Michael: Week 6 – March 7th to 11th

During my 6th week at the State Department, I continued on the Early Alerts, sat in on a meeting of section heads at the bilateral embassy to Belgium, and observed a digital media conference between the several Media Hubs and Washington.

Like last week, our main focus for the Early Alerts this week was the continuing crisis in Libya. Each day, many editorials and commentators focused on the big question of whether America and Europe should intervene against Colonel Qaddafi. Most days we were able to write two sections clearly contrasting the arguments of those in favor or against some sort of Western intervention. Those in favor feared that, absent an intervention, Qaddafi might massacre his people, and warned of the regional impact of Qaddafi being allowed to win out against the rebels – which would have clear implications for other Arab leaders contemplating how to react to growing protests and demonstrations. Those opposed to intervention cautioned that the proposed no-fly zone might not be all that effective against Qaddafi’s predominately land-based mercenary army, and that a Western intervention could delegitimize the rebels and turn Arab opinion against the West. Gaining the UN’s green light would clearly help in this regard, but that was seen as unlikely given Chinese and Russian opposition to a military intervention.

Besides the Early Alert, on Wednesday I had the chance to sit in on a meeting of section heads at the bilateral embassy, just as I did previously with the USEU meeting. As before, they briefed the Ambassador on the status of their sections, and the Ambassador briefed the group on overall goals and concerns. Not even working in that embassy, yet alone having the necessary background, I couldn’t follow all of what was being discussed, but it was interesting to see how the Ambassador, who besides being the public face of the US in Belgium is also a manager of a large office, coordinates and supervisors his subordinates. In particular, I observed that the Ambassador both came to the meeting to be briefed by his subordinates on their progress, but also to brief them on the overall mission of the embassy. In short, he functioned as the “big picture” person, pulling together data from the various parts of the embassy to develop an overall idea of where things should be going.

On Thursday, I attended parts of a digital media conference (i.e. over webcam) between people in Washington and the various regional Media Hubs to discuss best practices and more generally how the Hubs should operate between Washington and the various country-specific embassies. The meeting itself, and talking with my supervisors beforehand, gave me a better sense of the position of the Media Hub vis-à-vis other branches of the US government – namely, that the Media Hubs are supposed cover entire regions, rather than countries. For example, you wouldn't have the press section of an individual country embassy cover a large multilateral conference in Asia; instead, the Asian media hub would report on that meeting.