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1) Watch: Policy Making Models & Diplomacy Welcome to Module 5, policymaking models and diplomacy

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1) Watch: Policy Making Models & Diplomacy

Welcome to Module 5, policymaking models and diplomacy. This week, the discussion turns to foreign policy decision-making and diplomacy as tools of statecraft. Both are critical subjects for successful US foreign policy. Any introductory course on US foreign policy entails a discussion of decision-making frameworks. In an age of Social and Behavioral Science, HR, such framework serve as the basis of organizational analysis. One of the great contributions on the framework issue is Graham Allison's landmark study. Essence of decision is account of decision-making during the Cuban Missile Crisis, students will encounter three main decision-making frameworks, along with T2 umbrella theories about the scope of involvement in who actually decides policy.

The rational actor model, as its name suggests, presumes that policy decisions are ultimately based on logical reasons, more than ones driven by domestic politics. Personal idiosyncrasy, bureaucratic infighting, or a dominant clique. By contrast, the bureaucratic model assumes that while rational factors are considered, they were filtered through the lens of different even competing institutions involved with the foreign policy decision-making process. Finally, the small group model suggests that after all the data is gathered, it is assessed by a small, trusted circle, a presidential adviser, who then decide its policy content. Here too, it’s a presumption in favor of rationality, even if the representative group deciding is small. Not surprisingly, Students of the decision-making process noticed another interpreted fault line, namely that between elitist and pluralist theory as potentially better descriptors of the process. Elite theory is less a comment on the quality and substance of analysis than on the representative character of the decision-making process. Implicitly assuming as it does, that only a few key players are ultimately involved in making and implementing foreign policy. Pluralism assumes the opposite. Namely that many voices, sources of expertise, are represented in the decision-making process. Even if only a few are recognized more publicly. Both of these concepts indicated critical difference. Since they suggest that more than rationality, it is a legitimate concern to know whether policy making represents the broader interests of the American people. Or just some elite clique speaking on behalf of narrow commercial, ideological, religious, or other interests reflected in US domestic politics.

The important thing in thinking through these models and concepts is that like many theories and international relations, I only cognitive maps that help us approximate, simplify, if not over-simplify, how US foreign policy decision-making occurs. This week is also a great opportunity to explore America's diplomatic arsenal of options. Students will encounter different ways our diplomats engage with the world and its many challenges. One is through bilateral relations with friends, allies, and sometimes enemies. Another is through multilateral approaches to cooperation that emphasized the importance of acting in concert with other states to achieve American interests. Summit and conference diplomacy indicate times when two or more states gather in a single location to focus on a particular set of problems or issues in which the rules of discussion and range of policy options have been agreed to by the participants beforehand. Us diplomacy at the UN is different than this, but its main challenge is to use the global form to achieve its national interests while reducing its risks of over commitment may somehow diminish its sovereignty and diplomatic range of options. As you've likely heard already, there is discussion these days about hard and soft power as it relates to the issue of diplomacy. Classic hard power as much about the US being willing to threaten use of its political, economic, and military resources in the service of achieving US foreign policy objectives. As Mohsen publicly argued by Joseph Nye of Harvard's Kennedy School. Soft power, by contrast, is about attracting us friends and allies to the cause of issues like human rights, environment, global public health, humanitarian assistance and development. In effect, focusing on non-coercive tools and diplomacy. When serious question here, as mentioned in a previous session, is whether in reality soft power can play a role in US foreign policy, independent of hard power, or whether it requires a bedrock of hard power as a basis for its success. You will decide. Finally, note the over the horizon issues in each chapter and have a great week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Watch: Graham Allison Discusses Thucydides’s Trap on Fareed Zakaria GPS

Next on GPS, the Sino-US summit. But are these two nations destined for war? That's one of my next guesses will tell you a very distinguished scholar, don't mess up. For dinner at Merrill logo on Thursday night, President Trump and Chinese President Xi were offered a choice of New York steak or Dover. So, we don't know what Donald Trump ordered to eat, but we do know that before dinner he ordered the strike against Syria. Without the strike the summit between the leaders of the two largest economies in the world would've been the top headline. Instead, it got buried. So, what did we miss? And what does the future hold for relations between the United States and China? Joining me now are Elizabeth, economy Director for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. And grandma Allison is director of the bell for a center at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is the author of an important forthcoming book, destined for War. Can America and China escape? Thucydides trap? Graeme, you have to begin, begin by very quickly explaining what the Thucydides trap is and why you think that there is a sort of better than even chance that the United States and China could go to war. Or Thucydides trap, as you know, is the deadly dynamic that occurs when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power. Think about what was happening in Europe a 100 years ago.

