Ambassador Frederick D. Barton on “Peaceful Democratic Change,” Early Warning, and Why This Work Is Really Venture Capital

Few practitioners have helped build as much of the U.S. government’s modern crisis-response toolkit as Frederick D. Barton. From launching USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives to helping stand up conflict and stabilization capacity at the State Department, Barton has spent a career working in fragile states—often in the messy hours when institutions are weak, violence is near, and the margin for error is thin.
In this conversation, we discuss the through-line he eventually found for his work, the experience that pulled him into stabilization, what he underestimated about bureaucracy, how domestic politics shaped his approach overseas, and why “early warning” is often simpler than the intelligence community wants to admit. We close with what he looks for in young people entering the field, and the books and essays he still hands to teams.

-Frederick D. Barton is a former senior U.S. official in crisis response and stabilization, including leadership roles at USAID and the U.S. Department of State.

The through-line: “advancing peaceful democratic change”
Ben Wolf: To start with the big picture: for readers who may not be familiar with your path, what’s the through-line of your career? What problem have you most consistently tried to solve?

Frederick D. Barton: I didn’t really have a clear-cut mission statement until I started working at USAID, when I was working on countries in transition. I came up with a slogan for our office—the Office of Transition Initiatives—that was advancing peaceful democratic change. It turned out that was probably my through-line as well.
Before that, I’d worked in domestic politics. I’d worked on a Senate campaign, then for the senator when he won. I ran for office myself. I was a state party chair. So I was working in domestic politics, but I always had an interest in global issues. I helped start the World Affairs Council of Maine because I felt there needed to be more access to these issues—and I was interested in them.
Then I got lucky and got a job in Washington. Luck is a big part of it, but it was something I had in mind. I got the right job because the USAID Administrator had promised Congress he would start a new office to deal with countries in transition. At the time, the big “countries in transition” were mostly in the former Soviet Union.
But the regular bureaucracy really loved the former Soviet Union. There was a lot of money for programming, it was relatively safe, it was traditional development work. So I was left with a portfolio of countries that were in conflict—which I found dynamic. They seize the front page quickly. They become the biggest source of attention.
So I’d say the through-line became advancing peaceful democratic change—and elevating the importance of local people in that effort.

The first wake-up call: “Would you like to go to Haiti in two weeks?”
BW: Before the prestigious titles, was there a first experience that pulled you toward conflict work and stabilization—something that made you think, "this is what matters"?

FDB: I was lucky to have a couple volunteer opportunities when I was living in Maine.
For years I tried to get on an election monitoring mission with the Carter Center or someone like that—and they never selected me. I was in Maine. I wasn’t in play.
But a guy came to Maine and said he worked with the National Democratic Institute. It was this long evening program. We had the ambassador of El Salvador there; he talked too long. I was ready to go home. And my wife said, “Why don’t you go talk to that guy who said he works on election monitoring missions?”
So I went over and talked to him, and almost right away he said: “Would you like to go to Haiti in two weeks?”
It was July in Maine—who would want to go to Haiti? But I couldn’t exactly say, “Why don’t we go to Paris?”
So I went to Haiti. Later on, when I went to Rwanda and places like that, I realized Haiti was much worse off. And it’s right off the U.S. coast. It had been mismanaged by the U.S. and by Haitians as well—and the French, for sure.
Once I started seeing places coming out of difficult periods, it became hard to look away. NDI then invited me to be part of an expert panel in Ethiopia and in Poland. Those experiences helped me get the job at USAID because I didn’t have much formal experience—but it turned out almost nobody did.
I also had family exposure: my father had been a diplomat, I’d lived in these countries, I spoke Spanish. But Haiti was the wake-up call. And it became one of the first countries we worked in when I started the Office of Transition Initiatives at USAID in 1994.

What he’d approach more cautiously: ambition, bureaucracy, and limits
BW: Looking back at your early career, what’s a judgment you were confident in then, but would approach more cautiously now—not because you were wrong, but because experience complicated it?

