AMBASSADOR LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Good afternoon, and thank you so much, President Ota. It really is an honor for me to be here with all of you this afternoon.
When I usually travel abroad, I always try to meet with a country’s most influential leaders. And of course, that means sitting down with presidents and prime ministers and foreign ministers and ministers of state. But it also means sitting down with students – with bright, innovative, inspiring young leaders like those of you who are here in the room with me today.
And so, what better place to come than GRIPS, a world-class academic institution that is cultivating tomorrow’s diplomats and policymakers, economists and political scientists – that is preparing students from more than 60 countries to tackle the challenges of the 21st century? And we need that today more than ever.
As President Biden has said, right now, the world is at an inflection point. The international order that defined the post-Cold War era is over, and the geopolitical ground is shifting beneath our feet. I think many of you may have felt the earthquake tremor last night. I didn’t quite know what it was. But again, we’re feeling the world shift beneath our feet.
Economic interdependence, international cooperation, political liberalization, human rights were once the world’s shared priority and hallmarks of the prevailing doctrines. But today, authoritarian powers are advancing a different agenda. That includes Russia, which couples a strategy of repression at home with a campaign of aggression abroad, including its brutality in Ukraine. And it includes the People’s Republic of China, which is working to undermine many of the universal principles and values that have underpinned progress over the past seven decades.
The question before us is not whether the world is changing, but how we will respond to those changes.
For our part, the United States is advancing our vision of a free, open, secure, and prosperous world. And the truth is our “how” is really more of a “who.” Because at this inflection point, we have an unmatched network of allies that share a common vision for the future – that are committed to addressing the complex, interconnected challenges of our time, from climate change to food insecurity to democratic backsliding. Allies like Japan.
Over the past three years – and particularly over the past few weeks – the U.S.-Japan partnership has reached new heights. The partnership starts at the bilateral level. Just last week, President Biden hosted Prime Minister Kishida and Mrs. Kishida for an official visit – and our countries pledged to strengthen defense and security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, and announced new commitments on space exploration, economic security, climate change, and more. Together, we are also bolstering indispensable coalitions like the G7 and the Quad – and deepening our trilateral partnerships.
In 2023, the historic Trilateral Leaders’ Summit at Camp David ushered in a new era of cooperation between the U.S., Japan, and the Republic of Korea. And last week, the U.S., Japan, and Philippines came together for a first-of-its-kind trilateral summit. And President Biden recently announced that we’re standing up a trilateral military exercise with Japan and the United Kingdom.
Then there’s the multilateral realm – where the U.S. and Japan’s partnership is as critical as ever. And I’m a part of that. As the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations – as someone who represents the U.S. in multilateral fora such as the UN Security Council and the General Assembly – this is what I want to focus our conversation on today: How the United States – and our partners – are investing in multilateralism in an era of strategic competition.
From day one, the Biden Administration has fully re-engaged at the United Nations and across the multilateral system. Our record of progress is real – and it is long:
We have ensured nonproliferation, human rights, food and climate security remain at the top of the Security Council’s agenda.
We have pushed for action on grave humanitarian crises, including in Sudan, Haiti, and Gaza.
We have held Russia accountable for its wars of aggression in Ukraine and its flagrant violations of the UN Charter.
We have led efforts on the ground to address the situation in Gaza.
We have led on emerging tech issues – and secured the adoption, by consensus, of a UN General Assembly resolution on artificial intelligence.
We have issued a call to reform the UN Security Council, including through the expansion of both permanent and non-permanent seats at the Council. As President Biden has said, we need more voices and perspectives at the table – and we believe that should include a permanent seat for Japan.
The United States has also championed the Women, Peace, and Security agenda since its inception. And today, I’m proud to announce that the U.S. Department of State plans to make additional investments in the Women, Peace, and Security Center of Excellence initiative, bringing the total U.S. funding for this initiative to $2 million.
We must support WPS Centers around the world as they advance government implementation of the WPS agenda, including through engagement with civil society and academia at the local, national, and regional level.
