The Routledge Handbook of Diplomacy and Statecraft

B.J.C. McKercher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000532814
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Reflecting the profound changes in international society in the past decade and the challenges that all Powers' diplomacy and statecraft face, whether opposing or encouraging these changes, this fully revised and updated edition provides a unique multifaceted assessment by experts of the new international order.

Built around the thesis that Great Power rivalry dominated after the end of the Cold War, it examines how this multi-polarity has become more extreme. The Handbook assesses the diplomacy and statecraft of individual powers in seven key sections:

• The Context of Diplomacy

• The Great Powers

• Middle Powers

• Developing Powers

• International Organisations and Military Alliances

• The International Economy

• Issues of Conflict and Co-operation

It shows how diplomacy and statecraft have transformed on issues such as the evolving "America First" strategy; the strengthening of the People's Republic of China; the growth of non-state actors in foreign policy; the unravelling of international arms control agreements; the aggressive nature of Russian foreign policy; and the emergence of major armed conflicts and the rise of terrorism and armed insurgencies around the world.

It will be of interest to government and non-governmental actors, established scholars and students in the fields of international relations, history, and military studies.

Part IThe Context of Diplomacy

doi: 10.4324/9781003016625-2

1The Value of Diplomatic History in a Changing World

Halvard Leira^*

DOI: 10.4324/9781003016625-2

There has never been a better time to read diplomatic history than right now. The topic is covered in broader, deeper, and more engaging ways than it has ever been before.¹ The intellectual value of diplomatic history in giving an increased appreciation of the past is thus undeniable.² However, when discussing the “value” of history more generally, one typically alludes to its ability to inform decision-makers or its capacity to increase understanding in the broader public. The question is the extent to which the past speaks to the present, one that seems particularly pressing for a world in perceived upheaval. The answers provided here are ambiguous. On one hand, there are many reasons for being cautious about the capacity to learn from history and, even if learning is possible, to learn the appropriate lessons. On the other, decision-makers from the lowest to the highest level rely on their understanding of history to make decisions every day.³ Finally, there is the potential that historical analogies – or even myths – based on diplomatic history have had for political purposes.⁴

In times of perceived upheaval, there is typically an upsurge in interest in history. Faced with an uncertain future, decision-makers and the public alike turn to history for guidance. The current international predicament is certainly no exception. In 2020–21, historians of disease, Great Power competition, and hegemonic decline have had few problems getting speaking engagements – over Zoom – or book contracts. History has long been considered the provider of “lessons” – informing those who perceive them correctly, misleading those who misperceive them, and damning those who ignore them. Turning to history for guidance is understandable, but also problematic. It is understandable in that the past, unlike the present and future, is somewhat accessible as a repository of knowledge. The problematic dimension lies in the past as only accessible through already narrated history and that few of the alleged lessons of the past are unambiguous. Turning to history in a time of upheaval adds an additional layer of uncertainty. In stable times, what happened yesterday is often a good guide for what will happen today. In unstable times, this continuity is threatened, and there is an urge to cast further about to find guidance from the past. Yet the more removed from the present, the less likely this guidance is going to be fitting. The degree of “fit” is nevertheless only one aspect of the use-value of history, diplomatic or otherwise. Another, possibly even more important issue, concerns usability. Repeatedly, history has proved highly useful as a “shortcut to rationality” for diplomats and bureaucrats and as a legitimising device for political leaders.⁵

Can humans learn from history and, if so, what? Various philosophers of history have answered this question in different ways and, here, it is necessary first to look at the theoretical challenges of what one can know and if learning is possible, and then at the problems of learning the “right” lessons. The issue of whether one can learn from history is really two questions baked into one: whether there is any certain knowledge about the past and, if so, whether that past has anything to tell about the present? It needs emphasis straight away that a layperson would probably answer both in the affirmative. Philosophers and theorists of history have been less certain.

The nineteenth-century German historian, Leopold von Ranke, the founder of modern history, believed that it was possible at least to get close to certain knowledge of the past. Most historians since the middle of the twentieth century have been much more sceptical. At the outset, the modern world lacks “remains” of much of the past. And “in the absence of remains, there can be no evidence, and in the absence of evidence, there can be no history”.⁶ A lot of the past is simply unknowable for lack of “remains”. Furthermore, few, if any, believe that “remains” – often referred to as “facts” – speak for themselves. The historian inescapably intervenes, first in the selection of which “remains” to include and exclude as evidence. Following from that decision, to become meaningful, evidence needs connexion to theory and narrative; and as soon as one adds ideas about how evidence hangs together, one requires interpretation. To become history, then, remains of the past must survive, be chosen, narrativised, and interpreted. This should raise immediate concerns about what the past can teach. If referring to lessons from Thucydides, the only source for much of what happened during the Peloponnesian War, are there lessons to learn from that struggle or from Thucydides’ necessarily partial interpretation of it?

