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- Herausgeber: Ullstein eBooks
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Deutsch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
What is diplomacy? An art, a craft? Or something in between? Is there such a thing as a diplomatic secret recipe? What actually makes a good diplomat? What tips and tricks help to break the deadlock? When does humor help, when only bluffing? How do diplomatic cultures and styles differ in different countries? How undiplomatic can, and perhaps even must, a diplomat sometimes be? How does the work of today's diplomats differ from that of their predecessors? And why do we need diplomats today, when half the world is just a click away from the next video conference? In this book, renowned companions of Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger - including several current and former heads of state and government - reflect on basic questions of diplomacy. Taking the reader behind the scenes of diplomacy, they reveal their most astonishing experiences, successes, and failures on the diplomatic stage, or outline their ideas for the diplomatic handling of unresolved challenges. A book for anyone who wants to better understand what matters when negotiating war and peace. The eBook for The Art of Diplomacy is a text only edition and (for technical reasons) does not contain the illustrations of the printed edition!
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The book
What is diplomacy? Is it an art or a craft? Or is it something in between? Is there such a thing as a diplomatic secret sauce? What actually makes a good diplomat? Which tips and tricks can help break deadlocks? When does humor help, and when is it important to bluff? How do diplomatic cultures and styles differ between different countries? How undiplomatic can, and perhaps even must, a diplomat occasionally be? How does the work of today's diplomats differ from that of their predecessors? And why do we even need diplomats today, when half the world is just a click away from the next video conference?
In this book, a series of Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger's renowned colleagues —including several current and former heads of state and government—reflect on such basic questions of diplomacy. Taking the reader behind the scenes of diplomacy, they reveal their most surprising experiences, successes, and failures on the diplomatic stage, and outline their ideas for the diplomatic handling of unresolved challenges. This is a book for anyone who wants to better understand the things that matter when negotiating war and peace.
The editors
Dr. Tobias Bunde studied in Dresden, Strasbourg, Washington, and Berlin. He is Director of Research & Policy at the Munich Security Conference and conducts research at the Centre for International Security at the Hertie School in Berlin.
Dr. Benedikt Franke studied in Cambridge, Washington, and Bologna and worked for a long time for former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He has been Executive Director of the Munich Security Conference since 2014.
Tobias Bunde & Benedikt Franke (Eds.)
THE ART OF DIPLOMACY
75 Views Behind the Scenes of World Politics
Econ
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ISBN 978-3-8437-2760-0
© Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH,
Berlin 2022
Editors
Tobias Bunde & Benedikt Franke
Munich Security Conference
Editorial team
Ulrike Strauss & Nardine Luca
Munich Security Conference
Copyediting
Rick Madsen @ Fortuna Communication, Tübingen
Translation
Nikolas Bertheau
Photography and art consulting
Michael Kuhlmann
Art direction
Morian & Bayer-Eynck, Coesfeld
Book jacket
Morian & Bayer-Eynck, Coesfeld
Editorial closing December 15, 2021. This book went to print in December 2021. The contributions of the authors reflect their personal opinions.
E-Book: LVD GmbH, Berlin
All rights reserved.
Speak Softly and Carry a Big Book
Tobias Bunde and Benedikt Franke
It is not easy to define diplomacy. What is its essence? Is it an art, a craft, or something in between? What is good diplomacy . . . what isn’t? As you will read in this book, there are manifold perspectives on diplomacy—and countless definitions, too. One of the most famous stems from President Theodore Roosevelt, who was known for his “big stick diplomacy” and described his diplomatic maxim by referring to a proverb: “speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”1 For this book, we engaged in what can be called “big book diplomacy” and adopted an only slightly adapted version of Roosevelt’s dictum: speak softly and carry a big book. We hope it sticks.
The reason for this book is simple. In April 2021, Wolfgang Ischinger, our long-time boss and mentor at the Munich Security Conference and beyond, turned seventy five. To celebrate him and his lifetime achievements, we decided to compile seventy-five contributions about the art of diplomacy. Neither we—nor he—wanted this to be a book about him. We wanted to edit a book for him—and for all the others who, like him, believe in the power of diplomacy. Ceci n’est pas une Festschrift—or so we thought.
To end up with seventy-five contributions we decided to write to one hundred of Wolfgang’s closest associates and long-standing friends and partners and ask them to send us their favorite instructive anecdotes about the myriad ways in which diplomacy works. What we got back stunned us. For one, not seventy-five, but almost all one hundred immediately agreed to contribute. Second, despite our instructions to the contrary, almost everyone handed in anecdotes that included Wolfgang in one way or another. While we engaged in hefty “editing diplomacy” (try telling a sitting president to rewrite his contribution), it quickly became clear just how important personality and character are to a diplomat’s success. Without them, not much is possible. With them, almost everything is. As the many references to him we had to remove testify, Wolfgang Ischinger has both in abundance.
In a way, Wolfgang is the “Forrest Gump” of German diplomacy. Since the early 1980s, he has almost always been where the real action took place. Starting as a young diplomat in the office of then foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, he witnessed the heated debates about the deployment of Pershing II missiles in Germany and the ensuing détente that allowed the Cold War to end peacefully. At the end of the decade, he was one of the West German diplomats who accompanied the trains with East German refugees who had fled to the German Embassy in Prague. As head of the Political Department in the German embassy in Paris, he witnessed the birth of the Charter of Paris in 1990. As head of Policy Planning and political director of the Federal Foreign Office, he was in the midst of Germany making its first steps as a unified country trying to find its role in a different era. He represented Germany in the Contact Group during the Balkan Wars and was among the negotiators in the Dayton Peace Agreement. He also participated in the negotiation of the NATO-Russia Founding Act, another milestone of diplomacy in the 1990s. As state secretary, he played a key role in the negotiations that led to the creation of Operation Allied Force and the Balkan Stability Pact in 1999. Given this background, it is perhaps not surprising that he was the German ambassador in the United States on September 11, 2001. In fact, it was his first day in office. To this day, his reputation in the US still draws on the very special mark he left during his tenure in Washington, DC.
