For many Americans, the world feels fast-changing and chaotic, even fragile or unstable. According to the 2024 Global Peace Index, there are 56 ongoing conflicts, significantly more than at any time since World War II. However, on Oct. 22, during the final Diplomatic Discussion of the semester, former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Stuart E. Eizenstat ’64 argued that “despite this growing turbulence, we have met equally daunting challenges over the last 50 years and can do so again.”
Eizenstat, who graduated from Carolina with a bachelor’s degree in political science, has served in six presidential administrations. He currently serves as special advisor on Holocaust issues to U.S. President Joseph Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He advised Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama and Secretaries of State John Kerry and Hillary Clinton on Holocaust issues, too. Before that, he served as deputy secretary of the treasury (1999-2001); undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural affairs (1997-1999); undersecretary of commerce for international trade (1996-1997); U.S. ambassador to the EU (1993-1996); and White House domestic affairs advisor (1977-1981).
During the Diplomatic Discussion, he shared insights from his recent book, The Art of Diplomacy: How American Negotiators Reached Historic Agreements that Changed the World.
“Just as an artist creates paintings or music, there is an art to diplomacy,” Eizenstat writes in the book’s introduction. “In the right hands, it can resolve seemingly intractable disputes between countries for the common good. But in the wrong hands, or if the circumstances prevent a successful negotiation, it can make matters worse.”
In the book and during his presentation, he drew on experiences from his decades-long career in public service and from interviews with more than 150 top-ranking officials to develop a framework for Americans to conduct diplomacy to solve global challenges.
“International negotiations that involve sovereign nations are not a zero-sum game or a game of poker in which one side wins and the other side loses,” Eizenstat writes. “My decades of experience have taught me that international negotiations are successful only if they satisfy the national interests of both sides and are seen as win-win-agreements. The art of diplomacy is to frame the negotiations so that the other side sees the outcome you desire as something they can live with as well.”
After Eizenstat presented this framework, he discussed more themes from the book and his career with former Congressman David E. Price ’61 and took questions from students in the audience. Price represented the Fourth Congressional District in North Carolina for 34 years and occasionally worked with Eizenstat.
“[The presentation] was very concise and a helpful tour through a rather thick tome with many case studies and incidents of American diplomacy,” Price said. “There are some threads that [Eizenstat] has traced through that bring it all together….in a very skillful way.”
Eizenstat told first-hand stories of negotiating the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change and economic sanctions imposed jointly with the EU on Cuba and Iran. He shared personal anecdotes from working on Jimmy Carter’s gubernatorial campaign and watching Bill Clinton interact with his children. Throughout the event, Eizenstat made clear he has not merely studied modern diplomacy but practiced it. He has shaped America’s response to many of the consequential challenges of the last 50 years, and he shared some concerns about recent trends in America’s foreign policy.
“I fear that we’re living at the beginning of an era of isolationism, where we want to retreat behind our two oceans, thinking the rest of the world will take care of themselves,” Eizenstat said. “I wrote this book because I wanted to show how critically important engagement is to build a better world.”
Eizenstat said having the opportunity to visit Carolina to share his stories — and his concerns — was particularly special.
“It was life coming full circle and inspirational to return to my alma mater,” Eizenstat said. “My four years at UNC-Chapel Hill were absolutely formative and critical for my later life in public service.”
While at Carolina, Eizenstat was involved in student government, wrote for The Daily Tar Heel and participated in an internship through the University in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was also inspired by a speech John F. Kennedy delivered at Kenan Stadium in 1961 for University Day. The president encouraged students to do everything they can to make the world a better place.
Eizenstat has returned to Carolina many times over the years. He received an honorary doctorate in 2000, and he established the Eizenstat Distinguished Professorship in Jewish history and culture in 2008. In 2019, Vice Provost for Global Affairs and Chief Global Officer Barbara Stephenson invited Eizenstat to be the first speaker in a series of events that would eventually become Diplomatic Discussions.
“When I needed a speaker for a very special event when I was new to the University, Ambassador Eizenstat — a Tar Heel himself — came through for me,” Stephenson said. “He gave a brilliant talk on the rising challenges to democracy around the world.”
According to Stephenson, the origins of Carolina’s Diplomacy Initiative are in that initial visit and Eizenstat’s contributions to diplomacy. The Diplomacy Initiative introduces students to shared global challenges and provides them opportunities to practice skills necessary to address those challenges. During her introduction of Eizenstat, Stephenson announced the upcoming launch of the Carolina Diplomacy Fellows — a program for students to engage more deeply in the Diplomacy Initiative, with the skills discussed in Eizenstat’s framework and with fellow Tar Heels.
“The ability to listen carefully to the other side, and even empathize if not agree, is crucial,” Stephenson said. “It is core to what we hope Carolina Diplomacy Fellows master. In so many cases, when we grapple with global challenges, it is simply not an option to walk away from them. We must find a way forward, and the ability to listen carefully in the search for common ground is very often essential to finding that way forward.”
Before the Diplomatic Discussion, Eizenstat visited the Ackland Art Museum to discuss the issues of returning Nazi Confiscated Art; met with the leadership of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies; and lectured in classes taught by Karen Auerbach, associate professor of history and Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat Scholar in Jewish History, and Robert Jenkins, teaching professor in political science.
“To strengthen American diplomacy, we have to maintain and strengthen our economic, political and military capability,” Eizenstat said. “Yet diplomacy is still the best means to solve problems in the world, and we need to have more of it, along with more capable diplomats.”
By Michael Hostutler, UNC Global Affairs