[Jaron's Blog] Former Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin

I had an interesting opportunity this week to listen to the former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin.  She has served 29 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, the diplomatic corps wing of the Department of State.  Her stories were interesting and informative.  She has spent time in several foreign nations and worked in the UN dealing with refugee problems at one time.  She is currently the President of the Middle East Institute, a think tank based in Washington D.C.

Many people posed some interesting questions to her, which she answered with a lot of good information.  It's really a good opportunity to learn not only about the situation of foreign affairs in general, but also about the inner workings of government agencies like the State Department.  About half of what she talked about was concerning the multiple bureaucratic levels of organization that she has dealt with over the years, not just in the United States, but also in the governments of other nations.

Another interesting topic was the attitudes toward the United States and Americans in foreign countries.  For the most part, her stories indicated that foreign nations and peoples are rarely, if ever, lukewarm toward the United States.  Either there is a lot of good sentiment or bad sentiment, but usually not anything in between.  At least, this is what I heard from the tidbits she had shared.

Overall, it was an exciting opportunity to go hear her speak and to ask her questions.  I had some questions that I did ask and did get answered, and so I am pretty satisfied with that opportunity.  The speaker series that the Global Studies department probably has some more good people that they are going to call up to WSU, so it will probably be a good idea to look out and attend those as well.