Following two years as ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, including a stint as the representative of the European Union in the Kosovo Troika that tried to find a solution to the status of Kosovo, in 2008 the German government asked Wolfgang to take over as chairman of the Munich Security Conference (MSC). He quickly breathed new life into this venerable organization that was founded by Ewald von Kleist as Wehrkundetagung in 1963, and over the years has become an indispensable family gathering for the transatlantic community. What started out as an annual conference, is now a highly efficient private diplomacy service provider and the world’s leading platform for the debate of foreign and security policy. Still transatlantic to its core, the MSC regularly hosts the world’s top decision makers on its stages around the world and publishes reports to draw attention to particular challenges. Almost all the pictures illustrating this book (in a way adding the art to the diplomacy) have been taken at MSC events over the past decade.
Even while steering the MSC through the last decade, Wolfgang continued to accept special diplomatic missions. For instance he served as the Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for National Dialogue Roundtables in Ukraine and as the chairman of the Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security as a Common Project, as well as in countless track two efforts or expert commissions, trying to find peaceful solutions to difficult problems—from nuclear arms control to cybersecurity. In each of these roles, he could rely on his key strengths, which make him the quintessential diplomat—his readiness to engage, to listen, and to remain open to other views; his ability to adapt to different groups and environments; and his clear moral compass.
Along the way, he built one of the best diplomatic networks in the world. This big book is testament to it. In it, nearly one hundred prominent authors share their personal views behind the scenes of world politics. Almost all of them are masters of diplomacy themselves—many of them spent their careers negotiating difficult agreements or trying to peacefully solve conflicts. Many of them have served as presidents, foreign or defense ministers, heads of international organizations, ambassadors, military leaders, or parliamentarians, while others have influenced the global debate as journalists, scholars, activists, or thought leaders. Each of them offers insights and lessons for diplomacy today and tomorrow.
Of course, this book is not an all-encompassing handbook, discussing every single aspect of diplomacy. Rather, the authors offer their very personal takes on the art of diplomacy. While the charm of the book is the fact that this plethora of views, opinions, and experiences comes relatively unsorted, there is an underlying structure to it all.
The first section of the book deals with some of the key elements of successful diplomacy. Our readers may not be surprised to read about the importance of trust or of personal connections, or to learn about the role of ambassadors and parliamentarians. But they will also learn about the role that tea can play in diplomacy or why diplomacy is, in many ways, like jazz.
The contributions in the second section focus on some of the core challenges for diplomacy today and in the future. Our authors not only reflect on some of the big issues—such as managing great-power competition or defending liberal-democratic values—they also discuss how diplomacy itself, its decision-making structures, its reach, and tools need to be adapted to changing circumstances, including the rise of technology and ever new ways to communicate.
In the third section of the book, our contributors discuss specific episodes of diplomacy in action—some of them very successful, others at least partially helpful, still others complete failures. In many cases, our authors for the first time publicly share their personal stories about these episodes. All these stories provide instructive insights for tomorrow’s diplomats.
The final section of the book brings together some more general reflections on diplomacy. Based on their long-time experience, the contributors spell out some of their key diplomatic lessons. Like all the others writing in this volume, they believe that diplomacy has not had its day. If anything, it will become even more important in the future.
Instead of writing a conclusion ourselves, we have asked Wolfgang to distill his career into a number of key takeaways, which you will find at the very end of this book. As we know from experience, his intense diplomatic life has produced a treasure trove of diplomatic insights, hilarious stories, and more-or-less-funny jokes. Many of these stories, especially the jokes, are for a different book, but their essence runs through this one and, in particular, through Wolfgang’s epilogue.
We very much hope that you will find the collection of stories about diplomacy both instructive and entertaining. We tried to strike a balance between the serious and the more lighthearted, between the instructive and the descriptive, all in the hope that the overall result provides a valuable glimpse behind the scenes of world politics. The one thing to take away from all the stories is that diplomacy really is an art, best practiced by those who, like Wolfgang, are willing to treat it as such.
A Walk to the Garden
Javier Solana
Diplomacy has changed—no doubt about that. Videoconferences, tweets, and the myriad of policy issues that make their way into diplomatic negotiations have transformed the way state representatives interact with each other. New actors have come to the fore. But this art, which is so dear to Wolfgang Ischinger, remains the same in essence.
The essence of diplomacy is one of timeless simplicity. The big power tensions of the Cold War were on occasion mitigated by a telephone call or a simple promenade, such as Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1985 “walk in the woods” in Geneva. Mention of Reagan reminds us of the passing away last February of George Shultz, the US secretary of state for most of his presidency. Shultz was a towering diplomat who left us with many lessons that are worth mentioning.
Nothing works without trust, in politics or in life. Diplomacy is about tending relationships—it is done by people, with people.
