Can Joe Biden’s relentless diplomacy work without diplomats?

AMERICA’S CAMPAIGN to avert a Russian invasion of Ukraine intensified this week, as American and Russian officials met: first bilaterally, then collectively with NATO and at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. For all his belief in the power of “relentless diplomacy”, however, President Joe Biden’s team is worryingly short of senior diplomats. He still has no ambassadors in important European capitals such as Berlin, London and Rome. Strikingly, there is no envoy in Ukraine—and has not been since 2019, when Donald Trump removed Marie Yovanovitch amid a scandal that led to his first impeachment (he was accused of illegally exerting pressure on Ukraine to find dirt on Mr Biden and his son, Hunter).