Culture and history matter in diplomacy

To come to the table with a deep understanding of the sore spots of your adversary is not common in the annals of diplomacy

July 31, 2015 03:00 am | Updated November 17, 2021 02:08 am IST

As New York and all of the East Coast feels the heat of summer, the elected officials in the U.S. Congress are generating another kind of heat with ferocious arguments around the Iran nuclear deal just signed by the U.S. and five other world powers. Much has already been written about the deal, both for and against. Why didn’t these great powers extract a better deal that stripped Iran, once and for all, of all its nuclear capabilities, critics argue.  Those who favour the deal insist that after more than a year of detailed negotiations, this is the best deal we can get, with assurances that Iran will not move towards the path of building nuclear weapons for the next one decade. What is not articulated enough are the values and approaches that undergird these contradictory visions of diplomacy and the resulting outcome.

Vishakha N. Desai

This became very clear in President Barack Obama’s statements about the historical deal soon after it was announced. In his interview with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, President Obama spoke about the value of putting one’s self in the shoes of another to understand their concerns: “Even with your enemies, even with your adversaries, I do think you have to have the capacity to put yourself occasionally in their shoes...”

The President then went on to recognise Iran as a great civilisation, while acknowledging America’s problematic role in meddling in Iran’s internal affairs, obliquely referring to the ousting of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in the 1950s, instigated by the Central Intelligence Agency.  To come to the negotiating table with a deep understanding of the sore spots felt by your adversary, to have a sense of empathy and nuanced cultural understanding of the negotiating party on the other side of the table, is not as common as one would think in the annals of diplomacy.

Sign of weakness Often, such efforts at understanding the adversary are seen as signs of weakness or appeasement. The Republican critics of President Obama have jumped on the bandwagon by calling him a weak president, as weak as Neville Chamberlain who negotiated with Hitler. Their argument comes down to a simple idea: “my way or the highway”, as it is described in American popular culture.  “I negotiate entirely from my perspective, I get what I want, and if not, I walk.” This approach disparages the very idea that one negotiates with enemies. Clearly, one doesn’t need to negotiate with friends. Rather, it’s with people you disagree with that you need to figure out what and how to negotiate, understanding their constraints as well as their particular sensitivities, while being clear about your own needs and limitations.

President Obama described this approach as “no victor no vanquished” but simply parties with strongly divergent views committing to work together.  He also elaborated on his philosophy of diplomacy: “I think that when we are able to see their (the other side) country and their culture in specific terms, historical terms, as opposed to just applying a broad brush, that’s when you have the possibility of at least some movement, in the same way that when Ronald Reagan and others negotiated arms agreement with the Soviet Union. You had to recognise, yes, this is an evil, terrible system, but within it are people with specific historic ideas and memories, and we have to be able to understand those things and potentially try to make some connection.”

I was particularly struck by President Obama’s clear articulation of the importance of cultural and historical understanding in diplomatic negotiations, precisely because it is rather infrequent. And yet, whenever there have been major breakthroughs, whether the arms agreement between the Soviet Union and the U.S., the civil nuclear deal between the U.S. and India, or the opening up of U.S.-China relations at the height of Cold War, historical and cultural nuances have been integral to geo-strategic considerations. Of course, the most important element of success is the genuine willingness of both parties to come together, neither with the desire “to win” by extracting as much as possible from the opposing party, nor with the insistence on “losing no ground”, but with a commitment to work together to resolve intractable issues.

It is still possible that the deal may get undone, but it is already being recognised as historic because of its potential to bring two sworn enemies of almost four decades a little closer. As we cautiously await the fate of this historic agreement, we can also envision a similar possibility for India and Pakistan.  Culturally and historically, we don’t have as great a distance to travel as the U.S. and Iran.  Both parties understand the constraints of the other, and the particular histories are well known. The real question is whether we can develop enough empathy for the other and enough commitment to come to the table with a different vision of the relationship.

(Vishakha N. Desai is Special Advisor for Global Affairs to the President and Professor of Practice, Columbia University, President Emerita, Asia Society.)

Top News Today

Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.