Let me start with trust, “the coin of the realm.” Nothing works without trust, in politics or in life. Shultz was very much aware of its value: “When trust was in the room, whatever room that was—the family room, the schoolroom, the locker room, the office room, the government room or the military room—good things happened. When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen. Everything else is details,” he said.
Without trust, conducting diplomacy becomes an arduous task. Mistrust often prevents actors from taking the initial step and cooperating with each other. Without some degree of trust, formalizing the numerous nuclear arms control agreements between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War would have been difficult. Trust is not a given in any kind of relationship, political or personal. It has to be built. As Shultz said, “even our adversaries will have to regain the trust that we can work together to manage global threats to humanity’s very existence even when we disagree on other issues.” Shultz was especially lucid in suggesting the analogy of diplomacy as tending a garden.
Tending the garden demands patience. Shultz put it in no better terms: “If you plant a garden and you go away for eight months and you come back it is full of weeds. If you tend that garden regularly you get no weeds.”
Some may suggest this analogy to be outdated. I believe it still holds true to the core substance of diplomacy. But, perhaps, personal reciprocity is the one thing that the gardening analogy misses. Diplomacy is about tending relationships—it is done by people, with people.
Diplomacy is traditionally a means through which states pursue their grand strategies. But down-to-earth, face-to-face human contact is still its bread and butter. This is where the value of listening, honesty, and loyalty come in.
I will take the liberty of showcasing this with a personal experience. A long series of negotiations preceded the signing of the 1997 Founding Act in Paris between NATO and Russia. Yevgeny Primakov, at the time Russian Foreign Minister, was my counterpart during these negotiations. Primakov’s honesty and truthfulness were founding elements of the personal relationship we built, without which a positive political outcome remained dubious. For negotiations, Primakov invited me to a Russian dacha, where our teams met regularly.
We both knew that negotiations would be difficult. He then invited me to walk with him along the snowy woods that surrounded the dacha. After heavily dressing me, we walked and spoke for two hours. The conversation was frank, yet fluid. After that, we knew we would pull it together. That political relationship was underpinned by a latent friendship. We both maintained contact after 1997 and met once again in Russia. Our families took the place of the negotiating teams. The trust was the same.
In a realm where formal negotiations often belittle the value of unstructured conversation, George Shultz’s conception of diplomacy is one not to forget. In diplomacy, sometimes all it takes is a walk in the woods. Or should we say, a walk to the garden.
Javier Solana is President of ESADE Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics. After serving as Spanish Foreign Minister and Secretary General of NATO, he was appointed European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, and Secretary-General of the Council of the EU.
The Test of Trust
Patricia Espinosa
Much of the work devoted to understanding and addressing national security challenges stems from a judicious sense of suspicion, if not outright mistrust. Identifying risks and threats—whether human or natural in origin—and taking measures to avert them is essential to maintaining a stable, secure environment.
National security, however, also depends on mutually beneficial and consistent relationships with other actors—allies, partners, even sympathizers—that are ultimately based on trust. As with so many aspects of international relations, these two opposing attitudes—trust and mistrust—reflect, at the level of national states, pervasive features of social interaction, whether one is talking about human or investment bonds, personal or national security.
As history shows, building trust is more beneficial than managing mistrust. The advantages of collaboration tend to outweigh the benefits of confrontation, provided those involved share some common goals, have a basic sense of respect for each other, and face no irreconcilable differences. This proviso is essential for the statement to hold true and that is why trust has acquired such relevance in today’s globalized world. Today, for many global issues, collaboration is the only option that stands any chance of success.
This is especially true in the case of climate change. The global climate agenda is not a single, self-contained issue that can be treated in isolation, but an all-encompassing challenge that affects many aspects of people’s lives and calls for sweeping changes in people’s lifestyles. Addressing this challenge demands resolute commitments and contributions from every country, every community, and ultimately, every individual.
The critical importance of trust in global efforts against climate change came to the fore at the end of COP15, in Copenhagen. The outcome of that session showed that, even if motivated by the best of intentions, actions that fail to give due consideration to the viewpoints of all countries—regardless of the relative contribution they can or are expected to make to a common endeavor—end up undermining the very goals they seek to achieve. The international regime is predicated on the notion that, as a member of the international community, each nation-state has the same rights and prerogatives as any other. Disregarding this fundamental principle engenders a sense of unfairness and is perceived—rightly or wrongly—as an unequal, heavy-handed treatment.
Instead of feeling confident that a comprehensive and open consultation process was underway, many delegates attending the climate conference in Copenhagen, especially those from developing countries, felt that they were being asked simply to validate a series of resolutions that had been crafted with no regard to their opinions, let alone their contributions. As a result, valuable, sensible proposals prepared in good faith, though perhaps not properly presented and promoted, were brushed aside, and negotiations came to a standstill. It took painstaking, dedicated work over the following twelve months to regain the confidence of parties, observers, and stakeholders. This was ultimately achieved by ensuring that every voice was heard, by holding consultations in an open and inclusive fashion, and by showing consistency between avowed intentions and actual conduct.
The lesson from Copenhagen is not forgotten at the UNFCCC. The commitment to inclusiveness, openness, and transparency must be substantiated in every session and every exchange. This is also central to ongoing efforts toward the success of COP26. There are many complex issues currently under negotiation. Much must be done to reconcile different positions and build common understanding. But the possibility of success in all areas crucially depends on mutual trust, which, in turn, is contingent on the fulfillment of previous pledges. There is no point in undertaking new commitments if those assumed in the past are seen to be disregarded.
