part of the distribution there. So I can kind of on a first hand basis say what I have what I have seen and read because, again, the way the channel operates is such that it’snot for my prying eyes to know, it’s not landing in your inbox. No, no. And I think and again, I think that that is a good thing. I think and in addition to the fact that the Secretary is reading all of the support, all of them are getting a response. And so, I’m certain some some of the responses over time have certainly been ones that that acknowledge and appreciate the insight, but that disagree with it. But knowing, I will say certainly knowing Secretary Blinken as someone who is open and welcoming to all of this, I don’t know that it’s quite as easy to say, this memo led to this decision. But I know that again, the kind of broader kind of culture of conversation is one that definitely, I’m sure, you can probably point to a series of of these conversations that definitely want to get into mentorships. And, and reach changes. And of course, these also help inform the secretary when he is engaging in larger interagency policy discussions. Right, this, particularly note, given the complexity of some of the issues that we’re dealing with, while the State Department has a central and incredibly important role in the policy process. We are also part of the larger interagency policy process. And so it also helps inform the secretary so that he can not only make decisions on his own, but can also carry some of those ideas forward to National Security Council conversations, dialogues with his global counterparts or others.

John Torpey 

Right. So you may not know the answer to this, but when I saw this reported in the paper, I was struck by the question, you know, is this a unique thing to the United States? Are there? Are you aware of other such channels that exist formally in other countries? Or is this one of our exceptional kinds of things?

A.S. Bill Russo 

I am not aware of any other channel that is exactly like the one that we have, and the process exactly like the one that we have I think there are other systems that have long histories of their own have other ways to kind of handle internal disagreements. But I, to a certain extent, I believe the kind of particular mechanism that we establish from each other here, is, is very unique in its own way.

John Torpey 

Right. Okay. So, you had been at City College, I guess, earlier this week. And at the Colin Powell School, which is an obvious connection to the State Department. And I guess I’m curious,  I guess one of the things you were talking about up there was recruitment policies. And as somebody who has long been interested in the kind of social structure of the Foreign Service. You know, I know that Colin Powell was very important in promoting legislation and policies designed to make the Foreign Service look somewhat more like the American population than it did when it was,  kind of described as “Pale, Male and Yale”. Those days are not entirely gone. But I think it’s a very different place. And so I wonder if you could talk about how that’s working and how that happened?

A.S. Bill Russo 

No, absolutely. And the second though, the legacy of Secretary Powell, of course, certainly lives on here in the department. And it’s interesting actually, because, in some ways, because given the kind of lifecycle of things now, some of our most senior foreign service officers, who are  wanting now 20 Plus years into their career started out in the early years of their career when Secretary Powell was here. And so it’s remarkable to actually hear some of these senior leaders  whose view of leadership whose view of the department, the mission that it has in so many ways has been shaped by his legacy. And so you’re exactly right, this focus on what we now call DIA, but more broadly making sure that you have a department that more directly represents the diversity of the country, that we represent out around the world, and he lives on in this administration. And so, there are multiple things to kind of point back to early on, in our time here, Secretary Clinton created the role of chief diversity and inclusion officer  and brought back a retired ambassador, Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley to be the first person to hold that role. And part of what that was meant to do was to the fact of the creation of the role, the fact that the role reported directly to the Secretary was obviously meant to send a very strong signal about the importance of this to the department, it was also meant to try and find ways to then further embed this work in in our bureaucracy.

A.S. Bill Russo 

And one of the most important things that Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley did one of those reporting things that this administration has done in those first few years was to look at data. And I think that’s one of the kind of main the biggest differences between kind of… if you look 20, plus years ago, and Secretary Powell was here, and and today, is the realization that it’s incredibly hard to actually quantify what success looks like, in part because we didn’t actually have a baseline. And so one of the things that we that we released within the past year was the kind of demographic baseline report that helped us understand actually, how are we doing? Right? If we want to measure our success in the future, we need to understand exactly where it was that we started from. And a lot of that requires self identification  and actually intentionally collecting the data. So it sounds it sounds small, and it sounds bureaucratic. But I actually think this hard work of collecting and assembling baseline data for us, is going to be one of the most important things for how we not only quantify and measure but build on success in this realm, in 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the line. And so that, you know, that, again, that is a that is a very technical piece of business that had to get done. But it’s really essential to everything else that we that we want to do. I think one of the other great steps that we’ve that we’ve made moving forward is that we have kind of opened up different pipelines in the department. And this is one of the things I really enjoyed having the chance to talk with Powell school CCNY students about when I was on campus was all of the different pipelines and opportunities that are that are now available. So for instance, the State Department finally offers paid internships, that is not something that we had ever been able to do before. And in doing so, opens up so many more pathways to joining for so many people who simply didn’t have the financial resources to to otherwise, sign on. And so that for us is a really big step forward in our in our  mission. There existing fellowships that have sought out candidates from kind of underrepresented communities before the Pickering and the Wrangell fellows programs are, I think, quite well known folks. But we’ve we’ve sought to add new programs, including the Powell fellowship, including a fellowship for diplomatic security in the in the kind of law enforcement realm, including a new fellowship, to bring in IT talent that is meant to kind of find ways to attract different people who otherwise again, might not have the resources or experience to get into our pipeline to find ways to get their foot in the door.