But as we work to advance progress on all these issues and more, we often face resistance from two permanent members of the Council. And on a number of key issues, Russia and China have even worked to undo hard-won progress.
Just last month, Russia vetoed – with support from China – a resolution to renew the 1718 Committee’s Panel of Experts, which has investigated the DPRK’s unlawful weapons programs and sanction evasion efforts. For 15 years – 15 years – this panel received unanimous support. But Russia vetoed this resolution after the panel began reporting on Russia’s own blatant violations of Security Council resolutions related to the DPRK. And China – also breaking 15 years of unanimous support – has undermined the nonproliferation regime by emboldening the DPRK to act with further impunity.
Today, the world can see Russia and China’s “without limits” partnership on full display. But they can also see the United States and our allies – including Japan and the Republic of Korea – leading across the multilateral system.
The U.S., Japan, and the Republic of Korea are all major contributors to the UN – and to peacekeeping initiatives across the world. And right now, all three countries sit on the UN Security Council together – for the first time since 1997 – where we work hand in hand on a host of shared priorities, including the WPS agenda, climate security, the DPRK, and cybersecurity.
As just one example, over the last month, the United States and Japan have partnered on a Security Council resolution aimed at strengthening and upholding the global nonproliferation regime, specifically in outer space. We have led this charge because we know that placing a nuclear weapon – or any weapon of mass destruction – into orbit would be unprecedented, unacceptable, and deeply dangerous.
This will soon come up for a vote, and will be another major test of every Council members’ commitment to the nonproliferation regime. We urge all Council members to stand together.
Students, the world you are inheriting is full of question marks and unresolved challenges. But at this moment of change, one thing remains constant: the unbreakable bond between the United States and Japan. And I’m so grateful to be here this week to reaffirm that partnership. And I’m also grateful to be here with all of you young leaders who will help write its next chapter, and help define the international order for tomorrow. Thank you. [Applause.]
MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, for the presentation. So we will have a Q&A session now. Before we open the floor for Q&A, I have two questions to you. So this school, GRIPS, is a professional school designed to train and educate current and future policymakers and leaders. So my first question is: As a leader, what are the two or three important things that you do and/or you think you should do? And second question is: As a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, you must be facing a lot of challenges. What do you think are the two, three most important challenges that you face today, and how are you trying to deal with them?
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: The first question is actually very easy to answer, and it’s part of why I am here in this room today. I think it is important that any leader – and particularly one that is leading on the multinational, multilateral stage – that we work to prepare the next generation of leaders. So I do spend a large amount of my time mentoring young people, encouraging young people, talking to young people to ensure that they are prepared to be our next generation of leaders. I think that is extraordinarily important, and it is about our future.
And the second part of that is also a priority for me, and that is educating Americans about the multilateral system. We work in New York in a bubble, all of us, wherever we’re from, whatever country we’re from, and many of our populations outside of our capitals don’t really understand or appreciate the work that we are doing in New York and on the multilateral stage. So I do quite a bit of domestic travel in the U.S. to educate the American public.
And then the most difficult challenges, they are numerous. Challenges like crises don’t always end, so we’re dealing with constant crises that never end. When I started in New York in 2021, there was a crisis in Ethiopia, and we’re still dealing with issues in Ethiopia right now. But in the meantime, we have the war in Ukraine, which continues; we have the war in Gaza, which continues; and as we speak, we’re dealing with an unspeakable situation in Sudan. And I call it unspeakable because we’ve been silent on what is happening in Sudan, what is happening to the millions of people who’ve been forced from their homes – over a million across the border in Chad – a situation where people are facing the same challenges that we’re dealing with in Gaza, but yet it’s not spoken about.
MODERATOR: With regard to the education effort that you are making, people in this region, including Japan, are getting little concerned about the growing isolationism, isolationist sentiment, in the U.S. So apart from education, what should we be doing in order to keep the United States engaged with the world and internationalist, as it has been?
