The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy
Diplomacy and negotiation — practitioners and scholars including Martti Ahtisaari, Joseph Nye and David Welch on how deals, mediation, crises and persuasion actually work between states.
Mechanisms
Frame the threat as a shared problem
On 27 October Robert Kennedy told the Soviet ambassador that military action might come within days because of pressure on the president.
"He was careful not to describe this as an ultimatum, but as a simple fact." "In framing the problem thus, Robert Kennedy was, in effect, eliciting Dobrynin’s help as an ally against a common problem: namely, hawks in the US government and military."
Why it matters
On 27 October Robert Kennedy told the Soviet ambassador that military action might come within days because of pressure on the president. He then offered the Turkish missiles as a carrot. Welch calls this the single most effective private channel of the crisis.
Use when: You need to convey a deadline without triggering the defiance an ultimatum invites.
Let a neutral party propose your concession
Kennedy prepared a back channel so U Thant could propose the Turkey-for-Cuba missile trade if needed.
"Kennedy evidently felt that the idea would be more palatable to the American public and to NATO allies if Kennedy were seen to be responding to a proposal from the United Nations rather than responding to a Soviet offer, or—worse—offering a trade himself."
Why it matters
Kennedy prepared a back channel so U Thant could propose the Turkey-for-Cuba missile trade if needed. The same concession costs less when it looks like accepting a third party's idea, compared with giving in to the opponent.
Use when: You're willing to concede something but can't be seen offering it.
Constituents need to know why
A deal that surprises the people who must live with it gets rejected even if its terms are good.
"Constituents are less likely to accept an agreement reached if they have not been involved in the process enough to understand why the agreement was designed as it was and why it is the best alternative available."
Why it matters
A deal that surprises the people who must live with it gets rejected even if its terms are good. In Namibia, Ahtisaari's UN staff spread across forty-two offices to build local ownership of the transition.
Use when: You're closing a deal at the top that the wider team will have to carry out.
Unpack and reframe
Johnson lists these among the constructive tactics behind positive-sum deals.
"Reframing—recasting hurdles, problems, or solution options in less adversarial terms, offering integrative solutions with mutual gains." "Unpacking—in which a problem is disaggregated or separated into its constituent parts to facilitate incremental agreement or progress."
Why it matters
Johnson lists these among the constructive tactics behind positive-sum deals. Breaking a deadlocked issue into parts lets the parties bank agreement where they can. Reframing makes the remaining gap feel shared instead of adversarial.
Use when: A negotiation is stuck on one big all-or-nothing issue.
Arguments
Time to cool down saved the world
Both leaders' first reactions were rage.
"As the audiotapes of deliberations on the first day of the private week make clear, Kennedy’s initial inclination was to respond at a minimum with air strikes against Soviet missile sites." "The world is fortunate that Kennedy had a full week and Khrushchev nearly two full days in which to calm down and reflect."
Why it matters
Both leaders' first reactions were rage. Delays from secrecy and from getting OAS approval for the quarantine gave them time to move past it. Welch worries that today's instant information would deny leaders that week.
Use when: You've just been provoked and the pressure is on to answer today.
Only the parties can make the peace
Ahtisaari warns that focusing on the mediator disempowers the parties and suggests peace comes from outside.
"It is the negotiators who matter, not the mediators—but in some cases mediators can help." "Mediation cannot succeed unless the right people are at the negotiating table."
Why it matters
Ahtisaari warns that focusing on the mediator disempowers the parties and suggests peace comes from outside. The people at the table must be able to deliver their side. If a group has no legitimate leader, he says there is no point mediating until one emerges.
Use when: You're brokering a deal and one side has sent someone who can't commit.
Lead from a circle, not a mountain
Joseph Nye argues that attraction works through credibility.
"Leaders need to think of themselves as being in a circle rather than atop a mountain. That means that two-way communications are more effective than commands." "Soft power may appear less risky than economic or military power, but it is often hard to use, easy to lose, and costly to re-establish."
Why it matters
Joseph Nye argues that attraction works through credibility. Credibility collapses when the audience senses manipulation. Two-way exchange persuades better than broadcasting, but results are slow and governments don't control all the tools.
Use when: You're trying to win people over by announcing things at them.
Whose story wins
Nye says governments now compete for credibility with media, companies, NGOs and scientific networks.
"Politics has become a contest of competitive credibility. The world of traditional power politics is typically about whose military or economy wins."
Why it matters
Nye says governments now compete for credibility with media, companies, NGOs and scientific networks. Politics in an information age may come down to whose story wins. Reputation turns into a contested asset that can be built or destroyed.
Use when: You're relying on authority or size to win an argument that is really about who is believed.
