Diplomacy and the Foreign Area
Officer
by Rod Propst
Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy is a thoughtful study in matching the foreign
policy style and rhetoric of the United States with the global realities contained in state
system diplomacy--that is balance of power, spheres of influence, national interests,
and limits on the exercise of power. A wily practitioner of a moderated
realpolitick, Kissinger counsels for a policy of coexistence--a coexistence which
allows for the American craving for the "widest possible moral consensus around a
global commitment to democracy", but while using a Bismarck-style balance of power
approach which proactively seeks to multilaterally reduce challenges to security,
seeking "to restrain power in advance by some consensus on shared objectives with
various groups of countries in an interdependent world."
The new foreign area officer, often with a strong background in combat arms
tactics, may be initially overwhelmed by the introduction to the strategic diplomatic
setting, which will form one of the core competencies required in his duties as a politico-
military officer. However, some basic texts provide excellent grounding, a foundation
which will serve the FAO throughout his varied duties. One of these, Henry Kissinger's
Diplomacy (Simon & Schuster: New York, 1994), offers the foreign area officer
security studies novice, or the more experienced FAO expanding his current
foundational knowledge, an excellent introduction to the history of global policy-making.
On the margins, it is a primer for statesmen. At its core, the book provides a thorough
introductory history of diplomacy and its major approaches--nation states, balance of
power, spheres of influence, collective security, containment, détente, and the
21st Century's yet-to-emerge approach to the challenge of global
fragmentation paired incongruently with political and economic [if not military]
globalization. As it does so, it introduces the ground-breaking thinkers or practitioners of
the art of diplomacy--Richelieu, Metternich, Bismarck, Wilson, Kennan, and even
Kissinger himself. Most importantly, the book places the role of the United States and
the practice of diplomacy by that nation into an understandable context. Weaving
history into a story of how America approaches foreign policy and why it does so in that
manner gives Diplomacy a palpable immediacy.
Diplomacy's Thesis. Kissinger's background as both a professor of policy
making and as one of the late 20th Century's most skilled practitioners of
practical statesmanship firmly establishes the book's credibility. Global in scope and
employing an extended timeline, the book is anchored in a reflection on how these
lessons in diplomacy are relevant to the United States and its policy makers--as both
the introductory and concluding chapters make clear. As it is America-centric, it is
natural that the history of American diplomacy has as its strategic counterbalance the
USSR, particularly during the Cold War period (fully « of the book). While de Gaulle
saw Russia as a country with "an inherently flawed, fragile, and vastly inferior
system, with its gaps, its shortages, its internal failures, and above that its character of
inhuman oppression, felt more and more by its elites and the masses, whom it is more
and more difficult to deceive and to subjugate," (575-576) the US viewed Russian
power as monolithic and worthy of its central diplomatic focus for well over a half
century. What emerges is the thesis of the United States as the singular,
however reluctant, lead for global diplomacy; the US who must balance moral
zeal and commitment with a natural isolationism; and who must guide the world through
21st Century diplomatic quagmires in a world from which it can neither
withdraw nor dominate (the American paradox of 21st Century global
diplomatic power).
Themes in Diplomacy. Kissinger works through three principle themes
upon which the structure of Diplomacy is hinged. These are: 1) Diplomacy
as a primer for statesmen, 2) Diplomacy as an historical survey of policy
execution trends, and 3) Diplomacy as an introduction to the great theorists and
practitioners of the diplomatic art.
The Art of Diplomacy: Diplomacy as a Primer on Statesmanship. He
serves up his vision of Realpolitick, that is the practical application of diplomacy
not the system of Bismarck, in what is in many ways a primer for would-be statesman.
In fact, throughout the book he actually comments on what good or poor statesmen do.
Stressing the practical lessons he seeks to convey, versus viewing his book as merely
an intellectual exercise, he provides one of the early lessons-- "Intellectuals analyze the
operations of international systems; statesmen build them" (27); luckily for Kissinger, he
was able to do both, adding credibility to the book. He seeks to teach diplomacy
lessons in leaks and the use of public opinion, the quicksand of economic sanctions,
the disadvantages and advantages of personality diplomacy, the diplomatic equivalent
of doing nothing known as the "fact-finding mission", the dangers of haste in diplomacy,
the importance of keeping one's options open, the balance the statesman must
maintain with his people, and what statesmen owe to the people they represent. For
this reader, the lessons of statesmanship so directly stated were one of the three
hinges on the door Kissinger opens for the new student of policy making in his roadmap
to understanding diplomacy. Diplomacy's [unstated] role as a primer for budding
statesmen is Kissinger at his pedagogical best.
The History of Diplomacy: The Major Concepts. Another of the aspects of the
book upon which its success hinges is the introduction of the central national security
approaches that have had the greatest long-term influence on how diplomacy and
national security policy making work today. The modern state system, of entities with
national interests, emerged with France's raison de etat, which said that all
states act in their own interests with the ends justifying the means in a risk benefit
calculation. In the Netherlands, quickly followed by Great Britain, the practice of
balance of power politics and diplomacy arose. France adopted this and became a
textbook case of the functioning of balance of power. One of the giants of world
diplomacy was Austria in the early 19th Century, who led the development
of the balance of power through the Congress of Vienna, resulting in almost a century
of European peace; the Congress provided "stability by consensus." Germany saw the
next great development in methods of diplomacy in Realpolitick (raison de
etat in wolf's clothing)--a system based on raw power & might is right.