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You know, the Biden Administration’s view is that we cannot be isolated from the world. So at the start of this administration, you may have heard us say that multilateralism is back, diplomacy is back, America is back. We have to be engaged with the world. There’s no place now where we can isolate ourselves from what is happening around the world. The world has shrunk because of technology. We know what is happening everywhere in the world; we see the impact of that. So it is really important that as a leader, as we are, we not isolate ourselves, we not shut ourselves off from the rest of the world. And I think that’s the broad view of most American policymakers. There are some ebbs and flows, but ultimately the United States is always actively engaged in what is happening in the world.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much. That’s great news for us. All right. So let’s open the floor for Q&A and comments. If you have any questions, please raise your hand and identify yourself and ask questions and provide comments. So let me, like, take two or three questions together.
QUESTION: Thank you very much for wonderful opportunity today. My name is Kim Hyoung-zhin. I’m a PhD student here at GRIPS, and also former Korean ambassador to European Union and NATO. And I have questions about the work in UN Security Council. Recently, UN Security Council cannot do anything about North Korea, and how is it, like, working with Chinese and Russian perm reps there? Is there a issue of cooperation, and is there issue of rivalry there, or you are opposing on everything? And what is the prospect?
And if I may, I’d like to add one more question. I understand you wrote a column together with Ambassador Bill Burns in Foreign Affairs about The Transformation of Diplomacy – How to Save State Department. Was there any progress in the State Department, new culture, investing in people, and reform and innovation? What is it like today? Thank you very much.
MODERATOR: Okay. let me take one more question.
QUESTION: My name is Hasegawa. I teach at the Kyoto University of the Arts, but I served in the United Nations about 35 years in the UNDP and the DPKO. As I served as a special rep of Kofi Annan, I reported to the Security Council three or four times, and United States played a major role in there. And now that we are talking about the possibility or need for expanding the Security Council, and I had an impression that the United States and the other major powers want to keep the Security Council small, that the 15 is enough. Now, my question is: How serious is the United States’ interest in enlarging the Security Council? And is there any prospect for that in the coming Summit of the Future?
MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you. Please.
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you so much for your questions. And you know, on the question of how effective the Security Council is on North Korean issues, given the actions particularly over the past two to three years of China and Russia, look, we have been able to continue to raise issues, despite Russia and China’s trying to block us from doing that. We hosted the first meeting on North Korean human rights this past year over the objections of China and Russia. And while they have blocked the Security Council from issuing statements and from taking punitive action against the DPRK for their unlawful tests of weapons of mass destruction, we have not allowed them to stop the Council from engaging.
So whenever we’ve had votes, the votes have been overwhelmingly in support of accountability, and Russia and China have been isolated in the Council. And in each of those cases, both Russia and China, at the behest of the DPRK, have tried to keep the Council from holding those meetings. So while we’ve not been able to get a resolution passed, then Russia was able to veto the Panel of Experts resolution, they have not silenced the Council on the DPRK.
MODERATOR: Let me ask one question on that point. So you talked about the discontinuation of this specialist panel on North Korea. So – and you talked about the possibility of coming up with a new framework in place of that. What kind of framework do you have in your mind then? What kind of countries would you like to bring in?
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Look, we – I talked about trilateralism and the importance of having both Japan and [the] Republic of Korea sitting in the Council. So with the three of us, as well as other countries that are likeminded, we are looking at what other options we can bring to the table that will continue the important work that the Panel of Experts was doing. We cannot have a situation where because Russia was being reported on that we’re not having insight into what is happening on the ground there.
So we have looked at and will be discussing several options, and maybe several at the same time, one being going to the General Assembly and having a vote in the General Assembly. The other would be to bring outside sources in to do the kind of analysis and reporting we need to see. And thirdly, we’re looking at what the Secretariat – the UN Secretariat – might be able to do.
Because the sanctions are still there, and in any country where we have sanctions we look for how to hold those accountable who are breaking those sanctions. And so not having the Panel of Experts giving us that insight is a reason for concern, but we know that there are other ways that we can get that information, and we’ll be working together with our colleagues to come up with a plan moving forward.
