Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy: A Memoir

by Christopher R. Hill

An “inside the room” memoir from one of our most distinguished ambassadors who—in a career of service to the country—was sent to some of the most dangerous outposts of American diplomacy. From the wars in the Balkans to the brutality of North Korea to the endless war in Iraq, this is the real life of an American diplomat.

Hill was on the front lines in the Balkans at the breakup of Yugoslavia. He takes us from one-on-one meetings with the dictator Milosevic, to Bosnia and Kosovo, to the Dayton conference, where a truce was brokered. Hill draws upon lessons learned as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon early on in his career and details his prodigious experience as a US ambassador. He was the first American Ambassador to Macedonia; Ambassador to Poland, where he also served in the depth of the cold war; Ambassador to South Korea and chief disarmament negotiator in North Korea; and Hillary Clinton’s hand-picked Ambassador to Iraq.

Hill’s account is an adventure story of danger, loss of comrades, high stakes negotiations, and imperfect options. There are fascinating portraits of war criminals (Mladic, Karadzic), of presidents and vice presidents (Clinton, Bush and Cheney, and Obama), of Secretaries of State (Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton), of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and of Ambassadors Richard Holbrooke and Lawrence Eagleburger. Hill writes bluntly about the bureaucratic warfare in DC and expresses strong criticism of America’s aggressive interventions and wars of choice.

Genres: History, Politics, Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Autobiography

448 pages, Hardcover

First published October 7, 2014

Reviews

[Jenn "JR" · Rating 3 out of 5]

I get the feeling that Chris Hill loves to write and keep notes -- and much like my MA thesis, without really strong feedback from an editor (or two), folks like us run the risk of putting in too much material without a strong focus or even ensuring that everything included is actually interesting to a broader audience.

Ambassador Hill has had a VERY interesting career -- he even is able to encapsulate it (on page 317 of 430) effectively when he talks about sitting through a nomination hearing in the Senate:

"[...] I was running a grainy slide show in my head of things I had done in the course of my government career. Peace Corps, the Solidarity movement in Poland, reporting on democracy demonstrations in South Korea in the spring of 1987, meeting in remote prison work camps with the families of political prisoners in Albania in 1991, gaining access to mass graves in Bosnia in 1995, meeting with displaced persons in central Kosovo and helping to provide them with food and shelter in the summer of 1998, a midnight visit to the Stenkovac refugee camp to protect Roma under attack from angry gangs of Kosovo refugees, working (quietly and effectively) with Chinese officials to allow North Korean refugees to get out of the diplomatic compound in Shenyang on to new homes in South Korea, convincing Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen to release immediately Kem Sokha and other arrested members of the human rights movement."

One could make a really interesting set of stories based on those highlights and still have enough space to discuss how the career impacted him personally (emotionally) and what it was like moving around a wife and family as a Foreign Service Officer.

Some of the stories are very funny and interesting: talking about being in Skopje when protestors decided to attack, using the flag pole as a battering ram. Everyone inside took shelter in a safe room in the basement -- cracking jokes, even when riot police arrived and knocked on the door of the vault (could be a Land Shark!) and even one Czech reporter named Bijana who was DYING to light up her cigarette. That was a good anecdote!

Another good anecdote was showing up at midnight at the refugee camp to extricate a Roma family was also very inspiring. Another good anecdote involves preventing his driver from being kidnapped conscripted by rebel forces:

“I owe you a beer for that.” He kept his eyes on the road, driving at breakneck speed, and said softly in a very sober tone, “Bottle of whiskey.”

Unfortunately, this is not followed up with discussion of measures taken after that incident to avoid endangering his local employees/staff in such situations.

Tips on working as an FSO include:

"Airplane flights always allowed for the best staff meetings even though there was no table and people had to perch on seats facing the wrong way or sit on the floor of the aircraft to hear."

His boss overreacted when someone was late to a meeting, and his internal dialogue went like this:

On the one hand I thought that at forty-three I was a little too old to be screamed at in a way that I hadn’t heard since childhood.

On the other hand, I composed myself long enough to think about the unimaginable pressure he was under.

This is a great example of self-awareness and avoiding escalating a situation - and after his boss yelled at him, the late arrival walked in the door excusing himself due to bad traffic.

Tips on talking to the press during negotiations:

"Avoid citing what the other side is saying in negotiation. They could simply deny it or say something even more difficult to live with after you have called them out on it. And don’t talk specifics and certainly don’t engage in speculation or hypothetical questions. Beyond that, there is much that can be discussed."

Tips on changing verbiage in agreements that have been approved for two weeks -- pass it off as a translation error, and make sure you have a wingman:

“Really, ‘exist peacefully together’ is much better English. Ambassador Randt, don’t you think so?” “Absolutely.” (Memo to self: buy that man a beer.)"

He goes into a hilarious Lord of the Rings fugue when Hillary Clinton calls him to a meeting to ask him to take on the assignment of Iraq, finding himself in a friendly meeting "as if I were a sort of Foreign Service Bilbo Baggins at the conclusion of my adventures." He jokes "Oh my God, Iraq, the real fire of Mordor, wait! I thought dealing with North Korea was the fire of Mordor!?"