FDB: My core judgment is about putting people first—local organizing, the opportunities that exist even in tough places, and giving greater voice to local people. Those instincts were good.
I don’t think I ever had a messiah complex—either for what we were doing or for the United States. I tend to look at every case individually, and I like to do lots of local interviews—dozens, hundreds if possible—so we really see what priorities are.
Those instincts helped OTI thrive for about 30 years and be seen as a major asset. The same instincts carried over to starting the Conflict and Stabilization Operations Bureau at the State Department.
One thing I did that worked: I often went for money rather than people. I figured if I had the money, I could find the people, hire the right people, rather than getting stuck with a fixed staff.
I was careful about which countries we picked. Bureaucracies judge whether you’re relevant based on where you end up working. I didn’t get stuck in places I thought would be extraordinarily difficult to move—places where you can pour in effort and still make no meaningful progress.
Entry timing matters—the right “ripeness.” That’s a theory I picked up from a professor, Bill Zartman of Johns Hopkins.
If anything, I probably underestimated how difficult it is to build something new inside the U.S. government. The natural bureaucratic resistance—the inclination to keep doing things the same way—can be intense.
And maybe I overestimated what individuals could do. Maybe I was too ambitious in thinking we could achieve more. These places are fragile.

How domestic politics translated overseas: “This is just like that guy in Maine.”
BW: Ambassador Mark Green once told me that his time in domestic politics shaped how he operated in foreign affairs. For you, did domestic politics influence how you worked on the global stage?

FDB: Absolutely. Tom Friedman once wrote about Clinton becoming good on foreign policy and said: he was obviously good at domestic politics, and foreign affairs is essentially politics on an international scale—so why wouldn’t he be good at it?
There’s direct relevance.
A funny—but influential—lesson for me was this: in many of these places, you’re not always dealing with George Washington types. You’re dealing with lesser figures, let’s say.
I had an experience in Maine when I was party chair dealing with a candidate for governor who was quite erratic. That ended up being instructive for meetings around the world—because I could think: this is just like that guy in Maine.
I was also very attracted to working with women and young people because they were often disenfranchised. If you want to promote change, you go to the people who most want it—or who are least responsible for the status quo. Often that’s women and young people.
That bias came from organizing campaigns in Maine. In my first campaign, we were running against Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a long-term incumbent. When I went into her hometown to organize, nobody was willing to work against her in a visible way—except junior high school kids, their parents, and their mothers.
They were great. The older men would come in and say, “We need a new television commercial,” or some big strategic idea. But those people—kids and their moms—were the ones going door to door, doing the work.
And then there’s communications: if you’re not communicating all the time, you’re probably in trouble. That’s a good lesson from politics.

Speed vs. legitimacy
BW: In crisis response there’s always tension between acting quickly and building legitimate local ownership. How did you decide when speed was essential and when patience was non-negotiable?

FDB: One of the rules in my book Peaceworks is: if you don’t know 100 people in a place, don’t send U.S. soldiers.
And I don’t mean just the Minister of Treasury or your taxi driver. I mean 100 people. That rule would have kept us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and it should have kept us out of Vietnam. If we’d stayed out of those three, we’d be a very different—and probably better—country.

Venezuela: capability isn’t the same as planning
BW: What do you make of what happened in Venezuela?

FDB: I got rediscovered the last couple of days because I did an NPR interview on Sunday and then another with Ana Cabrera.
As I said then, as usual, we spent hundreds of millions of dollars and months planning a military intervention—and it looks to me like we haven’t spent ten minutes on what comes next.
When the President gets asked: “You say we’re going to run Venezuela—what happens next?” and he turns around to the three guys behind him—the General, the head of the Joint Chiefs, Hegseth and Rubio—that’s probably the extent of the planning.
And there’s carelessness, even if it’s a skilled military operation. It’s like Tulane playing a local high school—it’s not a fair match. Venezuela’s military can enforce a regime, intimidate people, and allow thugs to run loose, but it’s not a war-fighting machine.
The President’s giddiness is out of order. Nobody likes Maduro, but there are sixty guys like him around the world. And this is a crowd that says, “We’re not going to be the world’s policeman.” Well—what is this then? If not military intervention, at least a police intervention.
On legality: it doesn’t hurt to have a few rules. If the U.S. makes up a rule every day, it’s sloppy.