Following your question on revitalization of the State Department, this is something that was really important for me, having served as the Director General of the Foreign Service and Head of Personnel in the State Department. And seeing that we were losing ground in terms of our recruiting and our retention and our development of Foreign Service officers to ensure that they were prepared for the future – and part of that is investing in all three of those areas, investing in our recruitment to ensure that we have diversity; investing in mentoring and developing people once they come on board and seeing that they have the skills that they need to succeed.
So what I can say about that is it is a work in progress. A lot of it depends on funding, and if you watch politics in the United States, you know that we’re still having issues in getting the funding that we require. But we’re working on that, and Secretary Blinken has taken this up as a priority. And hopefully over the course of the next year or so we’ll start to see those efforts pay benefits for our young people in the future.
And then on the possibility of expanding the Security Council – so you’re exactly right. Previously the United States and China and Russia agreed on one thing, and that was that we did not want to see changes in the Security Council. But in 2021, the U.S. pulled out of that, and we’ve made clear that it is important that we see reform in the Security Council and broadly in the UN. The Security Council of 70 years ago does not reflect the realities of today, where we have 193 [Member States], where Africa does not have a permanent seat, Latin America does not have a permanent seat, and other countries around the world and other regions are not represented in a significant way in the Council.
So one, we have made clear in our discussions with some of the members of the so-called G4 – Japan, Germany, and India [and Brazil] – we support their becoming permanent members of the Security Council. And the President reinforced this in his speech last year, again reaffirming our support for permanent seats for Africa and Latin America and additional elected seats on the Council. Over the course of the past year, I have had a series of listening tours among regional groupings to get their ideas on how we might move this agenda forward. And we’re continuing to work on that.
Whether it will happen – well, I know it won’t happen by September. It’s not something that’s easy to accomplish. I think one of the things I learned during the listening tour is that it’s going to require a lot of work. There’s no agreement among the 193 members on how this might work, but there is agreement that we do need change, and we have to work together to figure out how that change will take place and what form that change will be. But it is something that we are absolutely committed to, and we’re working to bring it to fruition.
MODERATOR: Alright. Okay. So are there any more questions? Please go to those two.
QUESTION: Thank you. My name is Haruka. I’m an undergraduate student at the University of Tokyo. I used to live in New York, and I was very obsessed with the United Nations and I visited the office, like, multiple times. Two questions actually I have is – one is: As a member of the Security Council, I think you often butt heads with, like, Russia and China mainly. And you – like, the Security Council never comes to an agreement, recently especially. How do you come to terms personally with those differences in opinions?
And the second question is: I think when you started your career, I think you were one of, like, the minorities because you’re, like, a woman and also, like, a colored woman. So I think that was a, like, a great setback before. And I think now in Japan situations surrounding, like, diplomats and also, like, the government itself is more masculine oriented, and I think there’s a great barrier for females and women. How do you hope for the Japanese government to change, and if you have any message for a young woman out there who are aspiring to be like a diplomat like yourself, I would want to hear your message on that. Thank you.
QUESTION: Thank you very much. My name is Andrea Pressello, and I teach here at GRIPS. And thanks for very interesting remarks. I have two questions; the first one is actually related to the previous, and is about your mention to the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. And the issue of promoting women and girls’ rights is particularly urgent in Afghanistan. And last March the Security Council has voted to renew the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan.
So my question is: Are there other steps that the Security Council and the United Nations more in general can take to address the challenges to the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan? And related to this, what are your views on how to engage with the Taliban more effectively with the aim of addressing women and girls’ rights? Thank you.
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you for your question. And on the question, you know, how do we bridge our differences in the Security Council – and there are a lot of differences, so I acknowledge that. But we have also been able to work on areas where we actually have some commonality. And you saw that we were able to get a resolution on Haiti agreed to by the Council. We were able to get a resolution related to Burma agreed to by the Council. I think something we’re most proud of: We were able to pass a resolution that provided a carve-out for humanitarian agencies in countries where we have sanctions imposed. And this was something that the entire humanitarian community was very, very excited about.
