Time & Perspective Quote by Lawrence Eagleburger

A diplomat talking about “training people” to be “good advocates” for “U.S. business” is a reveal, not a throwaway line. Eagleburger isn’t describing commerce as one interest among many; he’s describing a foreign-policy posture where economic promotion becomes a core competency of the state. The key word is “advocates.” Advocacy implies persuasion, access, and organized pressure - not neutral facilitation. It suggests a government that sees itself less as an umpire of global norms and more as a sales force with flags on its lapel.

The phrasing also smuggles in a critique of the bureaucracy. “Spend a lot more time” sounds like an internal memo turned public: a complaint that the diplomatic corps is trained in protocol, security, and crisis management, but not in the granular, transactional work of opening markets, defending corporate positions, and translating geopolitical leverage into contracts. “Training” frames the issue as fixable through technique rather than politics, which is its own kind of politics: it treats the marriage between national interest and corporate interest as assumed, even natural.

Context matters. Eagleburger came of age in the late Cold War and served at the hinge moment when the U.S. increasingly defined leadership through globalization, trade liberalization, and the competitive race for investment. In that world, embassies aren’t just listening posts; they’re deal desks. The subtext is blunt: if American power is to be maintained, diplomats must learn to argue like lobbyists - and the line quietly dares you to ask who, exactly, gets represented when “U.S. business” becomes the mission.