Negotiations are entering eventually a decisive phase. Negotiators start looking for compromises. Sometimes they are not easy to find.

One of the simplest methods is to move the issue on which the disagreements have arisen to a time after the negotiations: either to their next phase or to another forum. You can take an issue off the agenda unilaterally. Then the other party does not feel obliged to start talks again. This type of deferral of the case concerned, for example, the issue of independent exercises of naval forces at the Stockholm conference in 1986, mentioned already on this blog. The Soviets did it at the last stage of negotiations, and the NATO countries took note of this decision, but never later changed their view that they do not want to talk about independent exercises of the naval forces. And they didn’t talk. Moving the issue to a “further stage” was a form of Soviet concession.

When a partial nuclear test ban agreement was reached in 1963, the parties reaffirmed their commitment to the goal of a full test ban and their determination to continue negotiations on this issue. It was an agreed formula moving the issue of nuclear tests on land to a later stage. As a result, an agreement on a partial ban was reached. Averell Harriman went to Moscow for this purpose and agreed the text with Gromyko in 13 days. And a total test ban was negotiated in 1996. The treaty was signed by 186 countries and ratified by 176, but it has not entered into force. There are no ratification instruments from China, India, Pakistan, DPRK, Israel, Iran, Egypt and above all the USA.

When negotiators working on resolutions of the UN General Assembly (and other governing bodies in other agencies) fail to agree on a recommendation on a particular course of action, the Secretary-General (or other executive officer in the case of other institutions) is asked to prepare a report on the matter. Sometimes it is a cover for an obvious concession, a face-saving operation, but sometimes it is a compromise consisting in postponing the discussion.

Another standard form of pushing negotiations forward is hiding differences behind the so-called constructive ambiguity. Andrew Carter, a distinguished British diplomat who began his career with a post in Warsaw in the early 1970s, recalled how during the CSCE Geneva consultations in 1974, Foreign Minister James Callaghan gave the delegation a clear instruction: “We must wrap it up. Go for constructive ambiguity”. And Carter admitted “…which is a phrase which served me very well in my much of my diplomatic career.” The texts of the commitments made in the framework of the CSCE process during the Cold War are full of these deliberate ambiguities. I have already described how the mandate of the Stockholm Conference was agreed in Madrid, where the phrase ‘as well as’ was used to describe the military activities covered by confidence-building measures in the maritime and airspace adjacent to Europe. It was a formula of a feigned compromise, which transferred the dispute to the forum of the Stockholm conference itself. The usual filler of the gaps in the positions of the parties in relation to the time horizon for the implementation of obligations is the phrase “as soon as possible”. Anyone can put any date under this phrase. In procedural disputes as to the principles of conducting future CSCE meetings, the “mutatis mutandis” clause was applied, which of course did not have to resolve the dispute over specific arrangements.

Finding these “constructive ambiguities” has become such a specialty of diplomats that some have come to say that diplomats are not so much about solving problems as covering them up, not so much settling disputes as sweeping them under the carpet.

Sometimes all it takes is a vaguely sounding synonym to come to an agreement. Ambassador Pickering pointed out how, during negotiations with Latin American members of the UN Security Council, when they frowned at some word in a draft drawn up in English, it was enough to replace it with a synonym of Latin origin, and their position softened.

Because ‘aggravation’ always sounds more serious than ‘worsening’.

I don’t have to write about how similar euphemistic monsters have mastered the business language. Everyone knows today that “restructuring” means “reduction”. But how innocent does it sound.

I also prefer to entice the audience sometimes and use the word “pussilanimous” instead of “timid”, “putative” instead of “apparent”, “to castigate” instead of “to reproach”. Even if it’s not exactly the same.

For an outside observer, this battle for words, the miraculous effect of words in the form of securing an agreement, can sometimes be difficult to understand. It may be even more surprising that negotiators can argue for hours even over commas.