I always want to carry with me a list of the resolutions we have passed so that I can show that the Council actually does function on some issues. And I will say that even on Gaza, we were able to get two resolutions through the Council. But we do have differences, and those – that politics between permanent members of the Council does play into the abilities or lack of ability for the Council to accomplish certain things.
In terms of barriers to women, you know, I came into the State Department in 1982, and I always like to share that at the time the State Department had a class action suit against it being led by women, and a second class action suit being led by African Americans, and I was both. And so I had to ask myself, why was I coming to work in this department where both of the categories that define me had filed a discrimination suit against the State Department? That said, I’ve seen tremendous progress in the State Department; when I look – when we have our meetings of ambassadors and I see the number of women who are ambassadors sitting in the room compared to the number of women that were ambassadors in 1982.
So we are making progress; we’re making progress at the entry level. We’re recruiting as many young women into our Foreign Service as young men. But what I would say to any young woman, wherever you are in the world: Don’t own your country’s lack of prioritizing you. Don’t own it. You have to step up and be there, and not step away. I can’t tell Japan what to do, and I can’t even always tell the United States what to do. But I’m going to be at the forefront, and so they have to deal with me. And that’s what I will say to you. Continue doing what you’re doing, your studies, preparing yourself to be a player on the multilateral stage in the future, and the doors will – sometimes you have to kick the doors open. [Laughter.] But don’t hesitate to kick the doors open.
And I will commend one of the most famous Japanese women I know, Mrs. Ogata, who was head of UNHCR. I knew her well; I watched her as she led this extraordinary organization and made it possible for so many. I was a young diplomat at that time, but she was an example of what being on the multilateral stage at the most senior levels would look like. And so I’m sure there are many other Japanese women who have the caliber of Mrs. Ogata, but I would encourage you to look to those women, and just know that the impossible is possible, and you should not hold yourself back. Just keep moving forward.
And then on the question related to women in Afghanistan, this is an issue that is – I don’t want to say is intractable; I started working on issues related to Afghan women in the 1990s when the first iteration of the Taliban took over Afghanistan. And we made some progress, particularly in the years between. And now we’re seeing that progress be really lost in what is happening now. And what I can say is: as we look for ways to deal with the situation in Afghanistan, women have to be front and center. We cannot leave Afghan women aside while we try to negotiate some kind of settlement. They have to be front and center and part of any discussions that we have with the Taliban.
I will say it’s very frustrating. We’ve not made a lot of progress. And I worry that Afghan women will lose hope. And so it’s important that you ask that question, and that we keep asking questions about what will be done to support Afghan women being integrated and included in the path forward in Afghanistan.
I know that doesn’t answer your question, but I just want to leave you with the fact that we have not forgotten Afghan women, and we keep pushing against a very, very closed door.
MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Any other questions, comments? Okay, I see two. Okay, let’s go over there first, and –
QUESTION: Hi. Thanks. Just a quick question. Are you aware of –
MODERATOR: Could you identify yourself?
QUESTION: I’m Dustin from America; just a guest here at the speaking event tonight. But my question was: Are you aware of any work being done to counter the rising influence of disinformation?
MODERATOR: Great. So another question over there.
QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador. My name is Ariel Stenek; I’m a PhD student here at GRIPS. And as a lot of our framing remarks stated, crises are non-stop and they’re all around us. And being the UN Ambassador is a particularly tough position, because you don’t have a singular geographic focus or substantive focus; you’re kind of everywhere all at once. So I’m curious, more as a, you now, your personal experience, when you were coming into this role in 2021, what were your personal objectives or priorities for being the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, and if you’ve been able to make any progress on those objectives? Thank you.