His wry observations of Foreign Service worker motivations for working in Iraq are ascribed to specific motivations or career goals: Arabists who want to tick off a box; a place of penance where previous errors made in one's professional career could be absolved; folks close to retirement building their nest egg with the extra hazard pay. This is funny stuff!

He talks about the generosity of others from time to time - after accepting the assignment, on the way out of that meeting, then goes into another great anecdote (and reading list) where he passed someone in the hall who recognized him as the new appointee: "...just met someone on the other end of the sixth floor whom I had never laid eyes on before, but who opened up his heart and his bookshelf to make sure I was going to get off to a good start."

I love the subtle and not so subtle criticisms of folks -- he presents Cheney as a pitiable figure but not effective, while Biden is earthy and engaged.

The concluding chapter gives great information that summarizes his perspectives on diplomacy and development:

"Finding practical answers to tough problems seems to take a backseat to ideology. Nowhere is this issue more pronounced than in weighing the rapid imposition of democracy against more evolving change."

"...human rights are not identical with democracy, which is a system of governance, certainly the best to protect those values."

"...in a country’s choice of governance, we would do well to lower our voices and offer our help when asked."

"...diplomacy is not a continuation of war by other means."

Hill also cautions against oversharing on social media -- not everything needs to be shared, and we don't have to be transparent about everything we know.

Ironically... that filter did not apply to some of the content of his book. Now here's the stuff I didn't like: filler and padding. There is so much filler in the form of excess and uninteresting detail. Like - do we really need to know the details of open bathroom doors and toilet seats left up in Holbrook's private office bathroom during Hall's first meeting? Or mundane details about arriving at the curb on East Forty-Seventh side entrance of the Waldorf-Astoria, hallways crowded with housekeeping carts as they exited the 35th floor and someone launched an assault on a saran-wrap covered tray of appetizers? Or who asked for 2 drinks after a long dehydrating flight from his host? I find these things excessively dishy - like referring to Condi Rice at "her petulant best." That seems to imply she got her way by acting childish.

Other times - he drops in an interesting detail that he didn't fully realize, such as "I was not surprised by the call, having been tipped off that it was coming." Wait? Someone calls and tells you you're getting a big fat promotion and you know this going to the meeting -- that call and an emotional reaction would have been interesting!

Sometimes it seems like he's writing more for a screenplay and providing guidance for stage direction. He repeatedly mentions "store bought" fatigues or camo in the discussions with revolutionaries. I beg an explanation -- what's the alternative? Being part of an army where $12MM USD is loose change found in sofa cushions and you have bespoke camo patterns and uniforms produced? I didn't understand the point of this detail.

Hall does provide historical background information -- sometimes it feels like larger context is missing. There are longs stretches of excruciating detail of back and forth minutiae -- like in the negotiations with Serbia and with North Korea. Those were probably based on personal notes from his trips there but I found them to be too much detail without broader context.

Another nit: 9/11 - it's mentioned 3 times in the entire book. I guess it had little impact to his negotiations in other areas? To his life? How did people respond in the embassy where he was stationed at the time? It is such a major event to give so little attention.

Finally - why is it that the word "cigarette" is mentioned more frequently than the names of his family all tolled? I want to know more about the balance of family and professional life. What was it like where he lived in different places -- did his wife and kids travel with him to every assignment?

There are a few mentions of visits with his kids: his son went to boarding school; in one move, his daughter said she was proud of him but he was ruining her life; another funny anecdote has his daughter Clara recommending dropping bombs.

Many of us are very interested in learning what it's LIKE to live as a FSO for decades -- not just filling in stories to fit the facts or providing observations that don't contribute to a better understanding of the situations or people. I'd trade all the filler for more personal observations about Ambassador Hill's personal preferences and experiences (like the story about a colleague bartering for cheap socks in Chinese).

Overall, I'm glad I read the book -- it was a lot more work than it should have been and makes me wonder about the rave reviews. Perhaps more folks are serious political wonks familiar with the details and delighted by the blow-by-blow of some of the negotiations. YMMV!

[Tamar · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first picked up Outpost, I was hoping for a political memoir that focused more on personal stories rather than political ones. However, Outpost is not that book, and that's not a bad thing, just a warning for those who are looking for something a bit less technical. Christopher Hill has really been around, and he's got the political chops and diplomatic stories to prove it. The writing is clean and organized, and his enthusiasm for his work shines through. A decent read.

Disclosure: I received this book through GoodReads' FirstRead Program.

[Beyond The Cover · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always interested in government, politics and current affairs, I typically stick with reading the news and do some online research versus reading biographies. However, the memoir Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy caught my eye and after reading a few early reviews, I had to read it. It was a good choice.

Former Ambassador Christopher Hill first arrived on my radar screen when he led the Six Party Talks in an attempt to bring an end to North Korean nuclear weapon production. In addition to the U.S., the effort included Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and North Korea, and Hill was picking up where his predecessor left off. Nothing is easy with the N. Koreans, and Hill’s work was cut out for him. But not just with the Pyongyang - working with the other countries had its own challenges. Oh, and there is our own government — no easy task there either.