Realpolitick marked a return to the principles of Richelieu using tactical flexibility
to strategic advantage-- power politics and national interest above all.
Realpolitick was also practiced in England, by their own Disraeli. Mixing balance
of power, moral crusading, and state's interests (a moderated rasison de etat
and Realpolitick) was the unique American offering to diplomatic practice, first
stated in the Monroe Doctrine, but reaching its most concrete statement at the turn of
last century by Theodore Roosevelt and the "spheres of influence". With the fall of
Bismarck with emergence of Russia, weakening of Britain (who continued with their
dominate diplomatic approach of "splendid isolation"--"diplomacy turned rigid".
National interests & conflicts without a balance of power led inexorably to WWI (William
II's welt-politick merely inflamed the problem). Bismarck's restraint was replaced
by "confrontation as the standard method of diplomacy", and not a prevailing system
nor a single, great diplomatic practitioner was there to stop the advance of WWI. It is
here that the heart of the recommended 21st Century approach emerged.
The United States, in the wake of WWI, sought to apply "Collective security"; Wilson led
this attempt, although he had been preceded in these efforts by Great Britain's
Castlereagh and Gladstone. America disdained balance of power and
realpolitick--it believed in democracy, collective security, & self determination
(pursued with a healthy measure of moral zeal). The ideal did not sustain the peace.
The Treaty of Versailles proved too general and too unevenly applied to stop the re-
emergence of Germany & WWII "Collective security fell prey to the weakness of its
central premise--that all nations have the same interest in resisting a particular act of
aggression and are prepared to run identical risks in opposing it ". Thus, the
reemergence of Germany between wars with Stresemann with his policy of "fulfillment"
(read real politick) caused the downfall of Treaty of Versailles & WWII. After the
Second World War, perhaps the most influential thinker on diplomacy as it applied
globally with the USA as its locus was George Kennan and the diplomacy of
"Containment"; the containment approach, which was more basically a strategy which
assumed the mantel of diplomatic approach as it was applied in the bi-polar Cold War,
remained the diplomatic touchstone for almost a half century, until the fall of the USSR
in 1991. Containment operated from its USA base as the USSR and Stalin applied
Spheres of influence, with Stalin as the " master practitioner of Realpolitick" as
he developed the Soviet sphere of influence around the world. The last major Cold War
diplomatic trend is represented by détente. Détente, first mentioned by
Churchill in 1952, became the primary focus of Kissinger and his circle of practitioners.
Detente, in one form or another would last until after the Cold War. Since the Cold
War, diplomacy has been fractured by ethnic, religious, and other political posturing and
practice. The balance the bi-polar world had ensured, despite its many threats, was
totally upset in the uni-polar world at the beginning of the 21st Century. No
rational, sustainable diplomatic model has emerged in the early 2000s, although
Kissinger's closing chapter recommends an approach.
The Key Figures of Diplomacy. The third hinge on Kissinger's open door to
diplomacy study is the role of the great men, the most successful practitioners of the art
of diplomacy. Kissinger describes what sets great men apart "All great leaders walk
alone. Their singularity springs from their ability to discern challenges that are not yet
apparent to their contemporaries." (370) He then introduces some of these great
practitioners of diplomacy. Among the earliest of the great practitioners was France's
Richelieu, the proponent of raison de etat. Of him Kissinger observes, "
Richelieu must be remembered as one of the seminal figures of modern history. For he
left behind him a world radically different from the world he had found, and set in motion
the policy France would follow for the next three centuries." (65) The next set of
notable practitioners were those connected with the emergence of balance of power
diplomacy. These included William of Orange in the Netherlands, William Pitt in Great
Britain, and even France's Louis XIV. The architect of the greatest measure of balance
of power diplomacy, represented by the Congress of Vienna, was Metternich--who saw
and practiced " moderation [as] a philosophical virtue and a practical necessity."
Realpolitick's architect was Bismarck; his greatest strength was that he applied
what could have been a threatening system into a practice, " preached with such
moderation and subtlety that the balance of power never broke down." The next great
diplomatic trend was toward collective security, embodied in the person of Wilson and
his Fourteen Points; his ideals sustain and form the backbone of the recommended
21st Century approach to diplomacy. The next seminal figure of
diplomacy must be recognized as George Kennan, whose ideas guided Truman in the
policy of containment. Kissinger is himself one of the great students, teachers, and
practitioners of diplomacy. Kissinger's diplomatic successes, as the master of
détente with President Nixon, came as a result of his understanding of policy
making and of the President he served. Kissinger guided his president through a
Triangular Diplomacy between the USA, USSR, and China; it is at the heart of the
approach of dealing with multilateral issues, the approach Kissinger recommends for
the future. As Dean Acheson had said, "the effectiveness of the secretary of state
depends on knowing who the President is." (538) It is the importance of the President,
his prerogatives, and his limits of power (the paradox between limits and prerogatives)
which links Diplomacy so well with core subject matter in national security
studies institutions.