Diplomacy has always been based on trust. It is, at the same time, the most readily available means of building the confidence necessary for collaboration among international actors with different, often divergent interests. From the perspective of the intergovernmental process on climate change, the connection between both concepts may be summarized in this way: trust is both a means and an outcome of diplomacy. In international affairs, there can be no successful diplomacy without trust, just as there can be no trust without effective diplomacy.
Patricia Espinosa is the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). She previously served as Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Ambassador of Mexico to Germany.
The Human Touch
Atifete Jahjaga
Often as heads of states we live in a fast-paced world, moving from one meeting to another, from one bilateral to a conference, to attending the demands of the job at home, to representing our countries to the best of our abilities. In the ever-shifting environment of international relations, we are envisaged by our peers and constituents alike as operators always under pressure to act with prudence, to be clear-eyed, cold-blooded, void of gushing emotions as we reach pragmatic decisions and are held responsible for the failures. We forget that we, too, are products of our lives, the trajectories of our countries, a motley collection of experiences, both personal and professional.
We are envisaged by our peers and constituents alike as operators always under pressure to act with prudence, to be clear-eyed, cold-blooded, void of gushing emotions as we reach pragmatic decisions and are held responsible for the failures. We forget that we, too, are products of our lives, the trajectories of our countries, a motley collection of experiences, both personal and professional.
During my mandate as the president of Kosovo, I shared many of the challenges confronting national leaders of these modern times. My challenges were perhaps even more daunting—I was the first woman president of Kosovo, aware that I represented a small, struggling country that was held to a higher standard by its international patrons because of its history and judged even more harshly because it stood as an example of the West’s unity to make good on its promise of “never again” to the persecution of innocent people.
My approach to international relations and diplomacy, thus, became both personal and professional. I never believed that in our “jobs” you could separate the two, for they were inseparable, and the personal outlasts the professional in diplomacy too.
Which brings me to an experience at the end of my tenure in the spring of 2016, when I visited the then US vice president Joe Biden at the White House. By the measure of our mandates, we were both “outgoing” leaders, but the meeting for me was a chance to reiterate to our main ally to stay the course in supporting Kosovo’s and the region’s integration in the European Union and NATO. It was also a chance to thank Vice President Biden for three decades of active advocacy and honest involvement with the Balkans, which too many people before and after him had written off as too complicated for their time and investment.
As part of the protocol, it’s customary for heads of states to give out medals or national honors. But for my generation, Biden’s engagement with the Balkans in general and in bringing the 1999 war to an end in Kosovo in particular felt very personal. I literally wouldn’t have been standing in his office in the West Wing if it wasn’t for the policies that Mr. Biden and a generation of European and US leaders pioneered in the intervention against Serbia’s campaign of bloodshed and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. My gratitude and that of my country had to match that sentiment.
Mr. Biden had just lost his son, Beau, a renowned lawyer. In the office where we met, Beau’s pictures featured prominently among the many beautiful family memories shared by the Biden family. My country had a place in those memories: Beau Biden came to Kosovo following the war to help build the rule of law as a trainer of prosecutors. It felt fitting to commemorate his legacy with the naming of the stretch of the highway that links Kosovo’s capital Pristina to the US military camp Bondsteel with Beau’s name. It would be a token of appreciation for Mr. Biden, but also a symbolic gesture further strengthening the bond between Kosovo and its greatest ally.
As I handed the decree to Mr. Biden, I fought back my tears; my advisers were not as successful. A year later Biden (who was by then out of office as US vice president) and his family came to the inauguration of the highway as we blessed it with Beau’s name. He promised that generations of Bidens would come to visit Kosovo and pay their respect to Beau’s legacy, now etched in one of the main arteries linking Kosovo to the region and beyond, a dream of one people that he and his father helped turn into reality.
Atifete Jahjaga was President of the Republic of Kosovo from 2011 to 2016. She is the Founder of the Jahjaga Foundation and Chair of its Board of Directors.
Personal Connections
Børge Brende
If, as Otto von Bismarck famously remarked, politics is the “art of the possible,” then diplomacy is the art of the personal. In daring to shape a more peaceful and prosperous future, diplomats stretch the boundaries of possibility, bridging divides that seem chasmic and overcoming obstacles that appear impassable. Breakthroughs like the Camp David Accords and the thawing of the Cold War are instances of inspired diplomacy in action—the result of skilled envoys and leaders negotiating challenging contexts to attain historic outcomes.
Underpinning these and other diplomatic feats are personal relationships—ones that have been forged over weeks, months, and even years. President Jimmy Carter was able to encourage the leaders of Egypt and Israel to pursue peace in the late 1970s because of his friendship with President Anwar Sadat. And the trust between President Ronald Reagan and President Mikhail Gorbachev was critical in steering the countries away from nuclear conflict and toward an end to the Cold War.
To be sure, strategic aims, not personal connections, are what ultimately drive diplomatic endeavors. And the success of these endeavors is determined by whether parties can identify where national interests intersect. But it is the person-to-person relationships that can be key to helping sides take risks, work together through logjams, and find pathways forward. These relationships are often born and nurtured not through formal engagements, with their prescribed protocols, but rather through informal interactions in which diplomats can truly get to know—and trust—one another.
Indeed, there is truth in the oft-repeated refrain that much of the work at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos takes place in the hallways. It is the mingling and tête-à-têtes between ministers, CEOs, and other stakeholders that contribute to advancing progress on shared priorities and, as importantly, to cultivating relationships. The wells of trust formed and filled through these interactions can be tapped to advance future diplomatic undertakings.