Hill became memorable to me for his candor and fearlessness in front of the camera and in the news. He would reveal more than most without the typical political double-speak too often heard in Washington. Regardless of assignment, as a true Foreign Service Officer (FSO), his professional and personal mission aligned to uphold the best interests of the United States, while taking on the often unpleasant task of dealing with some of the most despicable people in the world. Compromise, not perfection. Security and calm, instead of political agenda. An all but impossible assignment.

So here are three of the reasons to read Outpost:

1. Reminder of recent history and insight from one who helped shape the outcomes - Hill served first in the Peace Corps, then in the foreign service of the State Department from 1977 through 2010. He was instrumental in the Dayton Peace Accords, negotiations with the North Koreans and in Iraq, with multiple assignments in between. His memoir provides an insiders account of actual conversations that occurred during and around the diplomacy that took place, giving the reader a reminder of history and a perspective we’ll never experience in a history book.

2. Reality check of a complicated landscape - We are privy to a perspective on the difficulties of being one of the most powerful nations in the world — life and death decisions, competing agendas and political posturing. And that’s all at home in the United States. Imagine juggling that along with the challenges of the country or region where he was assigned.

With diplomatic politeness and genuine respect for all the Secretaries of State for whom he served, we do see clear disdain for some politicians, such as former Vice President Cheney, and carefully selected wording around Hilary Clinton’s memory loss of events that took place during her arrival to Bosnia in 1996. Hill genuinely seems to respect those on both sides of the aisle as long as they are on the side of doing what is in the best interest of the U.S., instead of political motivations.

3. Well-Written and entertaining tome - Not only do we hear the background on decisions made and descriptions of world leaders’ personalities, we also experience Hill’s adventures from place to place. Among them, angry mobs breaking through an embassy’s gates, touring a nuclear facility in North Korea and high-speed jet skiing with Kurdish President Barzani.

So obvious by now, I’m an admirer of Christopher Hill. Whether I agree with every decision is almost irrelevant, because I believe he was guided by integrity and diplomatic duty regardless of whom screamed the loudest.

Be warned, he skewers what he refers to as neoconservatives, discusses the massive dysfunction in Iraq (he was Ambassador there 2009-2010) and doesn’t shy away from wagging a finger at the press. Hill’s criticisms are politically focused, whether overseas or at home (and it was usually at home). There are some revealing conversations that allow the reader to see behind closed doors, reminding us that our own country’s systems and problems are immense. While there is so much good we can do (and certainly have done), agendas can be sabotaged or abandoned depending on the political wind, a previous transgression or reprisal.

Conversely, Hill warmly discusses his relationships with his mentors, accomplished diplomats Lawrence Eagleburger and Richard Holbrooke, as well as the teams he worked so closely with in both the State Department and the military. There are humorous enumerations of his experiences with Mother Teresa, an encounter with an eager Albanian who mentioned he is a good friend of Chris Hill…to Chris Hill, not realizing who he was, when looking for work, and his bizarre and brief interview with Richard Holbrooke to oversee relations in the Balkans.

Hill’s memoir is an entertaining, adventure. For the most part, Outpost is a page turner and an excellent peek into American diplomacy.

Read more at www.beyond-cover.com

[Shannon McDermott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christopher Hill spent a lot of time in the world’s hotspots – Kosovo, Bosnia, North Korea, post-surge Iraq. If you have never heard of him, I’m not surprised. Diplomats are rarely household names.

Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy is Christopher Hill’s memoir. He had many consequential jobs: working on the negotiations that ended the Balkan wars, leading diplomat in the Bush administration’s talks with North Korea, ambassador to Iraq. And yet he remained outside the nexus of power that fascinates the media and public alike: the president, the vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, even national security advisor.

This is a different sort of memoir, America’s foreign policy from a viewpoint I had never fully seen before. I found it very informative. I learned a great deal about the North Korean negotiations and America’s involvement in the Balkans, though I wish Ambassador Hill had dealt with Kosovo and Bosnia in even greater depth. He never explained why, exactly, America was invested in those conflicts to the point of bombing campaigns. If it was a matter of violence, or human rights violations – well, there’s a lot of that in the world, and the Serbs were hardly the leading villains. Saddam Hussein, to take one not-so-random example, certainly had them beat. And if it was a matter of American interests – I can’t think of any American interests, nor does the book provide any, except that our involvement was good for our “transatlantic relationships”.

In fact, reading Hill’s account, one is left with the impression that our military-level involvement just sort of happened. America was trying to negotiate an end to the war, and the Europeans had peacekeepers in blue helmets and white tanks there, and it was all very difficult, and since America would have to intervene militarily to help extract the Europeans, it might as well intervene militarily to enforce peace, and so we bombed the Serbs. And maybe it really was no more deliberate than that.

The Iraq section was informative, too, providing a closer and somewhat dreary look at Iraq. Hill portrays attitudes in Washington toward Iraq that ultimately contributed to the present debacle: disinterest, neglect, a hurry to get out with little attention paid to the consequences.

I learned lighter things from this book, things from the world of diplomacy. I learned, for example, that ambassadors may judge you on how many lunch options you need for a visit to their country. I learned that calling Macedonia “Macedonia” can be a minor act of rebellion. I learned that diplomats will not only lie in the course of duty, they will openly admit it in their memoirs.

