The Art of Peace: Bringing Diplomacy Back to Washington

There is no single model of effective statecraft. As Ross notes, there are benefits and drawbacks both to diplomatic efforts personally managed by the president or the secretary of state and to integrated, interagency efforts spearheaded by senior officials. German unification is an example of the first model. It worked in that case partly because, according to Ross, Gorbachev had limited capacity to resist the United States' "diplomatic onslaught." On the other hand, Ross offers some trenchant observations about the drawbacks of the highly personalized (and brilliantly successful) endeavors led by George H. W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker.

But it is the second model, of interagency team efforts, whose success Ross illustrates in Statecraft. This was the formula utilized in southern Africa to negotiate peace in Angola and Namibian independence during the Reagan years, in the Bosnian peace process led by then Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke in 1995, and in Ross' own Middle East peace initiative during the Clinton years. Perhaps surprisingly -- given its broader record -- the current Bush administration used a similar approach to end Libya's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (with the help of the British) in late 2003 and to negotiate the 2005 north-south agreement in Sudan. This model also facilitated the partially successful six-party talks with North Korea. Not surprisingly, given his own experience, Ross sees certain advantages to this approach.

As a veteran who led the eight-year diplomatic marathon in southern Africa (1981-89), I am inclined to agree. Interagency teams save top government officials from being overwhelmed by the daily (if not hourly) demands of statecraft for months on end. This model, however, can only succeed when the executive branch is relatively united, the lead envoy is given real responsibility, and the effort is spearheaded by a person of relentless perseverance who can operate in choppy political, congressional, interagency, and diplomatic waters. Its success depends on a clarity of purpose, a commitment to the principle of delegation, and backing from the top.

Statecraft, as these cases convincingly illustrate, is demanding and often exhausting work. There are risks, and success is not guaranteed. It requires major governmental and political resources and the same kind of hourly, year-round planning and execution as the conduct of a military campaign.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

In a conference with reporters in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned against overestimating diplomacy's role in international affairs, arguing that diplomacy is inextricably tied to underlying power dynamics and is not a particularly useful tool at the wrong historical moment or in the wrong strategic environment. "You aren't going to be successful as a diplomat," she declared, "if you don't understand the strategic context in which you are actually negotiating." For Rice, diplomacy is not just "dealmaking."

Fair enough. Diplomats do not simply travel around harvesting the low hanging fruit. They must also know when and how to plant the right trees in the right soil, carefully nurture and ripen the fruit, ward off infestations, and select the proper moment for harvest. Unfortunately, as Ross underscores in a scathing chapter on the road to war in Iraq in 2002 and 2003, the Bush administration ignored almost every principle of foreign policy strategy.

How did the United States reach the point where it needs schooling in such basic precepts? U.S. political elites are fond of declaring that everything changed on 9/11 -- that the events of that day were a historic watershed requiring a return to a bipolar view of the world. This new perspective has reinforced the United States' long-standing discomfort with the practices and requirements of diplomacy and negotiation. Now that Washington once again has a tangible adversary -- variously described as "freedom-hating terrorists," "Salafist jihadis," or "Islamofascists" -- U.S. leaders have convinced the American public that foreign policy is an "us-versus-them" contact sport in which the primary tactics are military and coercive. As the extent of U.S. isolation has become clear over the past two years, however, U.S. officials have started to correct course, moving back toward more activist diplomatic engagement. But as the dismissive official response to the Iraq Study Group report illustrates, the concept of negotiated outcomes and diplomatic engagement with troublesome or nasty regimes remains neuralgic in the U.S. body politic.

Ross attributes U.S. political failures in Iraq to the Bush administration's confused objectives, dismissive and arrogant style, ideologically warped assessments, misguided planning, and poor framing of the issues. A contradictory diplomatic strategy at the United Nations resulted in the worst of all worlds: a failed effort to obtain Security Council support for the invasion. After the debacle in New York, U.S. leaders spoke of the "failure of the un" and the "failure of diplomacy." What failed, in fact, was Washington's un diplomacy.

Ross asks whether "effective statecraft" could have produced a better result in Iraq. He argues that it might have -- if there had been "Baker-type management of the un Security Council," an international rather than a U.S. administration of Iraq, "a realistic assessment of what we were getting into," and better military plans for the postinvasion phase. In this view, a measure of competence in planning and executing the overthrow of Saddam would have led to a much more successful outcome.