Secretary Condoleezza Rice Remarks at Georgetown School of Foreign Service

U.S. Department of State ^ | January 18, 2006 | Secretary Condoleezza Rice

[mdittmar]

Thank you very much. Thank you President DeGioia for that wonderful introduction. Thank you. Happy for that great start to this session. I 'd like to thank the Board of Trustees and say how pleased I am to be here at Georgetown University's distinguished School of Foreign Service. I just have to recognize my friend, Andrew Natsios, who's sitting in the front row, even if he did leave us to come to Georgetown. He said he was doing it because this is an institution that he loves dearly. You've got a fine man and you're going to have a fine professor in Andrew Natsios. Thank you for your service to the country. (Applause.)

I want to thank members of the diplomatic corps who are here and several members of the Administration. I also want you to know that I do know a good deal about Georgetown and it is because this is a fine school of foreign service for which we all owe a debt of gratitude for the people that you have trained, for the people who have come to us in government, for the people from whom I have learned as an academic. This is also a fine university in general, a university that is well known for its dedication to learning, but also its dedication to values and to social justice. And it's also a university that is recovering its heritage in basketball and I look very much forward to this year. (Applause.)

Almost a year ago today in his second Inaugural Address, President Bush laid out a vision that now leads America into the world. "It is the policy of the United States," the President said, "to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." To achieve this bold mission, America needs equally bold diplomacy, a diplomacy that not only reports about the world as it is, but seeks to change the world itself. I and others have called this mission "transformational diplomacy." And today I want to explain what it is in principle and how we are advancing it in practice.

We are living in an extraordinary time, one in which centuries of international precedent are being overturned. The prospect of violent conflict among great powers is more remote than ever. States are increasingly competing and cooperating in peace, not preparing for war. Peoples in China and India, in South Africa and Indonesia and Brazil are lifting their countries into new prominence. Reform -- democratic reform -- has begun and is spreading in the Middle East. And the United States is working with our many partners, particularly our partners who share our values in Europe and in Asia and in other parts of the world to build a true form of global stability, a balance of power that favors freedom.

At the same time, other challenges have assumed a new urgency. Since its creation more than 350 years ago, the modern state system has rested on the concept of sovereignty. It was always assumed that every state could control and direct the threats emerging from its territory. It was also assumed that weak and poorly governed states were merely a burden to their people, or at most, an international humanitarian concern but never a true security threat.

Today, however, these old assumptions no longer hold. Technology is collapsing the distance that once clearly separated right here from over there. And the greatest threats now emerge more within states than between them. The fundamental character of regimes now matters more than the international distribution of power. In this world it is impossible to draw neat, clear lines between our security interests, our development efforts and our democratic ideals. American diplomacy must integrate and advance all of these goals together.

So, I would define the objective of transformational diplomacy this way: to work with our many partners around the world, to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that will respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. Let me be clear, transformational diplomacy is rooted in partnership; not in paternalism. In doing things with people, not for them; we seek to use America's diplomatic power to help foreign citizens better their own lives and to build their own nations and to transform their own futures.

This is an excerpt

[mdittmar]

"I would define the objective of transformational diplomacy this way: to work with our many partners around the world, to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that will respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system."

[gaijin]

The State Department believes that talking is not just a means to something else --no. State believes that talking politely is an END.

These people hate action types like Rice. I don't think she's going to change anyone there at all.

PS - I used to work at State.

[mdittmar]

I don't think she's going to change anyone there at all.

No,most likely not,but then again,those who don't won't be there;)

[gaijin]

It's nearly impossible to get fired from the State Dept, but I really hope you turn out to be right.

[Albion Wilde]

The entire speech is very interesting, particularly the new technology approaches, and also there is a link at the top for the Question & Answer session, which is also packed with transformational ideas. This woman is a comprehensive thinker.

[ClaireSolt]

I liked it. It was very Stanford.

[caffe]

Any speech that uses the word "transformational" scares me. Sounds like a new code word for "a living constitution" Actually, Karl Marx used the term "transformational" alot in advancing kindler and gentler brainwashing techniques.