Hare Publishes Op-Ed on the State of Diplomacy
Amb. Paul Webster Hare, Senior Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a recent Op-Ed examining how diplomacy should react to doomsday scenarios.
Hare’s Op-Ed, entitled “Doomsday Summer 2017: Diplomacy Needs More Than Hand-Wringing,” was published on July 24, 2017 in The Huffington Post.
From the text of the Op-Ed:
Summer 2017 has been filled with compelling material for readers interested in the dismal state of international relations. The capacity of world leaders to work together on the problems that are part of global interdependence is diminishing fast. Increasing populism, aggressive nationalism, the rise of inequality, fake news and cyber vulnerability mean we are losing some of the common values and norms on which we have relied since 1945. Globalization, far from providing forces of convergence, is sowing the seeds of fragmentation and alienation. The authors collectively identify many symptoms of our malaise but have few recommendations for treatment.
This is not surprising. Diplomatic methods have not been collectively re-examined in the last 50 years. We badly need new options. The post World War 2 era produced The United Nations, its agencies and peacekeeping, the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relation the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Law of the Sea convention. The 21st century has done less in setting new global norms which are mainstays of diplomacy. The world has lost the military and ideological power blocs that helped structure diplomacy for so long. The capacity of the non-state actor to disrupt in a digital age is much greater than ever it was during the Cold War. The United States is increasingly unable or unwilling to defend a global rules-based system while Russia is picking holes in the structures diplomacy has built. China has proved that western liberalism is not the only path to massive growth and poverty elimination and a model that will command imitators. In July the G 20 showed again the world sticking to the old model of stylized and fortified meetings with no consensus building mechanisms.
Diplomacy needs action not just hand-wringing. Currently it is sitting on its complacent hands. The first modern comprehensive guide to Diplomatic Practice appeared 100 years ago in 2017. In it Ernest Satow said that diplomacy needed to apply itself in ‘the application of intelligence and tact to the conduct of official relations between governments of independent states’. No-one would claim this is easy but 100 years on it’s time to put some ideas on the table.
Amb. Hare teaches classes at Boston University on Diplomatic Practice, Arms Control, Intercultural Communication and on Cuba in Transition. In Spring 2016 he will offer a new class on Public Diplomacy. His novel, “Moncada – A Cuban Story”, set in modern Cuba, was published in May 2010. His book “Making Diplomacy Work; Intelligent Innovation for the Modern World.’ was published in early 2015.