Douglas Kinney Delivers 'Dare to be True' Address
by Douglas Kinney '63

According to Douglas Kinney, career Foreign Service officer and currently a specialist in crisis management and conflict management, “daring, truth, valor, skill and confidence are key in facing terrorism.”

Douglas Kinney ’63 teaches crisis management at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center, and trains Marine expeditionary units poised off all major littorals should Americans need rescue or evacuation. He has conducted crisis management exercises in 100 cities around the world since the bombings of U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

As a Foreign Service Officer, Douglas was a politico-military affairs specialist. He served as director of U.N. policy, public and congressional affairs in the State Department, and as a deputy chief of mission and counselor of embassy for political affairs abroad. He was twice seconded to the Forces in the field as a political advisor for Operations Desert Storm and Northern Watch in Iraqi Kurdistan.

“Character is at the heart of how and how well we deal with the core challenges of terrorism—with global, asymmetrical unlimited guerrilla war; with unseen and uncountable enemies; with indiscriminate, amorally deployed weapons of mass murder; with a conflict without foreseeable end—what strategic doctrine calls the long war.

“The core problem with long war is maintaining what you are fighting for. The danger is that without a moral compass there is a slide to expediency, then rationalization, then amorality, and then butchery.
“I am fully convinced that character is not an adjunct or a nicety but rather the heart of facing those challenges. From inner strengths stem the very simple determination, self-reliance, sacrifice and social cohesion that will see us through in a way we can be proud of.
“We must defend what we are and yet not defend it so fiercely that we lose what we are. As individuals, a nation and a civilization, that is the core challenge....

“‘Dare to be true’ is not simply an ideal but a survival skill for ourselves and our society and indeed our civilization....
“We are facing challenges few have experienced and lived to tell us about. Shall we despair? Hardly.... We need a strategic sense to get a grip. We need perspective, confidence, indeed [we need] optimism....

“A crisis poses a threat to lives, and demands immediate, sustained action and original solutions based on first-rate planning and thorough preparation. The scale and scope of the looming crises demand of us: new thinking tools and skillsets— thinking in scenarios,... out on the edge of probability and credibility,...—and group skill sets such as working better in teams.... We must admit our limits and deal with them frankly. We must determine our crisis behavior in advance....

“We need, too, to re-engineer our thinking.... We need new imagineering tools to study the low-probability, high-consequence event, to look anew at key processes and people, at sensitive vulnerable points....

“We need to be less predictable. Randomly varying routines deters, the very preparing deters, and deterrence works....
“We must think clearly and coldly about our opposition; we must respect our opposition, and understand our opposition, profoundly.... We must find and embrace common ground, whether [our opposition] does or not.... Remember that your culture is more in the habit of reaching out, is more conflict-averse, and considers compromise a worthy means to higher ends. If we think cross-culturally we can perceive who can be engaged in different ways, and who cannot....

“The new risk curve to the 21st century... means that we cannot wait for terrorism to come to us... we need to play a forward game; in fact, we need to play several games at once.
“We must build our own and our community’s resilience so we can live real lives, but live them prepared, so we can function through crisis and then recover deeply....

“A dark future, the 21st century? No—we have the potential to add to human creativity in all fields, indeed to revolutionize many... Yes, I am painting severe potential challenges. We are more than up to them. But we can best them ... if we start retooling now ... in many ways [going] back to what we learned here (at Milton):
• Dare to keep the passion even when the lessons are harsh
• Respect others so as to find the hidden common ground, across pain—and over time
• Embrace diversity to build community and a common humanity—the essence of the long game on the bottom board
• The pursuit of excellence—including in defending ourselves
• The bolstering of confidence and character, our last line of defense
• Creative and critical thinking
• Fearlessness in expressing ideas, including knowing and naming evil when one sees it
• Daring to be true...
“Is there a core rule here? The answer is the same as in peacetime: Do the right thing. ‘Dare to be true.’”