Of course, commas can change the meaning of a sentence. Ambassador Andrew Carter, already mentioned in this entry, described in his recollections how in Geneva, during the negotiations on the text of the CSCE Helsinki Final Act, the West fiercely fought with the East for commas in the sentence: “Borders may be changed, in accordance with international law, by peaceful means and by agreement”. Simply to prevent manipulations in interpretation.

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The conference, which began in February 1608 to end the Habsburg-Netherlands War with a comprehensive peace treaty, quickly stalled despite the efforts of intermediaries. In August 1608 it was interrupted. Negotiating a peace treaty proved impossible (because of the Habsburg demands to limit Dutch shipping and expand the rights of Catholics in the United Provinces). But thanks to the persistence of English and French mediators, negotiations were resumed in March 1609, and in ten days most of the provisions of the peace treaty were translated into an agreement on a twelve-year armistice.

It was enough to change the framework and meaning of the agreement, and the compromise became a fact. This is a recognized method of reaching an agreement. Temporary agreements are easier to negotiate than “perpetual” agreements, partial agreements are easier to negotiate than comprehensive agreements.

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Sometimes, however, these simple ways of resolving contradictions are not enough. The parties remain in their positions. Sometimes to such an extent that we begin to doubt whether, despite our earlier hopes, an agreement will be reached and whether it will meet our expectations. Even if the negotiations have already entered the final phase.

A negotiation crisis can take many forms.

Relatively quickly, individual points of contention may appear in negotiations, leading to the so-called partial impasse. It is customary to put such issues aside, to break the impasse by focusing on other matters. It has been a well-established principle for centuries that in the initial stages of agreement we focus on issues on which agreement is within reach. The logic of negotiation is usually to move from the easy to the difficult. The more solid the set of agreements is, the easier it will be to solve more difficult cases. Because every agreement, even a small one, builds trust and, above all, creates the dynamics of progress, which facilitates the search for a compromise in more difficult matters. Already at the Congress of Vienna, the two most difficult issues – the fate of Saxony and Poland – were postponed and the focus was on easier challenges. And later Talleyrand grew in power and used the Saxon-Polish crisis to include France in the circle of decision makers of the Congress (or “The Big Five”) and lead Austria and England to issue war threats against Russia and Prussia. The compromise gave the Prussians 60 percent of Saxony’s territory, but allowed them to keep Wielkopolska (and of course Pomerania, which unfortunately was beyond discussion at the time) at the expense of the Kingdom of Poland (under the scepter of Russia).

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Sometimes, however, even despite the progress achieved and the apparent willingness of all negotiating parties to move things forward, nothing can be settled. The so-called stalemate arises. In multilateral negotiations, it is very common to try to break it by persuading one of the parties to a symbolic initiative that would help break the stalemate. Then it is necessary to form appropriate coalitions and build lobbying campaigns. Until someone appears who, either under pressure (proper incentives) or on their own initiative, will make a concession, the main purpose of which is to accelerate the negotiations.

You can make a small concession yourself, treating it as a political signal, an act of goodwill to encourage a constructive solution to a key issue. Ambassador Pickering recalled how, at the forum of the Committee for Disarmament of 18 States in 1962, the Americans wanted to avoid a deadlock at the very beginning of its work and achieve even a minor success. They agreed to negotiate the Soviet idea of banning war propaganda. When they submitted to the Soviets a text based on the Soviets’ own demands, the Soviets panicked. They denied everything, even “(they) wanted to expunge all evidence of it from the record.” The Americans, however, managed to persuade the Soviets to start with the simplest measures instead of focusing on pushing for complete and universal disarmament. This is how the agreement on the establishment of “hot lines” between Moscow and Washington was born.

Sometimes, to break the stalemate, the so-called tactic of changing the set scene is tried (conducting an informal meeting in a different place than the negotiations are taking place, changing or even temporarily substituting negotiators).