This week, when Germany's rise created a interaction with Britain that ended in a war or thinking, think about the relationship between China and the US today. Now, Thucydides wrote about Ancient Greece, but historically, when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, alarm bell should still extreme danger here. And you point out that historically you've counted there and what 18 cases. And in globalization, in the last 500 years, I've been able to identify 16 cases. And in 12 of the cases, like Britain and Germany, the outcome was war. In four cases the outcome was not war. So when Thucydides, he said war was inevitable, that was hyperbole. But while destiny deals with the hands, players have to play the chords. Recognizing that the severe structural stress that would therefore lead businesses usual to produce history as usual. But it's not, it's not inevitable. So it's not inevitable because of people and personal diplomacy. Who are these two people, and did they get on from what you could tell? So I think expectations were certainly modest for the summit and much more modest than trying to address the Thucydides trap, I have to say. But actually, I think that the expectations were largely met and it was a positive first step in US-China relationship. I think President Xi and President Trump began to establish a personal relationship. Some extent, I think they're kindred spirits in ways that are somewhat counter-intuitive. So I think there's a deal or tent.

Well, I think both of them were children, a privileged, I think they both tend to identify political politics in terms of friends and enemies and relatively aggressively go after those enemies. And both of them sought a political base by going around the liberal political elite and stoking nationalism and identifying issues that were important to the broader masses. And so I think that there's probably a deal of the deal of healthy understanding and respect that perhaps the two sort of engendered from this meeting. I assume gram, the one thing that Trump was not able to get from she was a was some kind of an okay that a strike like this, like the Syrian strike would be okay against North Korea, China's ally. And certainly, the timing of the bombing, Syria underlines the threat that promise me that he's prepared to strike North Korea unless she can find some way to cause North Korea to stop acquiring the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead against the US. But she is terrified by that idea, as are most of the neighbors like South Korean or Japanese, or even analysts like us. Because if we were to strike North Korea, Kim Jong-un just going to sit there. No, it's most likely the strike South Korea, perhaps triggering a second Korean War. And you and I, at least these historians remember, the first cool Korean wouldn't turn out very well for either party and certainly not for the US. So no, probably no agreement. Agree to disagree on North Korea, on trade, which was meant to be the one that Trump was going to have these tough negotiations.

What do you think happened? So I think what's important is in part that the US did set the agenda. So the main issues that were discussed with the two that are less important to the White House, namely North Korea, where right, we didn't get a major agreement. And I at least hope for some assessment that maybe we've move forward on contingency planning or something a little bit more than what we seem to get, which was basically nothing. But I think on the trade front, the two sides agreed that we would establish this 100-day study that each side would undertake for how we might be able to begin to improve the trade relationship. And frankly, leading up to the summit, the one area that Chinese analysts and foreign policy officials were discussing as the one where they could see some Chinese movement was on the trade front. So I think there's some optimism perhaps that we're going to get some progress on this issue. Alright, this is television, your distinguished scholar, but we have 30 seconds. What grade would you give the summit? I mean, how did it go? You'd have to get an incomplete since we don't know all the elements, but I would give it a B plus, I think that the two sort of alpha males are beginning to assess each other and know nothing bad happened. And prop, showed he can manage a show, which of course he can, with dignity. And actually, I think caved she the thing that he wanted most vivid images of respect for China and respect for himself as a great leader. That's right. Ivanka Trump gets, gets an a for getting her daughter discussing sign in Mandarin. That's going to be viral in China for sure. Next on GPS, saber-rattling between.

 

 

 

3. Watch: Graham Allison on the Cuban Missile Crisis

Hi there, I'm Gideon Rose and welcome to another edition of Foreign Affairs Focus. We have the great pleasure today of being with Graham Allison, Professor of Government at Harvard and director of the belfry Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School. Also, the author of the Cuban Missile Crisis at 50 lessons for US foreign policy today. So gram, you first wrote a book about the Cuban Missile Crisis for decades ago. What possible new things are there to stay and why should people care about this ancient crisis? Now, it's interesting that every president since Kennedy has look back at the missile crisis to try to draw lessons. Every Secretary of State has looked at it to try to draw lessons because it was an iconic confrontation actually that the peak of the Cold War. It was an event where it was quite conceivable to the participants that it was going to end in a nuclear war that could have killed a 100 million Americans. In the context of the back and forth, there were lots of pretty interesting moves in that diplomacy. So I would say that it remains a compelling case for trying to think about lessons, whether it's the Iranian confrontation today or even China, looked at, in retrospect, given what we now know about what actually played out, is it scarier or less scary than people thought at the time? I get a terrific question. So Kennedy thought at the time and said privately to his brother, that he thought the chances would've been badly with even a nuclear war was somewhere between 13 and even. And there's been great debate among enlist sincere. Oh, yes, No, too low to high. You would have the I would say that in my analysis. This is about right, that we know things now. That Kennedy didn't know Kennedy was feeling it because if you're there in the arena, but he didn't know, it wasn't wasn't vivid it for it to him that in addition to putting nuclear missiles in Cuba, the Soviets had already sent 100 tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba that were under the command of the local commander, that there were no further commands were further electronics required for the use of these. And if the airstrike, which Kennedy was about two, order, the first week in which he was had on tap for the third week if the bristle questions hadn't been resolved had occurred and it had been followed by an invasion. It's quite likely that those weapons would have been used against the invaders. And then you might have had weapons used, even it gets Miami. And pretty soon you're in a nuclear war. So the number of things that we,