Diplomacy and the Study of National Security Institutions. For the foreign
area officer student of national security institutions of the United States
Diplomacy offers a natural, global extension of America-centric texts, such as
Jordan, Taylor, and Mazarr's American National Security or Jerel Rosati's
The Politics of United States Foreign Policy. Two major themes of these books
provide direct linkage to the Kissinger book. The first is the power of the President,
stated as "presidential prerogative" (Rosati, 99). That type of prerogative links to many
of the great practitioners highlighted in Kissinger's book--Richelieu, Metternich,
Bismarck, through the cast that dominated the Cold War's bi-polar clash from
Stalin/Roosevelt through Nixon and Reagan until the collapse of global communism had
been forced through the extended application of Kennan's containment strategy. It is
embodied in a quote by Truman in the text, "If the President knows what he wants, no
bureaucrat can stop him. A President needs to know when to stop taking advice." (425)
The second of these themes which link Diplomacy to JTM/Rosati is the concept
of the "paradox of power". Jordan, Taylor, and Mazar explore Constitutional
ambivalence (JTM, 124) of the United States and how the sharing of powers is, thus,
paradoxically applied. Rosati is even more direct in his review of the paradox of power;
he speaks to both the internal paradoxes of power upon which JTM focus, but expands
that to a more global context of that paradox, much as Kissinger does. Rosati and
Kissinger both address the zenith of power which the United States represents as the
sole remaining superpower, but then demonstrates the difficulty of applying that power
in the global community with anything resembling immediacy of effect. As Rosati
observes, "The United States [continues] to be the most powerful country in the world,
but no longer able to exercise the kind of economic, political, and military influence that
it enjoyed at its height during the late 1940s and 1950s." (Rosati, 51) Kissinger
concurs--"America finds itself both all powerful and totally vulnerable"; Its power
" does not include the privilege of pretending that America is doing other nations a
kindness by associating with them, or that it has a limitless capacity to impose its will by
withholding its favors." (836) Diplomacy is a superb text, complementing basic
American national security institutions texts such as JTM and Rosati cited above.
Limits of Diplomacy. The book's greatest shortcoming is its concluding
chapter. That chapter is no less eloquent than those that precede it. It is no less
insightful. It closes the loop, presenting the challenges of the new world order
introduced in its first chapter. However, it feels out of place. Its prescriptions for action
may be accurate; they may be true. But they are transitory in nature. The challenges
the United States faces and the approaches it must take in order to confront those
challenges are clearly stated in the conclusion. But they are more relevant to the
immediate post Cold War period than they are today. While the remainder of the book
offers a sweeping world view--a grasp which sometimes takes the reader's breath away
in its crisp, detailed marshaling of fact and historical context -- the final chapter's
immediacy is flawed by how quickly the world has moved in less than ten years since
the book was written. The challenges Kissinger alludes to in his conclusion are
important, but the challenges we face from the frag-mented world of the early
21st Century require different approaches from those described by
Kissinger in his closing. The broad brush strokes Kissinger used to paint the picture of
diplomacy through the rest of the book are lost in an overly narrow conclusion, which
unintentionally dates the study as it closes it.
Room for Disagreement. The only other element which may ring less true to
the foreign area officer reader is Kissinger's assertion that the Cold War was not driven
by reality but by " two armed camps, each driven by fears that turned out to be
unfounded." (495) This is excellent 20/20 hindsight and analysis, yet for those of us
who grew up in the period, this stretches credibility-- the Berlin Blockade, Korea,
Czechoslovakia, the Suez, the Soviet suppression of Hungary, the Cuban Missile Crisis,
Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua come to mind. The fears do seem founded on
justifiable causes or events. This contrasts with total agreement on the need for a new
policy designed for the 21st Century--a policy based on the complexity of a
previously bipolar world now fragmented by region, by ethnicity, by religion, by culture,
by temperament, by historical experience; yet also based on growing interdependence
and globalization. This new policy must be one which combines " a confluence of
moral and geopolitical aims, of Wilsonianism and Realpolitick", what Michael
Kelly recently called "armed evangelism", the recurring thesis of Kissinger and a
unifying theme throughout the book.
Conclusions: the Utility of Diplomacy for the Foreign Area Officer.
Despite these minor complaints, in summary, for the foreign area officer studying
national security policy, Kissinger's eloquent and insightful 1) primer for statesmen, 2)
overview of policy and diplomacy approaches, 3) introduction to the great thinkers and
practitioners in national strategy development and application, and 4) review of how the
United States both is affected by and profoundly affects global policy making--makes it
a study of great utility in all four of these complementary areas. Diplomacy is
required reading for all new foreign area officers and for more experienced FAOs
seeking to expand their horizons as students of national security institutions and policy
making and seeking to build a firm foundation for their duties as military statesmen.
2004, Foreign Area Officer Association
Herndon,
Virginia
Maintained by a href="mailto:stevehg@covad.net">LTC Steve
Gotowicki.
http://www.faoa.org