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: On the first question, the answer is a lot of work is being done to address the issue of disinformation, and we’re seeing it all over the world. We have elections taking place in dozens of countries this year. And we’re seeing active measures being taken, primarily by our adversaries, to influence those elections, including in the United States through disinformation campaigns. And part of the problem is, of course, it’s social media. People have open access to social media, and sometimes you don’t know where the information that you’re receiving is coming from. And social media entities have to work with us to address these issues as well. Related to that, of course, is what we do to deal with cybersecurity and attacks on our systems across the globe, and actions are being taken in that area.
In New York, it is an issue that we meet on on a regular basis. We talk about how we address disinformation campaign. Russia is, of course, a leader in that area, and we know that we have to really proactively work to counter those efforts. And it’s a fight that – it’s constantly – we have to constantly get ahead of because new means and new methods are always found to counter anything that we put in place.
Thank you so much for your question. When I started in New York in February of 2021, my goal was to reassert U.S. leadership on the global stage. We had backed away from many of the forums and on many of the issues where we had been a leader before. So you will recall that on day one, President Biden rejoined the Human Rights [Council]. We rejoined the Paris talks. We re-engaged in the UN and in the Security Council on issues of mutual concern. We worked to pay our dues in the United Nations so that we could show the world that we valued the United Nations.
And I do feel proud that in the course of three years we have brought back the importance of American leadership and American values in foreign policy. It is not a fight that you win and comes to an end; it’s a fight that we continue to have to engage on, because we know if we’re not sitting in a leadership position, if we cede leadership, others will fill in the space. And we saw China do that quite effectively in the UN during the previous administration, and we want to work to make sure that that never happens again.
MODERATOR: I have one question to you related to Ariel’s question. You are a specialist in Africa. So how do you compare U.S. policy toward Africa and the Japanese policy toward Africa? And are there any areas in which the two countries can cooperate on that front?
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: You’re – I love that question, and yes. The answer is simply yes, there are areas where the U.S. and Japan can cooperate in Africa. I recall – I’m trying to remember the year – maybe 2013 – Japan hosted the TICAD Conference in Nairobi, Kenya. And that was –
MODERATOR: TICAD being Tokyo International Conference on African Development.
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you. [Laughter.] And I attended that conference as the Assistant Secretary for Africa. And it was my first time engaging directly with Japan on Africa, and I came away from that meeting seeing tremendous opportunities for us to work together on the continent of Africa. And it is an issue that we have discussed recently, because as Japan has taken on a very important leadership role in the Security Council but also an important role globally. And we see China just going into Africa in such a big way. We know that we have to work together – likeminded countries – to work with our African counterparts, to ensure that we’re addressing their security needs, their economic needs, the infrastructure needs so that they can continue to grow on the global stage. So I do think that there are ways that we can cooperate on the continent of Africa, and I look forward to us engaging with Japan in that region.
MODERATOR: Great. Good news. Thank you very much. Any more? Oh, wow, many hands. Okay. Let’s go over there, and then here.
QUESTION: Good afternoon, Ambassador. My name is Allie Kho from the Philippines. I’m also an alumni of the Young Southeast Asian Leadership Initiative of the U.S. Professional Fellowship Program so thank you so much for that. My question is interconnected with one another. First, I think your work in the UN Security Council is pretty overwhelming, so I was wondering how do you usually manage those overwhelming emotions, especially you’re dealing with conflicts?
And secondly, women in – let’s say in senior levels or even just junior career levels – are usually asked to choose between career and family. So I was wondering, like, although it should be a question to be asked also to men – [laughter] – but my question would be, like, in your career, like, how did you manage your priorities between your family considering that you’re still very much well-achieved in your career. Thank you so much.
QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador, for the interesting talk. My name is Yoko Iwama; I teach international relations here at GRIPS. I’m very glad some of our girls stepped forward to ask questions. My question is on United Nations peacekeeping. I have a general feeling that developing countries have kind of lost appetite in UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding, but if you look at the conflicts now going on within Ukraine or in Middle East, I think in order to achieve a ceasefire, there will be a need for some neutral party to hold the ceasefire line. And without very active United States commitment, these things would not work. So I’m quite interested in how you feel about using UN in these conflict areas to achieve a ceasefire. Thank you.