I think as analyst’s lookout, look at afterwards, where we're conscious of that, of how many ways things could have gone wrong. Make his estimate pretty good. How was it ultimately result? Well, be the story just to remember was that in the first instance, us with a spy plane discovered the Soviets sneaking nuclear missiles in Cuba. There was a week of private deliberation and which Kennedy changed his mind to three times. At the end of that week, he ordered a blockade of Cuba, called a quarantine, a naval blockade of any further shipments of arms into Cuba. That went on for a week. During which time the Soviets continue to complete the construction of the missiles that were already in Cuba. So at the end of the second week, as tensions were fraying and things seem to be getting out of control. So a US YouTube went flying off course over the Soviet Union. The US conducted a nuclear weapons test. Johnson, they told that Kennedy had forgot about. So there were a number of things it made people feel like, wait a minute, this just can't go on for that much longer than the final Saturday of the Missile Crisis, the 27th of October. You can, by listening to the tapes which was secretly made by Kennedy. Surprise but fascinating for historian or for, for Alice. Listen to people struggling picking what to do, what to do with none of the options look very good. So in the end, Kennedy chose a very complicated option. A cocktail consists of three components. One was a public deal. If you withdraw the missiles will guarantee that we want to invade Cuba.

A private ultimatum in which Bobby Kennedy told the Soviet ambassador in Washington that Brene it. If in 24 hours we don't hear that you are withdrawing those muscles, we're going to take actions to eliminate them. So this was an ultimatum that could have indeed initiated nuclear war. And then third, a secret sweetener that said, we're not trading for missiles in Cuba because, I'm sorry, in Turkey. Because US at the time had some equivalent missiles in Turkey. But we're telling you that if the missile crisis is resolved successfully within six months, those muscles will be there. We can the administration then afterwards the NIH did it ever made a deal and said that wasn't a deal. But if you were just a lawyer, you would say that looks like you do. So a public carrot, a private, a public threat, or a public, or private. Private care. And very private care at such a, such a private carrier. They I mean, the amazing thing about this, and I don't think you could get away with this today. So there were about 15 people sitting around the table. As the executive committee of the National Security Council. Only six of them knew that the carrot had been delivered. So it's fascinating to listen to the discussion or read the transcript of the discussion Saturday night, after Bobby Kennedy is gone privately to talk to the brain it and told him, if the missiles are withdrawn from Cuba, these missiles would be out of Turkey. And people are still debating, well, we could never give up the missiles in Turkey. So it's a kind of stories within stories. How is that relevant to a crisis like the one with Iran today? Now that in the case of a run today, I'd compare it to a Cuban Missile Crisis in slow motion, where a precedent and probably President Obama. But if not President Obama in his first term, certainly whoever's president in 2013 will come to of a confrontation in which his advisors, or, sorry, There's two options.

Attack or acquiesce in Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb. And whichever of those two you've examined most carefully most recently. You think, well maybe the other one's not so bad. These are two Laozi, laozi lousy options. So in the missile crisis, those who exactly the same options Kennedy's advisers gave him. And he kept searching to try to find some alternative. The alternative he found was this pretty strange concoction. But I would say the big lesson for you ran from the Missile Crisis is if allowing away and they get a nuclear bomb is really unacceptable from the perspective of work and interests, which I think it is. And if an air strike on Iran to prevent that happening could also have a catastrophic chain of events. And therefore, is a terrible, terrible, terrible option may be better than the other, but they both are pretty terrible. We should be much more aggressively searching the space between me and I, I think actual ureter. There's some things in that space that we haven't described carefully enough. So that's the big takeaway for me. Further details of your implications for the Cuban Missile Crisis, for other policy issues in the piece. Let me close that, just asking you a broader question. 40 years’ worth of much a study of this, but also engagement with this object at the highest levels and professional education in foreign policy and security studies.

Do you think the climate of discussion inside government, outside government in places such as Foreign Affairs is better, worse or the same in terms of the engagement of serious issues with serious intellectual tools now than when you first started August? That's it. That's a great question and I don't have a good answer. I think the one always tempted to believe that the good old days were the days before. I think if you listen to the tapes or to the, to the character, the deliberations at the x come over the missile crisis, you hear a pretty high-quality conversation in Kennedy. You've got somebody pretty well-versed in international affairs. In McGeorge Bundy, who was the National Security Advisor. You have a, a former dean at Harvard who's written a book about Stimson, was a May importantly influenced by his life. It always worked here at the Council on Foreign Relations. So somebody who's kind of seeped in four are in Macnamara. You've got a guy who's weren't a lot about in the meantime in Rust. So I, I think the the, the quality of the deliberations at them in the missile crisis. If I compare them with the quality of the deliberations in the first year of the Obama administration, about half pack. If you read the Woodward recounts of it, you would look and say, I'm not sure we're improving is what we should be or maybe, maybe not, maybe regressing. Although the same wise men got us into Vietnam. So maybe they did, they did, and actually that's why they're the best and the brightest remains such a great book to read. But I think that the challenge for a place like foreign affairs, as for a place like Harvard is the wonder whether in both the tools that were helping people get a sense for their appreciation of history. Because that's the data base from which, and then the, the quality of the public debate, which I think for whatever reasons, maybe I don't, I don't have a good, good benchmark for Cadbury, but I would say I, I tend to worry that it, the combination of the politicization of it has degraded the quality of the analysis on that depressing but accurate. Now, let's conclude, Graham, thank you very much. Thank you very much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Watch: Stephen Randolph - Diplomacy's Role in Shaping U.S. History

