American Diplomats – and Deals – That Changed the World

BOOK REVIEW: THE ART OF DIPLOMACY

By Stuart Eizenstat / Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Reviewed by: Jonathan M. Winer

The Reviewer — Cipher Brief Expert Jonathan M. Winer was long-time counsel to Senator John F Kerry and later served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement and as Special Envoy for Libya. He worked with Stuart Eizenstat on international financial crime issues during the Clinton Administration.

REVIEW — Twenty-five hundred years ago in The Art of War, the Chinese philosopher and military strategist Sūn Tzu wrote that “the greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

In The Art of Diplomacy, the indefatigable former White House policy director, EU Ambassador, and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Stuart E. Eizenstat draws upon a near half-century of immersion of his own service under six Presidential administrations and recent interviews with eight Secretaries of State, four Secretaries of Defense, three CIA directors, and two Presidents, among others, to document how peacemaking and world-changing agreements can – sometimes – be achieved by persistent, creative, and single-minded U.S. diplomats. But even then, the use of force is often a pre-requisite for success, and as this book illustrates, a diplomatic victory today may begat further trouble down the road.

Eizenstat’s terrain ranges from Henry Kissinger’s pyrrhic victories in Vietnam and China, James Baker’s finesses on German Reunification, George Mitchell’s nudging Northern Island’s Troubles to a peaceful resolution, and the brutal Balkan conflicts that lasted much of the Clinton Administration.  His profiles cover manipulative Machiavellian pragmatists such as Kissinger, Robert Strauss, and Baker and enfant terrible Richard Holbrooke; contrastingly earnest but diligent idealists like Al Gore and John Kerry, and canny lesser-known figures such as Chester Crocker in Africa and Bernie Aronson in Latin America.

Good Diplomacy, Bad Diplomacy

Eizenstat does not cloak his views on the enduring consequences of bad diplomacy, as well as the unintended consequences of diplomatic successes. He contrasts the informed strategic decisions made by Baker and the George H. W. Bush team in the first Iraqi war, with the arrogance and ignorance that fueled the second one under George W. Bush, as diplomacy was largely replaced by callow U.S. bullying, naming the Bush Administration’s Iraqi viceroy, L. Paul Bremer, as justifiably earning history’s contempt. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, Eizenstat documents how half-baked and poorly executed ideas and political ennui again sidelined diplomats and transformed victory into failure. He also documents how sudden shifts in policy amid partisan transitions have blown up painstaking U.S. diplomatic initiatives to combat climate change and harmonize rules on international trade, not just the Iranian nuclear deal.

Along the way, Eizenstat describes his own education and experiences as a diplomat, from the Carter years, where he was an eyewitness to the Egyptian-Israeli Camp David Accords, to his work in the Clinton Administration to counter climate change and promote trade agreements, and his personal mission, in and out of government, over decades to successfully help victims of the Nazis secure compensation for property stolen that ended up in Swiss banks, private collections, and auction houses. He also reveals personal policy preferences, especially on such economic matters as sanctions and tariffs, which he doesn’t much like, and trade agreements, which he generally supports. These views are consistent with his overall position that while the U.S. needs to be strong in its domestic economy, generally the rising tide of harmonized trade regimes will lift all boats.

He also covers surprises, including diplomats acting against type. One example: in 2015, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, known for her fiercely disciplined self-control, broke down crying during negotiations on the U.S.-Iranian nuclear deal in response to bad faith negotiating tactics by an Iranian diplomat. Amid tears, Sherman reminded the Iranians that this move risked everything. In shocked response, the Iranians promptly backed down. The same negotiations prompted an equally uncharacteristic reaction from Secretary of State Kerry, whom the Iranians so infuriated that he literally pounded the table with his fist, causing his pen to fly up and strike an Iranian diplomat in the chest. Apologies ensued, tensions defused, and the negotiations went back on track to reach an agreement to defer the Iranian nuclear program for a decade – until the Trump Administration, making good on a campaign pledge, blew up the result of all of that diplomatic labor with a stroke of that President’s pen.

