[MUSIC] Hello, I'm joined by Martin Brown from Richmond University. Martin, in your experience, what do think of diplomacy? What do you think of when you think of diplomacy? How do you conceive it? >> Well I suppose the standard definition would have to be the execution of foreign policy and the management of international affairs, which is what you would get in the textbook. But that doesn't tell us everything we need to know. I think it's often forgotten, perhaps how dull a lot of diplomacy actually is. Pushing paper left and right, writing reports. Attending long functions that you probably don't want to be at. So I think there's a variety of different levels there. There's the sort of high-end peace conferences and sort of the gold standard diplomacy that we might think of. But it's very easy to forget the sort, the lower ranks, the lower divisions of diplomacy, and the less interesting stuff. So, if I was to define diplomacy, I think it's some sort of balance between the two. >> Okay, and thinking about, what does successful diplomacy look like? Well, successful diplomacy, I suppose, again, it's whether you're thinking about short term, medium term, or long term. I spent a fair amount of time looking at the diplomacy of wartime Czechoslovakia in the 1940s, and someone like Doctor Edvard Banesh. Somewhat controversial character and as a diplomat as well, if we define him as a diplomat. You might argue in the short-term, very successful. In medium-term, less successful, and in the long-term completely disastrous. So, how do you judge the levels? I suppose the obvious answer is do you have a clear, written, agreed outcome? A nice treaty is obviously a good indication of successful diplomacy. I think there's also an aspect of what Richelieu talked about continuous engagement, continuous dialog. So the idea that you end up with a nice peace treaty or a nice treaty or a nice agreement is nice and neat, but there's also the aspect of that continual dialogue and maintaining the dialogue even if other relations are not so successful. So maybe successful diplomacy sometimes is just keeping talking even though there isn't an outcome. And so, again, a balance between those two extremes, the nice neat conference treaty and the fact that you just keep talking. And even when the talking isn't getting anywhere and wasn’t very successful, that the two are maintained. >> And conversely in that regard, what would you consider as sort of negative or failed diplomacy? How do we know when diplomacy has failed? >> Again, I suppose the opposite of that is very simply when they're not talking. If you're not talking and relations are completely broken down and whether it's especially if there's not even any back channel discussions. Then clearly this is a failure. And the most important thing of diplomacy is to keep the dialogue going, even if it going around in circles, even if you're shouting slogans each other. One thinks of Kruschev banging his shoe on the table. The fact that you keep talking eventually I think gets there. So the moment you stop talking, you say I'm not speaking to the other side. Unless you have a mediator who's coming in and shuttling from room to room, that's clearly the worst thing. To not have any dialogue whatsoever. >> Okay, and leaving behind perhaps the sort of high politics of ambassadors, treaties and the like. Where else do you see diplomacy at work in the contemporary world, historical world even? >> Well I suppose the most interesting, and becoming more and more interesting is non-state. I mean under the terms of the various Vienna Conventions of the 1960s, the state is identified as the only one that can accredit official diplomats. So now if we're looking at that sort of non-state-centric diplomacy, business diplomacy, perhaps, is an interesting area, which is not perhaps as new as we might think. If you go back to the 1700s in the East India Company and these sorts of things, the Hudson Bay Company. Clearly they were involved in non-standard, non-state-centric diplomacy and interaction, and even signing of treaties as well. So non-governmental and non-state-centric involved in diplomacy, I think is of more and more interest. I suppose the UN Climate Change Conferences and I was about to say jamborees. I don't want that to necessarily sound negative, but where you're having states, international organizations, pressure groups. The Arctic Council might be another one where indigenous peoples are also involved in the negotiations as well. This is clearly an area that is expanding, that was quite difficult to identify about say 40 to 50 years ago but it's becoming increasingly important. >> Okay great, thinking about some of the people who operate this diplomacy. Who are the sort of stars? Who are the those who you look to with a degree of admiration or indeed disdain but nevertheless those that you could attribute as quality diplomats. >> Yeah, I was giving this some thought, and my immediate reaction was to think of Harold