I think like so many things in American history, you start with Ben Franklin. He was core to establishing really the image of America in the world. And it was our first accredited diplomat and was the only man present at the four major turning points in the early republic. The Declaration of Independence, constitution, the treaty that created an alliance with France during the Revolutionary War. And then the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War with Great Britain. So it's just a pivotal, pivotal member. And he started in 754 in London as a representative of the, of Pennsylvania, perfectly loyal subject of the king, and evolved through that next period of years into America's leading diplomat and obviously a proponent of independence. And so he came back home for a bit and then it was sent back over to Europe now into France where he visited twice before with probably the most important diplomatic mission ever given an American diplomat. Because absent some external support in a significant way, an overt way and the end from France, America would just never most likely have, have won its independence as job. In going over there was to again, support from France, both financial and if possible, military. And the disadvantage faced. Obviously, it was France was a royalty. But the French had an innate suspicion of this new system of government, this revolution in human affairs that America represented. So, Franklin went over and his first major victory was actually and just capturing the French imagination and he became the most popular sort of the rockstar the times throughout France where he got his picture on tea cups and establishes trends and clothing. And, and it was this combination of this image that he created plus the real realistic power politics that he offered the French in terms of countering Great Britain at the time and weakening their great rival across the English Channel. So he was there for a couple of years there. And the French actually covertly had money going to, to the Americans. But it wasn't until a military victory at Saratoga that, that the French were willing for the first time not actually overtly negotiate and sine formula agreements with the Americans. Which I think very early on like so many patterns in American history, this establishes this relationship, I think, between diplomacy and the other enabling circumstances that, that that Go, go in concert with our diplomatic efforts, whether it's economic or military information and it's all part of it. A range of instruments of power that have to be orchestrated. And often that's role of, of diplomacy as it was, as it was with Franklin. So this, these treaties that are signed are absolutely pivotal and lead then to a quieter, more covert, but very significant amount of support by Spain, which was again allied with, with France, are associated with France and equally willing to undercut the British in this bin. Politics of Europe. Europe at the time, the support of France is pretty well-known. Lafayette and the fleet that closed off Yorktown and that kind of thing. But the Spanish support is much less known. And that was kind of an indirect effect of Franklin's work in, in Paris. So, so that created this, this pivotal change and the materials circumstance of the revolution and set the stage then for his next major contribution, which is to be on the negotiating team that negotiated the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War, which is, if anything even more remarkable story. He's there with negotiating team john Adams was there as a team of three and again, trying, first of all, to get the English to recognize the Americans as an independent state. And trying to kind of grow away from this entire dependence that at the time that the colonies had on France for the material support. So it's, it's kind of a triangular diplomatic game that Franklin is playing fully knowing that he's being spied on by both sides and using that knowledge to make sure that both sides know that he's treating with the other. And that way gaining leverage on H is triangular diplomacy of a really classic type back in seventh in the early 780, which was Indian successful. The other, the other interesting thing and again, a kind of a pattern that accompanies diplomacy through the ages of the secretary for the delegation again in Bancroft, was in the pay of the English and everything that Franklin and John Adams and those guys said Allah correspondents ahead back with a, with the back with the State Department. All of that was going straight to London. And he was also, by the way, speculating in the markets over there based on the information he was he was getting. So just hugely complex situation. And again, it took someone a Franklin's, I think has personality is ability again to project an image two. To actually see to the core of the, of the object as the English and the French to work end to this enters this where we're American needed to be. And so again, as I said at the outset, so many patterns of American diplomacy go straight back to, to Ben Franklin. So we get to the next, I think, major turning point, which would probably be the Louisiana Purchase. And again, that took advantage like these earlier examples that I've spoken of, this interplay among the power politics in Europe. I mean, this, the Spaniards had occupied and own that region until, until basically the decline of Spain and they handed it over to France. You gotta remember how important New Orleans was to the new nation and all of the trade from the Midwest that was so vital to the, to the growth ME and the long-term unity of the country flowed through New Orleans. And if you could cut that off, you create all kinds of economic and diplomatic and political complications for this brand new, very fragile nation. And so it was imperative then that the United States control the mouth of the Mississippi. What is really miraculous about that time is that we reach this point where the Spaniards have transferred New Orleans two, and Louisiana in fact to the French. Bonaparte initially had hoped to establish control over that, that bass region and certainly over New Orleans. But it lost an army and an earlier campaign and Hispaniola to malaria. And his fleet, of course, in that era was, would be unable to maintain contact between France and this new, new area under French control, given that the Royal Navy in patrolling the Atlantic. So Napoleon reach a conclusion that he needed to, to sell the land to America along with New Orleans, the entire stretch of land beyond New Orleans. And that of course, fit in perfectly with America's objectives. In the long run. The original objectives of living stem and the negotiating team where to buy New Orleans. But obviously, when this wonderful off her fell in their lap, it was fairly self-evident what needed to be done. And in fact, it only took about 2.5 weeks for the negotiations to proceed. And when you look at most diplomatic negotiations percent, particularly for something of this scale. And that's just unbelievable. It was characteristic of diplomacy at that time that the time for dispatches to get back and forth across the Atlantic was not only slow, but it was also very erratic. I mean, if he had been slow but predictable, it would be one thing, but it was slow and an unpredictable even to the extent of whether the dispatches would get there at all. And so you have kind of a different culture in the, in the Foreign Service at the time of independent decision-making just because your head too. And this was a case where Livingston had been the Secretary of State under the Articles of Confederation for several years. And so he was an experienced diplomat. He knew, knew the broad scale strategy of this new republic and, and recognized an opportunity certainly when he saw it. And then more or less by chance, Jefferson had sent James Monroe over to negotiate this treaty. And Monroe arrive the day after tally rounded made this offer to sell all of the olive, Louisiana along with New Orleans to Livingston. So the 2-ohm are there together. And so they're able to have a pretty sure understanding of what Jefferson would want and proceed on that basis. I think the real miracle is this confluence of events within France actually that lead their objectives. And America is to be so closely aligned and make this purchase so logical and readily available from both sides. And the other point that I would make about this this incident is that schoolchildren all are taught about the Louisiana Purchase and what it did for America, this huge expanse in and the extent of the nation. But it's also important to understand what prevented for the nation. Because if we hadn't been able to buy new Orleans to attain control of the mouth of the Mississippi from France. We're going to have to establish some kind of alliance relationship with Great Britain. And that would have gotten us thoroughly tangled up in there in the European power politics of the time, which was something that as a weak fledgling nation we just couldn't afford. And so that's a pathway that we were not forced to follow because of this good fortune that we had. Well, mostly very small cadre. First of all, I mean, our diplomatic representation when Jefferson became the first Secretary of State was basically to diplomatic posts, one in London and one in Paris, and then five consulates. So our presence abroad was so, so limited and it grew at a measured pace after that. But, but there was no Formal training. There is no particular background except people were trusted through their relationships and their work back here, john Adams, for example, went over to join the negotiating team in Paris to try to negotiate an end to the war with Great Britain. Not based on any training. Lord knows he wasn't much of a diplomat by personality, but he was a strong, articulate, thoughtful, powerful advocate for the new country and was sent over on that basis. And after that, he went to actually didn't to Holland to negotiate financial support, a series of loans for the new country. And then he ended up finally on this negotiating team, negotiate in the Treaty of Paris back working with Franklin again. And the two of them are sort of the odd couple of American diplomacy and that era you could hardly get to more different personalities than I think John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. I'm not articulated any of this before, but what you have down as this moment of extreme peril emanation, obviously the greatest threat that's existed to these United States since, since the revolutionary era that we were just speaking of. And we had Abraham Lincoln and obviously with no diplomatic background or experience in foreign relations, whatever. And he brings in William Seward is the secretary of state who again, as is fairly widely known and thought that he should have been president and then he would in fact be the policy leader for the, for this administration. And that was fairly quickly disabused during the first months of his tenure as Secretary of State. But as a fairly rocky passage. And the strategic task