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Ambassador James Cain is not your conventional diplomat: he is America’s highest ranking diplomat in Denmark, hanging out in royal circles with the same ease he displays on his bike tour of Denmark’s big and small towns. Cain tracks those tours on a personal blog, where his followers comment on his bike tour, on his Elvis impersonations while riding through the countryside, and even openly inviting him to stay over in their houses along his way. His own musings are indicative of how unique and fun this experience has been for him and the people of Denmark he has met along the way this past year.
From his blog:
“The cost of a bus ticket to get 15 young riders back to school: 30 kroner. The amount those young people make gutting fish at Thorup Beach fishery: 70 kroner per box. The sound of those youngsters, and 350 of their 18 and 19 year old classmates, cheering, screaming and clapping for you when you enter the gymnasium with your teenage daughter there to witness it: unforgettable. The value to the ego of the girls in the audience whistling at you when you take off your biking jacket (again with your teenage daughter there to witness it): priceless.”
From America’s—and his—public diplomacy initiatives, to his life and career, to advice for our young readers that consider joining the Foreign Service, Ambassador Cain has important insights to share, coming from an interesting and successful marriage of careers in business and public service.
Ambassador Cain has been biking around Denmark for almost a year now and his ReDiscovery tour ends today with festivities at his residence where “everyone is invited”. What follows is a candid discussion about his efforts at practicing diplomacy at all levels, which has justly labeled him by one of his followers as “the People’s Ambassador.”
 Ambassador James P. Cain
ACR: First things first, how did you get involved in the Foreign Service?
Ambassador Cain: I always had a passion for politics. In 1976 I got involved in my first political campaign for Ronald Reagan who was running in the Republican Primary in North Carolina against Gerald Ford. I went on to work for a few years back in the early 80s for President Reagan and Senator Helms of North Carolina and other candidates. Always had a strong interest in American history and American politics and majored in Political Science when I was at Wake Forest. But then I went to law school and set my focus into a career of law and did not do much work in politics for about a decade. In 1998 I left the practice of law—I had built a big law firm—and I went into the sports business. I had set up a number of businesses along the way. I was always interested in business. And so I decided to recruit a professional hockey team…I brought a team down to Raleigh that became the Carolina Hurricanes.
In the fall of 1999, I met George W. Bush for the first time. He was running for President and he came down to a fundraising event in our building. I was not involved in his campaign at the time. President Bush was a sports guy like I was; he had the same job in Baseball that I had in Hockey so we hit it off.
I retired after winning our first championship with the team. In the summer of 2004, the White House asked me to go to the Philippines as the President’s emissary to attend the inauguration of the new President of the Philippines. In major state events like these, if the President can’t go, he will ask other people to attend for him. And looking back at that, it was a trial run to see how I would handle the diplomatic role. That was a short trip; about a week. And when the campaign was over in the fall of 2004 I got a call again from the White House saying “we’d like to talk to you, if you want to serve your country.” I went to Washington where I was asked to go to Europe.
The President wanted a new team of Ambassadors who were primarily good at selling; who could build relationships and help reconnect America and Europe. The relationship in many ways had suffered as a result of the European reactions to the war in Iraq; how we fight the war on terror. So he asked me to go to Denmark. I had no prior connection to Denmark, but at the time Denmark was starting a two-year term in the UN Security Council, and it is the only Northern European country that is both in NATO and the EU. They were already strong allies. The President wanted me to help strengthen the relationship so we could be stronger allies. So I said yes. In January of 2005, I was nominated and it took nine months to go through the background and ethics process check and the confirmation process and I went to Denmark in August of 2005.
The President’s instinct was right because my primary asset and the primary role that an Ambassador should play in Europe is as a salesman for America. That is our number one job. We have a wonderful embassy staff and interagency staff who are very competent at handling the bilateral day-to-day relationships with our host governments. What the ambassador needs to do and should do is be out in the public and be that face and voice of America.
That wasn’t true in the old days. In fact I recently read a book by one of my predecessors; a former Ambassador to Denmark, his name is Maurice Egan. He was Ambassador from 1908-1918. His book is very interesting. It is all about his life with the nobility, the royalty, the court, and with other diplomats. There is not any reference at all in the book to his engagement with the public. Today I think the Ambassador’s role needs to be completely reversed. Yes you have to be present and in the host government, meet with the Prime Minister, and you have to have a relationship with the Royal Family but first and foremost I believe our job is to be public diplomats. And that is what I have done in my three years as Ambassador in Denmark. I think it is really important and I really enjoy it.
