If we’ve heard that saying once over the last century, we’ve heard it a million times.
As diplomatic manoeuvrings failed miserably in the summer of 1914 to prevent the cataclysm of World War I, exhausted negotiators were at a loss to figure out what happened. Why did the old diplomatic verities that had worked so well for more than a century fail in this instance to prevent a general European war?
The short answer is that most of the parties wanted war. Or refused to take advantage of any “out” that was offered. This was due to the suicidal interlocking alliance system that assured smaller, weaker states dictated whether the great powers went to war or not.
Germany was at the mercy of Franz Joseph’s Austria-Hungarian Empire whose ultimatum to Serbia following the Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination automatically dragged the Czar and Russia into any potential conflict. This made French participation inevitable as well as Britain’s forced march to disaster. Talking, it appears, was useless.
The war so horrified civilized people everywhere that new diplomatic paradigms were invented to deal with conflicts. International organizations were constituted in order to give belligerents a forum to air their grievances. A blizzard of treaties were agreed to outlawing war itself, placing limits on naval tonnage, establishing uniform methods of dealing with POW’s, chemical weapons, and a host of other war related issues.
A fat lot of good it all did. Almost exactly 20 years after the Versailles Treaty was signed ending the first World War, Adolph Hitler deliberately launched the second.
But Hitler’s actions prior to the war were unique in history. He used diplomacy not for the purposes of conflict resolution, but to legitimize his power grabs. Skillfully blending a masterful propaganda campaign with an in your face negotiating style, Hitler cowed both the British and French into accepting his vision of “A Greater Germany” that included a re militarization of the Rhineland, Aunchluss with Austria, the absorption of the Sudetenland into the Reich, and the final destruction of the Czech rump state as poor President Emil Hacha was verbally abused into handing what was left of his country over to the Nazis.
And yet, even as evidence of Hitler’s use of diplomacy as another kind of warfare piled up before their eyes, both Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier convinced themselves that as long as they were talking, Hitler wouldn’t go to war. This use of negotiations not to solve problems but simply to carry on with the diplomatic niceties – negotiations for the sake of negotiating – led directly to World War II. Thanks to extensive records captured after the war, we know now that Hitler always intended to go to war with France and England and nothing those two nations did would have stopped him. But would the Allies have discovered this if they had not been so in love with the diplomatic process? If, for instance, a more hard eyed approach to dealing with Germany exposed Hitler for the deal breaker that he turned out to be, could France and Britain have been forced to act militarily before Hitler was ready?
This has been bothering me for months as the Israel-Palestinian war erupted and the Iranian/North Korean problems moved center stage. The fact of the matter is, I have zero confidence that negotiations with any of those parties will serve any other purpose than advancing their own plans for evil. Negotiations have been nearly continuous between Israel and the Palestinians for nearly 60 years and one must look realistically at what those talks have achieved. Is Israel safer? Do the Palestinians have a homeland? How much real progress has been made? Diplomats point to concessions made by Israel that have ceded land and sovereignty to the Palestinians. But has this made Israel safer, more secure?
Does anyone save Hosni Mubarak in Egypt view the Israelis with anything but hate and loathing? A similar question could be asked of the Jordanians or any other Arab state. Despots all whose hold on power is dependent on the barrel of a gun could be overthrown tomorrow. And 60 years of “negotiating” would be seen for the utterly futile exercise it truly is.
The Palestinians have no interest in living peacefully with a Jewish state. They wish that state gone. Through 60 years of negotiating, they have refused to recognize even the reality of that state’s existence. But somehow, “negotiations” are the end all and be all of statecraft and the proprieties must be observed.
I find similar myopia when it comes to Iran and North Korea. Here’s former Carter National Security Advisor who sums up the striped pants position perfectly:
Why won’t the Bush administration talk bilaterally and substantively with NK, as the Brits (and eventually the US) did with Libya? Because the Bush administration sees diplomacy as something to be engaged in with another country as a reward for that country’s good behavior. They seem not to see diplomacy as a tool to be used with antagonistic countries or parties, that might bring about an improvement in the behaviour of such entities, and a resolution to the issues that trouble us. Thus we do not talk to Iran, Syria, Hizballah or North Korea. We only talk to our friends—a huge mistake.
Talking solely for the reason that this is the way it’s always been done and doing or trying anything differently is crazy seems to be the position of our foreign policy elites. You can’t really blame them. It was how they were trained. The diplomatic dance is successful when both parties are rational and both parties see an advantage in reaching an agreement. Civil wars in Africa especially have lent themselves to negotiated settlement for this reason.
What advantage would accrue to Iran in reaching an agreement? I mean a real agreement that totally dismantled their nuclear program under strict and intrusive inspections. More importantly, how could we be sure that they would adhere to the agreement in the first place? Diplomats like to talk about “confidence building measures” and other intermediate steps before reaching an accord with an adversary. But what do you do when one party to the negotiations is not interested in settlement but rather in using the talks as a way to delay sanctions, or military action, or world condemnation, or any other fallout that would occur if and when the negotiations fail?
