Antony Blinken, President Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, appears to be sailing through the Senate. Blinken’s hearing last week illustrated how fresh leadership can return diplomacy to its rightful place at the center of U.S. foreign policy. But it also emphasized Biden’s need to be more circumspect of Blinken’s advice.

The contrast between Blinken and his predecessor, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is stark. While Pompeo spent his last two weeks in office tweeting about “swagger,” Blinken is a diplomat of the classic midcentury style. He boasts an elite education and fluency in French. Rebuilding America’s diplomatic infrastructure is necessary to “revitalize American diplomacy to deal with and take on the most pressing challenges of our time,” Blinken said, to “engage the world, not as it was, but as it is.” This call for realistic, robust diplomacy is long overdue. So too is Blinken’s push to “restore Congress’s traditional role as a partner in our foreign policy.”