Thread by @DanSpoko

As a former U.S. diplomat, I really enjoyed #TheDiplomat on @netflix.

I’ve seen some reviews criticizing the unrealistic aspects of the show. Sure. But I actually think it gets a lot right. Here are my thoughts: (a🧵)

It’s great to see diplomacy foregrounded in a Hollywood production about national security.

There are basically no pop culture images of heroic diplomats, but @kerrirussel's Amb. Kate Wyler character is a badass...

She’s courageous, razor sharp, and has a strong sense of purpose. She reminds me of a lot of the women (and men) I know at the State Department.
We should celebrate our diplomats. They are shaping history in real time and rarely get any credit.

The show also does a great job showcasing the mechanisms of diplomacy.
Foreign policy expresses itself in the subtleties of private messages and public statements. Pushing the right message at the right time can mean the difference between war and peace.

The Ambassador at the center of the show is shown chess-piecing high-level visits, managing complicated alliances, interpreting uncertain intelligence, and generating least-bad strategies to avoid what the show suggests is a slippery slope toward nuclear war.

Great diplomats have a clear sense of how escalation dynamics work, and how a seemingly minor issue can spiral into catastrophic conflict.
They appreciate that war is almost always the wrong option, despite the domestic political incentives for leaders to talk tough.

On that point, the show explores the complicated relationship btw political appointees and bureaucrats. Technocrats are responsible for generating optimal policy responses while politicians view situations through reelection-colored glasses. Great diplomats must do both.

Also, a LOT happens in the show without the story advancing. That rings true! Behind every policy success is a mountain of failures, false starts, and problems solved in the background. This is where diplomats (and the show!) thrive.

A character in the show laments that “decency has lost its hold on the public imagination.” Violence, even when absolutely justified, is always indecent.
Russell responds as a diplomat might: “It’s the whole definition of my life’s work: there’s nothing you can’t talk out.”

Critics will (rightfully) point out all the ways in which the show was unrealistic. Yet I, for one, thought it was great to see the diplomats be portrayed as the heroes, for once.
There’s nothing unrealistic about that. 🔚