To Negotiate, Watch the Chinese

A slew of tactics, strategies, and perhaps even elbows are thrown in Copenhagen.  (The outcome is still questionable, calling to mind the process up to the talks which fell apart at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban a few years ago.)

Barbara Finamore director of the China program for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the top Chinese leadership was pursuing a cautious and calculated strategy as the talks near a decisive phase this week.

“They’re going to wait until the last hour of the last day and just as the other side is walking out they’ll say, ‘Hey, come back.’ Just as they do every day in every market in China,” Ms. Finamore said. “That’s why they’re the best negotiators in the world.”

via China and U.S. Hit Strident Impasse at Climate Talks – NYTimes.com.

Memo From Riyadh – Influence of Egypt and Saudi Arabia Fades – NYTimes.com

 

 

Fascinating analysis of the respective strategic postures Middle East countries are taking regarding negotiating positions:

“If there is no peace, then all those who bet against peace are winning,” said an Egyptian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid increasing tensions with the United States or Saudi Arabia. “And all those who act and bet there will be peace are losing, like us. We are losing because we are putting this bet.”

via Memo From Riyadh – Influence of Egypt and Saudi Arabia Fades – NYTimes.com.

 

Regarding Egypt:  “They have been challenged by Iran, opposed by much smaller Arab neighbors, mocked by Syria and defied by influential nonstate groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Regarding Iran/Syria:  “Even while Iran has been focused on its domestic political crisis, and Syria has struggled with an economic and water crisis, their continued support for Hamas and Hezbollah has preserved for them a strong hand in matters like the formation of a new government in Lebanon and efforts to reconcile Palestinian factions, officials and analysts said.

The flagging peace process: Is Israel too strong for Barack Obama? | The Economist

Has Obama fever met its match in the Middle East conflict?

Five months after Barack Obama went to Cairo and persuaded most of the Arab world, in a ringing declaration of even-handedness, that he would face down Israel in his quest for a Palestinian state, American policy seems to have run into the sand. The American president’s mediating hand is weaker, his charisma damagingly faded. From the Palestinian and Arab point of view, his administration—after grandly setting out to force the Jewish state to stop the building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land as an early token of good faith, intended to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiation—has meekly capitulated to Israel.

via The flagging peace process: Is Israel too strong for Barack Obama? | The Economist.

Additional Reading on the Cuban Missile Crisis

Want to dig deeper into the causes, processses, and various possible outcomes from the crisis? (Remember that case studies, by their nature, have more than you can ever read or digest….that is part of the game.)  But assuming you want to learn more….First, its helpful to know that this is an oft-studied case in schools of public policy–so much so that Eliott Cohen wrote a much noted article in The National Interest in 1986 arguing “enough!” [Google book version here]

Further, take this worthy rebuttal to Cohen in this review of Michael Dobbs’ book and discussion of the demythologizing of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as a brief by Dobbs for the US Institute of Peace [PDF].  (The latter argues several reasons for the continued study of this case–including the fact that it demonstrates how personality in leadership matters.  With a different president we very well would have obtained a different result.)

Now, go back from the future and consider these sources, thanks to Future State:

Primary Sources

Kennedy, Robert F. Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: W.W. Norton, 1969.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, History Staff. CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. Washington, DC, Central Intelligence Agency, 1992. http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/cubamis/book1.pdf

U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, vol. VI, Kennedy-Khrushchev Exchanges. Washington, DC: USGPO, 1996. http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/volume_vi/volumevi.html

U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, vol. X, Cuba, 1961-1962. Washington, DC: USGPO, 1997. http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/frusX/index.html

U.S. Department of State. Office of the Historian. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, vol. XI, Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath. Washington, DC: USGPO, 1996. http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/frusXI/index.html

Secondary Sources

Allison, Graham T. and Philip Zelikow. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999.

Fursenko, Aleksandr and Timothy Naftali. One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997.

May, Ernest R. and Philip Zelikow, eds. The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1997.

Nash, Philip. The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters, 1957-1963. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

National Security Archive. “The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: The 40th Anniversary.” http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/

Paterson, Thomas G. Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Thirteen Days (movie). Dir. Roger Donaldson. New Line Cinema, 2000.

News Analysis – Both Iran and West Fear a Trap on Uranium Deal – NYTimes.com

To negotiate a standoff, you must understand both sides:

That struggle — pitting Iran’s fears of falling for a Western conspiracy to neutralize its “strategic reserve” against the West’s fears of being lured into an Iranian plot to buy time for a secret nuclear bomb program — lies at the heart of the complex set of moves and countermoves now being played out around the globe.

via News Analysis – Both Iran and West Fear a Trap on Uranium Deal – NYTimes.com.

White House’s New Sudan Strategy Fits Envoy’s Pragmatic Style – NYTimes.com

I new negotiator in town for US policy on Sudan–and he’s a soldier, Maj. General Gration.   But that doesn’t mean he opposes diplo-chat…in fact, he’s the strongest proponent for such a plan, involving a package of incentives and threats:

“You think we can fix the crisis without talking to Khartoum? That’s impossible,” he said. “You think we can resolve the southern war without talking to Khartoum? Impossible.”People close to the talks said views fell generally into two main camps: one advocating a tougher line against Sudan led by the United Nations ambassador, Susan E. Rice, and the other calling for a more conciliatory approach, led by General Gration.

via White House’s New Sudan Strategy Fits Envoy’s Pragmatic Style – NYTimes.com.