ACR: It is an interesting concept. Here in Washington, we regard Ambassadors—as around the world too—as high and mighty figures that are difficult to approach.
Ambassador Cain: When I arrived in Denmark I had a very aggressive first 100 days strategy. I wanted to make a big impact both inside and outside the embassy. The public affairs staff told me: well we are in the honeymoon stage now. You are the new Ambassador in town, but after a couple of months the honeymoon will wear off. Well, they were shocked to find out in the first year we had something like 500 media appearances in newspapers, TV, and radio. I think with our new approach to public diplomacy we realized that we could keep America’s Ambassador in the news so long as the Ambassador continued to play an active role and engagement.
So for about a year and a half we were very popular with the media in Copenhagen. But it was a State Department poll about youth perceptions in Europe about America that implied some growing anti-Americanism. And I was sitting with my wife one day discussing how I can connect better with the people of Denmark outside of the Copenhagen media, outside of traditional diplomatic channels of communication. And she was the one who said: “well maybe you should ride your bike around Denmark.” So we launched this idea that sounded crazy at the time, about a 2500 km tour around the entire country of Denmark. It was to be a re-discovery tour to re-discover the unique spirit that has connected America and Denmark as allies since our first treaty was signed in 1791.
We were shocked at the outpouring of local and regional media attention we got. We have guest riders with us; I’ve had about six hundred guest riders and everyone wants to meet…when we go through towns and cities with an entourage of mayors, cabinet ministers, teachers, preachers. We have lots of young people following us too. And we have an itinerary along the way; we stop at cathedrals, churches, universities to speak with students, businesses—that may have connections to America, and we stop at cultural and historic sites.
Anybody who rides with me or hosts me gets one of these very coveted souvenir coins.
 The official ReDiscovery Coin is given to those who participate in the ReDiscovery Tour.
We finish the bike tour on the fourth of July; and that will give me an incredible opportunity to touch and feel and understand the fabric of Denmark; to reach out the ordinary, extraordinary people of Denmark, and to convey messages about our mission there.
ACR: What are some of the messages?
Ambassador Cain: Whenever I can, I talk about entrepreneurship and areas of alternative energy; areas where America and Denmark can partner. Some people may say, well, getting on a bike maybe is beneath the role of the Ambassador and some may think it is not appropriate. But I happen to believe that for America these days; Europeans need to see us with our tie off, with our sleeves rolled up, and being out there with the ordinary and extraordinary people of the countries we serve in.
ACR: Will this start a trend? Will other Ambassadors follow your lead?
Ambassador Cain: I think it will. I have some other Ambassadors telling me maybe they won’t bike, but they could jog around their country or play basketball. The Ambassador to Sweden met me in Southern Sweden. He and I rode our bikes together in Southern Sweden and then we crossed the bridge between Sweden and Denmark and then we rode together in Denmark. Mike is an avid cyclist anyways.
ACR: Denmark is a friend, how do we sell America in countries that are a bit more challenging? There would be so many security threats and concerns to do a bike tour in countries that are hostile to America.
Ambassador Cain: Well, we have to take security threats seriously. But if I were asked to give advice to any other Ambassadors in Europe it would be to find those locations where young people gather: sports fields, schools, get engaged with them and get a dialogue started with them.
 Ambassador Cain visits a kindergarten near Frederikshavn in Northern Jutland, Denmark.
 In Nykøbing Mors, Ambassador Cain was joined by the running club "Pinen og Plagen". Besides running, the club provides running tours for the elderly and individuals with special needs. Participants are pushed by club members in full size strollers.
Even in Denmark, a country that loves America, I find growing disinterest in America and antagonisms against America amongst young people.
For example, when people ride their bikes with me, they all have to submit to my questions. I usually ask what their impression of America is, what is the first thing that pops into their minds when they hear the word America. That’s an interesting question because everybody has a strong opinion whether they have been to America or not. If you are over the age of 30 I get answers such as patriotism, defense, security, freedom, liberation. Under the age of 25 the references are much more cultural in nature, coming from movies, music, food, etc.
Another question I ask is what you are most proud of. On a scale of 1-10 (1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest) how close do you think America and Denmark are as allies? If you are over the age of 40 invariably I get very high numbers on that scale. But under the age of 25 I get very low numbers, 1, 2, 3.
