How the Lack of Diplomatic Doctrine Impairs Statecraft
Policymakers become fixated on policy and fail to focus on the process and methodologies needed to carry out that policy.
The U.S. military has the healthy habit of after-action reviews to learn from what went right, what went wrong, and what might have been done better in an engagement. Sometimes what is learned is sufficiently important to be incorporated into doctrine. More commonly, it provides insights into how training can be improved. However, professional diplomatic doctrine — a body of interrelated operational concepts describing how to influence the behavior of other states and people by mostly non-violent means — has never existed. So there is no diplomatic equivalent of military doctrine. This is a very big gap in statecraft.
The absence of diplomatic doctrine to complement military science eliminates most options short of the raw pressure of sanctions or the use of force. It increases the probability of armed conflict, with all its unpredictable human and financial consequences. Working out a diplomatic doctrine with which to train professional diplomats could have major advantages. This effort must begin with restoring precision to our diplomatic terminology and reasoning processes, sharpening our analysis of international realities and rediscovering diplomacy as strategy. The constant review of experience is essential to extract and test the hypotheses that constitute the doctrine of any profession — its institutional memory and essential skill set.
Statecraft is generally defined as the skillful management of state affairs. The term “statesman” implies a higher level of skill — even mastery — compared to the abilities of an average ruler. No political leaders can manage their country’s affairs in isolation from the rest of the world, which is why they have foreign policies. To be successful, they need to understand and deal with other governments and societies. The substance of diplomacy involves maneuvers between states and people. These are both intellectually fascinating and emotionally engaging. Much ink is spilled describing and analyzing them. Both policymakers and diplomats easily become fixated on the policy issues with which diplomacy must grapple and fail to focus on the process and methodologies by which such grappling must be done. But such a focus is indispensable in mastering the diplomatic arts.
Although rarely understood, the centrality of diplomacy as an instrument of statecraft is essential to war termination, gaining sovereignty and shifting the balance of power. It’s not about “making nice,” nor is it just a delaying tactic before we send in the Marines. Diplomacy is a political performing art that informs and determines the decisions of other states and peoples. It shapes their perceptions and calculations, so that they do what we want them to do, because they come to see that doing so is in their own best interest. Sometimes diplomacy rearranges their appraisal of their strategic circumstances — and when needed, the circumstances themselves. Ultimately, it aims to influence their policies and behavior through measures short of war, though it does not shrink from war as a diversion or last resort. It is normally, though not always, overtly non-coercive.
Diplomacy succeeds best when it embraces humility, and respects and preserves the dignity of those to whom it is applied. Most of what diplomats do is unseen, and it is relatively inexpensive. Its greatest triumphs tend to be preventing bad things from happening, but it is hard to get credit for something that was avoided. So diplomats are more often blamed for what did happen than credited for what did not. Diplomacy stages no parades in which ambassadors and their political masters can strut among baton-twirling majorettes or wave to adoring crowds.
Great statesmen understand how to consume intelligence, which is processed information that is useful to statecraft, and that they are dependent on diplomats and spies to receive it. The main difference between the two is that diplomats gather information overtly. There is no substitute for direct conversations with decision-makers in foreign governments. Effective political leaders also know that what works in one political culture may very well be ineffectual or off-putting in another. Without the expertise of diplomats, political leaders risk engaging in “mirror-imaging,” the supposition that foreigners see their interests and make decisions the same way as one’s own political culture and government. In reality, each country has its own ways.
For example, to get things done in Japan, it helps to understand that government ministers or corporate chief executives seldom make decisions on their own. They see their role as ratifying recommendations that have percolated upward from mid-level experts in the institutions they head. In the case of Japanese government ministries, almost no decision is made without final vetting by an administrative vice minister — the senior career official in the ministry. Raising an idea at the ministerial level in Tokyo without ensuring that it has first gained support at lower levels is almost invariably a waste of time.
In China, decisions have historically been made by the Communist Party apparatus. Even during the increasingly authoritarian rule of Xi Jinping, it is a culturally parochial mistake to assume that the country’s president and party chief has personal executive authority equivalent to that of the U.S. president and can engage in similarly freewheeling discussion. Chinese officials, however senior, have no authority to commit their country to actions that its state and party apparatuses have not reviewed and approved.
Diplomatic engagement must not be seen as a favor to the other side, but as a convenience to one’s own. It’s a means by which to convey one’s position directly to an adversary, to listen to its reasoning about its position on the issues in contention, to argue for changes in that reasoning, and to warn, cajole and probe for evidence of willingness to concede specific points. It may be good domestic politics to pound the policy table in support of popular narratives and nationalist postures, and to reject foreign positions as irrational, disingenuous or even malevolent. In a policy process driven more by how things will look to potential domestic critics than by a determination to change the behavior of foreigners, diplomats are easily marginalized. But when they are backed by strong-minded leaders who want results abroad, they can accomplish a great deal.
Diplomacy is a universal skill, not the preserve of any particular country or its history. There is a great deal to be learned from the ways in which the statesmen of other countries manage or fail to manage the issues that confront them. We should use this period of diplomatic fecklessness to recruit, train and deploy a new generation of diplomats, who will face greater challenges than those of us no longer in government, and they must be more competent and professional. Most of today’s problems are not amenable to military solutions. Excellence in diplomacy is at least as essential as excellence in the conduct of war. In the case of the United States, neither war nor the threat of war can restore its lost global leadership. Only an upgrade in competence at formulating and implementing domestic and foreign policies, coupled with effective diplomacy, can do that.
Some diplomatic chores yield immediate gains. Others are long-term investments in garnering goodwill and building rapport — laying down strata of fossil friendship that can be mined in the future, or keeping warm memories of past cooperation suggestively alive. When these chores are not done, the country loses in both the short and the long term.
Chas W. Freeman is a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and deputy chief of mission in China and Thailand. During nearly three decades in the Foreign Service, he was also principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs and assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs.
The above is an adapted excerpt from the book “Diplomatic Tradecraft,” published with permission from Cambridge University Press. © Nicholas Kralev 2024