WEBVTT 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:04.000 My story is a little bit about war. 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:06.000 It's about disillusionment. 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:08.000 It's about death. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:10.000 And it's about rediscovering 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:12.000 idealism 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:14.000 in all of that wreckage. 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:16.000 And perhaps also, there's a lesson 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:18.000 about how to deal with 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.000 our screwed-up, fragmenting 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:24.000 and dangerous world of the 21st century. 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:28.000 I don't believe in straightforward narratives. 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:30.000 I don't believe in a life or history 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.000 written as decision "A" led to consequence "B" 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:35.000 led to consequence "C" -- 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:37.000 these neat narratives that we're presented with, 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:40.000 and that perhaps we encourage in each other. 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:42.000 I believe in randomness, 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:44.000 and one of the reasons I believe that 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:47.000 is because me becoming a diplomat was random. 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:49.000 I'm colorblind. 00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:51.000 I was born unable to see most colors. 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:54.000 This is why I wear gray and black most of the time, 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:56.000 and I have to take my wife with me 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:59.000 to chose clothes. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:02.000 And I'd always wanted to be a fighter pilot when I was a boy. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.000 I loved watching planes barrel over 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:07.000 our holiday home in the countryside. 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:10.000 And it was my boyhood dream to be a fighter pilot. 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:13.000 And I did the tests in the Royal Air Force to become a pilot, 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:15.000 and sure enough, I failed. 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:17.000 I couldn't see all the blinking different lights, 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:19.000 and I can't distinguish color. 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:21.000 So I had to choose another career, 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:24.000 and this was in fact relatively easy for me, 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:27.000 because I had an abiding passion all the way through my childhood, 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:29.000 which was international relations. 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:31.000 As a child, 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:34.000 I read the newspaper thoroughly. 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:36.000 I was fascinated by the Cold War, 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:38.000 by the INF negotiations 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:41.000 over intermediate-range nuclear missiles, 00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:44.000 the proxy war between the Soviet Union and the U.S. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:47.000 in Angola or Afghanistan. 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:50.000 These things really interested me. 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:52.000 And so I decided quite at an early age 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:54.000 I wanted to be a diplomat. 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:57.000 And I, one day, I announced this to my parents -- 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.000 and my father denies this story to this day -- 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:01.000 I said, "Daddy, I want to be a diplomat." 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:03.000 And he turned to me, and he said, 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:05.000 "Carne, you have to be very clever to be a diplomat." 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:07.000 (Laughter) 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:10.000 And my ambition was sealed. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:12.000 In 1989, 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:15.000 I entered the British Foreign Service. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:17.000 That year, 5,000 people applied to become a diplomat, 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:20.000 and 20 of us succeeded. 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:23.000 And as those numbers suggest, 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:26.000 I was inducted into an elite 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:29.000 and fascinating and exhilarating world. 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:32.000 Being a diplomat, then and now, 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:35.000 is an incredible job, and I loved every minute of it -- 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:37.000 I enjoyed the status of it. 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:40.000 I bought myself a nice suit and wore leather-soled shoes 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:42.000 and reveled in 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:45.000 this amazing access I had to world events. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:47.000 I traveled to the Gaza Strip. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.000 I headed the Middle East Peace Process section 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.000 in the British Foreign Ministry. 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:53.000 I became a speechwriter 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:55.000 for the British Foreign Secretary. 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:57.000 I met Yasser Arafat. 00:02:57.000 --> 00:02:59.000 I negotiated 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:02.000 with Saddam's diplomats at the U.N. 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:04.000 Later, I traveled to Kabul 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:07.000 and served in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:09.000 And I would travel 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:12.000 in a C-130 transport 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:14.000 and go and visit warlords 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:16.000 in mountain hideaways 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:18.000 and negotiate with them 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:21.000 about how we were going to eradicate Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:24.000 surrounded by my Special Forces escort, 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:27.000 who, themselves, had to have an escort of a platoon of Royal Marines, 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:29.000 because it was so dangerous. 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:32.000 And that was exciting -- that was fun. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:34.000 It was really interesting. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:36.000 And it's a great cadre of people, 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:39.000 incredibly close-knit community of people. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:42.000 And the pinnacle of my career, as it turned out, 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:45.000 was when I was posted to New York. 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:47.000 I'd already served in Germany, Norway, 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:49.000 various other places, 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:51.000 but I was posted to New York 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:54.000 to serve on the U.N. Security Council for the British delegation. 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:56.000 And my responsibility was the Middle East, 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:58.000 which was my specialty. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:00.000 And there, I dealt with things 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:02.000 like the Middle East peace process, 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:04.000 the Lockerbie issue -- 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:07.000 we can talk about that later, if you wish -- 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:09.000 but above all, my responsibility was Iraq 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:11.000 and its weapons of mass destruction 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:13.000 and the sanctions we placed on Iraq 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:16.000 to oblige it to disarm itself of these weapons. 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:19.000 I was the chief British negotiator 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:21.000 on the subject, 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:24.000 and I was steeped in the issue. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.000 And anyway, 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:30.000 my tour -- it was kind of a very exciting time. 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:33.000 I mean it was very dramatic diplomacy. 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:35.000 We went through several wars 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:38.000 during my time in New York. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:40.000 I negotiated for my country 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.000 the resolution in the Security Council 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:44.000 of the 12th of September 2001 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:47.000 condemning the attacks of the day before, 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:49.000 which were, of course, deeply present to us 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:52.000 actually living in New York at the time. 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.000 So it was kind of the best of time, worst of times 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:56.000 kind of experience. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:58.000 I lived the high-life. 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:00.000 Although I worked very long hours, 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:02.000 I lived in a penthouse in Union Square. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:05.000 I was a single British diplomat in New York City; 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:07.000 you can imagine what that might have meant. 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:10.000 (Laughter) 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:12.000 I had a good time. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:14.000 But in 2002, 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:17.000 when my tour came to an end, 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:20.000 I decided I wasn't going to go back 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:22.000 to the job that was waiting for me in London. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:24.000 I decided to take a sabbatical, 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:26.000 in fact, at the New School, Bruce. 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:30.000 In some inchoate, inarticulate way 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:32.000 I realized that there was something wrong 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.000 with my work, with me. 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:36.000 I was exhausted, 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:38.000 and I was also disillusioned 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.000 in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on. 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:43.000 And I decided to take some time out from work. 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:45.000 The Foreign Office was very generous. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:47.000 You could take these special unpaid leave, as they called them, 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:50.000 and yet remain part of the diplomatic service, but not actually do any work. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:52.000 It was nice. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:54.000 And eventually, I decided 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:57.000 to take a secondment to join the U.N. in Kosovo, 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:02.000 which was then under U.N. administration. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:04.000 And two things happened in Kosovo, 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:06.000 which kind of, again, 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:08.000 shows the randomness of life, 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:10.000 because these things turned out to be 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:12.000 two of the pivots of my life 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:15.000 and helped to deliver me to the next stage. 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:17.000 But they were random things. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:20.000 One was that, in the summer of 2004, 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:22.000 the British government, somewhat reluctantly, 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:24.000 decided to have an official inquiry 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:26.000 into the use of intelligence on WMD 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:29.000 in the run up to the Iraq War, 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:31.000 a very limited subject. 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:34.000 And I testified to that inquiry in secret. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:37.000 I had been steeped in the intelligence on Iraq 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:39.000 and its WMD, 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:42.000 and my testimony to the inquiry said three things: 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:45.000 that the government exaggerated the intelligence, 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:48.000 which was very clear in all the years I'd read it. 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:51.000 And indeed, our own internal assessment was very clear 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:53.000 that Iraq's WMD 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:56.000 did not pose a threat to its neighbors, let alone to us. 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:59.000 Secondly, the government had ignored all available alternatives to war, 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:01.000 which in some ways 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:04.000 was a more discreditable thing still. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:06.000 The third reason, I won't go into. 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:08.000 But anyway, I gave that testimony, 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:10.000 and that presented me with a crisis. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:12.000 What was I going to do? 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:15.000 This testimony was deeply critical of my colleagues, 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:17.000 of my ministers, who had, in my view 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:20.000 had perpetrated a war on a falsehood. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:22.000 And so I was in crisis. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:24.000 And this wasn't a pretty thing. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:26.000 I moaned about it, I hesitated, 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:29.000 I went on and on and on to my long-suffering wife, 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:33.000 and eventually I decided to resign from the British Foreign Service. 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:37.000 I felt -- there's a scene in the Al Pacino movie "The Insider," which you may know, 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:39.000 where he goes back to CBS 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:42.000 after they've let him down over the tobacco guy, 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.000 and he goes, "You know, I just can't do this anymore. Something's broken." 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:47.000 And it was like that for me. I love that movie. 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:49.000 I felt just something's broken. 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:51.000 I can't actually sit with my foreign minister 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:53.000 or my prime minister again with a smile on my face 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:56.000 and do what I used to do gladly for them. 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:59.000 So took a running leap 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:02.000 and jumped over the edge of a cliff. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:06.000 And it was a very, very uncomfortable, unpleasant feeling. 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:08.000 And I started to fall. 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:11.000 And today, that fall hasn't stopped; 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:13.000 I'm still falling. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:16.000 But, in a way, I've got used to the sensation of it. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:18.000 And in a way, I kind of like 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.000 the sensation of it a lot better 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:22.000 than I like actually standing on top of the cliff, 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:24.000 wondering what to do. 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:26.000 A second thing happened in Kosovo, 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:29.000 which kind of -- I need a quick gulp of water, forgive me. 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:33.000 A second thing happened in Kosovo, 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:35.000 which kind of delivered the answer, 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:38.000 which I couldn't really answer, 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.000 which is, "What do I do with my life?" 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:44.000 I love diplomacy -- 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:46.000 I have no career -- 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:49.000 I expected my entire life to be a diplomat, to be serving my country. 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:51.000 I wanted to be an ambassador, 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:53.000 and my mentors, my heroes, 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:55.000 people who got to the top of my profession, 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:57.000 and here I was throwing it all away. 00:08:57.000 --> 00:08:59.000 A lot of my friends were still in it. 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:01.000 My pension was in it. 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:03.000 And I gave it up. 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:05.000 And what was I going to do? NOTE Paragraph 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:07.000 And that year, in Kosovo, 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:10.000 this terrible, terrible thing happened, which I saw. 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:12.000 In March 2004, there were terrible riots 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:15.000 all over the province -- as it then was -- of Kosovo. 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:17.000 18 people were killed. 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:19.000 It was anarchy. 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:21.000 And it's a very horrible thing to see anarchy, 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:23.000 to know that the police and the military -- 00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:25.000 there were lots of military troops there -- 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:27.000 actually can't stop that rampaging mob 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:29.000 who's coming down the street. 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:32.000 And the only way that rampaging mob coming down the street will stop 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:34.000 is when they decide to stop 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:36.000 and when they've had enough burning and killing. 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:39.000 And that is not a very nice feeling to see, and I saw it. 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:42.000 And I went through it. I went through those mobs. 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:45.000 And with my Albanian friends, we tried to stop it, but we failed. 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:48.000 And that riot taught me something, 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:51.000 which isn't immediately obvious and it's kind of a complicated story. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:53.000 But one of the reasons that riot took place -- 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:55.000 those riots, which went on for several days, took place -- 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:57.000 was because the Kosovo people 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:00.000 were disenfranchised from their own future. 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:04.000 There were diplomatic negotiations about the future of Kosovo 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:06.000 going on then, 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:08.000 and the Kosovo government, let alone the Kosovo people, 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:10.000 were not actually 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:12.000 participating in those talks. 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:15.000 There was this whole fancy diplomatic system, 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:18.000 this negotiation process about the future of Kosovo, 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:20.000 and the Kosovars weren't part of it. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:23.000 And funnily enough, they were frustrated about that. 