That’s not good. But the worst evidence is the follow up question—on the same 1-10 scale in this globalized age, with multilateral connections, China rising, India rising, Russia rising, Europe rising, growing anti-Americanism—does it matter if Denmark and America are allies? (1, it doesn’t matter at all, 10 it matters a lot). If you’re over 40—and this is in Denmark—invariably I get 8’s, 9’s, 10’s. If you’re under 25, I get 1’s, 2’s, 3’s. Young people, at least in Scandinavia, don’t think it’s relevant or important anymore that America and Europe stay close in link. And that to me is very dangerous. It’s a very dangerous trend. If we are going to successfully address the challenges of our age, and your generation, be they global warming, or Islamic extremism, or rogue regimes with nuclear ambitions, or undemocratic re-emergence in Russia—or whatever the challenges are—then America and Europe have to be united and have to work together; otherwise we are not going to be able to solve these challenges.
So when I see young people with the attitude that it is not important that America and Europe remain friends and allies, it concerns me greatly. That is why my advice to the ambassadors would be: do what you have to do with the embassy but as soon as you can and as often as you can, get out and get engaged with the young people. And if you are not good at it, then find someone else in your embassy that is, and encourage him or her to assume that role. In fact, all of America’s diplomats and ambassadors, and all the way down the line, need to assume that as part of their job—connecting with young people on the public platform.
ACR: And you’ve brought me to a point that is very interesting—and that is the fusion between Track One diplomacy and Track Two. Of course, you are a member of Track One diplomacy—you practice diplomacy at a high level. And what you are doing right now is grassroots diplomacy, Track Two, which takes longer—these relationships take longer to build, more resources, more time, and more good will. But I feel that they can be quite successful in the long term and of course they work much better with youth because they have all the time in the world and because this generation will grow—in ten years they will be making decisions. So, in our society today, what are we doing, or how can we survey youth culture around the world?
Ambassador Cain: You’ve hit on a glaring need that all America’s diplomats share—and that is baseline data on opinions of young people about America. What I am gathering is a wonderful database of anecdotal evidence. It’s a great database. If you want to follow it, you can follow my daily blog and my bike tour because I talk about these things—but that is anecdotal.
What I wish I had when I came to the post two and a half years ago, is a good baseline database of attitudes—not just young people, but mainly young people because it is mainly young people we ought to be worried about (at least in Denmark, I know that is the case). But we didn’t have that. And in the age of budgetary crunches, it is difficult to get funding for that sort of project within the State department. But that would be a big help to our diplomatic efforts. I know Karen was pushing this when she was head of [Public Diplomacy at] the State Department. It would be a big help to have a regular institutionalized method for gauging public opinion.
I made a promise to the President when I left that I would do everything in my power to make sure that the relationship between Denmark and America is stronger when I end my job than it was when I arrived. Easy promise to make and it sounded good at the time, but I had no idea that in this age of opposition to the War in Iraq, of opposition to the way we fought the War Against Terror, and reactions to things like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and the allegations of overflights; the fact that America gets blamed for global warming, and peoples’ eating habits around the world—I had no idea how hard that promise would be to make good on. It’s difficult to know if I am succeeding on my promise without having that baseline of data of opinions when I arrived two-and-a-half years ago. Again, anecdotally, I think we’re making an impact, I think we’re doing well, but we need to have that continuous annualized or more frequently taken survey data.
ACR: I think you’re on the right track—pun intended.
Ambassador Cain: We’re good allies in that effort.
ACR: You illustrated very well that your job is not just to talk at the top level of Danish society but you do so many other things. What—besides managing 150 people in 13 agencies and your embassy—what else does an Ambassador do?
Ambassador Cain: We operate on many levels. Fortunately, in our embassy, which is a medium-sized embassy compared to America’s embassies around the world, we have very competent, very capable heads of agency at all of our agencies. I would say a third of my daily job is keeping up with, as a CEO (not a COO—the Deputy Chief Commissioner is a COO—she’s in charge of day-to-day management), is to set direction, policy, inspire, encourage, to basically know what is going on, but not to micro-manage (I do not believe in micro-managing because all these people know a lot more than I do about their jobs—they are professionals). Like I did in the hockey business, I came in from the outside without any prior experience. So I have to have confidence in the people who run these agencies—and I do.
Maybe a third of our time is spent focused on the embassy and the agency environments. Another third is focused on the public outreach that we’ve been talking about—any number of levels. We’ve talked about the bike tour, engaging with the media whenever there is an issue that American needs to respond to, whenever there is a cause that requires us to go on television, or give interviews—we do that and I’d say at least every day there is something. And then there’s the commercial component for what we do. We also are there to promote America’s commercial interests.
ACR: Is Denmark a good commercial partner?