then for, for America was most of all to keep Europe out of the war. And they pivot point. There was our embassy in London. And Charles Francis Adams, who again goes back through the Adams family, who was John Quincy Adams, his son, grandson of John Adams. So there's, this line of diplomats out of the Adams family ends up again being pivotal to the, to the salvation of the union and this time of crisis. Because you've got the confederates who have this wonderful economic weapon of cotton that they think will compel Great Britain to, to open up the blockade that the Union had established on the south and establish diplomatic and trade relations with the Confederacy just to keep the people at work in Birmingham and to support the economy. And two, and in fact extend that all the way to political stability within, within Great Britain. So this, this was a very, very high-stakes game. And the disadvantage actually that the South had, I think most prominently was first of all, the English leadership had no real desire to go to war with anybody at the time over any of the stakes that were at play. But there was also slavery, which again, English people were, were very much cognizant of that difference between the Confederacy and the Union and very reluctant to support the slave economy of the South. But it was a close kept thing over time because again, these economic pressures began to play on Great Britain. So you've got these, these interests at play within Great Britain. You've got sort of what are their strategic and political objectives. And you got this huge economic weapon that they feel will be wielded by the South with huge political and domestic impact for, for the, for the British. And so you had this very active campaign by both sides, both the union and the Confederacy, to maintain a diplomatic presence in Great Britain and secondarily and France. But also to a huge, huge public diplomacy aspect of this war to make sure that the English people writ large up through the ruling classes understand exactly what's at stake here. Both in terms of the difference and the societies of the two nations as they were constituted Confederacy. I'll probably get in trouble for calling the Confederacy a nation because Lincoln never did. But, but in any case, to actually feed information into the press op-eds, articles, buying of journalists. It's this wonderful story of this competition for public opinion all the way back during the Civil War, which are so important. And the other aspect of it was this attempt by the Union to cut off the, the, the arms sales to the Confederacy and there's blockade running. And so what also develops along with this high-level diplomacy then you've got the with the war for public opinion. And at a layer below that, you've got this release. Surreptitious but very, very active campaign by the union to keep track of who's buying what arms and how are they getting to to the south and, and, and also to prevent the, the English from permitting the construction of a blockade runners and ships capable of preying on union commerce. So all of this is just as imbroglio that's going on for years and years and years within Great Britain. And in the end, the effort secretary Seward Charles Francis Adams in maintaining the, the, the understanding of the leaders of Great Britain that It would because his belly for them to intervene in this war. I mean, it was kind of a dual aged public, public image of the United States on the one side, but on the other, you need to understand the stakes at play if, if you interfere in this conflict. And that was a huge victory for diplomacy again, at a pivotal moment in American history. Well, first of all, car was the third of three people who had roughly analogous roles within the bureaucracy of the State Department. And it's just a really remarkable story that begins, I think, about 820 and extends up through Carr who finally retires. Can 930 ate. His last job in the State Department was Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, believe it or not, when the Munich Agreement was signed. So went out on kind of a low note, I would say. But for most of his career, he was the bureaucratic center of gravity or the State Department. He was the guy actually maintaining an orderly system of records and sound management within the department. And as part of that, he kept assuming to himself or being assigned greater and greater levels of responsibility until became the director of the consular service. A uniformly competent, systematic, orderly worker. He loved order and method and and he was appointed to direct a consular service. And it was actually their first that these reforms really took root in terms of sort of a normalization of fees and creating kind of professional basis for the consular service, which was then kinda brought into this larger hole in the aftermath of World War 1. Which again is a huge area for American diplomacy. I mean, it's, it's kind of an unfortunate truth that conflict always brings out kind of an expansion and the general authorities and, and reach of government, but never more so than in the world of diplomacy. In the case of World War One, the most remarkable story, I mean, we become the leading neutral in that era. So when war breaks out, for example, and in between France and Germany, we would represent as an example, France within Germany because they had broken diplomatic relations and we would pick up sort of this care of French citizens. And that, in that context. And even bigger story actually is in Paris itself during the First World War when the entire economic system, financial system in, in France basically broke down and they nationalized the transportation system. And we, at our embassy were required to get shipments of gold that ranged back from Washington and Wilbur car did exactly that. He was a guy working that at this end of the problem to get over there so that American citizens would be able to pay their way out of the country. It's just a remarkable thing and a very major moment for the department which entered that conflict with this sort of very kind of low op, tempo 19th century bureaucracy. And all of a sudden a deluge of activity that they're forced to respond to. And I think that's part of the part of the impetus towards a rogers actually just understanding that you need to modernize, normalize, and professionalize the Foreign Service as a basis for American diplomacy. And that's really what it, what it did. And Wilbur car was sort of the driving engine and creating that and going back to Congress actually a couple of times to, to, to see it past where they've actually, I mean, the downside of the story is, which I hope doesn't appear on film, but actually this does become one large service. Actually the consular and Foreign Services are kind of merged. Then it becomes a competition for the promotion boards to see who gets promoted. And the counselors, consular service just lost out big time. They actually had to go back and I think re, re, legislate the promotion system under this new merged Foreign Service. I think the biggest thing is that it created a statutory basis for the professionalization, the orderly selection and institution of new foreign service officers or promotion system that made sense and paste them. Pay system that sort of went along with this general professionalization. All the essentials of organization are set there. And it's been obviously as, as America's role in the world has evolved since then in World War Two and then an immediate aftermath of World War 2. And at various points since Ana's, as America's reach has widened and as our role across the international system has intensified, this has stood us, has an essential foundation for this growth in numbers and also in the bright, the broadening aperture as I call it a foreign relations. When you look back at the opening days of the Republic that we were just discussing, it's it's basically bilateral and its negotiating a Treaty to end a war. And now when you look at what we do as members of the Foreign Service and as a department, the aperture is just so much broader because the complexity of the international system and the number of players and the issues that kind of fall within the purview of diplomacy. Now, none of that could have been adapted to, I think without the Rogers act. Yeah, that's certainly true. And it took a long time and it's always been a case, I think historically speaking, where the requirements of the department are mad after some time lag. And so you have these intervals like at the end of the 19th century was pretty clear that we need some kind of professionalization of the Foreign Service. But you need a trigger. You need Congress to, to recognize is you need the right advocate. You need to write conceptual framework to create. So you can move ahead. And I think that's all these things came together, as I said before, with Wilbur car who was again kind of a conceptual architect of this legislation and work with Congress to get it passed. Yeah, it was an interesting thing because of course you've got you come through the Second World War and you have this trusted working relationship, I guess you would say certainly across the public and within the policy community to a large extent with the Soviet Union and the Soviets, by the way, were very interested in cultivating they appear to vary. They had their own very active public diplomacy program here in the United States. But in the aftermath of the war, actually starting with Poland, during the war, it became clear that it was going to be very hard to reconcile their vision of the post-war world where American, let alone with, with Great Britain, which were the three major disputants in this situation. And over time there's a series of crises as, as the shape of the post-war world gradually emerges, what she had done as a gradual accumulation of evidence that they see things differently than we do. They have a different culture; they have a different perception on the international system. And that this dream that we had had of a United Nations with kind of collegial relationship and long-term stable relationship with the Soviet Union was just not going to happen. And the evidence was mounting and mounting and mounting and people were thinking about it. They were thinking about in, here, they were thinking about in Great Britain and the Soviet Union. And there actually sort of equivalent analyses that were done. But you need a trigger event. One great mind to kinda step back from the whole thing. And canon was a, was an expert in Soviet Union and in Russia and very, very thoughtful man, obviously given, given the results of this effort. And, and so what we have then is this, it's almost like dropping something into a supersaturated solution. Holly evidence was there. It was fairly clear that what they were trying to do wasn't working and drop in that little pebble and everything suddenly kind of clarifies and firms up. And that's I think more than anything that was a role with the other Telegram.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Watch: The Tools of Diplomacy