What happens, though, when opportunities for this essential element of diplomacy—the building and maintenance of personal relationships—appear to be gone? This, of course, is what seemed to happen in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Though formal diplomatic engagements did continue through digital platforms—the G20 met virtually, the United Nations held the opening of the General Assembly via digital means, and, of course, the World Economic Forum and Munich Security Conference convened summits in virtual formats—the personal interactions so necessary to diplomacy felt out of reach. Thankfully, expectations did not fully become reality. Despite the restrictions on physical gatherings, stakeholders were on occasion able to engage in personal ways in virtual settings, and at times in an informal and impromptu manner similar to what would take place in the hallways of physical meetings.
For instance, ahead of each panel that the World Economic Forum convened for its virtual summits, the Forum established a “speakers’ room” and encouraged panelists—ministers, CEOs, and leaders of civil society groups—to sign in twenty minutes ahead of the start of the formal dialogue. What was striking was that many public figures and business leaders used the open line to informally meet or catch up with one another, and on a few occasions, offer well-wishes for birthdays or personal milestones. (On more than one occasion, participants ate quick dinners “together.”) Though the conversations were often small talk, when they did take place, they yielded a notably more collaborative atmosphere and productive dialogue in the formal portion of the discussions that followed.
The question, then, is, can digital diplomacy replace in-person diplomacy? Here, as any current or former diplomat would offer, is a compromise: there are merits to both. Because, while the virtual meetings enabled personal connections to form and thrive amid an historic public-health challenge and can offer a way for parties to convene when physical interactions are not possible, there is no substitute over the longer term for in-person collaboration.
The roots of diplomacy rest in relationships. And, as many of us experienced during the pandemic, relationships are at their healthiest and thrive when we can see one another in person.
Børge Brende is the President of the World Economic Forum. He served as Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2017, Minister of the Environment from 2001 to 2004, and Minister of Trade and Industry from 2004 to 2005.
The Utility of Ambassadors
Robert Cooper
In the beginning there were princes. But it was dangerous to let them deal directly with each other. Princes grow up in a world in which everyone is their inferior, and their advisers feared that direct dialogue with another sovereign would bring disaster. So, they invented ambassadors, men of protocol and courtesy, who could smooth relations between proud monarchs and aggressive states.
To begin with, they went to foreign courts as temporary guests, to deal with specific problems, or to see whether a prospective bride was suitable for their prince—the camera may not lie, but portraits so often do. Later, endless competition among the Italian city-states of the Renaissance brought the idea of resident ambassadors, who could track the ambitions and plots of rival sovereigns. Or they were sent as courtiers to watch over a royal bride, as Sir Henry Wotton was for Elizabeth of Bohemia, daughter of James I. He is remembered for his ironic definition of an ambassador as an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for his country; but the poem he wrote for Elizabeth, the winter Queen of Bohemia, shows him to be a man of taste and talent.1
Wars in Europe grew more frequent: the need to watch potential enemies and to keep contact with potential friends grew with them. One of the results of the Napoleonic wars and the Congress of Vienna was agreement on a more regular system of diplomatic exchange. The aristocratic tradition of diplomacy continued—countries were still ruled by kings and by courts. But that ended in 1918; and the horrors of war in the twentieth century made diplomacy no less essential.
As the century went on, people began to ask: why do we need these expensive people in their large houses, giving grand dinners? If leaders want to talk to each other, why don’t they do it directly? The first intercontinental phone call took place nearly one hundred years ago, in 1926. Since then, people have asked: what’s the point of ambassadors when we have telephones?
To answer this question, I offer some stories that friends, mostly from the British diplomatic service, have told me, together with a couple of personal anecdotes from my time with the European Union.
Nick Westcott
Nick Westcott was the British ambassador to a number of African countries. In one a British visitor was taken hostage by one of the various armed groups operating in the countryside. How do you deal with such a problem? Nick went and had a long talk with the president, who was believed to have back-channel contacts with the rebels, not allowing the conversation to end until the president had suggested a concrete way forward that had some prospect of working. The president put him in touch with a man who was generally thought to be the president’s “fixer”: his channel to the less respectable elements in his country. Then another conversation—this time in a café but also tête-à-tête—between Nick and the fixer. A long silence followed, but a few months later, the hostage was released.
In many countries, perhaps in most, really important business is accomplished face to face. In Africa getting hold of decision makers on their phones or in their offices can in any case be well-nigh impossible. This is why attending funerals is essential diplomatic work. Funerals matter: attendance is an indispensable mark of respect for the departed. In the run up to one particularly hotly contested election, Nick had found it impossible to pin down either the minister or the party boss responsible for the election process. Fraud was widely anticipated. But when, unexpectedly, a cabinet minister died, the whole government and party were present at the funeral. After the (very long) obsequies, Nick was able to get alongside both men and not only praise the late minister, but also to discuss frankly the consequences of blatantly rigging the election. The personal relationships built at the funeral enabled close contact throughout the elections, and eventually helped the government accept that they had lost and should allow a peaceful transfer of power.
