Undersecretary of state for management John R. Bass, chosen as Nuland's temporary replacement, is a carbon copy of his predecessor.
Who is John Bass?
Bass began his diplomatic career in 1988 and has served in US missions in Iraq, Italy, Belgium, Chad, Georgia, Turkiye and Afghanistan.
Bass was special assistant for Europe and Eurasia to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott between 1998 and 2000. He was one of the US negotiating team focused on Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War, when NATO invaded Yugoslavia and subjected the European country to brutal air strikes from March 24 to June 10, 1999.
In 2000 Talbott promoted Bass to his chief of staff, tasked with coordinating policy on arms reduction with Russia.
Like Victoria Nuland, Bass later served as a special advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, the architect of the 2003 Iraq war. Between 2004 and 2005 Bass advised Cheney on developments in Europe and Eurasia.
Bass was dispatched to Iraq in 2008 as leader of the Baghdad Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) made up of soldiers, sailors, airmen, career diplomats, engineers and city planners to "develop a normal relationship between the US and Iraq." However, after just a year of that assignment Bass was redeployed to Georgia by then President Barack Obama.
Meddling in Post-War Georgia Affairs
Bass served as a US Ambassador to Georgia between 2009 and 2012 and arrived to the country as it was recovering from then-President Mikhail Saakashvili's military adventurism.
During his time as ambassador to Georgia Bass played a role in scuppering the Franco-Russian contract for sale of two amphibious assault ships to Russia.
He wrote a cable dated November 19, 2009 that called the deal "the wrong ship from the wrong country at the wrong time."
"The symbolism of France, the broker of the ceasefire and a major NATO ally, taking this particular opportunity to make one of NATO's biggest sales ever to Russia will not be missed in Moscow or in Tbilisi," claimed Bass. "Not only on the symbolic level is the sale problematic; this type of ship will give Russia a new capability to enforce, or threaten to enforce, its will in the Black Sea."
Bass was slammed by the Georgian opposition for meddling in the nation's affairs in 2011 by supporting a government crackdown on protesters. His diplomatic mission to Georgia ended when he was made executive secretary at the State Department in 2012.
Setting US-Turkiye Relations 'Ablaze'
Bass' next overseas posting was to Turkiye, where once again faced accusations of interference in domestic affairs.
Bass served as the US Ambassador to Ankara between 2014 and 2017. On July 15, 2016, a faction of the Turkish Armed Forces attempted a coup d'etat agaisnt President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In October 2017, Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak lambasted Bass for setting bilateral Turkish- American relations "ablaze," charging that Bass had "continually and provocatively come out in support of terrorist organizations during his three-year tenure as US envoy in Ankara." The newspaper accused Bass of falsely claiming the US had not armed to Kurdish separatists and of protecting Fethullah Gulen's associates.
Bass and Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal
Between 2017 and 2020 Bass served as a US Ambassador to Afghanistan. His departure coincided with the Trump administration striking a peace deal with the Taliban*, under which US forces would pull out unmolested.
Remarkably, Biden chose none other but Bass to supervise the retreat. Franklin Foer's book The Last Politician describes the administration's impotence as the Taliban took over. It tells Bass was in the middle of teaching future US diplomats at the Foreign Service Institute when in mid-August he was forced to return to Kabul because his successor, acting Ambassador Ross Wilson, was not "able to function at the level that was necessary to complete the job on his own."
"Bass hadn’t expected the request," the book reads. "Without knowing much more than what was in the news, Bass rushed to board a plane taking him to the worst crisis in the recent history of American foreign policy."
However, Bass' return to Kabul failed to save the day for the US forces and their Afghan allies.
After Nuland's surprising resignation, Bass is about to be thrown into yet another crisis the White House cannot control. The Ukrainian military suffered a string of defeats since summer with no face-saving exit in sight.
The seasoned diplomat will have to bear this burden until a permanent replacement for Victoria Nuland is found. According to the US media, the favorite to succeed Nuland is the current US ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith, a one-time Pentagon official and former deputy national security adviser to then-Vice President Biden.
* designated extremists by the UN