Another way to break stalemate is to give up the so-called excessive demands. Soviet Cold War-era negotiator Viktor Isrealian believed that making exorbitant demands was common practice on both sides. It was certainly a routine procedure of Soviet diplomacy, known from the so-called Gromyko’s doctrine, about which I have already written on this blog. When Kissinger arrived in Moscow on October 20, 1973 to negotiate with the Soviets a UN Security Council resolution on the Yom Kippur War, on the first day the Soviets demanded an immediate ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal to the pre-1967 war line (which was not an option at all and was a demand greatly exaggerated). Americans lost faith in the possibility of an agreement. The deadlock was obvious. But the very next day, Brezhnev stated in an act of goodwill that a simple ceasefire would suffice (with a commitment to start peace negotiations). Sadat’s assurance that Egypt would accept this solution was received by Prime Minister Kosygin two days earlier in Cairo.

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Of course, one can assume that concessions and compromises do not make sense and continue persuasive efforts. You can even increase the negotiating pressure. Go for ultimatums, making threats, and other forms of arm twisting. In order to increase the pressure, coalitions can be formed in multilateral negotiations, and appropriate demarches can be resorted to in the capital. You can use incentives in the form of offers of development aid, i.e. go to negotiation bribery, which has already been described in this blog. Not to mention the use of coercive diplomacy.

But the most important thing is to think about incentives. In bargaining today, the carrot usually gives better results than the stick. “The best move you can make in negotiation is to think of an incentive the other person hasn’t even thought of – and then meet it.” – advised Eli Broad, an American billionaire.

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Negotiation theorists distinguish various types of negotiation stalemate: mutually beneficial stalemate, mutually enticing opportunity, mutually hurting stalemate. Each stalemate requires an in-depth analysis of its impact on our interests. A stalemate should never, however, make us panic. But negotiators rarely get the right distance in assessing the situation in negotiations. They entrench themselves in their positions, forget about “God’s world”. This is how the ivory tower syndrome is emerging in negotiations. Then the stalemate can only be broken by the so-called political impulse, i.e. political intervention from outside.

Sometimes, however, the opposite can happen: decision-makers in capital cities are entrenched, and the impulse is generated by diplomats. In April 1982, American and Soviet medium-range missile negotiators Paul Nitze and Yuliy Kvitsinsky took a walk through the wooded hills near Geneva. They argued furiously until the rain spooked them, so they had to finish the conversation in the car, but they agreed on a compromise solution to the missile issue after eight months of stagnant negotiations. The compromise was initially accepted in Washington. No objections were raised at the meeting of the National Security Council. But when Richard Perle returned to Washington, the then Deputy Secretary of Defense, author of the famous “zero option”, he unleashed a real storm. He led to the overthrow of Nitze’s initiative. Reportedly, Perle finished off the author of the compromise with a personal insult: “Paul, the trouble with you is you are just an inveterate problem solver.” So sometimes being overly constructive turns out to be a fatal flaw.

The famous walk in the woods left a permanent mark in the form of a play that was quite popular on Broadway.

And of course, this walk remained a constant inspiration for other diplomats. It was on similar principles that in the spring of 1984, the heads of the US and USSR delegations to the Stockholm Conference on Confidence-Building Measures, James Goodby and Oleg Grynevsky, decided to take a walk along Stockholm’s Strandvägen. They talked about how to push the conference from the dead point it turned out to be at the very beginning. And they agreed that the only good solution was a package in which the USSR would agree to consider the so-called military-technical confidence-building measures in exchange for US consent to discuss the so-called political measures, i.e. a commitment not to use force. But unfortunately, this deal was overthrown at the top of power in Moscow, personally by Minister Gromyko. This did not discourage both Stockholm diplomats from seeking compromises on their own.

Once Gorbachev came to the Kremlin, it was recognized that some success in the field of disarmament was needed, and that it was easiest to achieve it in Stockholm. James Goodby flew to Moscow in September 1985 and struck a deal with Grynevsky on the structure of the Stockholm agreement, which would be arranged in the so-called five blocks (non-use of force, restrictions on military activities, notification of military activities, their observation, control and verification). This time it was the Americans who had a problem with approving the deal. The Secretary of Defense accused Goodby of going beyond instructions, blaming him for running ahead of the team. Even Goodby’s deputy in Stockholm complained. Goodby, however, learning from Nitze’s experience, obtained prior approval for his actions in the White House. And the deal came to fruition.