Robin Christopher
Robin Christopher became British ambassador to Indonesia in 1997. At that point, President Suharto and the army were still in charge. This was a relatively benign example of military rule: literacy and living standards improved during Suharto’s time. The new British foreign secretary, Robin Cook, made a visit to Jakarta shortly after Christopher’s arrival—a good event for a new ambassador who wants to get to know the people who matter. The visit went well. Robin was recovering from it on a beach when he received a phone call telling him of the death of Princess Diana in Paris. He opened a book of condolence at the embassy, wondering whether people in Indonesia would be interes ted. In fact, Diana had visited Indonesia, and left behind a lasting memory. For a week the queues went around the block; Robin greeted and talked to some of those queuing when he could. Then he noticed in the newspaper that the Indonesian Christian Women’s Association was holding a memorial service in the cathedral. He and his wife Merril decided to attend, though there had been no invitation. As the service came to an end, the lady in charge announced that the British ambassador would deliver the eulogy. This was a surprise, but the conversations with the people outside the embassy told Robin exactly what to say.
One useful result of the Secretary Cook’s visit was that it gave him a feel for the country, its people, and its politics. He also got to know Ambassador Christopher. This helped greatly when the crisis came. Indonesia had two big issues: the financial crash that ended Suharto’s dictatorship, and East Timor. These were linked, and the crisis was a dual crisis. The foreign secretary made the policy , but it was the ambassador who proposed each move during a tense period.
Military rule came to an end in 1998. Suharto had been “reelected” in February of that year, with B. J. Habibie as his vice president. Habibie was a brilliant aeronautical engineer with a doctorate from Aachen University. He rose to be vice president of Messerschmitt in Germany. In 1974 Suharto, whose dream was for Indonesia to have its own aerospace industry, persuaded him to return to Indonesia and made him minister for research and technology. Only Suharto thought Habibie would make a good vice president; but at that point, only Suharto’s opinion mattered.
The Asian financial crisis began in 1997 and reached its peak in the spring of 1998. Indonesia was its biggest victim. In February Suharto was in full control. By May, a million people were on the streets, and many homes and businesses—especially those owned by Chinese—were in flames. (What do ambassadors do at such times? They help their national communities through the chaos, and in the last resort, organize evacuations—as Robin and his colleagues did.) Suharto held a press conference at which everyone expected him to resign. He didn’t, but instead announced a cabinet reshuffle. When every minister refused to serve, he resigned. Habibie had been vice president for just three months, but he took over. The army might have overthrown him but, perhaps in the stability and prosperity of the Suharto years, they had lost the habit. Habibie himself told Robin one evening that the military had surrounded his house the night before and demanded he resign. He had refused and eventually they had gone away. Habibie rode the wave of revolution for a year and saw Indonesia safely to its first free election in a generation.
East Timor had been a Portuguese colony until the collapse of the Portuguese Empire in 1975. With that, Fretelin, a Marxist liberation movement in East Timor, declared independence. In response the Indonesian army moved in from West Timor and began twenty-four years of occupation and atrocities. Only Australia recognized Indonesian sovereignty. Portugal had given its other colonies self-determination, and when it joined the EU in 1985, it kept the EU firmly behind the cause of self-determination for East Timor. One result of this was that no EU head of mission had ever visited East Timor, though it was now the dominant thorn in the side of Indonesia’s foreign policy.
When Suharto fell, the UK held the rotating presidency of the EU. Robin led the EU “troika”—which included the previous and following presidency ambassadors—on a fact-finding visit to East Timor. Their reception by crowds of Timorese paved the way for a change of heart by Habibie, now president, who offered East Timor “extensive autonomy” within Indonesia. He recognized that this offer needed to be legitimized and agreed to a referendum, to be organized by the UN. The East Timorese would be asked to vote for or against autonomy, with a clear understanding that a vote against autonomy would be a vote for independence. Robin was one of the international observers at the referendum, which was treated as a kind of festival. A few days later Kofi Annan announced the overwhelming rejection of autonomy. At this point, the Indonesian army again ran amok in East Timor, with arson, rape, murder, and destruction in their wake.
Following the announcement of the result, President Habibie moved the leader of the East Timor independence movement, Xanana Gusmão, from prison to house arrest. Robin had visited him in prison and saw him again on his return from the referendum. Gusmão was to be released soon, but the news from East Timor made clear that he would not be safe there. So, he asked Robin whether, instead, he could stay with him. Robin was able to get an immediate positive response from Robin Cook; the Indonesian government agreed; and the British government provided a protection unit. Gusmão remained at the British embassy for his first two weeks of freedom.
During this time, the UN Security Council sent a team of ambassadors to Indonesia. In Jakarta they met Gusmão at the embassy, and they persuaded the government to let them take General Wiranto, head of the Indonesian army, with them to East Timor. A BBC team was also on board. The BBC interviewed the general in the ruins of Dili, the capital. Wiranto admitted, on camera, that things were not under control and that he was shocked at the destruction wrought by the Indonesian military and its militias. This prepared the way for an eventual UN peacekeeping operation.
Peter Westmacott
Western capitals are less exotic, but they are the site of an endless flow of business. Here the telephone may come into the picture, but if leaders speak to each other directly they still need to be briefed.
Peter Westmacott was the British ambassador in Ankara, Paris, and Washington. One high spot of his mission to Ankara took place not in Ankara but in Brussels: this was the moment in 2004 when a date was finally set for the opening of negotiations with Turkey for membership of the European Union. It came at the end of a period of success for the EU—reform in East and Central Europe that enabled most countries there to join. At that moment, it seemed that Turkey too might follow this path. It had embarked on dramatic reforms to improve its justice system and to integrate its Kurdish minority. The process with Turkey was tense and complicated, and some issues were still open when Prime Minister Erdoğan travelled to Brussels in December 2004. There the European Council was going to take the decision on opening enlargement negotiations with Turkey. Tony Blair asked Peter to be there too . Peter had been alongside Prime Minister Erdoğan and the others in the delegation through the negotiations and knew each of them personally. This continued through the tense climax in Brussels. Afterward, one Turkish newspaper ran a headline “Come quickly, Peter,” quoting a text message sent by a member of the delegation at the climax of the negotiations when Erdoğan was about to leave empty-handed in a huff. That message says it all.
