the value of negotiations

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I'm a big believer in the power of language. I teach the English language every day, and I love doing it because I believe that it is the greatest tool we have in solving world problems (I mean language in general here, not only English!)

That said, I was also reading some articles about the Second World War. Hitler cheerfully signed a number of agreements that he subsequently walked right through and ignored. What do you do when talking and talking doesn't work? When people tell you all the right things that you want to hear and then behave in the opposite manner? How many times do you get lied to before you say "enough is enough"?

So I'm throwing this out there because of the comments about "you can't ever negotiate with terrorists" and the responses like "so much for all debate!" Where and when do we draw the line on talking and move to other forms of interaction?

 

Well negotiations are the way unless you're prepared to go to war then and now. If you're not then you really have nothing better to do than negotiate. It might even yield some results. Refusing to do so just out of principle or considering it a waste of time is not in my opinion a very good policy.

I've allways wondered what US hopes to achieve with not negotiating with Iran, Syria or North Korea bilaterally. While it might prove to be a waste, it might atleast give some perspective to what they want. Or in a better case some mutual intrests and compromise solutions might be found. So my opinion is pretty much to negotiate until you declare war in which case you let the guns do the talking.

 

Well, in my experience with the law of contracts, with the kind of cases people sue in, they'd be better off with mediation. For example if the sum is low, the legal title is dubious and complicated, they could go to a mediator and find a solution over perhaps two hours. That would eliminate legal fees and such, which are sometimes bigger than the base amount awarded. Sometimes even splitting it in half and moving on would be better than fighting to death and letting the winner keep it all, as well as the loser paying off his own and the winner's lawyer. Not to mention the time wasted, having to go to courts and skip work or other things, having to prepare, the stress and everything.

As for negotiating with terrorists, the kind of negotiation armed groups want is concessions. The more you give, the more they'll want to get.

However, terrorism and such conflicts have causes. If the people of the third world had been listened to before, or at least if their interests or their rights had been considered before, there would be less terrorism now. I think if more and more talking is done between various different countries as equal partners, without domination or entrapment, the causes of terrorism will begin to fall off.

Isn't it cheaper to send engineers with plans and materials than to send soldiers? Isn't foreign aid cheaper than foreign intervention?

Terrorists don't count without popular support. If the people don't hate you, they won't love the terrorists who do. Even from an utilitarian point of view, being well liked internally and abroad is a good investment.

 

AFAIK, contacts - just like other similar arrangements - are going to be followed if it's in the parties' interests to do so. I personally believe that people make "rational" choices - rational, that is, from their point of view and taking into account subjective factors (anything from perceptions to honor). Therefore, if sticking to a contract is not in someone's interests, they will seldom do it.

The bigger value of negotiations, however, is not just establishing a contract - enforced or not - but changing the other's perceptions (or your own, if you happened to be wrong). Ideally, you want to impress your point of view - or at least elements of it - on the other/s. Besides, Chev makes an obvious point - by and large, negotiations or even aid can be a lot cheaper and less problematic in the long term than military solutions.

 

The problem is simple: What if you suck at negotiation or the people you should be negotiating with won't negotiate?

 

The other thing negotiations can do in cases like this is show/remind the international community just how irrational/irresponsable these people can be. People in general, and groups of people in specific, seem to have short memories for these things.

 

That's called War (with a capital W)

Negotiations seem to only take place when:
A. There are nuclear weapons involved
B. Someone's already lost
C. Someone actually believes they are going to lose (often the rarer of the three )

Call my cynical if you wish.

 

So you limit negotiations to only those involving war and peace? There are quite a few international organizations that don't involve nuclear weapons or anyone losing (at least directly) - IMF, EU, NAFTA, etc.

@Gnarf: usually, you have other people do it for you (i.e. you pay them to). Everyone talks - to the right person and in the right way.

 

I very much share Chev's assessment on mediation.

Gnarff, there's a flipside to your point about the people you should be negotiating with but who won't negotiate: There are those who deem themselves so powerful that they intend to simply impose on the other party their views. For them negotiations have no value, because in their eyes they don't get enough out of it. Criminals who rely on coercion are an example, evil employers or rat ass bosses, monopolist companies and I could go on. Those folks go to court if they have to, use force if they have to, and they usually have the (financial) staying power to do so, or believe it.

If you read as an analogy to US foreign policy there comes a point across, and that's no accident.

Single mindedly not-negotiating is a template that eventually forces you to interact through force, be it through courts or be it through actually using force yourself (or by proxy). No accident in that, that's a basic fact of life and human behaviour. So what follows is this: On an abstract level negotiations have the invaluable benefit to not limiting yourself to one approach, using force, thus truly giving you options on the table. That means that you're not going to be taken hostage by your template once you have chosen to deal with a given issue.

Think of an order to people to come to dinner with a rotten meal that nobody likes. That only works when you're the evil CEO and when your subjects advancement depends on it. A negotiated dinner looks quite different, and might eventually even be mutually enjoyable.