Ambassador Cain: Denmark is a great commercial partner. We have, of course, a trade imbalance with Denmark as we do with most of Europe. The trade with Denmark has grown 70% since I took over as Ambassador, which I am very proud of, but the imbalance has grown about 25% too, so it’s not necessarily growing in the right direction. But I try to spend a lot of time focused on reaching out to American companies who are active in Denmark, and encouraging Danish companies to invest in America. Frankly, I’d rather have 100 new jobs in America than to have $100,000 new exports from America to Denmark, because I think that helps trade imbalance and helps America’s economy more than just exports. So we focus a lot on trying to encourage Danish companies or Scandinavian companies to invest in America, to collaborate with American companies, to do business with America.
ACR: Tell me a little about your Sports Diplomacy initiative.
Ambassador Cain: The thing I think I’ve enjoyed most—second only to the bike tour—is how we’ve been able to reinvigorate America’s sports diplomacy initiative. I think I was the only ambassador appointed in the President’s second term that had a background in professional sports. So when I asked the President and the Secretary if they would let me use my resources in trying to reinvigorate sports diplomacy as a tool, they both immediately said yes—and of course they are both big sports fans too. We put together programs in the summer of 2006 to launch sports diplomacy as a way to reach out to young people in ethnic neighborhoods—first in Denmark, and then in other places in Europe.
 Ambassador Cain visits a "Youth School" in Ishøj, Denmark--a special after school program focusing heavily on the integration of young immigrant Danes. The Ambassador and the Deputy Mayor of Ishøj, Seyit Ahmet Özka, play fussball with some of the school participants.
I went to all of my friends who are all commissioners of America’s big sports teams to ask them to partner with us, and they all sad yes. We had a big launch in the summer of 2006—they sent players and equipment and sponsorship stuff over—that summer we launched a street basketball and hip-hop project. That summer it reached 5,000 young people. This past summer, 2007, it reached over 10,000 young people in Denmark, primarily ethnic kids.
In most of Europe, organized sports is not part of the regular school day. In America we have organized sports as part of our school day from elementary, junior high school all the way through university. That’s not the way it is in Europe. In Europe they have a club system.
When I was a teenager in junior high school, we had integration. Forced bussing to integrate in my hometown, North Carolina; the best tool we had to overcome friction between the blacks and the whites, was playing on sports teams together. That was the best integration tool that I witnessed when I was a young person. And most of Europe does not have that tool because they don’t have sports as a part of their schooling. So we instituted this street basketball project with a great Danish NGO partner to try to bring basketball and hip-hop to the ethnic neighborhoods of Denmark, and it has worked spectacularly well. The NBA and WNBA have been wonderful partners with us. I know that program has grown outside of Denmark. And that actually inspired us to launch our newest project, which we just raised one million dollars for in the most successful private fundraising effort ever in Denmark’s history—again this is a culture where private philanthropy and private charity really is a big part of their life. We raised a million dollars for a series of weeklong leadership camps for young people from ethnic neighborhoods.
Sport is the hook, but it’s really about leadership. It’s about mentoring and teaching and teaching these young people to become role models in their communities, to better integrate their friends and their communities into Danish life, so that we can diminish the anger and discourage the alienation that leads to extremism in these ethnic communities. Europe has a big problem with that, Denmark has a big problem with that—the Danes recognize that—and this tool of sports is (I think) the best way for overcoming that challenge. So we’re partnering with the Danish and American business communities, with the Danish Ministries of Education and recreation and culture, in launching this series of sports camps this summer—which I think is going to be a fabulous success. I hope it is replicated not just in Denmark, but other places in Europe as well.
ACR: Would you tell us a little about the ethnic divisions in Denmark?
Ambassador Cain: Denmark is a very homogeneous society. There are a little over six million people. In the 1970s they started opening their borders for immigrants to fuel the labor force at the low end of their economy. There are about 180,000 Muslim immigrants in Denmark now. A lot from Turkey, a lot from Somalia, a lot from Pakistan, some from Iran, some from Iraq, very varied.
When they were invited in to Denmark in the 1980s, Denmark did what many European countries did, and what many American cities did, and that is they sort of housed them out of town in what we call public housing projects (but they call them ghettos in Denmark). They are very nice but very segregated enclaves of un-integrated ethnicity. And it is from those neighborhoods that since I’ve been ambassador two and a half years, we have had five terrorist plots hatched in process of execution, when they were stopped. And that is where the real problem is. It is in these deeply ethnic neighborhoods of un-integrated anger that we see extremism among young males, in particular, growing in Europe. And if America can share some of our hard-earned lessons through our own integration challenges—again ours is primarily a racial integration challenge, this is ethnic, religious, a different challenge than America had—but our lessons learned are relevant and can be helpful and that is what we’re trying to do.