Constructive Ambiguity

Throughout, Eizenstat describes the benefits and risks of the use of the tools of the diplomatic trade and provides lessons learned. For instance, constructive ambiguity – one of Kissinger’s pet tools – can often secure important and enduring agreements that lead to new opportunities. But agreements with constructive ambiguity also can seed later outbreaks of conflict, due to differing interpretations of both their terms and their implications. The obvious case is Kissinger’s “One China” concession that made U.S.-China relations possible in 1972 and which has been a source of heightened bilateral tensions and geopolitical risk ever since, exacerbated by China’s heightened economic power and growing mastery of dual use civilian-military technologies.

Eizenstat chronicles many examples of the U.S. use of this tool to reach agreements. Some cases merely reflect face-saving solutions with little actual substance. For example, the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal reached an impasse on the question of whether U.S. sanctions were being “suspended,” and could be reimposed if Iran broke its commitments, or “removed,” as Iran demanded, implying permanence. The solution? The two sides agreed the sanctions would be “lifted,” enabling both sides to interpret the term as they wished. In practice, when President Trump decided unilaterally to end the agreement, the U.S. reimposed them without worrying much about semantic details. 

In other cases, the consequences of constructive ambiguity have been more dire.

To help justify invading Ukraine, Russian President Putin has relied on early statements by Secretary of State Baker made during negotiations with the Soviet Union in February 1990 on German reunification not to expand the NATO presence in Europe “one inch eastward.” Notably, these words were never included in any agreed upon text. NATO allies take decisions by consensus, and these are recorded. Neither the Soviets nor the Russians secured any such written assurance, and in 1997, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary entered the alliance, with no public protest from Russia as the largest successor state of the Soviet Union. Instead, in May 1997, Russia and NATO agreed to enter a new relationship of partnership, with the assumption that the Cold War was now a history lesson in what not to do. But in 2000, Putin replaced Boris Yeltsin, and over time, each side adopted the portions of that diplomatic history which it found most convenient.

Ambiguity over what Israel was and was not agreeing to in connection with Israeli settlements in the West Bank have bedeviled and undermined efforts to reach a permanent two-state solution for the Palestinians and Israelis from Camp David to the present. The failure of such language in the 2020 Abraham Accords between the UAE and Israel to meaningfully limit continued Israeli expansion in the West Bank has been cited as playing a role in the decision by Hamas to carry out the October 7 terrorist act which in turn begat the current round of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed and the ongoing Israeli assaults on Gaza.

The Interplay Between Diplomacy and the Use of Military Force

The strategic use of military power, as well as the threat of such use, can be pre-requisites for effective negotiations to end a conflict. Eizenstat explores this phenomenon in his discussion of the resolution of the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. To get to the Dayton Accords, the U.S. first had to convince the other members of NATO that the only solution to stop Serbia’s military assaults and murders of Bosnians was for NATO and its members to jointly bomb Serbian military forces. Serbian massacres of some 40,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica and the discovery of mass graves there were the triggers that finally led to the NATO military intervention, the first in its history. The NATO bombing of Serbian forces in Bosnia shifted the tides of war towards the Muslim-Croat forces in Bosnia, and against the Serbs, bringing them to the negotiation table and eventually to Dayton, Ohio.  There the technique used at Camp David of sequestering negotiators in a locked-down area – here, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base – was again used to wear down resistance and secure a deal. There, the threat of further military force against Serbia became an essential ingredient for success. When Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic threatened to walk out of the talks, the U.S. lead negotiator, Holbrooke, arranged for the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the head of NATO to show up and jointly tell Milosevic that if the Serbs even pointed a weapon at any of the soldiers of the 16 members of NATO, they’d shoot-to-kill back. Holbrooke then carried out a carefully prepared visual stunt. He brought Milosevic and a Serbian general to a room with satellite imagery which featured an image of the Serbian general’s own home and his wife’s car in Belgrade. NATO’s war had previously been confined to Bosnia territory. The troubling implications of the visuals for Serbian security were obvious.

