SUMMIT DIPLOMACY: SOME ‘LESSONS’ FROM HISTORY

Prof. David Reynolds(Cambridge University)

History and Policy Lecture

Gresham’s College, 4 June 2013

ON THE WORLD STAGE

TOP LEVEL, HIGH STAKES

BUT ROOTED IN DAILY LIFE

NOT TO MENTION . . .

SO SUMMITRY

•Draws on skills we use every day.

•But the fate of nations hangs on the outcome.

ADVICE FROM THE PAST • ‘It is not easy to see how things could be worsened by a

parley at the summit.’ (Winston Churchill, 14 Feb. 1950)

• ‘It is far better that we should meet at the summit than at the brink.’ (John F. Kennedy, 1 Oct. 1959)

• ‘It is always the same with these conferences . . . The Great Men don’t know what they are talking about and have to be educated.’ (Alexander Cadogan, Yalta, 6 Feb. 1945)

• ‘If great princes have a desire to continue friends, in my judgement they ought never to meet.’ (Philippe de Commines, c. 1490)

BUT VIEWED HISTORICALLY

• Leaders did not usually engage in direct negotiation . . .

SECURITYRouen, 1419

STATUSCanossa, 1077

BUREAUCRATIZATION

THE LEADER AS STATESMAN

• Essentially a 20th-century idea.

• Especially from the 1930s . . .

MADE POSSIBLE BY AIR TRAVEL

MADE NECESSARY BY WMD

MADE INTO HOUSEHOLD NEWS BY THE MASS MEDIA

SINCE THE COLD WAR . . .

• Fewer opportunities for dramatic personal interventions . . .

CONSTANT COMMUNICATION

DIVERSIFIED THREATS

INDIVIDUALIZED MEDIA

INSTITUTIONALIZED DIPLOMACY

IN THE 21ST CENTURY

• Less scope for personal diplomacy.

• But still some ‘lessons’ from history.

1. KNOW ‘THE OTHER’

• Vienna, June 1961

• Kennedy (b. 1917)

• Khrushchev (b. 1894)

2. THINK POLITICS

• Nassau, 1962

• Skybolt → Polaris

3. BEWARE NODS & WINKS

• Blair & Bush

• Iraq War, 2002-3

4. WATCH YOUR STEREOTYPES

• Thatcher & Kohl

5. TEAMWORK

• Reagan & Gorbachev

• Shultz & Shevardnadze

• + Interpreters

6. PLAY IT LONG

• John Major & Albert Reynolds, 1993

• Tony Blair & Bertie Ahern, 1998

HISTORY AND POLICY?

• 1. Case studies from the past that may ring bells for current leaders.

• 2. A larger sense of process, beyond normal short-termism.

• 3. History is not a body of facts. But a way of thinking – ‘thinking in time’.

THINKING IN TIME

• The Key Question is . . .

• NOT ‘What’s the problem?’

• BUT ‘What’s the story?’

• ‘How did we get into this mess?’

• To help see how to get out of it.