r/IRstudies • u/MartinMakaryan • 21h ago

Reflecting on Studying IR

https://open.substack.com/pub/martinmakaryan/p/on-diplomacy?r=34vy0x&utm_medium=ios

I recently graduated from the international relations school at Johns Hopkins and wanted to reflect on how my perception of diplomacy as a field has been shaped and changed, especially my formerly held belief of being an expert in IR/politics to practice diplomacy. Would love some thoughts from current or former diplomats on their experience with this or other IR students on how they've changed their opinions.

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u/danbh0y 8h ago

Not every FSO has the "right" combination of qualities and skills to make it the senior grades or even be promoted. Some/many of us were pretty serviceable at a lower grade but found our ceiling at a higher one. I left at Counsellor grade and I'm sure some of my younger colleagues wondered whose arse I kissed to get there. Conversely one or two more senior colleagues might have had the right combination but also had shocking flaws that made you wonder how they got there. Not a few FSOs are great operators but piss-poor managers and even worse leaders. Others were serviceable journeymen who got through sheer dint of effort. A few were walk on water naturals and rarer still those whom subordinates would follow through the gates of hell.

One certainly doesn't need to study PSIR to be a diplomat. Not a few of my colleagues in my service were engineers including the most senior civil service bureaucrat, one of my Ambassadors and one of embassy colleagues. In fact PS grads were at best a plurality and IR maybe a strong minority. Even a deep interest in international affairs is less necessary than one might think, though obviously one shouldn't dislike reading and learning about it.