Unfortunately, Ambassador Hill cheaply caricatures the “neocons” as warlike, aggressive, and imperialistic. The book’s only justifications for these insults are that neoconservatives opposed Hill’s negotiations with North Korea (oh, the aggression!) and urged the Iraq war. Hill also mentions “liberal war hawks”, though how he distinguishes them from the warlike neocons is entirely unexplained.

Along with its accounts of vital negotiations and ambassadorships in nations such as Poland and Macedonia, Outpost paints some very human portraits and some poignant moments. Recommended to anyone who is interested in diplomacy, history, or the controversies and conflicts of the past twenty years.

[Mike Slawdog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received this book for free through Goodreads' First Read Program.

This book is, as advertised, a memoir of Christopher Hill's time as a diplomat. It focuses on the challenges and specific tasks he faced in Africa in the Peace Corps, Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Iraq. There is not much focus on his personal life, which I did not mind but which some might find offputting. The reality is that the book is a memoir, but not an autobiography.

I thought the book started off a little slow but by page 75 or so I was fully engrossed in Hill's stories. I learned a lot about how diplomacy works behind the scenes, and how interactions between allies can be awkward and that interactions with people you are either bombing or sanctioning (such as Serbia and North Korea) can be, at times, cordial. Hill also has been through a lot, detailing stories of some actions I did not remember from the 1990s in the Balkans, specifically.

Admittedly, I found myself agreeing with a lot of Hill's conjectures, which he intersperses in his writing and makes fairly clear in the epilogue. He feels the military dominates foreign policy and that as America has become polarized it has lost faith in diplomacy. Since America's military is well-funded, is trusted by the populace, and is available, it gets used and even runs efforts when it may not be needed to do so. Hill's close friend Holbrooke is a Democrat, and I am all but certain that Hill is one too, but he did have some criticism for Democrats and praise for Republicans so his bias (if there really was one) did not seem too overpowering or offputting.

I would have liked to have seen some more self-reflection in this book, though. In my opinion, Hill was so matter-of-fact that he did not always go through some of the self-doubt he must have been facing, especially on a macro level. Individual conversations and actions are sometimes detailed with reservations he had at the time, but I cannot imagine feeling fully comfortable and confident being named to be THE representative of your country in a foreign land, even when it's what you've prepared your whole life to do.

Overall, I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in frank discussions of behind-the-scenes diplomacy, who might be curious as to how the State Department functions, or who would like a perspective of foreign affairs from those who are put in the seat to negotiate policy. With the added bonus of being a good recap of many foreign policy issues from the late 1980s through today, it's an enlightening but still entertaining read.

[Read a Book · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book via a GoodReads Giveaway.

Ambassador Hill's autobiography is a refreshing foray into some of the most difficult diplomatic quagmires America experienced in the past 30 years. Hill could have bombarded the reader with a litany of names, dates, and accomplishments...but instead takes considerable effort to simplify and humanize even the most alien of situations. Reading of his encounters with historical figures ranging from Kim Jung Il and Slobodan Milosevic to Mother Theresa is enlightening in a different way than generally experienced, where Hill discusses the individual style, relationships, wants, and habits that he personally experienced with each of these individuals. Hill also has a wonderful method of describing the geography and environments of which he experiences - for a reader that has never been to Mongolia or North Korea, this may have been the most fascinating element of 'Outpost.'

As far as diplomatic works go, Outpost is particularly easy to read, and engaging to the point that it is difficult to put down. While ending on something of a slightly pessimistic note (although perhaps deservedly so), 'Outpost' is a work that anyone interested in a career at the State Department should read. You won't find this branch of diplomatic history told in a more compelling or human capacity elsewhere.

5/5

[Zeljko Zic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Facts

One of the best books I recently read :) Christopher Hill a Diplomat and literary Master Christopher Hill
HiS intelligence humanity moral principles and patriotism are present throughout. He is a master of metaphor. It is a true pleasure reading his book.

[Justin Tapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher R. Hill is an inspiration for many aspiring Foreign Service Officers; his 33 year resume is pretty close to ideal. Ambassador Sung Kim (the Philippines) listed Hill as one of his mentors, so I urgently wanted to read this book. It is a good look at the life of a senior career Foreign Service Officer and I recommend it. 4.5 stars.

Hill grew up as a Foreign Service brat, his dad was a FSO. He joined the Peace Corps, serving in Cameroon, and later entered the Foreign Service and made the bulk of his a career as a political officer in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. His first post was Yugoslavia under Amb. Eagleburger (who would go on to become Secretary of State), then a year of Ops in D.C, Poland in 1983, and later on the Desk in D.C. in 1989 watching the Berlin Wall fall from a distance. He was on the U.S. team addressing the breakup of the USSR and the small, internecine conflicts that were kindling. He writes of the challenges facing the State Department back then, namely establishing new embassies in new countries (that was a great time to be in the testing queue as hiring was rapid).

Hill became Ambassador to Macedonia in 1996 and dealt with riots and the Embassy lock-down there. He worked closely with Richard Holbrooke, who he describes as easily distracted. Holbrooke was famously engaged in negotiations in the Balkans and the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. Amb. Hill and Holbrook also worked on Kosovo while Hill was the appointed Special Envoy. Hill used what he learned from these experiences in later negotiating in the Six-Party Talks with North Korea. He is critical of the Clinton Administration’s handling of Kosovo, namely bombing in order to change Milosovic’s mind. Hill writes that it should not be held up as an “ideal” war or a good way to handle things.