Early warnings
BW: I spoke with Andrew Natsios recently about early warning as the difference between prevention and catastrophe. In your world, what early warning signals do you take most seriously—and how do you avoid reacting to noise?

FDB: I had a boss who once said: you can give me all the intelligence reports in the world, but if I look at Reuters in the morning and 10,000 people have left their homes, that’s a really good early warning.
When people are packing up and moving out—that matters.
After that: random violence showing up in unexpected places. Repression. I once got bawled out for an hour by a Minister of Interior in the Ivory Coast because I asked why they put the leading opposition figure in prison. He said I was invading domestic politics.
At the end of it, I said: the reason I asked is that when these things happen, we often end up with thousands of refugees—and we’re in the business of not producing more refugees. We’d rather not have refugees than process them for the rest of their lives.
He was a little apologetic. They had a coup a month later. He was the first guy seized.
So those are very real indicators.

What separates effective young people: curiosity, judgment, teamwork
BW: When you evaluate young people for roles in this space, what reliably separates the ones who will be effective from the ones who are smart, but not yet useful? What’s the most common mistake?

FDB: First: a fascination with politics.
When I get to Liberia, the first thing I want to see is the newspapers—whatever they have. People mimeographing rags in a basement, running off a copy machine. I want to read what they’re writing, what they think is important.
So: fascination with politics and news; readiness to listen, talk, listen some more; talking to the people of a place—not accepting conventional wisdom.
People arrive and declare: “This is a tribal war,” “a religious war,” “an elite war,” “an economic war.” It’s probably a witch’s brew. I want you to have a better understanding.
Then: being able to make choices. Working well on a team. You’re not going to be the genius by yourself.
Many people are good analysts but not great at coming up with solutions. Fewer people are creative about solutions. It’s tough to come up with ideas.
That’s why I think of this work like venture capital—experiments, pilots, tests. Nothing is precedent unless it works.
Agility, flexibility, making something—and making more out of it. Those are key.

What students should be honest about: risk, luck, and building teams
BW: If you were advising a student today trying to enter this field, what would you want them to be honest about—the tradeoffs, uncertainty, timing, luck? And what’s one skill they can build this semester that compounds over time?

FDB: Once you get experience in one or two places—don’t go straight to Washington. If you can live and work in a country, that’s how you build your reputation. That’s how you get promoted in Washington. Apply your thinking to a real place.
Comfort with risk is important. A lot of people aren’t comfortable with risk—but risk brings high rewards.
I had a boss who called OTI “venture capital.” If we hit on one out of ten countries, we were successful. Whereas USAID sometimes acts like everything it does is brilliant—not possible.
I like measures of progress. I want to know how we’re doing.
Studying a language helps. Working political campaigns—State doesn’t always respect that, but I do. You learn how to manage volunteers. Volunteers are tough: you can’t fire them, you don’t pay them—you have to learn how to lead.
An underappreciated skill set is building teams—creating followership, making common cause. Political appointees often come from the Hill, academia, or a niche subject area. They may know a lot, but they don’t always know how to build a team around an outcome.

What he recommends reading: bureaucracy, coaching, and “why smart people can’t learn”
BW: To close: what’s a book, essay, poem—anything—you’d recommend to someone interested in joining this field?

FDB: They can read my book, Peaceworks. It’s not a memoir, but it lays out how to get things started.
I also think people need what I call a perverse fascination with bureaucracies, because you’re going to work in a big organization. Enjoy it—it’s another challenge.
I read a lot of articles. I used to share two or three articles a week with my staff—challenging ideas in organizational development.
There’s a Harvard Business Review article from a former dean of Yale Law School—something like “why smart people cannot learn”—it’s excellent. And I’d look at Atul Gawande’s pieces in The New Yorker—the one on the bell curve, and the one on coaching. Those are accessible and the kind of things I shared with staff and used in courses.