Diplomacy can best be understood as all that a country does to advance its interest around the world before you would do anything, whether it's a student or as a professional diplomat, you want to stop and think, what exactly is it you're trying to accomplish the most typical goals and diplomacy, whether you're a professional diplomat or a student, is to affect the behavior of some other actor or actors. What it is they're prepared to do or not to do on behalf of their interests in ways that move things closer to the outcome that are in ureters. Diplomat comes to work with actually a pretty crowded toolbox. It can be negotiations, it could be consultations, It could be sanctions. Tools can be used for any range of purposes to promote interests or values. Democracy or human rights to promote certain economic outcomes. Or tools can be used in the military sense to prevent something from happening or to stop it once it's underway. In my experience, whether it's humanitarian crisis or a more traditional foreign policy crisis, you almost never have agreement on your side of the table. Nobody can predict for certainty. If I use two lex and this amount and I match it with two y and this other map, how it will actually play out across time because you've got so many variables. So a big part of making diplomacy, Bargaining that takes place either on where you want to go or even when you agree on where you want to go, on how to get there. It's very rare in diplomacy, it's all or nothing. Sanctions can be mild. Sanctions can be incredibly powerful and threatened to wreck someone else's economy. But these things are rarely switches. Almost always you dial them up and you dial them down depending upon the circumstances. Tools aren't solutions, their instruments, the things you work with, they bring with them the potential to shape outcomes. What you've got to decide whether you are a student, or a policymaker is in what quantity and what balance in what Mitch for how long and what direction? There's not a right answer, but there's a set of answers or set of conclusions, a degree of understanding of the complexity of this. Hopefully people will take away from it that they didn't come into it with.