And we’ve been what I think very effective and very helpful—in a respectful way. Our jobs as diplomats, is not to engage in local issues and local politics of the countries that we are serving in. There are some in Denmark, I know, who think America has no business involved in talking about the problem with ethnic minorities in Denmark. And I think this is the only area where we really are engaged in a local issue inside Denmark. My answer to those critics is this: In this area, America’s vital strategic interests are the same as Denmark’s because those who turn their anger into extremism in the ethnic enclaves of Copenhagen, Frankfurt, London, Bon, and Madrid are not just a danger to Danes and Germans and French and English, but they are a danger to Americans because they can get on a plane almost any time they want to from any of those European cities, and fly to any of the major cities of America—and that makes them a threat to us. That is why it is in America’s interest to engage heavily in encouraging our European allies to address the problem of integration, to share our hard-learned lessons, and to be a good partner; to do what we can to mitigate that anger and encourage the integration of the young people.
ACR: It’s a huge issue in France and a growing issue in other EU countries.
Ambassador Cain: Don’t forget, according to an American survey company, the biggest international news story between 9/11 and last year, bigger than the Tsunami, bigger than the American Presidential Campaigns of 2004, the biggest international news story (if you add up all the seconds of international TV news and all the column inches of newspaper reporting in five years) was the Muhammad cartoon crisis in Denmark in January of 2006. That crisis was Denmark’s worst international crisis since World War II—riots in 27 countries, 109 deaths associated with those riots. Danish embassies torched, flags burned, the Prime Minister hung in effigy; that crisis crystallized for much of the West the challenge that Europe has with dealing with not just ethnic extremists, because that challenge was basically none, but dealing with the growing Muslim population and how that population’s traditions, cultures, and religion are respected and allowed to thrive within the Western World. That episode, the Cartoon Crisis, has made Denmark target number one for the terrorists around the world—maybe target number two if you count America as target number one. But Osama Bin Laden on a publicly released tape about a month ago said Denmark is our number one target. And we know that is where the extremists are focused in Europe and they are focused on those who fundamentally disagree with their attitudes on things like freedom of speech and rights of women and popular will of people.
One thing that has been gratifying in my conversation with young people is the realization that young people all still think of America as the land of opportunity. On my bike tour I was visiting with the student leaders at the University of Arhaus, the second largest university in Denmark. And these young people were the head of student government, head of judicial council, and head of honor board— I said give me your one word or phrase description of America, what is America? They thought for a minute then they said America is the land of opportunity where you can become anything you want to be, dream anything you want to dream, you can take a risk, fail and start again. And we talked about that. It was great to hear these young people think about America in that way because I happen to think—well we know—that is how America was formed and I agree America is a land of opportunity, but young people in America need to understand how unique that is, and how respected and admired—in some ways envied—that is by the rest of the world, or else we’ll lose that inspiration that has always made us the land of opportunity
We have yet to meet a young person in Denmark who had traveled to America who didn’t have very positive feelings about America. We need to get more people traveling to America, and we need to have more people from America traveling not just to Europe, but around the world to become more global and to be great ambassadors because there is no better ambassador for a young person than another young person.
ACR: A lot of our readers are aspiring young people who are looking into entering the Foreign Service. What is your advice to them?
Ambassador Cain: Well, Foreign Service is a very noble career and a very rewarding career and I’ll encourage your readers to give it serious consideration. And if they are thinking about it, I encourage them to focus mainly on two core subjects: the first is history. But, not just American history; you need to understand general history, global history—you really need to understand America’s unique role in the world (why America is unique, why America is the land of opportunity, why America has a unique role in the world in terms of protecting freedom and democracy, and that really comes from the understanding of what America is and where we’ve come from). The second is—and this won’t surprise you—language. First and foremost, they need to focus on the English language. Diplomats are communicators. Their first priority is to communicate the written word and the spoken word. Our young officers in particular do a lot of writing and a lot of reporting, and that takes a strong command of the English language and communication skills. Secondarily, for your own career advancement, you need to have strong multiple-language skills. Depending upon if one’s interest is in Asia, or the Middle East, or Africa, or Europe you can pick your language. Being multi-lingual is the second-best career advancement tool, second only to a strong command of English language.
 Prior to going up to the top of a 80 meter Vestas wind turbine, Ambassador Cain receives security instructions and equipment prior to climbing an 80 meters to the top of a Vestas wind turbine. Danish based Vestas Wind Systems is a world leader in wind energy.
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