COOL UNDER PRESSURE
A NATURAL FIT
“It was like going home,” DeHart said of his three-year stint in Norway. “It was like reliving my childhood in a way, because I was sort of a nature geek growing up in Oregon. And in Norway, when I wasn’t working, all I did was hike and fish and camp and cross-country ski—I felt like I was reliving a part of my part of my childhood.”
He had followed his parents to a career with the State Department— they met
in Taiwan in the early
1960s, when they were both work- ing in the Foreign Service. “When they got married, my mother had to resign, which was the requirement back in those days,” he said. “So she resigned to become a wife and raise
a family.” His father continued work- ing as a diplomat and spent nearly his entire career overseas. “My sister and I spent the first 10 years of our lives overseas in Australia, Hong Kong, the Dominican Republic and Tijuana, Mexico, before he retired to Oregon,” DeHart recalled.
The family then settled in central Oregon and DeHart attended school in Bend, which was something of a logging town at the time—a fact that often lent itself to comical misunder- standings. “When I would mention that I grew up in the Foreign Service, my schoolmates usually thought I was saying my dad was a park ranger in the Forest Service. I would say, ‘You know, the Department of State,’
and they would say, ‘Oh, the State of Oregon.’ And then I just kind of stopped trying,” he chuckled.
After high school, DeHart earned a B.A. from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, before completing an M.A. in international affairs from the Elliott School at George Washington University. A year later, he began his career with the State Department. His first assign- ment took him to Istanbul, followed by assignments to Melbourne, Austra- lia, Brussels and Afghanistan. Then came the three-year assignment in Norway, which was a career highlight for him, and helped prepare him for his current role as U.S. Coordinator for the Arctic Region.
seeking middle ground? Making friends and never disagreeing? How is diplomacy different than military service? “I have lots of thoughts on this,” DeHart said. “Diplomacy is basically manag- ing relations with foreign governments, or sometimes with entities outside of government, to advance U.S. interests.” Tough people sometimes think diplomacy is just “being nice,” DeHart said it’s far more complex than that.
“Being polite—that’s another definition of being diplomatic. But it’s not always about being nice or polite. Sometimes, diplomacy is delivering a very hard message and being deliberately not very nice, delivering sometimes a threat or a warning, if it’s required for the situation. And it’s fundamentally about informing the other governments, and it’s a lot about ensuring that there were no misunderstandings or miscalculations. Because, if the other party misunderstands the situation, that in itself could lead to conflict.” In essence, he said, diplomacy is about clear communi- cation. Tere is sometimes a misconception that diplomats must lie or stretch the truth, DeHart said, but he strongly disagrees. “Tere are a lot of things that diplomats can’t say, but diplomats should never lie, because credibility is everything.” It’s all about clarity, he said. “Tat’s diplomacy, in my book.”
In fact, he said, one of the most important communication skills for a diplomat is not speaking—but listening. “It’s so important to be a clear communicator, and a big part of that is listening. I’ve always found that, in the most important conversations or negotiations I’ve had, I did a lot more listening and a little bit of talking.” Doing the reverse, mostly speaking and rarely listening, will cause your core message to be diluted or entirely lost, he said.
“The Arctic region is really fascinating. I another region of the world that is changing so quickly, physically and environmentally.”
78 Army AL&T Magazine Spring 2021
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