Diplomats occupy an different role, parachuted into a country for a finite amount of time in which they are profoundly active in the affairs of that place, all before being lifted out again to pastures fresh and different. 1 specified period was the years between 2008 and 2012, during which Leigh Turner was Britain’s Ambassador to Ukraine. These were the last years of president Yushchenko’s tenure, in which his popularity plummeted as the optimism of the Orange Revolution dimmed. Russia would cut off gas supplies in 2009, leading to an associated panic across Europe. In 2010 there was the election of president Yanukovych, leading to his subsequent seizure of the state’s levers of power and jailing of the erstwhile prime minister and faux populist Yulia Tymoshenko. Despite the political tensions, the usage of both the Russian and Ukrainian languages was widespread and it was not uncommon in a conversation for 1 to be answered by the other. It was a planet I knew well, as these were besides the years I resided in the Ukrainian capital. Whilst working for the British Council in Kyiv I taught courses to local embassy staff. My visits to the embassy were regular but my head occasionally wandered whilst within those walls: what does go on in here? At that time, Turner hosted receptions open to all the various Brits that had someway found themselves in Ukraine, and their partners. What made an impression on me at the time was Turner’s attentiveness to all the guests, regardless of status. From this book, I learn that at the same time Turner was taking regular lunches with Mykola Azarov, Yanukovych’s prime minister (known by Ukrainians as “Azariv” for his tenuous attempts at “Ukrainianisms”) and was besides a dinner guest of members of the Ukrainian safety apparatus (he nails the description of the local culinary tradition of “zakuski” – cold starters followed by a “disappointing hot dish”).
Such additional layers to European and planet past over the past 4 decades are a large part of the value of Lessons in Diplomacy. Through his postings in Russia and Ukraine, but besides in others specified as Turkey, Austria and Germany, it is possible to follow the thread of past that is acquainted to many of us. However, the author besides offers individual as well as diplomatic snapshots of events specified as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the parlous state of Russia in the early 1990s, and the events in Ukraine that were to yet lead to the Maidan protests. Turner adopts a punchy style, which jumps around between different postings, thoughts and anecdotes, a scrapbook approach that he seems happy to own and is reflected in the kind of the book. The themes tackled boil down to 3 areas: what being an ambassador is like, beyond being simply a mouthpiece; the importance of opinions and judgement; and the request for an ambassador to find their niche in order to do their best work. any of the content is rather practical. For example, he offers reflections on where diplomatic careers are going, as well as how attitudes towards women and families in the service have changed. It is besides interesting to read about the daunting challenges and false starts of getting into diplomacy in the first place, alongside the issues surrounding rejoining the profession after taking any years out for household reasons. another intriguing areas touched on include the subject of spycraft, how an embassy reacts to a crisis or acts of terrorism, and how you advocate for a position you yet disagree with (i.e. Brexit).
However, it is the content he offers on Central and east Europe that may be of peculiar interest here, and it is noticeable just how wide a diplomat’s bandwidth can be, from economy to politics to religion. His description of his epiphany upon first seeing the Berlin Wall and how that contrasted with the abstract, removed views of communism back in the West is relatable for another “westerners” who have visited the region. He evocatively describes the chaos of Russia through his postings there in the 1990s, describing specified events as the 1993 coup effort against Yeltsin, the dangers of doing business, and how diplomats are targeted by those attempting to manufacture kompromat.
In his chapter on the Russia-Ukraine war, Turner adopts a more serious tone, as if at pains to guarantee we know what he truly thinks, seizing the chance to offer respective insights. As he correctly observes, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine truly began in 2014. Prior to Maidan, president Putin had received regular briefings from the EU on Ukraine’s European aspirations with small pushback. However, as we know, he stepped in erstwhile Ukraine and the EU were poised to sign an Association Agreement, then claiming that they had not consulted the Kremlin. Turner talks about the russian KGB roots of denial culture employed by Russian officials. His work besides touched on any of the western responses to Russian aggression. For instance, this is peculiarly clear in the area of sanctions. He recounts a conversation during his word in Austria, in which a politician from the (pro-Russian) Freedom organization attempted to pour scorn over the sanctions and their ineffectiveness, as well as the harm they were doing to Austrian pork exports. After all, Russia was even making its own mozzarella now. 1 of his staff pointed out that pork exports to another markets were comfortably offsetting this issue. A elder Austrian authoritative then added that the Russian mozzarella was not peculiarly good or popular, at which point an authoritative more elder to them clarified that it was not so much the popularity that was the issue but that “Russians have died after eating it.”
Diplomacy is simply a unique way of interacting with windows on wider history. This is possibly best demonstrated by the remarkable diplomatic telegram (British parlance for cable) of 1999, which straight referenced the erstwhile telegram of the Berlin embassy of September 1939 – “the required assurances… were, sadly, not received: the subsequent course of events has been well documented.”
Lessons in Diplomacy by Leigh Turner. Policy Press 2024.
Jonathan Hibberd is simply a doctoral investigator in global relations at the University of Nottingham. He is an alumnus of the Sussex European Institute in the UK. He has worked with the abroad Policy investigation Institute in Ukraine and lectured in European studies at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
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