Hillary Clinton’s Bottom Line Style as Secretary of State

I think we’ve seen enough of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State as to be able to delineate certain tendencies in her diplomatic style, if you will. In the video above I look at a few of the most important of Hillary Clinton’s encounters with foreign leaders. My goal is to find similarities in the way she has reacted to different problems over time.

Some of the problems she has had to deal with are over 50 years old–namely, relations with the North Korean regime. Other situations emerged after 9/11; or rather, they emerged after our reaction to 9/11 (or one of our reactions) which was the invasion of Afghanistan and, subsequently, the likely scape of Al-Qaeda members into Pakistan.

Still, other problems have been unexpected: the internal  political issues in Honduras. And others have been personal in a strange way: her reaction to an apparently mistranslated question in which she was asked what Bill Clinton thought about things.

Saying just what she thinks–that is the thread that connects all of her reactions (at least the ones I’m looking at, which in any case are the main ones).

When it has come down to dealing with foreign nations who are less-than-friendly to American foreign policy, she has said just what her administration feels. She has done the same thing when dealing with more personal situations. That’s not really what one expects from a Secretary of State. One expects a high diplomat to be, well, contained, crafty, and maybe even conniving.

In the Honduran situation Hillary Clinton was clearly successful. She asked for what she wanted ( “Restitution, restitution, restitution.”) without beating around the bush. She got just that and showed Latin America the strength of the new US diplomacy.  However, in her abrupt reaction in Africa (“My husband is not the Secretary of State, I am.”) she looked vulnerable and all too mercurial.

But Latin America and Africa aren’t really critical to US interests.

Pakistan is. The Obama administration desperately needs Pakistan’s help in cornering Al-Qaeda, which is going to be a long and complicated road.

It is definitely not too early to start looking at how Hillary Clinton approaches diplomacy: eagerly and to the point. It is, however, too early, to make predictions or a complete judgement of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. For now I’m glad attempting understand her overall approach.

Note: in the video I say that there was a war in Honduras. I mean this is a metaphorical sense.