From Soldier to Diplomat: Overcoming Culture Shock

Guest: Charles A. Ray, former U.S. ambassador to Cambodia and Zimbabwe and former deputy assistant secretary of defense.

The U.S. military and the Foreign Service are two parts of the same national-security apparatus, but that may be where their similarities end. Their cultures, missions and approaches to those missions are very different — and often exactly the opposite.

On this episode of “The Diplomacy Podcast,” we discuss those differences with someone who has experienced both — first as a soldier in the U.S. Army for 20 years, and then as a career diplomat for three decades.

My guest is Charles A. Ray, a former U.S. ambassador to Cambodia and Zimbabwe, and former deputy assistant secretary of defense. He now teaches at the Washington International Diplomatic Academy and chairs the Africa program of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Ray also talks about the U.S. strikes that have killed dozens of civilians on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, which the Trump administration claims are smuggling drugs to the United States, though it hasn’t provided proof.

As always, my guest’s opinions don’t necessarily represent my own views.

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