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When looking for solutions, one must be aware that the other party may use various tricks and stratagems that may weaken our negotiating position. One of the well-known ploys of Soviet diplomacy during the Cold War was the so-called salami tactic. It consisted in squeezing small concessions from the other side in small steps. It irritated Kissinger beyond words. He always preferred to construct compromises based on sweeping deals. But the Soviets were able to torment US diplomats over a trifle for days, but as soon as their demand was satisfied, even for peace of mind, they immediately came with another demand, equally minor. And so on until the exhausted partner would be ready to give almost everything he had to give.

Another tactic is to advance demands at the last minute. I remember Armenian President Serzh Sargisyan coming to Brussels in February 2017, when negotiations with the European Union on a partnership agreement were about to be concluded. On the evening before the ceremony, Armenian negotiators came running to the EU side with last minute demands. The main negotiator from the EU side was not in town. His direct superior had to negotiate with them at night in a hotel room. The Armenians achieved more than they could have achieved by acting in advance and without time pressure.

You can mislead the other party into erroneously assessing the importance of your own expectations. I allowed myself to use this ploy when negotiating in 2016 EU support for the technical side of the elections in Armenia. Then I set some conditions. The most important was the demand that the technical side of the elections be agreed between the government and the opposition. But it was important to revise the electoral code. In this case, the authorities signaled a lack of any flexibility. They hid behind the opinions of foreign experts and the imminent election date. With obsessive consistency, I tormented the authorities with the postulate to extend the deadline for submitting election protests by 24 hours. It was, of course, an irrelevant detail. It was other elements of the electoral code that required correction. When Sargisian agreed to my obsessive demand, I obtained an argument in principle: the code can be changed. And then it was also possible in more important matters, such as abolishing the requirement of an exam for the so-called NGO observers. And then on the cardinal matter, i.e. the publication of the electoral lists.

The other party may make take-it-or-leave-it requests. Only if our bargaining position is very weak should we fall for it.

The other side can use the clamping method. They will want to hear a better offer from you. You will of course ask: how much better? You will inquire what offer could satisfy the other party. And you will enter the game they run.

The other side will want promises of concessions from you for every compromise of them (“What can I get from you in return?”). They will be silent about your compromise proposals. And silently put you under pressure.

They’ll want to split the difference in half. They will want to methodically cheat you on small things. They will want to divert attention, put off difficult and important matters for us, drop their solutions to these matters at the last minute, so that we don’t care about its details.

They will hide behind the tenacity of their superiors.

They will use the “deliberate mistake” technique. They will „by mistake” give a false parameter. And when we show interest in the formula proposed by the other party, they will correct the error, which will make their offer less attractive, but they will keep us trapped because we agreed to go the proposed conceptual route. By the way, this method was effectively used by the Soviets when negotiating with the Americans the concept of the so-called objects of verification in the context of the CFE Treaty.

The other party will use the “thousand exceptions” technique. They will agree to something, but then they will add situations where their consent will not apply.

These are all well-known stratagems for building an edge in the final phase of the bargaining game. Known especially in business negotiations. You need to know them so you don’t fall for them. Don’t use them unless you’re in a desperate situation.

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Often the only way to break the deadlock is to rely on mediators.

Professor Paul Meerts considers mediation to be quite limited in its usefulness. In solving conflicts, their value is felt for the first 4-5 years. After that, the impact of mediation decreases, and in the long run it may even turn out to be counterproductive. Because it removes the responsibility for compromises from the parties, and the mediator becomes a scapegoat for failure. Meerts believes that mediation is useful in a situation of chronic, complicated, multifaceted and difficult conflict. In his calculations, in negotiating conflict situations in the years 1945-1995, 60 percent of negotiations took place with the help of mediators, the remaining 40 percent without this help.