Excerpts from Ragusa's Kitchen Strategy 101:

• An army of ants can drive an elephant crazy
  (Get out of my kitchen, you greedy buggers!).
• Choose your battles wisely
  (only chase those greedy mouths away when they start stealing ingrediences to an intolerable extent).
• Even the strongest warrior needs rest at some point
  (you do the dishes, that's only fair after you bastards nearly ate and drank me into the poorhouse!)
• One cannot rest comfortably on bayonetts
  (cook well enough for the workshare argument to appear legitimate)

What I aim on with this is the inherent value of legitimacy that in my experience can only be gained as a result of (even implicit) negotiation.

EDIT: It is good to recall what the aim of a negotiation is - an agreement or a contract - which will usually be achieved if there is seen a sufficient degree of mutual benefit in it for both sides, and sufficient goodwill. It is the job of a decent negotiator or mediator to work out the mutual benefits and make them again visible to the parties.
If you don't want an agreement or contract, because that would only water down your maximalist demands, you don't negotiate. You use force, in one way or another. That is exausting. And you are what you do. That behaviour doesn't win one many new friends. Worse, it has a way of alienating and driving off the ones you have. In the largest sense man is dependent on friendly interaction. That means to not negotiate out of principle is as a strategy an extremely unwise choice because it is not sustainable.

[ October 27, 2007, 22:31: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

While I believe negotiations are a very powerful tool, I'm not quite sure I agree with your assessment as to their usefulness to solving the world's problems.

The problem with negotiations is that there are certain ground rules that must be observed and if they do not exist the negotiations are doomed to failure (either with no resolution or a resolution that is ignored).

To steal a line from Ragusa here are Snook's rules of negotiations.

1. The parties must be of the same legal standing. A classic example is parents vs. children. No matter how much the child wants to negotiate if the parent is unwilling to give the child equal status the parent will triumph (I have mental images of two year olds arguing with their parents). The child may wail and even annoy the parent greatly, but the parent will prevail.

2. The parties must be able to trust each other and/or verify the results of the negotiations. I think it was Reagan who coined the phrase "Trust, but verify" when negotiating with the USSR over ICBM treaties. This is the rule that causes the most trouble with negotiating between nations and cultures. A treaty between the U.S. and England is relatively easy and a treaty between Israel and Lebanon is not.

3. There must be a mechanism in place for enforcement of the negotiations. This is the other main weakness of negotiations on the "World Stage". While there are some international groups that numerous nations will "obey" this is by no means universal nor is it absolute. As an example the U.S. has lost numerous cases before the WTO (World trade organization). While not happy with the rulings we have changed tax laws numerous times because of it. This is typically the realm of the courts and is why negotiations are so effective between individuals or corporations as the courts can force enforcement whereas on the national stage enforcement can be much trickier.

 

Good points.

As for the question of standing, *perceived* superiority, say the the idea of 'rogue states' for instance, undermines that premise and leads to an inevitably confrontational approach, as I lined out.

As for 'trust but verify', that was in my understanding a rather cunning idea by Reagan's people to muzzle those crazies who didn't want to compromise with the USSR at all. It is clear that any arrangement with the Russians on arms reduction would also reduce, relatively, US military strength as such an agreement would require mutual steps. That ran counter neo-conservative policy ideas. 'Trust but verify' pre-empted the accusation of being naive towards the commies. Reagan basically said "Hey, I don't trust them either, that's why I am going to verify their compliance".
That inevitably resulted in people like the neo-cons, to stay in the game and to not apprear as obstructionists, to busily engage in assaulting the data the intelligence community gathered (that started well before Reagan, think of Team B) on compliance because, after all, the Russians could not be trusted, and thus numbers that looked like compliance would be too good to be true, and thus must be false. Obviously, their skeptical view concidentally supported the position they held before, that US arms reduction would be a mistake. Now fancy that. In my understanding it merely shifted the problem from one of general foreign policy to the apparently factual level. In reality however, the same ideological struggle just continued under a new title. One Richard Perle was apparently convinced the Russkies had fooled the US and in Operation Big Sleep simply buried their nuclear missiles to then surprise a naively disarmed, gullible US and stab it in the back! HAHAHA! Sucker! … Their scepticism toward verification that proliferated into the GOP was rather a matter of principle and served a clear purpose and thus should be accepted only with a great dose of caution.

I understand your point about the enforcement of negotiations, that is indeed the weak spot in international law and international treaties. These treaties are only as good as their parties are faithful, in this context, as a result of reciprocity and sovereign equality as legal principles, exemplary action gains singular importance. *Mutual* goodwill is key.

I take as an example the idiotic refusal of the US to even negotiate with friendly, helpful and coopeerative pre-Ahmedinejad Iranians, out of principle, because they expected to get more for free when their regime change tour would reach Teheran. Human biases and perceptions play big into the assessments of goodwill, mutual benefit or practicability and often painful limitations are self inflicted.