Concepts
Name the stall when you see it
Rebecca Johnson's catalogue of arms-control tactics gives names to blocking moves that rarely say no outright.
"Waiting for Godot—interminably delaying for the arrival of some mythical moment when the time is perfectly ripe." "Quicksand—bogging an initiative down in questions, objections, or demands for definitions or an inquiry." "Ping-Pong—shunting an issue back and forth between different committees, institutions, or negotiating forums."
Why it matters
Rebecca Johnson's catalogue of arms-control tactics gives names to blocking moves that rarely say no outright. Once you can name the stall, you can respond to the tactic instead of answering every new question.
Use when: A proposal is going nowhere through endless questions, studies and referrals.
Fronting and slipstreaming
In multiparty talks the loudest hardliner isn't always the only one who wants the hard line.
"Slipstreaming—concealing preferences behind the positions of another state or delegation." "Fronting—a form of collaborative slipstreaming, in which one delegation adopts a position that is stronger than its own interests would require, enabling others to benefit by coasting in its wake."
Why it matters
In multiparty talks the loudest hardliner isn't always the only one who wants the hard line. Others may let a front-runner carry the cost of the position they quietly share. Reading who's coasting tells you where the real opposition sits.
Use when: One party is carrying a tough position alone in a group negotiation and the others are quiet.
Moving the goalposts, best versus good
Both are defection tactics that let a party block a deal while appearing more ambitious than everyone else.
"Moving the goalposts—whatever is achievable becomes by definition inadequate so that the reachable is perpetually ditched for a more inaccessible position." "Best versus good—rejecting adequate or useful agreements on the grounds that they do not match up with some grander but less practical or accessible ideal."
Why it matters
Both are defection tactics that let a party block a deal while appearing more ambitious than everyone else. They also catch sincere idealists, who walk away from a usable agreement while waiting for a perfect one.
Use when: Each time a deal gets close, someone declares it not good enough.
Evidence
Every public statement has two audiences
David Welch finds that broadcast diplomacy before the Cuban missile crisis largely failed.
"Public bluff and bluster intended to induce caution often induced risk-taking." "Khrushchev had no way of knowing whether this statement was intended for a domestic audience or for him."
Why it matters
David Welch finds that broadcast diplomacy before the Cuban missile crisis largely failed. Kennedy's September warning could be read as campaign talk for the midterms, which made Khrushchev's secret deployment look survivable. A message meant for one audience gets decoded by another.
Use when: You're sending a warning through a public channel and assuming the target will read it the way you meant it.
Don't spend your trusted channel on a lie
Khrushchev used the Robert Kennedy and Bolshakov back channel to promise he wouldn't rock the boat before the midterms, while missiles were on their way.
"In short, Khrushchev squandered on deception the one channel of communication President Kennedy trusted, complicating trust-building during the crisis itself."
Why it matters
Khrushchev used the Robert Kennedy and Bolshakov back channel to promise he wouldn't rock the boat before the midterms, while missiles were on their way. When the crisis came, the one line Kennedy believed in had already been burned.
Use when: You're tempted to use a relationship built on candor to deliver a convenient falsehood.
Ignored allies send the bill later
Castro learned of the withdrawal after it was agreed and blocked UN inspections out of anger.
"Khrushchev, as I have already mentioned, treated Castro paternalistically and at no time seriously solicited his views." "Castro made clear that the price of his continued loyalty in the face of Khrushchev’s gross mistreatment would be billions of dollars’ worth of economic and military support year after year."
Why it matters
Castro learned of the withdrawal after it was agreed and blocked UN inspections out of anger. The Soviet Union then paid for years. Leaving a junior partner out of a deal made over their head has costs that arrive after the crisis.
Use when: You're settling something that affects a partner who isn't in the room.
Agree on what the words mean
Khrushchev agreed to remove the weapons Kennedy considered "offensive" and believed that meant strategic missiles.
"But when American and Soviet negotiators met at the United Nations in New York to finalize the terms of the resolution, the Soviets were shocked to discover that the United States considered a long list of things ‘offensive’, including cruise missiles, obsolete Il-28 jet light bombers, air-to-surface rockets, guided missiles, motor torpedo boats, associated bombs or warheads, and a variety of communications and support equipment."
Why it matters
Khrushchev agreed to remove the weapons Kennedy considered "offensive" and believed that meant strategic missiles. The undefined word set off a month-long "November crisis." A settlement's key terms need definitions before anyone celebrates.
Use when: You've reached agreement in principle and the central term hasn't been spelled out.
Build a workaround when the formal check fails
Castro refused UN inspection, which was the agreed verification.