In 2005, he switched regions and became the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs after first serving a brief stint as Ambassador to South Korea. His work on North Korea, under President Bush, made him an enemy among Dick Cheney and the neocons who ridiculed the entire process and worked actively to undermine it. Hill is not shy in his criticisms of neocons. Despite this, Hill has positive things to say about President Bush and, particularly, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice who served as Secretaries of State. An interesting nugget from the book is that Powell told Hill that when Powell made his famous Iraq speech to the United Nations he had already discounted 85 percent of what intelligence staff had given him; in other words, he knew what Iraq really was. This differs quite a bit from what Powell wrote in his own memoir, to the best of my memory.

President Obama appointed Hill to be Ambassador of Iraq in 2009, a brief tenure. Again, neocons in the Senate tried to block his confirmation and Hill does not speak well of his interactions with them; John McCain took out his frustrations with President Obama on Hill. Hill was baffled by opposition from Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, and writes that he even tried to use his interactions with Mother Theresa as a way to make peace with Brownback, since Hill had read Brownback washes the feet of his staffers annually, like Jesus.

Hill’s son was serving a tour in the military in Iraq, so he had varied interests in U.S. activity there. He writes that he quickly studied Iraqi history from books given to him by State staffers on the Sixth Floor. Hill worked to change the mission of the State Department there, recruiting and empowering officers who could write effectively and ending their exhausting and time-consuming work of mainly just escorting around U.S. military VIPs. His team wrote effective cables, and Hill found President Obama to be an avid reader of his reports, communicating with Hill directly and intelligently.

Ambassador Hill gives many details about his time in Iraq and the political characters, the various challenges. He holds the view that the “surge” was not solely responsible for reducing violence during the Bush Administration but rather the combination of the “Anbar awakening” and Gen. Petreaus’ COIN strategy that essentially paid and incentivized Iraqis not to take up arms against the U.S. Nonetheless, the Obama Administration’s signalling that they just wanted to get out of Iraq made things difficult on the ground. D.C. micromanaged various meetings and further frustrated the Ambassador. Hill writes that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki failed and deserved to go, that Americans had not had the true view of him-- Iraqis would tell foreigners more positive things about al-Maliki than they would tell each other. (All of this jives with what I have read in other books, including Petraeus’ biography and Gen. McChrystal’s memoir.)

Hill closes the book with his reflections on 33 years of service. He is now at the University of Denver and hopefully inspiring a new generation of diplomats. I give this book 4.5 stars out of 5. A must-read if you are interested in the Foreign Service.

[Rona Simmons]

A career diplomat, Christopher Hill takes us with him to the frontlines in some of the most dangerous outposts of American diplomacy, from the Balkans, to North Korea, to Iraq. He worked for Bush, Clinton, and Obama amidst a cadre of politicians and diplomats, from Dick Cheney to Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Richard Holbrook, Lawrence Eagleburger, and Hillary Clinton.
In the prologue, as he motors through Iraq, Hill says he was there to do, “what US ambassadors do all over the world: meet with local officials and get a sense of what is on people’s minds outside the confines of the capital city.” And, throughout the book, the reader finds him doing just that, not taking refuge behind the walls of an embassy or in the halls of the State Department in Washington. Across his career, while he conferred with heads of state, he also met with ordinary people. People, who, he says, “all things being equal would probably have liked us to leave as soon as possible” and who we discover are all too prepared (at least in Iraq’s case) to make their points with roadside bombs.
The difficulty Hill faced every day for over thirty years was revealed in conversations with three very different sets of politicians or diplomats. In the Balkan States, Hill quotes the Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, “You are superpower. If you want to say that Tuesday is Thursday, you can do that. It doesn’t matter what the rest of us think.” He tells of the North Koreans who “have an annoying habit of agreeing to something, then coming back and not agreeing to what they had just agreed.” And, of the Iraqis he said, “If the opinion of local Iraqis was sought, to the favorite question, “What do you need?” and if the answer as it often turned out to be, was “money,” our response was, “We can work with you.”
After three decades in the foreign service, “what has not changed is that the world still looks to the United States to lead by example, what has changed is how we are responding to these expectations. We live in a time when ideology is hotly debated and where there is a diminished consensus …”

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though this was a long book, it was unlike anything I’ve ever read for fun before, and it was fascinating as someone studying international relations. The way Hill describes each assignment is unique, and he demonstrates the complexity of diplomacy throughout each example. This book feels especially poignant now, ten years later, and serves as a reminder that politics and relations between countries are complicated and don’t have clear-cut answers. He highlights those who would criticize without a full grasp of the situation, and it felt reminiscent to how many people act today. A career in the Foreign Service has always been fascinating to me, and it was incredibly informative to read Hill’s perspective. I did a little research and found that though he claims to have retired from the government in this book, he’s actually currently serving as Ambassador to Serbia. I’m curious as to what made him rejoin and am incredibly impressed by all of his achievements. I also loved getting more of an insider look at many prominent figures of the 1990s-2010s.

