Members of the Columbia World Affairs Council met on Thursday afternoon, April 29, 2010, to hear from one of the United States’ elder statesmen, Ambassador Cresencio Arcos. Ambassador Arcos was appointed to the nation of Honduras by former President George Bush in 1989. A strong human rights advocate, he served there until 1993 and received the Honduran government’s highest award, the Order of Francisco Marazan.

Ambassador Arcos was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1943. He says that he was influenced by two teachers, one from France and one from Germany, to apply to the United States Foreign Service. A career diplomat, he has served as a Foreign Service officer in Portugal, Brazil, Belgium, and the former Soviet Union. He has also served in high–level positions in the United States government such as the United States Department of State’s North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Task Force, The White House coordinator for Public Diplomacy on Central America (1986–1988), and most recently as the assistant secretary for International Affairs in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Ambassador Arcos says the world of diplomacy has dramatically changed from the structure of the Cold War negotiations and military engagements. He says relations among nations were more predictable during the 47–year conflict with the Soviet Union. The United States had a “clarity of purpose,” and we could “rally ourselves” as a nation against the Soviet government and its allies.

According to Ambassador Arcos, after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, United States foreign policy makers had to “retool ourselves” and did not have a clear objective until after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September, 11, 2001. Arcos said foreign policy makers were “wandering” during the years of 1990 to 2000 as asymmetrical forces were dictating United States foreign policy.

Ambassador Arcos says that the primary current threats to the United States are terrorism, a hurricane or other natural disaster, and the impact of immigration. He says “We need to understand our challenges. We cannot dictate them as during the Cold War.”