The story did not end in success. The EU opened membership negotiations and Turkey remains a vital partner for Europe; but it is also a complicated country, with difficult neighbours. In November 2003, a suicide bomber attacked the British Consulate General in Istanbul, killing twelve of the staff. Then came the war in Iraq—a neighbor of Turkey, with 90 percent of the Turkish people against it. The most destructive shock came when, after years of effort, the Annan plan to reunite Cyprus was accepted by the Turkish community in Cyprus but rejected by the Greek community. When Cyprus then joined the EU, it seemed likely to confirm the division rather than end it.
Another example of what an ambassador can do is from Peter’s time in Washington. Getting Iran’s agreement to limit its nuclear program was a longstanding British and European objective, dating from the time of the Iraq war. The Obama administration joined, and then took over, the European initiative. It opened a secret back-channel to the Iranians (not a surprise to any ally of Washington). The outcome was what we had wanted all along: an agreement between Iran on the one hand and on the other Britain, France, Germany (plus the EU collectively), the United States, China, and Russia, “the P5 plus 1”2. The agreement, a fat document known by the inspiring acronym, “JCPOA”3, limited Iran’s nuclear program and provided for verification by the IAEA. In return, the P5 plus 1 were to remove the economic sanctions they had imposed on Iran.
This was a major success; but in the United States the treaty risked being blocked by Congress. Working for this result was the formidable figure of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, backed by the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful lobby group in Washington. The President can veto hostile legislation; but a two-thirds majority in the Senate can override his veto. Thus, the administration’s target was thirty-four votes in the Senate. Peter and his colleagues thought the agreement with Iran deserved better. He, sometimes on his own, sometimes with colleagues from Germany, France, Russia, and China, talked to dozens of senators and more than a hundred members of the House. The House and the Senate are used to negotiating with the Administration and occasionally to lobbying by foreign governments; but this concerted effort was something new, and it was successful.
Shortly after this, Peter accompanied Philip Hammond, the new UK foreign secretary, to call on the (Republican) chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker. Senator Corker, normally affable and friendly, launched an attack, complaining that the UK had interfered in US internal affairs by lobbying for the JCPOA and saying that he would regard any recurrence as a personal affront. With the foreign secretary unprepared for this, Peter himself replied asking why it was acceptable for the prime minister of Israel to lobby against President Obama’s policy, but not for the British ambassador to lobby for a treaty that both Britain and the US had signed.
I end with two stories from my personal experience. Neither involves an ambassador; but each was the man on the spot—which is what an ambassador is.4
Peter Sørensen
Technically, Peter Sorensen, a Danish lawyer, soldier, and diplomat, was a third secretary in the Danish embassy in Belgrade. He had served in the Danish contingent in the EU observer mission in Croatia and Bosnia, worked as a legal adviser to Carl Bildt in Sarajevo, and then as the deputy head of the UN mission in Kosovo. Peter is a no-nonsense sort of person, open, friendly, and ready to take risks. With Kosovo preparing to declare itself independent, my boss, Javier Solana, asked Peter to be his personal representative in Belgrade. Copenhagen gave him a position in its embassy; Brussels gave him a telephone.
Peter got to know the Serb politicians who were interested in Kosovo and himself became known around Belgrade. Among others he made friends with the people—mostly about his age—who ran President Boris Tadić’s office.
For almost every country in the world, the person in your government who knows most about that country is your ambassador there. The secret of good foreign policy is simple. Get yourself a good ambassador—and then follow his advice.
Kosovo declared independence early in 2008. Over the next year, most EU member states recognized Kosovo, but five did not. In the autumn of 2008, Serbia proposed that the UN General Assembly ask the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an opinion on the legality of Kosovo’s declaration of independence. The US and most EU countries resisted, but Serbia won the vote. At the end of that year, President Tadic sent the EU an application for membership. Some member states blocked this, arguing that Serbia should be more constructive on the Kosovo question before the EU took its application forward.
In the summer of 2010, the ICJ was about to publish its opinion, and the EU needed to react. We put a draft statement to the EU Political and Security Committee. This was debated at length, with the draft becoming shorter and shorter as the debate went on. At the end of some five or six hours, two member states were holding out—one because of a general allergy to unilateral declarations of independence, the other, partly for the same reason but also because their president was a personal friend of President Tadic.
Throughout the process, we were in touch with Peter by phone. When the committee seemed completely blocked, he said he might be able to help. He called on his friends in Tadic’s office, saying that if their president wanted his application to join the EU to go forward, he would need the EU to have an agreed position on Kosovo. That position would not be what Serbia wanted. But if there was no agreed position on Kosovo, the EU would spend its time arguing about Kosovo and would never get round to Serbia’s membership application. These were intelligent people and they saw the point. They phoned their opposite numbers in the second state mentioned above, saying that Tadic needed an EU consensus, and he hoped they could join it. They sent new instructions to Brussels. That left one member state isolated, and they agreed to join the consensus.
