02/26/2026 – Hillsdale’s Imprimis: “Recovering the Lost Art of Diplomacy” by Wess Mitchell
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Imprimis_Feb_8pg_2-26web.pdf
This piece is solid in my opinion. We can still disagree: in my opinion, Kissinger was vastly over-rated when it came to “skill in Statecraft”.
And as noted, the Imprimis issue is adapted from a speech delivered at Hillsdale College on October 25, 2025, sponsored by Hillsdale’s Center for Military History and Strategy.
FYI: Wes Mitchell served from 2017 – 2019, in the first Trump administration as U.S. Secretary of State for European and Euroasian Affairs.
Here are quotes from the article that resonated with me, not all inclusive:
“There seemed to be no need for classical diplomacy, because the U.S. had no peer competitor with whom it needed to negotiate or compromise. As a result, American foreign policy embraced a transformationalist agenda of remaking the world—including our adversaries—in our image, through the spread of democracy and liberal economics.”
Note – Mistaken notion of Nixon’s diplomacy with China: “Just whip a little capitalism on them”. Yea-right.
“The nature of things in this world,” as the 16th century Italian diplomat Francesco Guicciardini wrote, “is such that nearly everything contains some imperfections in all its parts.” American foreign policy has been proceeding from the opposite impulse: a kind of grand meliorism that aspires to the loftiest imaginable goal of remaking the world in our image.”
“The cultivation of particular knowledge of foreign places and languages has been deprioritized.”
This brought to mind a book that I am reading slowly whenever time allow: “Putin’s Playbook – Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America” by Rebekah Koffler. (ISBN: 978-1-68451-003-0)
From the inside cover:
“Rebekah Koffler was born and raised in the Soviet Union. She came to America as a young woman. After 9/11, she joined the Defense Intelligence Agency, devoting her career to protecting her new country.”
Major shortcomings that resulted from deprioritization of knowledge of culture , history, and background of the foreign leader you are meeting:
Case in point: George Bush’s post-comment, slightly paraphrased: ” I looked into Putin’s face; I trust him.” Ouch! Really !???!