6. Watch: Multilateralism

Multilateralism is basically cooperation amongst three or more countries. It basically entails countries getting together and trying to find cooperative solutions to common problems. So, few examples would be climate change, which by definition doesn't respect national boundaries. But we also have issues of global epidemics which can spread from one country to another with the ease of somebody getting on an airplane. In addition, we have the looming threat of cyber insecurity. How do you keep an open global internet and at the same time, protect ourselves from attacks from other countries? Traditionally, when people talked about multilateral cooperation, they talk about universal membership organizations such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, the World Bank. But in addition to these standing treaty-based bodies, the United States and other countries are increasingly relying on a broader variety of multilateral institutions. And a good example of this is the group of 20 or the G20, composed of approximately the world's 20 biggest economies. And what the G20 symbolizes more than anything else, is that we live in a new world where things can't be simply arranged in a cozy boardroom of Western countries. We really need expand the table and bring in some of the new actors that are transforming the world and where much of the world's economic dynamism is actually a car. One of the major challenges of the 21st century is trying to update current multilateral institutions to the rise of emerging nations. In particular the so-called bric nations, Brazil, Russia, India, and China. There are countries that are attempting to assert themselves in the world and they want a place at the high table of global politics from the perspective of the established powers, they're not always on the same page in terms of their priorities, or necessarily the values. That makes cooperation a lot more difficult. Because multilateral cooperation, but inherently requires a certain amount of compromise and a certain amount of sacrifice of freedom of action externally. And also sometimes some sacrifice to domestic policy autonomy because you're signing up for things like how to treat your industries that actually have some bite domestically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Watch: Negotiations

