How U.S. Diplomacy Lost Its Way and How to Fix It

Global diplomacy has faced a combustible mix of unique challenges in recent years that have tested its agility and effectiveness, and those challenges are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. While diplomacy is the world's best hope, it has yet to be widely accepted as a real profession. Nicholas Kralev will reflect on the readiness of U.S. diplomacy to help solve 21st-century problems, and on how it lost its way after 9/11. He will also discuss his latest book, Diplomatic Tradecraft, the first-ever practical diplomacy textbook, which was published recently by Cambridge University Press. About the Speaker Nicholas Kralev is an author, diplomacy expert and the founding executive director of the Washington International Diplomatic Academy, an independent organization that provides practical professional training in diplomacy and international affairs. A former Financial Times and Washington Times correspondent, he witnessed firsthand the conduct of American diplomacy while covering the State Department and accompanying Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright on their travels around the world. His books include "Diplomatic Tradecraft," the first-ever practical diplomacy textbook, as well as "America's Other Army" and "Diplomats in the Trenches." His work has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy and The Huffington Post, and he has appeared on NPR, CNN, BBC, Fox News, C-SPAN and local stations across the United States and around the world. He holds a master's degree in public policy from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and speaks five languages. He has visited more than 100 countries and flown nearly 3 million miles.