This is the great conundrum facing the Bush Administration with Iran. North Korea proved that they couldn’t be trusted as the paper mache “Agreed Framework” turned out to be nothing more than a way to put American policy makers to sleep while Kim continued his enrichment activities. When the Bush Administration called the North Koreans on their cheating, they unilaterally abandoned the agreement and brought their activities into the open. The six power talks, where it was believed China and Russia could convince Kim to stop his mad rush for the bomb, proved in the end to be useless. One wonders if China, who supplies the North Koreans with 90% of their fuel oil couldn’t dissuade Kim how the United States in bi-lateral talks could have done any better (without giving Kim another huge bribe as the Clinton Administration did with the Agreed Framework).
In a very roundabout way I am questioning this paradigm that posits the notion that negotiations – even if they won’t accomplish anything – are always preferable to the alternatives (not necessarily military). If only one side in the negotiations is seeking agreement while the other side wishes to use the talks to achieve the goals that the negotiations are trying to forestall, isn’t it common sense to ask why bother?
The old verities and certainties did not work on North Korea. They are not working with the Palestinians. And it is an open question whether they will work with Iran. One could legitimately ask then that if we don’t have negotiations, don’t we de facto have a state of war?
Not necessarily. There are still measures short of war that could be undertaken to dissuade an adversary from engaging in activities that are clearly unacceptable to the world at large. Sanctions and other measures that isolate an aggressive nation could – if they are broad enough and sting enough, threatening the stability and survival of the regime – accomplish far more than any negotiations ever could.
Unfortunately, that just wouldn’t be possible. Diplomats live to negotiate. And negotiating simply for the sake of talking would appear to be the preference of a world community who one day will wake up and realize that all of the talk expended over Iran and North Korea was as worthless as the rubble that will be left behind when one of their cities lies in ruins.
8:13 pm
Well done Rick. That’s EXACTLY it..diplomacy as a self perpetuating institution.
Diplomacy only works when both sides perceive they have something to lose, and something to gainby dealing.
That’s why it’s futile with North Korea and Iran.
****
Actually,re: the Middle East, the notion of a second Arab Palestinian State (Jordan is the first) is one of the main things
keeping the the Arab -Israeli conflict going, or at least providing the rationale for it to the Arabs and those in the West who favor their cause.
Without their `Palestinian brothers’ the other Arab nations (who have all, without exception treated the Palestinians who sought refuge in their countries after the 1948 Arab attack on Israel much worse than the Israelis) would have no excuse for continuing the conflict except for the actual reason: that they refuse to accept Jews living among them in peace and equality.
Solve that one, and where the borders are become relatively unimportant.
It’s the supreme irony that the hated Jews of Israel are the only nation in the Middle East that has actually given any land at all to the Palestinians..whereas their fellow Arabs have not given them so much as one square dunam.
5:09 am
Kim Jong Il’s Hot Young Despots Chat Room
There’s no sense in even asking us. Because we can’t tell you. We just can’t disclose the nature of our unique (and some would say illegal) terrorist surveillance technology. Suffice it to say that many have tried to emulate our Blogotronic™ chat-ro…
7:12 am
War is merely diplomacy by another means.
If there are any hard and proven facts that resonate throughout the history of mankind there is one absolute undeniable truth: you can not negotiate with anyone who thinks that he has carte blanche from God to do his will or that he IS God.
We see the former in Iranian president Armegeddon-eye-jab and the later in Kim Il and Hugo Chavez. In all of these cases there is only one way to deal with them and it involves blood and death. Either you assassinate them or you pound their countries into submission.
The options are not good, but they are what they are. We are wasting time and money in useless talk.
8:52 am
[...] Rick Moran, with a wonderful essay on the failings of negotiation in the past 100 years, with contemporary implications. Go read this while I get ready for another day of Dinosaur Jigsaw down at the museum… Right Wing Nut House » “AS LONG AS WE’RE TALKING, WE’RE NOT SHOOTING AT EACH OTHER†And yet, even as evidence of Hitler’s use of diplomacy as another kind of warfare piled up before their eyes, both Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier convinced themselves that as long as they were talking, Hitler wouldn’t go to war. This use of negotiations not to solve problems but simply to carry on with the diplomatic niceties – negotiations for the sake of negotiating – led directly to World War II. Thanks to extensive records captured after the war, we know now that Hitler always intended to go to war with France and England and nothing those two nations did would have stopped him. But would the Allies have discovered this if they had not been so in love with the diplomatic process? If, for instance, a more hard eyed approach to dealing with Germany exposed Hitler for the deal breaker that he turned out to be, could France and Britain have been forced to act militarily before Hitler was ready? [...]
10:55 am
[...] Right Wing Nut House has a wonderfully written essay posted today, “As Long As We’re Talking, We’re Not Shooting At Each Otherâ€. [...]