AMBASSADOR THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I’m really delighted to hear that you are part of the Young Leaders Program for Southeast Asia. I am called – I accept the mantra of being the mother of YALI, the Young African Leaders Initiative. We were the first initiative like this, and I’m really proud that the Young African Leaders Initiative has led to similar initiatives across other regions. So I hope that you’ve found that experience to be rewarding.
So you asked, you know, given the challenges of working in the UN, you know, how do I deal with all of the issues? And my approach to leadership is to lead with compassion and to be open and available to talk to everyone – to talk to the people I agree with, of course, and also to talk to people who may disagree with me or I disagree with them. Because you only bridge those gaps by engagement, and I think it’s really important that whatever the issue is that we engage with everybody, that you hear from those you disagree with. And I’ve found that it has been most effective in getting things done.
I don’t have an issue reaching out to my Russian colleague on an issue where I think we may be able to find some synergy together, even though I disagree with him on Ukraine and I will brutally criticize him in the Council on the issues that we disagree on, but I’m also willing to talk about those issues where we may have some agreement. And I think we have to do that across the board. Diplomacy is – it’s easy to do diplomacy with friends. It’s hard to do diplomacy with people you disagree with. But that is where it counts – when you can find common ground with those you disagree with.
And you ask about having a family. I never felt that I had to choose. I did come from the generation of women who felt they had to choose, but it just never came to my mind that I had to choose. So I have two children that I raised in the Foreign Service, and my husband was also in the Foreign Service. We were very consistent in what we prioritized. We prioritized our family first and our careers second. But there are also times people talk about balance – there’s no such thing. There were times in my life when you had to prioritize one over the other. There’s nothing more horrific – and I remember this from 1989 on Christmas morning and I had little kids – being called into work because there was a coup in Liberia and fighting had started across the border, and I was the person responsible for Liberia and I had to drop everything and go to the office on Christmas morning. And I actually had to do that this past Christmas as well.
So sometimes you do have to do that, but you learn to make up for it in other ways. And so I say to all young women: You do not have to choose. You have to decide that you don’t want to choose, and you can accomplish it, and as I did. And I won’t say it was easy. It was not easy. But as I look back on it, I’m happy I made the choices that I did.
On UN peacekeeping, so I served as the Ambassador in Liberia that had one of the largest peacekeeping operations for a country its size. There were only 3 million people in Liberia and we had 17,000 UN troops in Liberia. And I worked with the president and then with the SRSG, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General Ellen Løj who was a diplomat from Denmark, to actually bring that peacekeeping mission to an end. And it’s one of the few that we brought to an end.
So when you say that in many countries in the world, they just have lost the stomach for these peacekeeping operations, well, part of the problem is they last too long. And we do need to figure out how to transition peacekeeping operations so that countries don’t get frustrated with what is happening in their country. But I do think as part of your second part of your question that we have not given up on peacekeeping. We know that there are some places where we will need neutral UN blue-hatted, blue berets to go in and keep the peace as a neutral force. And there are still countries that contribute significantly to peacekeeping operations so that we do have the funding and the troops to address those situations in the future.
Do I have time for two more questions?
MODERATOR: Okay. There are more questions, but we have to wrap up here. So thank you very much. We have learned many things, but I think we have at least – learned at least three important things: one is some problems never go away, and we have to be very patient; two, sometimes bad things happen, you know, the Panel of Experts on North Korean sanctions has been discontinued, but then we have to be creative, we have to find alternatives, and, you know, come out better, hopefully; and finally, women should keep kicking the door – [laughter] – and I hope that men will join them in kicking the door for not only women but for anyone who is willing to work hard.
So I sincerely hope under Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield’s leadership we will work all together to make the world a peaceful and prosperous place. So ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield. [Applause.]
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Source: U.S. Mission to the United Nations
Speaker: Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (UN)
Format: Public Remarks
China Policy Research 