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good look at the life of a diplomat from the United States. Not something I knew much about and Hill has certainly seen some modern history in his assignments. Made for really interesting reading and also left me wanting more on some situations he participated in.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

After "From Beirut to Jerusalem" by Thomas Friedman, I had hoped for a book with less historical detail than this, & probably more sociological/cultural detail. I was interested in how the diplomatic service works, the kind of people drawn to the service, & probably a more general observational history of Hill's experience. . . . I believe this book is aimed at a more knowledgeable political/historical audience. The amount of detail in the Balkan section, & later in the Iraq section did not hold me. It contained too many names, too many step-by-step unfoldings, too many agencies that I needed to look up in order to understand their role & responsibility. I liked Hill. I found the Korean section more readable, & felt well taught by the observations on the power of sects in the Middle East, but had difficulty slogging to the end.

[Matt Connolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's so strange to say, but this book already comes across as dated. While a valuable read for anyone interested in the Balkans, or in the Six Party Talks with North Korea, I kept waiting for Amb. Hill to talk about Iran, and was consistently disappointed. It feels like he dedicates the last hundred pages to talking about Iraq, but never really gets anywhere (although maybe that's the point?). While it must be hard to boil down a 30+ year career into a workable book, I do wish it was edited a little more, both for typos and for length. Nevertheless, for anyone interested in the Foreign Service or the aforementioned topics, it's a pretty good read. Long, but good.

[Katy]

I received this book from the publisher through GoodReads FirstReads

[Clay Wescott · Rating 4 out of 5]

We heard Ambassador Hill speak in Naples, and read the book. Lots of tales about diplomacy, and life in different places. Starts with a car trip in Iraq where a leading car in the convey is blown up by an IED. Next memories from childhood about living in Belgrade in the early 60s when he came home from his international school and all the windows had been smashed by local school kids angry that Congolese leader Lumumba was dead (later emerged he was assassinated by CIA). A later chapter covers the day the US Embassy in Skopje was attacked by a mob, Macedonian police didn't come to defend it, so Hill and his 44 staff plus Hill's young daughter went to the safe room until US forces could come from an airbase some distance away.

Many chapters on working with Richard Holbrooke, who would arrive to meet a country's president waiting for him at the end of a long hall, and he would duck into a restroom on the way, keeping everyone waiting. And with Condi Rice, reportedly on her elliptical whenever a spare minute arises. Timely chapters on Hill's attempt to negotiate with North Korea, which "failed" as have all other attempts before and since.

Hill's 20 months as Ambassador in Iraq was an eye-opener. Though his marching orders were to lead a transition from military to civilian centered US involvement, the reality was more complicated. His first meeting with visiting US Governors was 95 percent dominated by military participants, right down to the military pens and coffee cups provided to each visitor. When he tried to suggest that the pens and cups should be from the embassy, he almost couldn't do it because they had no budget. By contrast, the military has vast budgets. An issue in the transition was that military leaders had no confidence in Hill and the civilians because their budget was so minuscule. An even bigger issue was the attempts by a wide cast of characters from DC to try to micromanage Iraq when no one had a clue what was really going on there, or what was needed. The attempts to micromanage the 2010 election process and the winning candidates and coalitions were particularly goofy, looking more like the action of an imperial power rather than a partner advocating "democracy".

In the end, Hill reflects that some parts of the world that he tried to influence improved a lot (Balkans, Poland), some ended up with pluses and minuses (Iraq) and some got worse (North Korea). He recognizes that each situation is a complex puzzle with many factors at play, but still seems relieved that there was at least some positive movement on a few of his watches.

[Trenchologist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Straightforward prose of a complex topic. I bet this guy wrote great briefs. Not much about his actual life and I think that's fine; he doesn't owe is sharing it, and this is about in-the-room diplomacy, not his own story. It's very: solid guy, solid read.

Found at the thrift, got it, started reading it that night; I thought it'd make an interesting foil of a follow-up to the Vietnam book, and it certainly was.

A nuts-and-bolts plus anecdotes approach. The chapter on Iraq made me glaze over a bit, with all the overlapping coming and going and bases and names, but it was worth refocusing and getting back in there to parse it out.

Maybe most tantalizing--at least for US-politick-minded people--are the glances at and interactions with leading US leaders, and the ways they did and didn't engage with diplomacy and the diplomats trying to wrest it. It's illuminating who Hill thought did "good work," regardless their admin or political standing, and why (cheney, no; biden, yes; w bush and h clinton, yes; various doing it for the cameras senators, no). There's no dirty laundry or wayward gossip here, but if you're at all politically-minded and aware of the events and players over the years, there's plenty to be gleaned.

And, corny as it might seem to say, it's good and reassuring to read about sincere efforts by sincere people doing uncertain but important work out there. Work that isn't guaranteed but at various points must be undertaken, and how they got after it. It's less heartening to read how that process has been undercut and ceded more and more to the military over the years of Hill's service.

It's also something to read this a decade+ since publication, given all that's changed since the Obama admin. The tumultuous first DJT term, the no-hard-reset-but-maybe? of Biden, and now in the throes of what DJT's second grab at the prize is doing to well, everything. Backward looking insights of a sort.