This was a remarkable piece of diplomacy. Drawing on his imagination, reputation for good sense and honesty, and the trust he built with the key people, Peter pulled it off. Only someone on the ground can do that.The EU statement was a carefully worded piece of bureaucratic prose. But now the EU had a policy. It did not take a position on the legality of Kosovo’s declaration of independence (nor did the ICJ) but it did offer to facilitate dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo—at that point, they had no contact with each other. Later, this language became part of a UN General Assembly resolution. The dialogue began a few months later and is still ongoing. It has not solved the problem between Serbia and Kosovo, but it has brought some progress and has helped keep the peace.
Andreas List
My second story is of a tiny episode in a long story. In 2010 Piero Fassino, a distinguished Italian politician, and I visited Myanmar, representing the European Union. This was the first high-level visit for many years. In Myanmar a new government, elected under a new (and flawed) constitution, had surprised the world by releasing Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, and was showing signs that it wanted to end their country’s pariah status. Mr. Fassino and I brought with us a simple message: If the government did two things the EU would lift all its sanctions, some of which had been in place for more than ten years. What we asked for was first, the release of all political prisoners, and second, that the National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, be allowed to participate in national political life.
We were well received. We repeated our message to everyone. The meetings were formal. In the Asian fashion, we sat side by side rather than opposite each other. The Myanmar side usually had a dozen officials supporting their minister. Everyone was polite; everyone listened, nodded, and smiled. No one asked questions or challenged us. Had they understood what we were offering? And what we were asking from them? If the EU dropped sanctions, there was a chance that the US would start down the same road. I worried that we were not getting through.
In this formal setting, there was no chance for a private conversation so after the last official meeting—with the foreign minister—as we left and shook hands, I, the last one in the line, gripped his hand for a long time and told him that we had imposed sanctions because, on our television screens, we had seen the Burmese military shooting monks in the streets. They needed to do something equally dramatic to change their image. For example, if they decided to release political prisoners, as we asked, perhaps they should release them all on one day. That would wake everyone up across the world.
The minister did not reply. He looked puzzled, maybe a little shocked. In the evening, the deputy minister gave a farewell dinner. At the end, he took me aside and told me that his minister had asked if I could repeat to him what I had said earlier in the day. That gave me a chance to explain myself better. I said the point I was trying to make was that we were serious. We meant what we said, and our offer was potentially transformational for Myanmar’s relationship with us and with others. The deputy minister listened carefully, but I heard nothing more. I returned to Yangon and was getting ready to leave for the airport when the deputy minister called on a very bad line—telephones were 1950s vintage. He recalled our conversation and asked if we could explain exactly who it was we meant when we talked of “political prisoners.” I said we would send him a list the next day. We had been calling for the release of political prisoners for twenty years. This was the first time anyone had asked who we meant.
Where does the ambassador come in? The EU didn’t have one in Myanmar; we had a tiny, three-person office. The leader of this small team, Andreas List, was the nearest thing to an ambassador. He had a passion for Myanmar that went back years and had been in and out of the country a number of times. A former Austrian diplomat, he knew the country and its people well.
Before the last meeting, I told him that I worried we were not getting through. Perhaps I might try to shock the Burmese side out of their politeness. I told him what I was thinking of saying and asked what he thought. His reply? “You can’t imagine how long I have waited to hear someone suggest something like that.” That was what I needed: advice from someone who knew the country. It gave me the confidence to try. I wouldn’t have done it without his assent. Nor did his role end there: I told the deputy minister that we would send them a list the following day. In fact, we did not have one. But Andreas called in his friends from the NGO community, and they put together a list of more than a thousand names. This was highly imperfect, but over time, we were able to correct and complete it. Most important, the Myanmar authorities did what we asked—testing the water by releasing first a few, and when that brought positive reactions abroad and at home, in growing numbers. In the end, thousands were freed.
One other small thing Andreas did: the debates in Myanmar’s new Parliament were as stiff and stilted as our meetings with them. The fact that a quarter of the seats were reserved for army officers nominated by the commander in chief did not help. Democracy is about debate as well as elections. Andreas organized dinners for MPs while the parliament was in session, so they could debate themes such as the rule of law or trade policy. There was always a lively, open, and serious discussion, usually ending with selfies all round.
Myanmar is now in a new crisis, following yet another military coup, accompanied by terrible acts of violence. Despite this and the COVID-19 crisis, nine months later, resistance to the military still goes on. It is astonishing how nine years of mediocre democracy, under a flawed constitution, has transformed Myanmar. Those involved, who risk their lives and those of their families, deserve all the support we can give them.
A last personal memory: In 1982 my job in the FCO gave me access to almost all incoming cables. When we found ourselves at war with Argentina, normal business stopped. I was reading messages from ambassadors who I had never heard of before, from countries I couldn’t find on the map. They were reporting that they had obtained overflight permission, or that they had persuaded a government to delay a shipment of warm clothing for Argentine armed forces. It was a kind of Eureka moment: That’s why we had ambassadors in these forgotten places! And they’d been doing a good job.
For almost every country in the world, the person in your government who knows most about that country is your ambassador there. Every country is different: different history, different geography, different hopes and fears, different personalities. The secret of good foreign policy is simple. Get yourself a good ambassador—and then follow his advice.
Robert Cooper was the Director-General for External and Politico-Military Affairs of the Council of the European Union and later served as Counsellor at the European External Action Service. His most recent book, The Ambassadors. Thinking about Diplomacy from Machiavelli to Modern Times, was published in 2021.
International Law and Diplomacy
Fatou Bensouda