While difficult negotiations remained, Holbrooke’s implied threat of attacks on Serbia essentially overcame the Serb leaders’ resistance, enabling the Dayton Accords that ended the fighting in Bosnia. This did not, however, prevent the still-looming war over Serbian-controlled Kosovo. There, Milosevic and the Serbian military, in an effort to maintain Serbian control over ethnic Albanians seeking independence, including through armed resistance, replicated its Bosnian bad habits amid reports of mass graves, ethnic cleansing, and the displacement of a million people. After Holbrooke-led negotiations with Milosevic failed, NATO again undertook a massive bombing campaign, this time in Serbia itself, involving some 1000 aircraft and 38,000 combat missions over just ten weeks over the spring of 1999. By April 1999, the US and UK then threatened to put NATO troops on the ground. In May 1999, Milosevic was indicted by the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. At that point, with the bombings continuing, Milosevic backed down and accepted an international peace plan and NATO peacekeeping forces on the ground. Amid enduring Serb resentment, an independent Kosovo was born.

Eizenstat’s Balkan War account illustrates both the reach and limits of diplomacy. Ending the conflicts there required not only effective diplomats, but the application of military force by NATO to change the facts on the ground, growing international opprobrium against Serbia, and legal consequences for the principals applied by a newly formed international human rights court, bringing the Serbs to the table under extreme duress. Achieving sustainable diplomatic outcomes in a war may not be possible until one or more of the parties to the conflict are sufficiently weakened and they become ready to accept the unacceptable as a lesser evil.

What It Takes

In his concluding chapter, Eizenstat catalogs major lessons for successful U.S. diplomacy. Having the right negotiator matters. Effective negotiators must be smart, knowledgeable, well-briefed, clear in their objectives, and cooly empathetic, able to dial up and dial down how they project their feelings as needed. They must form trusted personal relationships with counterparts, especially in situations where mistrust is fundamental, and must mix-it-up and leverage any advantage like a martial arts master. They need full backing from the White House and the President, as Secretary Kerry had from President Obama in his negotiations with Iran but did not have in his effort to secure an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement with Netanyahu.

Per Eizenstat, to be a great U.S. diplomat, you need to not merely find “win wins” but win-win-wins: the more parents support a victory, the less likely it is to wind up as an orphan as the deal on paper is being implemented in practice. (This is one area of peacemaking in which the UN and other international organizations can become essential actors after the diplomats have gone home.) You need to be creative, respect your adversaries, and find common ground and compromises that all of the parties should be able to live with. Physical space matters, and so does timing: in-person, close-up meetings among warring principals like Menachim Begin and Anwar Sadat at Camp David cannot happen before the ground has been properly prepared. Some solutions have little chance of ripening without a lot more suffering first.

Stamina matters. Diplomats, like armies, get exhausted, and sometimes then become ready to deal. Sometimes, you can outlast the opposition. But as the popular song goes, you must know not only when to hold them, but when to fold them, and when to walk away. In practice, there are times when U.S. direct engagement is not ripe, as illustrated by Secretary Kerry’s inability to get Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu even remotely interested in moving forward on a two-state solution during President Obama’s second term, despite the looming peril of further conflict.

Yet even such failures demonstrate the importance of maintaining ongoing American diplomatic engagement. While countering Russia, containing the Middle East conflict, and managing geopolitical and economic tensions with China occupy the Biden Administration, the ongoing challenge of climate change cannot be avoided. As Eizenstat’s personal efforts in the very first climate change global summit illustrate, even non-binding international agreements, negotiated by diplomats, can align countries to undertake ever-evolving steps to secure fundamental global environmental fixes in the face of entrenched economic and political interests. Effective use of the diplomatic arts can literally help to save our planet.

Stuart Eizenstat’s Art of Diplomacy covers 50 years of how American diplomats helped remake the world, sharing the secrets behind successes and stumbles that remade the world. Essential reading about the art of making the impossible possible.

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