Small thing: Hill spent time with letting us know if you're a NYer in September, you either get out of town or are made miserable by the gridlock caused by the UN in session, and I gotta say, as a longtime NYer it's nothing that ever affected me. At all. I was far more annoyed and inconvenienced by SantaCon than that lol.

[Jeannette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't read many non-fiction books about my work. I like fictionalized accounts about the State Department and diplomacy because I enjoy seeing how much they get right or wrong. It's always funny to read an outsider's impression of your life. I'll admit that I bought Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy by Christopher R. Hill because I've met him (around Chapter 16). Ok, I didn't just meet him. I spent several days with him while he was on official business in Chengdu, China. Organizing his visit and going to meetings with him was like being the roadie for a true rock star. I'm kind of sad he didn't even mention me as I'm sure I had a lasting impact on his life. Certainly eating Sichuan food so spicy to be deemed "inedible" is as memorable as negotiations with North Korea.

Chris Hill is an impressive guy with a sense of humor. Plus, he's nice. Those are not qualities you find in every senior government official. Maybe one. Maybe two. But all three? Chris Hill is a unicorn. His book didn't disappoint me either. This is not a dry, wonky read. It's engaging and accessible to the non-diplomat. You get a real sense of what life is like for those of us on the frontlines and a peek behind the curtain of diplomacy.

[Alannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book a few years ago as a first reads winning and finally got around to reading it. First off, thank you Ambassador Hill for your service to your country. Hill had an amazing career with the State dept, which he details here. He was directly involved in a number of pivotal historical moments...Kosovo, Bosnia, Serbia, North Korea, Iraq, to name a few. Reading this has given me a whole new understanding and appreciation for the foreign service. I’d give it 3.5 stars if I could—it was hard to keep some of the names and histories and political nuances straight, but am rounding up because I think he did a great job of distilling the major points of a decades long career into 400 pages, while adding some great insights and bits of funny personality. I’m not one for memoirs, but if you’re interested in government and the foreign service, I’d recommend.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish this book had more about how his work affected his personal life. I can respect the notion of keeping the memoir professional and guarding his family’s privacy, but I still would have appreciated an examination of how the stress of his job impacted the rest of his life and how the private and professional interacted.

I definitely enjoyed reading the perspective of someone working up to his elbows in diplomacy and not being particularly involved in politics - a civil servant for the IS and the world rather than a politician. This is quite refreshing and enlightening, learning the process of historic work from the inside. How the sausage is really made, but with more professional dignity.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over the three decades of Hill's foreign service career, he served in a number of disparate and often dangerous paces. Whether in the Balkans during the breakup of Yugoslavia and the war in Kosovo, in Poland at the tail-end of the Cold War, as the US's first ambassador to Macedonia, ambassador to South Korea and top disarmament negotiator with North Korea, or ambassador to Iraq during the Obama administration, he has witnessed and played a part in momentous events around the world. A highly interesting memoir.

[Echo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not an easy read because there is so much to learn in its pages -about history, diplomacy and international relations. However, Ambassador Hill also adds in reflections, references (Bilbo Baggins!) and humor that made it accessible to me and made me want to keep reading. This line in particular stood out for me: "Finding practical answers to tough problems seems to take a backseat to ideology." and I appreciate his pragmatism over instant gratification beliefs.

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories from a man who had a fantastic career representing the United States around the world. Hill doesn't go into much depth on any topic instead focusing on anecdotes are amusing and would make great dinner conversation. I found the section on negotiating with North Korea to be the most interesting and revealing but the sections on the Balkans and Iraq are good as well. A fun book for people who like current events.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having seen Ambassador Hill in action during my first Foreign Service assignment in Warsaw, I knew this book would be great, but I now think it is truly required reading for an FSO at any level. So many examples of impossible circumstances, followed by the leadership needed to address them. Thank you for representing the sacrifice, friendships, danger, and absurdity of our career!

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted to read this book because Ambassador Hill had been a Peace Corps volunteer based in Buea, Cameroon in the '70's, immediately before my wife and I served there. He has led an interesting life in the Foreign Service.

[Neale Chaudhury · Rating 3 out of 5]

Def eye opening, what an era, wonder if Dick Holbrooke or Chris Hill or Bob Owen were about if they could be a effective in the current climate.
Writing style was a bit drab and hurried more like a taking point memo with notes converted into a book.

[Julian Mydlil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and insightful account of important diplomatic negotiations with some great humor mixed in as well. Also appreciated his detailed criticisms of a securitized foreign policy, the foreign service bureaucracy (particularly of DC), and the neoconservatives in the Bush II Administration.

[Larry Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative and interesting book! As a reader of much military history, I found this enlightening perspective very useful. I will look for other writing by Mr. Hill.

[Pearl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ambassador Hill both educates and entertains in this his review of his life in the foreign service. And a very distinguished one it was. He has served as the American ambassador to most of the world's hot spots since the break up of the Soviet Union and he learned the lessons of diplomacy very early, growing up as he did in various American embassies as the son of a foreign service officer. Just out of college, Hill joined the Peace Corps and spent some time in Cameroon where, as he recounts them, learned valuable and humorous lessons. So he has lots to tell. And he does so with wit and humor and the ability to poke fun at the high and mighty without being mean. Well, perhaps there's an exception when he talks about Cheney.