"It is a mark of the trust that Kennedy and Khrushchev had been able to build during the public week of the crisis and the early part of November that they managed a work-around whereby the Soviets permitted American reconnaissance planes to photograph departing weapons on the decks of homebound ships."
Why it matters
Castro refused UN inspection, which was the agreed verification. Instead of letting the deal collapse, the two sides found another way to see the missiles leave. Verification can be redesigned when both parties want the deal to hold.
Use when: The agreed method of checking compliance has been blocked by someone outside the deal.
Definitions
Negotiation, in one sentence
The definition builds in a test most deal-makers skip.
"…‘negotiation is getting something by giving something, and it is the search for solutions when there are conflicts of interest between countries that meet the foreign policy goals of one country while giving enough to another to motivate it to keep its promises’."
Why it matters
The definition builds in a test most deal-makers skip. A deal has to leave the other side enough to keep honoring it once the signing is over. Winning terms the counterpart will walk away from is a loss postponed.
Use when: You're pushing for the best possible terms and haven't asked whether the other side will still want to comply next year.
Rules
Empathy is a working tool
Kennedy and Khrushchev stumbled into the crisis by misreading each other.
"It is difficult to solve a tangible conflict of interest without understanding one’s protagonist’s wants, needs, fears, and general understanding of the world." "The handmaiden of empathy is trust."
Why it matters
Kennedy and Khrushchev stumbled into the crisis by misreading each other. Once the shock hit, they understood each other within days through limited, clumsy exchanges. Welch draws the lesson that empathy finds the settlement and trust lets you implement it.
Use when: You're trying to resolve a dispute without a real model of what the other side fears.
Be an honest broker, not a neutral one
Martti Ahtisaari, who mediated in Namibia, Aceh and Kosovo, separates impartiality toward the parties from neutrality on the issues.
"I much prefer the term ‘honest broker’. For me it is important that the negotiating parties know who I am, what I stand for, and where I draw the red lines." "The more mediators hide their influence, the more they actually increase their chance of being seen as manipulative."
Why it matters
Martti Ahtisaari, who mediated in Namibia, Aceh and Kosovo, separates impartiality toward the parties from neutrality on the issues. Norway's Sri Lanka mediators pressed on children's rights while staying balanced between the sides. Declared positions earn more trust than a pose of having none.
Use when: You're mediating between two people or teams and feel you have to hide your own views.
Test motives instead of pleading
A mediator who begs the parties to talk has lost leverage and may legitimize a dominant side's conduct.
"Mediation may not be the right answer when the parties do not demonstrate serious intent to explore a political solution. In such circumstances, the mediator needs to test parties’ motives and avoid pleading for the engagement."
Why it matters
A mediator who begs the parties to talk has lost leverage and may legitimize a dominant side's conduct. Ahtisaari would rather do pre-negotiation work, such as unofficial dialogue and capacity-building, until the situation is ripe.
Use when: You're chasing a reluctant party to the table and wondering why each round goes nowhere.
Spoilers don't get a seat, but they get heard
People who lose from a deal will try to wreck it.
"The greatest source of risk often comes from spoilers—leaders and parties who believe that peace emerging from negotiations threatens their power, world view, and interests, and use violence to try and undermine the process." "Spoilers do not automatically get a seat at the negotiation table, but they must be listened to."
Why it matters
People who lose from a deal will try to wreck it. Ahtisaari's answer is multi-track outreach that lets issues be reframed until more people see a stake in the outcome. He doesn't hand spoilers a veto.
Use when: Someone who loses from a pending agreement is quietly working against it.
Signing is the beginning
Ahtisaari notes that many peace agreements revert to violence within a few years.
"A peace agreement is not the end, it is the beginning. The implementation of the treaty and resulting democratic changes within the society are the true test of the agreement and will take several years."
Why it matters
Ahtisaari notes that many peace agreements revert to violence within a few years. Quick support for implementation reassures uncertain parties and shows early results. Treating the signature as the finish line leaves the hardest part unfunded.
Use when: A hard-won agreement has just been signed and attention is moving elsewhere.
Listen and then think
The advice comes from Jean-David Levitte, foreign policy adviser to two French presidents, as reported by David Malone.
"What is his advice? Above all, ‘listen and then think’ before speaking." "On one level, this may appear elementary, but the dynamics of contemporary society militate against listening, reflection, and learning, not least as social media and electronic communication (through blogging and otherwise) have unleashed a torrent of self-expression not always matched by eagerness to learn."
Why it matters
The advice comes from Jean-David Levitte, foreign policy adviser to two French presidents, as reported by David Malone. It sounds basic, but the incentives run against it: politicians score points for speaking to their own side first.
Use when: You're preparing what to say in a meeting where you haven't yet heard the other side.