Nicholson. And then I was thinking about that and I thought, well, he wasn't probably a very good diplomat. And I actually hold him in high regard for the quality of his writing, rather than the quality of his diplomacy. [LAUGH] And after all, he wasn't quite sacked, but he sort of walked away with something of a cloud over his head. So maybe not, I mean, there are others you think of. And I was going through a list and I was struggling to think of them. And then the other night I had dinner with an old school friend of mine. He's actually now working for the foreign office, and I won't mention any names or where he's currently posted. But what struck me about what he was saying is his genuine enthusiasm for the job. And he tells the story that when he first was offered the position, he thought to himself, what's the job I would do for free, and happily do it without being paid. And he decided that being a diplomat was one of those things. And he just seems to get a lot out of it, and genuinely enjoys it, even the boring bits. And I think having that genuine enthusiasm for being posted around the world, in good, bad and indifferent postings and being able to maintain the level of enthusiasm that he does. How much longer he'll be able to do it, I don't know. But maintaining that enthusiasm is what you would look for in a good diplomat. Being able to be sort of comfortable in more or less any situation and maintaining that enthusiasm. How many great diplomats really do that in perpetuity, I wonder. And I think there's probably a sell by date. And even thinking about that, I was also thinking about the question of what diplomats do when they retire. And I can't help thinking perhaps as academics and students of diplomacy, perhaps we're mistaken sometimes in taking that cut off point of when they leave the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or Ministry of External Affairs. because after all, there's a whole range of diplomats that then go off and do other things. And I wonder whether we shouldn't sometimes look more about what they do once they leave, and where they take that skill set and what they do with it. >> Okay, picking up on if you're identifying enthusiasm as one of the key qualities of a diplomat. Are there any other that you'd like to sort of identify? Well enthusiasm is obviously one. I mean De Caluire wrote out a great long list of what a good diplomat which we've all studied at one point or another. Certainly being able to operative in a variety of environments without dominating. WIthout, even if you are bored, showing that you're bored. I mean, there's a certain, I'm not sure quite what the right definition of that would be. Having a certain ability to operate in any sort of circumstance, whether it's the sort of the garden party or whether it's the sort of the security council rooms or whatever it is. Being able to carry that off. Clarity of communication of course is very important as well. Not getting annoyed or angry. I mean that's certainly one of the reasons I could never be a diplomat and would never be employed by any sort of diplomatic organization. I'm not very good at hiding what I think about people. I think doing that without being duplicitous I think is something very important for a d iplomat as well, while maintaining that dialogue. Those are, I think, some of the key skills you would be looking for. >> Just to follow on from that, in terms of levels of duplicity and stuff. How important would you see trust being to diplomacy? >> Central, central, I mean this sort of throw-away line that a diplomat is someone sent abroad to lie for his country sounds great. But of course it is about trust, especially in negotiation. I think we know in sort of personal lives how quickly that if you don't trust someone, how that relationship changes. And so maintaining a level of what we might call diplomatic trust, its not necessarily trusting someone with your life or trusting someone with anything. But trusting that the person you talk to will deal with you equitably and clearly and transparently. And that you can trust that they will do the best they can, I think is the level of trust you're working on. And I think in terms of the core diplomatic, that's what should make it work. And I think sometimes, especially looking at what I'm working on now, at detente in the early 1970s. That even though you have these very deep cleavages between east and west, NATO and Warsaw Pact. The ability of diplomats to cross those boundaries and those divisions and maintain communications and have a certain level of admiration for the other side is very interesting. And of course that's what makes the maintenance and the management of international relations work within a diplomatic framework. That no matter the other side is your enemy, is your ideological enemy or the enemy of your nation. That you can still maintain a dialogue in certain areas, is what makes it work. >> Okay, thank you very much Martin. >> Okay, thank you. [MUSIC]