His foreign service includes being a high level assistant to Richard Holbrooke during the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Dayton Accords, the first American ambassador to the modern Macedonia, ambassador to Poland, to South Korea, and to Iraq, and the Director of the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau (EAP) where he was tasked with trying to restart negotiations with North Korea over dismantling their existing nuclear program. In these assignments he tells of the dangers faced, the stunning victories won, and the defeats. He praises his key mentors, among them Lawrence Eagleberger and Dick Holbrooke, and explains the lessons he learns from them and gives us a good sense of their personalities - skills, foibles and all. In these assignments, he worked for the administrations of Clinton, Bush, and Obama. He offers insights into the inner workings of each of these administrations, as it relates to foreign affairs. He tells of good working relationships with the Secretaries of State in each administration but is most entertaining when he describes the diverse personalities in the Bush administration and enlightening when he helps us to understand more fully the divisions within that administration.

He is very complimentary of Condi Rice and her assistant Stephen Hadley and seems to say that President Bush was pretty reasonable too, when he listened to Rice and was able to resist the persistent pressure from the neocons in his administration. It is very clear that Hill and Cheney did not like (perhaps loathed) each other and that Hill is appalled by the extent to which Cheney tried to run his own foreign policy office while serving as Bush's Vice President.

Perhaps his most difficult assignment and one where he did not succeed was as chief American negotiator in the Six Party Talks with North Korea. In the end, the issue was verification. North Korea finally showed that they were unwilling to accept full and open inspections of their nuclear sites. There was nothing to do but walk away from the talks. I found his description of the obstacles he faced from within the Bush administration and the U.S. Congress to be most interesting in light of the current attempt to execute a treaty with Iran. Same issues by same-minded people. Oppose negotiating with THE ENEMY. Oppose the proposed treaty because it didn't include human rights provisions. Oppose the treaty because it didn't deal with (South Korean) hostages being held by North Korea. Hill offers his rationale but, of course, those not wanted to be convinced were not convinced.

He served only one year as ambassador to Iraq, a condition of his accepting the post. He offers interesting insights (or perhaps I should say opinions) on Petraeus, Odierno, and others who served in the military in Iraq. What comes through loud and clear and what Hill does not like is that the military was asked to take on the role of the diplomats, especially during the Bush administration. And he describes Odierno's amazement at the extent to which Hill had to scramble and lobby Congress for adequate funds for his mission. On one occasion, Hill says, Odierno found the money for him from his own petty cash fund.

This book is well worth reading. It contains many lessons for our politicians, if they would listen. Hill explains how little we understood the Shia/Sunni divisions and how easily we thought we could overcome them. How little we understood the factions supporting Maliki and Allawi and how little we understood their local politics. He shows us that diplomacy is composed much more of hard, hard work than of glamour. Although his tone is often breezy and his sharing of stories is sometimes gossipy (probably the parts I liked best!), sometimes it is also a little like inside baseball. Sometimes (Bosnia and Kosovo in particular) I needed more context.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book. It has a lot of good information on what it is like to deal with different cultures and politics.

It wasn't very well written/edited though so its a tough read unless you are really interested in the subject.

*I received this book for free through the Goodreads First Reads program

[Mathew Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book free through Goodreads' First Reads program.

Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy: A Memoir is the memoir of Christopher R. Hill's time serving the United States as a diplomat and ambassador in regions including Poland, Kosovo, South Korea, and Iraq. To say the least, he spent time in some of the most difficult areas of the world for diplomacy at some of the most difficult times.

While occasionally critical of some in Washington, D.C., I found that the author presented most of the people he discussed in the best possible light, given the interaction he had with them, regardless of political affiliation or the type of government a particular foreign diplomat was representing. While there is a lot of general criticism, especially towards the end of the book (during the terms of George W. Bush and Barack Obama) of the attempts of politicians in D.C. to interfere with (or negatively portray) diplomatic relations, especially with North Korea and Iraq, criticism of individuals tends to be very limited in scope. In general, criticism of any sort represents an extremely small amount of this book.

What I found fascinating in this book was the almost "behind-the-scenes" look at diplomacy that we rarely seem to get, even when the diplomatic efforts in question are center-stage for so much of the news. During the talks with North Korea during George W. Bush's presidency, the U.S. press seemed more interested in the meta-discussion of whether the talks should even be happening than any details of what was really going on in the talks. Hill describes the importance of those talks not only in getting information about North Korea's nuclear program, but in our relationships with the other countries involved in the talks (especially China, South Korea, and Japan), and how the ultimate break-down of the talks still left us in a much stronger position in the region than we were before the talks.

I think there is a difference in tone between the majority of the book and the chapters focused on Iraq which shows not only the difference in the overall mission in Iraq, but also in the effect that time can have on one's perception of events. It would be interesting, if possible, to see Hill follow up on his experience in Iraq after some time has passed. Of course, at the same time, his perception of events during his time in Iraq seems not only insightful, but potentially somewhat prescient given current events.

Overall, I enjoyed reading about a portion of U.S. politics that seems less-covered and potentially more important than much of the day-to-day focus int he U.S. press.