And it IMO incorrect to say that when there's no court, and no police, then treaties are unenforceable and 'have no teeth'. Violating international treaties is not without a price, as it discredits the violating state also vis-a-vis other states. That is a 'soft price', but if the current US isolation is any indication, it still hurts.

[ October 28, 2007, 00:46: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Rogue states will always be a problem. Any RPG player will tell you can't trust a rogue

As to "soft prices", it is amazing how quickly that price is forgotten when it suits a nation's interests.

 

TGS,
the interesting question about rogue states is wether the concept is valid and not just an appealing if meaningless metaphor. So I gather that there is a difference between an individual and an entity consisting of many individuals, a society, on a territory. Groups are capable of collective common sense.

Normal states are sovereign and equal under international law. Rogue states are ...? Well, they cannot be trusted to exercise their sovereignty responsibly and are thus ... deserving intervention, or violations of their sovereignty? For a legal term it is by far too arbitrary and vague to be meaningful. 'Rogue state' is merely a label. The original rogue state prototype were iirc the Pirate States like the Barbary Pirate States who assaulted shipping all across the Mediterranean. Their blatant conduct invited the campaign waged against them, which led to their destruction and incidentally sent the US Marines on their first 'power projection' to the shores of Tripoli. Well, they had it coming. Rogue states have a return address. That isn't lost on them.

Of course, states can also collectively act irresponsible and self destructive. That is hardly the realm of the 'rogue states'. America afforded itself a mindless war frenzy over Iraq, molesting the rest of the world with threats and insults, before they went ahead against sound advice to kick off unspeakable carnage with not much more than an "Oops!", out of sheer righteousness and a good dose of misguided vengefulness. That was a war of aggression under international law, and the only reason the US gets away is it's relatively much larger power compared to other states and their veto in the UN security council taking care of that the UN will not condemn them for this misdeed. To antagonise the world so explicitly and 'in their face' still carries a price even for a Nation in such a confortable and privileged position of power. The result is the prevalent anti-americanism. Just ask US citizens who venture beyond the promised land and actually travel abroad. Ask international businesses. The soft price being forgotten easily appears to me to be the domestic angle of it. Don't worry, states will be reminded, that is, their portion of the population with contact to the outside world.

[ October 28, 2007, 18:19: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

@TGS: Ironically, I doubt it was Reagan who coined the phrase. Ironically, as I've heard almost the same thing - "Verification is the highest form of trust" - attributed to Dzerzhinsky.

Anyway, imo the problem with the term rogue states is that it can be selectively - and subjectively - applied. As Ragusa said, it is a label given to one state, usually by another. I personally think that this is often done for "domestic consumption," say to preempt an argument for the possibility of a productive interaction. After all, the argument goes, as a rogue state they won't adhere to any agreement that a real state would, so why bother? Of course, imo that theory has two major problems, even if the proponents of the term are adequately informed and act in good faith - first, non-rogue states also don't always adhere to commitments, and second, the rulers of rogue states tend to have the same fundamental goal to those of any other states - retaining their hold on power.

 

I like to sum up a brilliant piece by a guy named Anthro. The part of his piece with direct relevance to this thread is this:

On monotheism: Where there's an assumption that the world is composed of a singular hierarchy, where equality is equality of submission to a higher entity. Negotiations would then obviously be negotiations of surrender once it was ascertained who would "naturally" win an all-out battle.

Cheney and his ilk (including Rove's GOP domestically) are monotheists in a political sense. They assume that all fights have a winner and a loser - that stalemates only come about due to a lack of will. If that's true, democracy makes no sense: it's simply a utopian delusion with no grounding in the hard reality of power and war. At best, it's a useful tool to quiet the herd. Their approach to science reflects this, their approach to diplomacy reflects this, their approach to war reflects this.

Cheney and his fellow travellers have created a zero-sum reality in American politics. They have played hard-ball with the civil service and the military. If Cheney and ilk succeed at cleaning house, professional employees will have been completely replaced by ideological players; the imperial pattern will become entrenched.

Something similar may happen on the international front. Since we've abandoned the post-WWII idea of building up our defeated adversaries, it would be foolish for our adversaries, once they have us down, not to try to finish us off. The idea that international politics is multilateral will be sorely damaged if Cheney gets his chance to push his "advantage" to the hilt.

 

To address the three points that Snook made, let's take it from the other end:

3. Agreed.
2. Agreed.
1. It's a little bit more complicated. As a rule, material power between negotiating parties isn't always equal. Sometimes this screws up negotiations, sometimes it doesn't. You say "legal standing" and that's what's the most important here, indeed. However, to some extent negotiations work in internal disputes under administrative law, which are between a citizen and a public authority (derived from the state or performing duties derived from there). Those are overseen by an administrative court, which creates more equality than when the authority itself is adjudicating, but it's still not a complete equality in the sense of civil law. Don't know how this works in the US, as I'm talking from the continental perspective - we've had specialised administrative courts since 19th century.