What Trump should look for in a secretary of state
Pundits are speculating about when President-elect Donald Trump is going to settle on a secretary of state nominee — and what the identity of the person who is selected will reveal about the emerging balance of power within the Trump administration.
Some want a neoconservative such as John Bolton, some want a loyalist such as Rudy Giuliani, some want a polished establishment figure such as Mitt Romney or Bob Corker, and others want Trump to go “outside the box” and select a businessman such as Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, or a general such as David Petraeus or a Democrat such as Tulsi Gabbard.
While such speculations certainly are fun, and even at times illuminating, they draw the public’s eye away from what is really motivating Trump as he continues his search. He is not necessarily looking for a neocon or a realist or an isolationist or a politician or a businessperson or an insider or an outsider — he is looking for someone who possesses the attributes of a master diplomat. What are they?
First, the next secretary of state must be capable of enunciating hoary old nostrums of the sort we all expect a secretary of state to enunciate while at the same time delivering clear and direct messages to our allies, acquaintances and enemies concerning the evolving nature of their relationship with the United States. It takes a special kind of talent to sound soothing and unsettling simultaneously. Few have the skill and for that reason potentially good secretaries of state are rare.
Second, the next secretary of state needs to have a commanding presence, but at the same time be able and willing to cloak it at will. Few people can command the stage one moment and are content to recede into the shadows the next. No wonder it is hard to find good secretaries of state.
Third, a really good secretary of state must realize that the most important part of his or her job is not to do or say anything but rather to observe. He or she must see everything encountered while serving the president in the rarified circles in which secretaries of state must necessarily travel — while at the same time peering outside the circles of power to more humble environs where the destinies of nations are often decided.
Watch things in the minutest detail, record them, process them and report them to the president — along with an interpretive framework that will provide the president a variety of ways to act, or not act, upon the data. The good secretary of state is more like a cavalry scout than a general. Sure, if necessary he or she can send fire down range and shape the emerging battlefield, as it were. But the secretary is not there to fight. He or she is there primarily to exercise his or her penetrating vision from favorable vantage points — and get its insights back to the president.
Trump’s election is one of several emerging signs (such as the Brexit vote and the recent “No” vote in Italy) indicating to observers of the international scene that the world has entered a period of transition. If the American president ever did fully control events (which I doubt) he or she does so no longer.
Trump, like previous great presidents, must pick and choose a path forward amid the flux. And to help him divine the nature of the emerging terrain, and select the most promising paths, he needs a specially gifted secretary of state — the sort of person who is as cunning as a serpent and as innocent as a dove. No wonder Trump is studying candidates closely before he makes his choice.
He hasn’t settled on his George Marshall or James Baker yet, but he will.