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:26.000 Those riots were part of the manifestation of that frustration. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:28.000 It wasn't the only reason, 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:30.000 and life is not simple, one reason narratives. 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:32.000 It was a complicated thing, 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:34.000 and I'm not pretending it was more simple than it was. 00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:36.000 But that was one of the reasons. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:38.000 And that kind of gave me the inspiration -- 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:40.000 or rather to be precise, 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:42.000 it gave my wife the inspiration. 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:45.000 She said, "Why don't you advise the Kosovars? 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:48.000 Why don't you advise their government on their diplomacy?" 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:50.000 And the Kosovars were not allowed a diplomatic service. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:52.000 They were not allowed diplomats. 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:54.000 They were not allowed a foreign office 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:57.000 to help them deal with this immensely complicated process, 00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:00.000 which became known as the Final Status Process of Kosovo. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:02.000 And so that was the idea. 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:04.000 That was the origin of the thing that became Independent Diplomat, 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:07.000 the world's first diplomatic advisory group 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:09.000 and a non-profit to boot. 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:12.000 And it began when I flew back from London 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:15.000 after my time at the U.N. in Kosovo. 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:18.000 I flew back and had dinner with the Kosovo prime minister and said to him, 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:21.000 "Look, I'm proposing that I come and advise you on the diplomacy. 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:24.000 I know this stuff. It's what I do. Why don't I come and help you?" 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:26.000 And he raised his glass of raki to me and said, 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:28.000 "Yes, Carne. Come." NOTE Paragraph 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:30.000 And I came to Kosovo 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:32.000 and advised the Kosovo government. 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:35.000 Independent Diplomat ended up advising three successive Kosovo prime ministers 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:38.000 and the multi-party negotiation team of Kosovo. 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:41.000 And Kosovo became independent. 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:44.000 Independent Diplomat is now established 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:46.000 in five diplomatic centers around the world, 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:48.000 and we're advising seven or eight 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:51.000 different countries, or political groups, 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:53.000 depending on how you wish to define them -- 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:55.000 and I'm not big on definitions. 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:58.000 We're advising the Northern Cypriots on how to reunify their island. 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:00.000 We're advising the Burmese opposition, 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:02.000 the government of Southern Sudan, 00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:04.000 which -- you heard it here first -- 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:06.000 is going to be a new country within the next few years. 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:11.000 We're advising the Polisario Front of the Western Sahara, 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:13.000 who are fighting to get their country back 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:15.000 from Moroccan occupation 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:18.000 after 34 years of dispossession. 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:21.000 We're advising various island states in the climate change negotiations, 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:23.000 which is suppose to culminate 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:25.000 in Copenhagen. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:28.000 There's a bit of randomness here too 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:30.000 because, when I was beginning Independent Diplomat, 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:32.000 I went to a party in the House of Lords, 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:34.000 which is a ridiculous place, 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:36.000 but I was holding my drink like this, and I bumped into 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:38.000 this guy who was standing behind me. 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:40.000 And we started talking, and he said -- 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:42.000 I told him what I was doing, 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:44.000 and I told him rather grandly 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:46.000 I was going to establish Independent Diplomat in New York. 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:48.000 At that time there was just me -- 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:50.000 and me and my wife were moving back to New York. 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:53.000 And he said, "Why don't you see my colleagues in New York?" 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:55.000 And it turned out 00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:57.000 he worked for an innovation company called ?What If!, 00:12:57.000 --> 00:12:59.000 which some of you have probably heard of. 00:12:59.000 --> 00:13:01.000 And one thing led to another, 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:03.000 and I ended up having a desk 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:05.000 in ?What If! in New York, 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:07.000 when I started Independent Diplomat. 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:09.000 And watching ?What If! 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:11.000 develop new flavors of chewing gum for Wrigley 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:13.000 or new flavors for Coke 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:15.000 actually helped me innovate 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:17.000 new strategies for the Kosovars 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:20.000 and for the Saharawis of the Western Sahara. 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:23.000 And I began to realize that there are different ways of doing diplomacy -- 00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:25.000 that diplomacy, like business, 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:27.000 is a business of solving problems, 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:30.000 and yet the word innovation doesn't exist in diplomacy; 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:33.000 it's all zero sum games and realpolitik 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:36.000 and ancient institutions that have been there for generations 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:39.000 and do things the same way they've always done things. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:41.000 And Independent Diplomat, today, 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:44.000 tries to incorporate some of the things I learned at ?What If!. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:47.000 We all sit in one office and shout at each other across the office. 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:50.000 We all work on little laptops and try to move desks to change the way we think. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:52.000 And we use naive experts 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:55.000 who may know nothing about the countries we're dealing with, 00:13:55.000 --> 00:13:57.000 but may know something about something else 00:13:57.000 --> 00:13:59.000 to try to inject new thinking 00:13:59.000 --> 00:14:01.000 into the problems 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:03.000 that we try to address for our clients. 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:05.000 It's not easy, because our clients, by definition, 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:08.000 are having a difficult time, diplomatically. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:12.000 There are, I don't know, 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:15.000 some lessons from all of this, 00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:17.000 personal and political -- 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:20.000 and in a way, they're the same thing. 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:22.000 The personal one 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:24.000 is falling off a cliff 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:27.000 is actually a good thing, and I recommend it. 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:30.000 And it's a good thing to do at least once in your life 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:33.000 just to tear everything up and jump. 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:37.000 The second thing is a bigger lesson about the world today. 00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:40.000 Independent Diplomat is part of a trend 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:43.000 which is emerging and evident across the world, 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:46.000 which is that the world is fragmenting. 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:49.000 States mean less than they used to, 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:51.000 and the power of the state is declining. 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:53.000 That means the power of others things is rising. 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:55.000 Those other things are called non-state actors. 00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:57.000 They may be corporations, 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:00.000 they may be mafiosi, they may be nice NGOs, 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:02.000 they may anything, 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:04.000 any number of things. 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:07.000 We are living in a more complicated and fragmented world. 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:09.000 If governments are less able 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:11.000 to affect the problems 00:15:11.000 --> 00:15:14.000 that affect us in the world, 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:17.000 then that means, who is left to deal with them, 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:19.000 who has to take greater responsibility to deal with them? 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:21.000 Us. 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:24.000 If they can't do it, who's left to deal with it? 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:27.000 We have no choice but to embrace that reality. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:29.000 What this means is 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:32.000 it's no longer good enough 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:35.000 to say that international relations, or global affairs, 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:37.000 or chaos in Somalia, 00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:40.000 or what's going on in Burma is none of your business, 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:43.000 and that you can leave it to governments to get on with. 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:45.000 I can connect any one of you 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:47.000 by six degrees of separation 00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:50.000 to the Al-Shabaab militia in Somalia. 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:54.000 Ask me how later, particularly if you eat fish, interestingly enough, 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:56.000 but that connection is there. 00:15:56.000 --> 00:15:58.000 We are all intimately connected. 00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:00.000 And this isn't just Tom Friedman, 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:03.000 it's actually provable in case after case after case. 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:06.000 What that means is, instead of asking your politicians to do things, 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:09.000 you have to look to yourself to do things. 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:11.000 And Independent Diplomat is a kind of example of this 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:13.000 in a sort of loose way. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:16.000 There aren't neat examples, but one example is this: 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:18.000 the way the world is changing 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:20.000 is embodied in what's going on at the place I used to work -- 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:22.000 the U.N. Security Council. 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:25.000 The U.N. was established in 1945. 00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:27.000 Its charter is basically designed 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.000 to stop conflicts between states -- 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:31.000 interstate conflict. 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:33.000 Today, 80 percent of the agenda 00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:35.000 of the U.N. Security Council 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:37.000 is about conflicts within states, 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:39.000 involving non-state parties -- 00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:41.000 guerillas, separatists, 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:43.000 terrorists, if you want to call them that, 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:46.000 people who are not normal governments, who are not normal states. 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:49.000 That is the state of the world today. 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:51.000 When I realized this, 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:54.000 and when I look back on my time at the Security Council 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:56.000 and what happened with the Kosovars, 00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:58.000 and I realize that often 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:00.000 the people who were most directly affected 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:02.000 by what we were doing in the Security Council 00:17:02.000 --> 00:17:04.000 weren't actually there, weren't actually invited 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:06.000 to give their views to the Security Council, 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:08.000 I thought, this is wrong. 