11:05 am
Individual Thinkers
A person that will stand up for what they believe is right, despite what their party thinks, despite the fact that it may not “look” popular to those that do not have the same information in front of them, yet they stand firm in their decisions, that…
11:20 am
Excellent fact finding you did here, but also from what i read here is also that history repeats itself because the lessons from the last teachings(WWI/WWII/KOREAN WAR)WERE AND ARE TOALLY IGNORED. Now then, given this I want to add something that Genral Douglas MacArthur told the world from the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay at the end of WWII, “We have had our last chance”
!
11:28 am
Nixon and Mao in Beijing. Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik. Damn foolishness and striped pants.
11:35 am
Rational actors all, Milo. As I point out above (something you obviously didn’t bother reading) “The diplomatic dance is successful when both parties are rational and both parties see an advantage in reaching an agreement.
Nixon’s “Triangular Diplomacy” worked because both we and the Chinese were worried about Russia. Gorby absolutely had to come to an agreement on arms control in order to lower the defense budget so that the Soviet economy would succeed (Reagan saw the political and psychological benefits of a thaw with the Soviets at that time).
Your shallow critique falls apart at first glance. Try again.
12:36 pm
Actually, Reagan’s top negotiators and advisors had no idea what he was doing.
And what is this rational you speak of? Does it apply to Cheney and Bush? You do know that “God’s gift” is faith speak and not rational speak, right?
6:30 pm
Small nit, but you quote Donald Gregg and identify him as “former Carter National Security Advisor.” His bio is somewhat different.
Donald Gregg was a CIA official since 1951 and a liaison to President Carter’s National Security Council and, National Security Advisor to Vice President George H.W. Bush and U.S. ambassador to South Korea from 1989 to 1993. He’s now chairman of the board of the Korea Society
2:26 am
Submitted for Your Approval
Submitted for Your Approval First off… any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now… here are all the links submitted by members of the Watcher’s Council for t…
9:25 am
Diplomacy only works when there is a detente between the two disputing factions. clearly, Iran doesn’t have anything to lose in this process, but can we really afford to go to war with Iran now? Hard line stances will only work if the other party knows there is fear of reprisal. Iran knows we are tied down because of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, the Palestinians are the only one we can really deal with right now. If we neutralize that situation, a great deal of pressure will be relieved from the overinflated balloon known as the Middle East. Palestinians for the most part are willing to deal with the fact there is a nation called Israel. However, as time passes by with a large portion of the people in refugee camps, the support for Islamofacism will increase.
10:59 am
[...] Right Wing Nut House, “As Long As We’re Talking, We’re Not Shooting At Each Other†[...]
10:32 am
Watchers of weasels 10/11/06
Council nominations are in, voting is taking place. Here are the entries for the other members of the watcher’s council. AbbaGav explains why we need generals prosecuting wars, not lawyers In prosecuting the Global Litigation Against Terror, it is cle…
1:32 am
The Council Has Spoken!
First off… any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here, and here. Die spambots, die! And now… the winning entries in the Watcher’s Council vote for this week are “As Long As We’re Talking, We’r…
7:55 am
[...] The Watcher’s Council has announced its picks for the most outstanding posts of the preceding week. The winning Council post was Right Wing Nut House’s post, “As Long As We’re Talking, We’re Not Shooting At One Anotherâ€. Second place honors went to ShrinkWrapped’s “Changesâ€. [...]
8:48 am
The Council Has Spoken …
For the second week in a row, the Watcher had to break a first place tie among Council Posts and for the second week in a row, he decided my post should be second. Luckily, for the second week in
9:44 am
Methinks the Bush administration knew the six party talks were bound to fail but instead of placing the blame for that squarely on the norks where it belongs wanted someone to share it with.
They knew no one would place blame in the irrational party where it belongs because it will do no good after all they are irrational; and the goal of the blamers in the press and politics is to get action or demonize, so they looked for partners to share the burden.
8:48 am
Good job!! Although Chamberlin gets a bum rap. After his “agreement” with Hitler, Britain substantially increased defense spending and used the time to build the fighter aircraft which later played a key part in the Battle of Brittain.
Note it was not diplomacy that cooled Lybia but our bombing of Kadafee’s strongholds and family.
4:36 pm
[...] PUNDIT VINCE AUT MORIRE VODKAPUNDIT WALLO WORLD WIDE AWAKES WIZBANG WUZZADEM ZERO POINT BLOG THE COUNCIL HAS SPOKEN ARE PRE MORTEM REYNOLDISTAS SABATOGING THE GOP? IS A REPUBLICAN COMEBACK IN THE CARDS? A REAL Admin Login Register Valid XHTML XFN Design by: Hosted by: Powered by: 10/19/2006 THE COUNCIL HAS SPOKEN CATEGORY: WATCHER’SCOUNCIL [...]
2:56 pm
[...] “As Long As We’re Talking, We’re Not Shooting At Each Other”Right Wing Nut House [...]
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