Clinton Urges Hewing to Peace Process in Northern Ireland – NYTimes.com

In case you thought everything in Northern Ireland was resolved, Sec State Clinton raises concerns over her “family project” of peace:

I know the divisions within Northern Ireland are not fully healed,” Mrs. Clinton said, citing Belfast’s still-segregated neighborhoods. “But given time, and given the leadership that each of you can provide, the torn fabric of society will be woven together, stitch by stitch, choice by choice.”

Northern Ireland, she said, serves as a model for peacemaking everywhere in the world, and indeed, George J. Mitchell, now the Obama administration’s Middle East envoy, helped broker the Good Friday Agreement.

Some of those gains, however, are now at risk. The standoff between Catholic and Protestant leaders over transferring authority over the police and the courts to Belfast from London — which is partly about money and partly about politics — could stall the process of devolving power to Northern Ireland.

via Clinton Urges Hewing to Peace Process in Northern Ireland – NYTimes.com.

News Analysis – China Aims to Steady North Korea – NYTimes.com

What does real leverage look like?

For months, North Korea had insisted that it would never return to the talks demanded by the United States, calling them “dead.”  North Korea’s reversal came after China signed a series of agreements that promised aid for the North and an expansion in economic exchanges, including the construction of another bridge across their tightly controlled river border.  via News Analysis – China Aims to Steady North Korea – NYTimes.com.

China really doesn’t’ want to have to face the implosion of North Korea.  But its interests are furthered using North Korea as a “buffer” against US influence in the region.  But as the article notes, China wins and South Korea/US loses influence.

Getting Ready for the Iranian Nuclear Talks

Suppose you are researching for the U.S. negotiation team.  Barring the long-term, historical readings—what summaries or quick insights can you suggest?  Here’s an analysis of the P-5+1 talks with Iran by George Freeman, founder of StratFor (a geopolitical intel company), including the positions, interests, and strategies for this next negotiation:

Now, we get down to the heart of the matter: The Iranians have officially indicated that they are prepared to discuss a range of strategic and economic issues but are not prepared to discuss the nuclear program — which, of course, is the reason for the talks in the first place. On Sept. 14, they hinted that they might consider talking about the nuclear program if progress were made on other issues, but made no guarantees.

So far, the Iranians are playing their traditional hand. They are making the question of whether there would be talks about nuclear weapons the center of diplomacy. Where the West wanted a commitment to end uranium enrichment, the Iranians are trying to shift the discussions to whether they will talk at all. After spending many rounds of discussions on this subject, they expect everyone to go away exhausted. If pressure is coming down on them, they will agree to discussions, acting as if the mere act of talking represents a massive concession. The members of the P-5+1 that don’t want a confrontation with Iran will use Tehran’s agreement merely to talk (absent any guarantees of an outcome) to get themselves off the hook on which they found themselves back in April — namely, of having to impose sanctions if the Iranians don’t change their position on their nuclear program…

To this end, Russia is pleased to do anything that keeps the United States bogged down in the Middle East, since this prevents Washington from deploying forces in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltics, Georgia or Ukraine.

via RealClearWorld – Confusion Reigns in Iran Crisis.

Other insights that you might consider…and add your own suggestion:

• Roger Cohen, IHT/NYT observes “No nuclear endgame that fails to address Iran’s victim syndrome through some degree of highly monitored empowerment is conceivable to me.”
• Prior experience with US/Iran engagement over Iraq from the Bush Administration representative James Dobbins.
• Flynt Leverett of the New American Foundation argues that sanctions are the wrong direction, that rapproachment a la Nixon in China is the right strategic direction.
• Useful analysis on Russia’s strategy from today’s NYT as well as a good overview—to see what China will do and act accordingly, keeping in mind its own regional intersts–and a good reminder as to the complicated game of 3D chess any U.S. president must master in foreign policy and multilat negotiations.

Prep Com for Climate Framework Stalling

The negotiations for a new climate change agreement to be signed in Copenhagen in December are badly stalled. With the agreement running more than 200 pages — including what negotiators estimate are a couple of thousand brackets denoting points of differences — diplomats and negotiators fear that the document is too unwieldy to garner a consensus in the coming months.

In convening the meeting, the United Nations is hoping that collectively the leaders can summon the will to overcome narrow national interests and give the negotiators the marching orders needed to cut at least the outline of a deal.

via No Climate Change Leader as Nations Meet – NYTimes.com.

How does that work?  Who goes first?  This is the trick inherent to any negotiation, especially where the collective benefits only come through collective action–and the individual benefit of freeloading are even higher.

They won’t do it one by one,” said Robert Orr, the United Nations assistant secretary general for policy planning. “Politically, they all have to jump together, and this is the essence of this summit. We will see if any governments are ready to say, ‘I am stepping through the door now; are you going to come with me?’ That would be a huge break.”

Perhaps it’ll take a fresh look at the issue–such as one provided by a well-known conservative Danish environment minister, Connie Hedegaard:

“People say environment is a soft issue, but it’s not,” she said recently, sitting in her spartan office in a pink sweater and neatly pressed slacks. “It’s about where we get our energy from, about security, about growing economies. I’m a conservative, I worry about that.”