Just about every aspect of international relations, foreign policy and diplomacy at one time or another is subject to a negotiation. Negotiations can be about capabilities. Negotiations can be about terms of trade. You can have them say about territory. Peace negotiations are a form of diplomacy. We're parties, they may or may not be governments get together to essentially hammer out some sort of a compromise over some dispute. Negotiations of any sort always take place in a context. Does the question say whether fighting is going on? What is the relationship between the parties, what's the history of trust or mistrust? How many failed or successful negotiations have there been in the past? What are public attitudes and the various sides? How much space or flexibility to the negotiators have. You can make a very long list of things that determine the context for any negotiation. And you'd better make that list because negotiations never take place in a vacuum. There's no limit to the ways in which an agreement or negotiation can be shaped. You can try to solve everything. Simply try to solve one piece of it. The parties to the dispute themselves can get together or can take some outsiders, say the United States or some other government, or it can be an organization, say the United Nations. Outsiders can bring and incentives. For example, the United States is often encouraged Israelis than compromise in various negotiations with Arab entities. Why or how? By offering Israel various types of military support. It's important to keep in mind the distinction between negotiations and consultations. The premise of a negotiation as you've got a dispute, there’s a degree of specificity and usually it's to resolve or prevent a disagreement for coming about. Consultations are actually much more forward-looking. It's not it's not so much that you've got a dispute, but you may have a common problem. What say to do about climate change? Consultations are the day-to-day of what diplomats do. And sometimes they succeed simply by each side walking away with a better idea of what the other side is thinking, what the other side values. So, you're able to anticipate how they may act in this or that situation. Consultations can be useful as an end in themselves. And sometimes consultations can be useful because they can actually set the ground for a successful negotiation. The reason negotiations fail or succeed more than anything else comes down to what I would call ripeness. What that is is a measure of whether the various leaders of the sides have the willingness to compromise and agree, and whether they have the ability, it's not enough for one or another side to one an agreement. They have to be strong enough politically to put their name on the dotted line and then sell it to their own respective Congress Parliament, Politburo, whatever it is. If they're unable, unwilling to make compromises for whatever reason, they lack the political strength or they think they could do better away from the table, say using arms, then you're not going to get a deal. One of the dangers in a negotiation is trying to get a 100 percent of what it is you want. That's a danger because if you get a 100 percent, you've often created a situation where you can go home and carry your political process, but the other side hasn't. Cyprus is an island that's been now divided for more than four decades, but there's been almost non-stop peace negotiations. I was involved for years as the US representative to the talks. And for one reason or another, the talks a failed. It's almost never for the reason that the ideas were not on the table. The ideas are painfully, painfully well-known, almost like the Middle East. It's the political barriers, not the intellectual barriers to agreement that so often explain why you fail to have success. There is a potential downside to trying and failing at peace negotiations. Secretaries of state, presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers only have so much time. So what economists call opportunity cost. The time you spent doing one thing is time and energy you don't have available for something else. Secondly, if you try and fail, people may then lose some respect. You may lose some, some standing. There's also the problem of people feeling let down. You try and negotiation. If it fails, then a lot of people are going to say, well, hold it. Does that mean compromise is impossible? Maybe them, we should continue fighting and I think we see some of those attitudes in the Middle East. Sometimes you're going to make an assessment that a situation simply isn't ripe, it's not teed up to be resolved. But then the answer isn't necessarily do nothing. The United States and the Soviet Union had all sorts of arrangements, not solve crises, to manage them. Sometimes in foreign policy and diplomacy, your goal isn't to solve something, but rather it's to take an imperfect situation and to keep it from getting much worse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. Watch: Humanitarian Intervention

Military humanitarian intervention is when civilians are under stress, when they are starving or under attack. And the international community, maybe the United States, decides that they need to go in and help these people and that in order to do that, they're going to need the military for logistics or for protection. The responsibility to protect is an international norm. What it basically means is that it is the responsibility of governments to protect civilians. And that if they can't do that, that it's the international community's right and responsibility to intervene in order to help those civilians. The human rights community considers it an incredible evolution of norms. On the other hand, this can be considered a violation of sovereignty. I mean, who gets to decide if somebody's going to come into my country and intervene because I am not taking care of my people. There's definitely a balance there. Humanitarian interventions vary widely. You can have a natural disaster, in which case, you're basically bringing in medical supplies and food and water. In a conflict zone, you may have to be really protecting civilians from combatants, as well as providing for their basic needs. Those sorts of interventions can be a lot more complex because you have to determine whether or not you're going to get involved in the conflict in order to start saving people's lives. A classic one was in Somalia, where the United States intervene because people were starving. They thought they were intervening in a famine when they got there and they realized that actually the causes of the famine were warlord conflict. It quickly started to escalate. This is the infamous Black Hawk Down situation where in an effort to take the fight to the warlords, one of our helicopters was shut down. Some 18 Americans were killed. After that, the idea of going into a humanitarian intervention just not very palatable politically in America. It led to reticence to get involved in the horrible genocide happening in Rwanda. But we have also done humanitarian assistance in the Balkans. We've done all kinds of disaster assistance. Deciding whether or not to conduct a humanitarian intervention is not easy. You have the sovereignty issue and you have to think about what are the root causes of the crisis. If it's a civil war? Now you're just sort of blurring the lines between a humanitarian intervention on the one hand and peacekeeping on another. Do you have international authority to do that? So, you have to think about the politics. The second thing you're going to have to think about is how hard is this going to be? How far away is it? This is just basic military logistics. One of the other considerations is how long are you going to stay? People always talk about exit strategies and they're easier said than done. Another thing to consider when you're thinking about doing a humanitarian intervention is whether it will be unilateral or multilateral, you definitely have more legitimacy if the UN has decided that this is an R2P situation and other countries are going to get involved and help you. That said, it complicates things. I mean, it's much easier to just do things by yourself, especially when you have the kinds of capabilities that the United States has. Humanitarian intervention, disaster relief. Our military has been doing this for years, but they haven't really considered it as sort of their core responsibility. However, they get called to do this all the time. And so, there's a lot of controversy inside the Pentagon about whether or not they need to be organizing, training, and equipping and preparing to do this sort of emission as a primary role for them.