To most working historians, these are obvious epistemological concerns; the past is only accessible through the more or less random “remains” left behind and the histories that have narrated them together. When discussing the use-value of any kind of history, this should lead readers to a great degree of humility – one can never reach certainty about what one knows about the past. This uncertainty has nevertheless not led to despair. Even “postmodernist” historians refer to some form of knowledge of the past. This form of broadly accepted knowledge can usefully be described as “working truths”,⁷ widely accepted accounts about what happened in the past and perhaps even causal chains, but still in principle open for falsification.⁸ There are often widely differing interpretations of synthetic accounts of the past, whilst there might at the same time be a fairly broad consensus on the building blocks. There have been, for instance, numerous competing narratives about the outbreak of the First World War, whilst there is hopefully unanimous acceptance that it broke out in 1914. It needs noting here that one of the concerns of traditional diplomatic history, namely the construction of timelines and chronologies,⁹ is one that typically has been easy to convert into “working truths”. The seemingly nitty-gritty work of establishing when events happened and sorting them in order remains a key value that diplomatic history brings to understanding the past.

So far, so frustratingly, not good. Knowledge of the past is at best partial and contingent. This situation obviously raises problems for how possibly to learn from the past. But this is not the only issue. Whether or not the past – or, more accurately, history – offers any lessons is a question where philosophers of history have differed dramatically. To put the proposition in the simplest possible terms, if there is a supposed ability to learn anything from the past, one must have some sort of belief in recurring patterns. In the ancient world, this was the standard view of how the world hung together. History – understood as the unfolding of events – was considered to repeat itself, thus insights about the past were directly applicable in the present. This belief remained deeply held into the Early Modern period. The key work of the humanist Justus Lipsius, one of the most read scholars of early seventeenth century Europe, for instance, consisted largely of a curated collection of citations from ancient historians such as Tacitus.¹⁰ To Lipsius, the past spoke directly to the present.¹¹ When, during the eighteenth century, history was reconfigured as a dynamic developmental process – history as thought of today – this form of argumentation became harder to sustain.¹²

Thus, returning to Ranke, he was bullish on the capacity to get precise knowledge of the past. On the other hand, he had no belief in its predictive powers. History was to inform, not to predict. Whilst many historians would agree with Ranke, there is a distinct divide here in all historically oriented science, between those who believe that the past is “familiar” – that is repetitive or following known path(s) – and those who believe that it is “unfamiliar” – random or following unknown path(s).¹³ If one believes the latter, it is obviously also hard to refer to lessons of the past – or history. The political realism underpinning mid-twentieth-century International Relations theory, as well as much traditional diplomatic history, implies a static or cyclical view of history, where lessons of the past seem both likely and useful. Likewise, liberal and Marxist theories, with their emphasis on a knowable linear development/progress, can easily turn to history to provide insight into likely future developments. Even beyond that consideration, many researchers who in principle would believe the past to be “unfamiliar” will still refer to similarities in processes and institutions, at least within specific contexts.

In sum, Jürgen Habermas might have provided the best, yet somewhat unsatisfying answer to the question of whether one can learn from history: “That is one of those questions to which there exists no theoretically satisfying answers”.¹⁴ Moving from theoretical concerns to practical action, it would seem to be a fairly well accepted “working truth” that historical actors have tried to learn from history, to copy successes but perhaps even more to avoid mistakes. It is certainly possible to read much of European history over the last 75 years as deeply concerned with avoiding the mistakes that led to the two world wars and the Holocaust.

Even if accepting that it might be possible to know the past, and enough recurrence to warrant comparisons and thus learning lessons, there remains a number of practical challenges. As famously laid out in a seminal treatment,¹⁵ misperception is maybe even more likely than correct perception.¹⁶ To learn the right lesson from history, one must understand both past and present situations correctly and be able to identify the causal mechanisms that led to past outcomes, thus to judge their applicability in the present. Getting either the past or present wrong can be disastrous. For instance, one could argue that this was what happened in summer 1914, where decision-makers could look back at a decade of bigger and smaller crises and assume that the current one would blow over just as the previous ones had. Looking at prior outcomes of diplomatic crises and assuming that the current one would lead to the same conclusion bypassed the necessary analysis both of what had led to those earlier peaceful outcomes and whether the earlier and current situations were in meaningful ways comparable.

This returns somewhat more prosaically to the problem discussed above: getting the past “right”. History always remains narrated, and if it is to be of any use as a lesson or analogy, it must carry a surplus of meaning.¹⁷ History that provides no additional understanding or guidelines for action is simply unusable. Mere chronology will not do. This surplus of meaning also implies that analogies, even though powerful vehicles for conveying meaning and framing action, are never fully stabilised. On one hand, alternative narrations of the original situation can lead any analogy to support competing causes of action. On the other, different analogies might make competing sense of the same current event.¹⁸ Where there is one narrative, there can also be another narrative. The 1962 Cuban missile crisis can serve as an example; at a general level, the doves learnt the dangers of nuclear weapons whilst h...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Notes on Contributors
• List of Abbreviations
• Prologue: Diplomacy and Statecraft in an Era of Increasing International Anarchy
• PART I The Context of Diplomacy
• PART II The Great Powers
• PART III Middle Powers
• PART IV Developing Powers
• PART V International Organisations and Military Alliances
• PART VI The International Economy
• PART VII Issues of Conflict and Co-operation
• Select Bibliography
• Index