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:10.000 Something's got to be done about this. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:13.000 So I started off in a traditional mode. 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:15.000 Me and my colleagues at Independent Diplomat 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:17.000 went around the U.N. Security Council. 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:19.000 We went around 70 U.N. member states -- 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:21.000 the Kazaks, the Ethiopians, the Israelis -- 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:23.000 you name them, we went to see them -- 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:25.000 the secretary general, all of them, 00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:27.000 and said, "This is all wrong. 00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:29.000 This is terrible that you don't consult these people who are actually affected. 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:31.000 You've got to institutionalize a system 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:33.000 where you actually invite the Kosovars 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:35.000 to come and tell you what they think. 00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:37.000 This will allow you to tell me -- you can tell them what you think. 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:39.000 It'll be great. You can have an exchange. 00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:42.000 You can actually incorporate these people's views into your decisions, 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:44.000 which means your decisions will be more effective and durable." 00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:49.000 Super-logical, you would think. 00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:51.000 I mean, incredibly logical. So obvious, anybody could get it. 00:17:51.000 --> 00:17:54.000 And of course, everybody got it. Everybody went, "Yes, of course, you're absolutely right. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:56.000 Come back to us 00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:58.000 in maybe six months." 00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:01.000 And of course, nothing happened -- nobody did anything. 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:03.000 The Security Council does its business 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:05.000 in exactly the same way today 00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:08.000 that it did X number of years ago, 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:11.000 when I was there 10 years ago. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:13.000 So we looked at that observation 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:15.000 of basically failure 00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:17.000 and thought, what can we do about it. 00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:19.000 And I thought, I'm buggered 00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:21.000 if I'm going to spend the rest of my life 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:23.000 lobbying for these crummy governments 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:25.000 to do what needs to be done. 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:27.000 So what we're going to do 00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:29.000 is we're actually going to set up these meetings ourselves. 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:31.000 So now, Independent Diplomat 00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:33.000 is in the process of setting up meetings 00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:35.000 between the U.N. Security Council 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:37.000 and the parties to the disputes 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:40.000 that are on the agenda of the Security Council. 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:42.000 So we will be bringing 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:45.000 Darfuri rebel groups, 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:48.000 the Northern Cypriots and the Southern Cypriots, 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:52.000 rebels from Aceh, 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:54.000 and awful long laundry list 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:57.000 of chaotic conflicts around the world. 00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:00.000 And we will be trying to bring the parties to New York 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:02.000 to sit down in a quiet room 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:04.000 in a private setting with no press 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:06.000 and actually explain what they want 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:08.000 to the members of the U. N. Security Council, 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:10.000 and for the members of the U.N. Security Council 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:12.000 to explain to them what they want. 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:14.000 So there's actually a conversation, 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:16.000 which has never before happened. 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:19.000 And of course, describing all this, 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:22.000 any of you who know politics will think this is incredibly difficult, 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:24.000 and I entirely agree with you. 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:27.000 The chances of failure are very high, 00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:29.000 but it certainly won't happen 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:32.000 if we don't try to make it happen. NOTE Paragraph 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:35.000 And my politics has changed fundamentally 00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:37.000 from when I was a diplomat to what I am today, 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:40.000 and I think that outputs is what matters, not process, 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:43.000 not technology, frankly, so much either. 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:45.000 Preach technology 00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:48.000 to all the Twittering members of all the Iranian demonstrations 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:51.000 who are now in political prison in Tehran, 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:53.000 where Ahmadinejad remains in power. 00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:56.000 Technology has not delivered political change in Iran. 00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:00.000 You've got to look at the outputs, and you got to say to yourself, 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:02.000 "What can I do to produce that particular output?" 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:05.000 That is the politics of the 21st century, 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:07.000 and in a way, Independent Diplomat 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:10.000 embodies that fragmentation, that change, 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:13.000 that is happening to all of us. NOTE Paragraph 00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:16.000 That's my story. Thanks.