A.S. Bill Russo 

And then I think the kind of the final thing I would say on all of that, is that obviously, it’s it’s incredibly important. I don’t think it has to be said, but I’ll say it anyway, it’s incredibly important that our workforce looks like the country that we represent, because, again, to talk about our embassies and consulates all around the world, for so many people around the world. The first time they and for many, maybe even the only time they will see an American face to face is the American on the other side of that visa window and they’re applying for a visa to come here to visit. Right our friends, our Foreign Service officers who are on consular tours. And so first impressions go a long way. And so we want to make sure that their impression of America is one that again represents the full diversity of the country we have. But also, I think one of the other realities that we’re confronting this that, and this again gets to the complexity of our diplomacy, is that even people like me who have a political science history, English background, and that’s really the bread and butter diplomacy. The social sciences, the humanities, but at a point in time, where we’re confronting things like global pandemics, we’re confronting things like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, other critical and emerging technologies, we also need the diversity of backgrounds and academic backgrounds coming into our institutions. And we’re because we’re trying to forge a new international accord to prevent the next pandemic coming, we need someone with a sciences and public health background to help us actually understand whether or not disagreements don’t do a scientifically accomplish the thing that we want, if we’re trying to shape the rules of the road for responsible AI all around the world. Well, you know, I’ve read a lot of articles, I’ve read a lot of books I’ve done, I’ve done some of my own research, but I’m not an expert. I’m not a computer scientist or a computer engineer, we need someone that technical expertise to come in as well. And so I think this is one of the other important parts of kind of our department modernization agenda, is to also make sure that we are bringing in a diversity of of background and expertise into our work to make sure that it is informed in the way that it needs to be. And that is, I think, always been true of our diplomacy. You know, you can go back to the Cold War when we had to make sure that we had nuclear physicist and others who had expertise in that realm to make sure that our Non Proliferation regime was actually going to be effective. I think today, it’s just that those skills are more broad, more diffusive, and more diverse than they’ve ever been. So I think this is just another part of kind of what we’re talking about what we mean by the importance of recruiting a diverse workforce, or a statement just reflects the complexity of the world.

John Torpey 

Right. So I mean, as it happens,I wasn’t kidding, I really was trying to do some research once about basically the social background of members of the Foreign Service. And I was interested in where they had gone to high school and their religion, sort of its full spectrum kind of analysis, sociological analysis, I found it very hard to do to get access to personnel records. Now, maybe I just wasn’t good at figuring this out, or what, but in any case, I couldn’t do it. So I was curious, when you were saying that you were still kind of developing a baseline? I mean, has the Department put out some any research that talks about house people social backgrounds have changed over time? Or is that still kind of waiting to be done by me or someone else?

A.S. Bill Russo 

I don’t think we’ve been able to do it over time, in part because again, we had to actually establish the baseline so that in the future, we can continue to update it, and then have a kind of assessment for it for an overtime. Because again part of this can be done by going through our existing personnel records and understanding again where someone was born, you know, what level of education it gets me. There are elements of that, that we can simply go back to our personnel records and, and identify, but when it comes to someone’s race, race or ethnicity, and how they identify when it comes to whether someone’s self identifies with disability, whether it comes to a whole bunch of these other vectors that requires people voluntarily providing that information. And so that’s the kind of information that we simply don’t have going back historically. But it’s incredibly important for us to have going into the future. And so I think that that is a little bit of a distinction between what we want, we can still go back over time and analyze, but also what you know, what has kind of been a little bit lost, but that we want to make sure isn’t lost for

John Torpey 

Right.  Well, maybe when I have a little more time on my hands, I’m going to come back to you and ask you to help me figure out how to get at those records so that I can finally do that project. Sounds like it might be of some use to the Department and others. Anyway, that’s it for today’s episode, I want to thank the Assistant Secretary of State Bill Russo for sharing his insights about the operations and recruitment policies of the State Department. Look for us on the New Books Network and remember to subscribe and rate International Horizons on Spotify and Apple podcasts. I want to thank Oswaldo Mena for his technical assistance as well as to acknowledge Duncan Mackay for sharing his song International Horizons as the theme music for the show. This is John Torpey, saying, thanks for joining us, and we look forward to having you with us for the next episode of International Horizons.