Independent Diplomat

Ross reveals that many of the assumptions that we hold about the diplomatic corps are wrong. He argues passionately and persuasively that the institutions of contemporary diplomacy—foreign ministries, the UN, the EU, and the like—often exclude those they most affect.

Carne Ross served in the British Foreign Office for more than fifteen years. Between 1997 and 1998, he was speechwriter to the British Foreign Secretary. He then spent four and a half years in the UK delegation on the UN Security Council, where he was the UK delegation's Middle East expert, holding the rank of First Secretary, and later served as Strategy Coordinator for the UN in Kosovo (UNMIK), advising the Secretary-General's Special Representative on diplomatic and political tactics. In 2005, after founding Independent Diplomat, he was named by Britain's Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust as one of its seven visionaries for a just and peaceful world.

Unhappy with American and British claims that Iraq was developing unconventional weapons, Mr. Ross testified in June 2004 at an official inquiry into the British government's use of intelligence. Two months later, convinced he could no longer work in the foreign service, he resigned.... But it is his broad critique of the way international diplomacy is conducted that has ruffled feathers the most. In Independent Diplomat, he takes the foreign service to task.

Ross argues that nation-states' narrowly-defined interests often overwhelm and exclude more complex, sophisticated ways of understanding.... The undemocratic nature of diplomacy, Ross charges, combined with many diplomats' lack of specialized knowledge—whether assigned to conflict-prone countries or to multinational institutions such as the UN or the EU—leads to decision-making largely detached from the needs and concerns of the people in the countries affected.

This is a rare and honest book about real-life diplomacy, reported from the coal-face. Ross diagnoses much that is wrong with the way diplomacy is practiced today, and offers some cogent—and urgent—solutions.

Rory Stewart, author of The Prince of the Marshes and The Places In Between:

Carne Ross exposes the absurdity, the ignorance, and the indifference of international bureaucracies, quietly and with clear-sighted accuracy. His prose is ironic, measured, and elegant. His integrity, the nuance of his account, and his self-awareness make him impressive not just as a writer but as a person.