If mediation removes the short-term tension, it may in the long run lead to reheating the conflict. There is nothing more lasting than an agreement reached directly by the parties through their own efforts. However, mediation is the only way to conduct a conversation when the parties do not want to contact each other directly. Then the format of the so-called multi-bilateral negotiations comes into play. It has been known since the negotiations over the Peace of Westphalia. The Protestant camp managed without mediators, but the Catholics engaged the Vatican and Venice to mediate. And they made the mediators a lightning rod of their emotions.

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Neutral and non-aligned states in the CSCE process have gained the cult status of mediators. Their role and status as a group developed in an evolutionary way. Let us recall that the initiative to convene a European security conference was taken up (from Poland, and then from the USSR and other Warsaw Pact countries) by Finland. Ambassador Jaakko Iloniemi, who on behalf of Finland participated in the preparation of consultations in Helsinki in 1972, reminded that Finland wanted to solve the problem of normal diplomatic relations with both German states through the conference. The Swiss ambassador Brunner, who played a key mediating role in the early stages of the process, admitted that only in Helsinki could the two German states act on equal terms.

Neutrals were elevated to the role of mediators due to the political and psychological resistance on the part of the USSR to conduct talks on the basis of proposals submitted by NATO countries and to accept the compromises proposed by the West. The compromises had to be made by someone else. And so the space was opened for neutral countries. But it must be admitted that the neutral countries were able to gain the necessary trust with their ingenuity and constructive attitude. It was the Swiss ambassador Samuel Campiche who was the author of the concept of “baskets”, which moved work on the Helsinki commitments from a dead point. In a natural way, the “neutrals” were entrusted with the role of heads of working groups at the consultations in Geneva. Brunner, Ceska, Acimovic, Totterman became legends of CSCE mediation. They (unsuccessfully) tried to save the agreement in Belgrade in 1978, they (successfully) saved the agreement in Madrid in 1983.

Great energy was shown by the so-called coordinators from the N+N group of countries in Stockholm at the Confidence-Building Measures Conference in 1984-1986, especially by the Swedes, Finns and Swiss. But when it came down to it, when the Stockholm Conference entered the decisive phase of negotiations, they were pushed to the sidelines. In August-September 1986, the so-called rapid reaction group consisting of ambassadors from three NATO countries (UK, West Germany and Norway) and two Warsaw Pact countries (USSR and Poland) was the circle were compromises were forged. Of course, they constantly consulted with their allies, and with the N+N countries, but it was them who negotiated the final compromises. Interestingly, the USA, although US and USSR military advisers General Hansen and General Tatarnikov met all the time, did not play the role of the icebreaker anymore. Perhaps this was influenced by the withdrawn personality of ambassador Robert Barry, who replaced James Goodby in the fall of 1985. Grynevsky used the walking method to explore the possibilities of a compromise regarding the on-site inspection with the German ambassador Klaus Citron, he attributed the authorship of the compromise solutions to the French ambassador Paul-Henri Gaschignard, but he did not go for walks with Barry anymore. Barry had other concerns, however. It turned out that when the Warsaw Pact agreed to on-site inspections in August 1986, the mediators themselves panicked, or at least two of them, Sweden and Switzerland. The Americans had to direct their energies to persuading the neutrals themselves to a final agreement.

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In the forums of the so-called institutionalized negotiations, i.e. in the UN, OSCE or the Council of Europe, most of the negotiating work is managed by the chairperson, i.e. a diplomat representing a member state, who often got this role by accident, because on the basis of rotation or regional key. The chair does not always need to be successful, although, as a rule, leadership mobilizes it to strive for success. The chair is not always impartial. It doesn’t always have the right skills. Because mediators should generally guarantee neutrality, professionalism and commitment.

The role of chairmen can be decisive. Not only because they control procedures, give the floor, determine the order of speakers, and announce breaks. Their procedural and technical decisions can sometimes have serious political consequences.

In the history of multilateral diplomacy, at least two Polish diplomats have been recorded in memoirs and even in scientific studies as chairmen who used their procedural powers for strictly political purposes.

In the summer of 1960, in Geneva, the Polish deputy minister of foreign affairs, Marian Naszkowski, was to take over the function of the chairman of the then Committee of 10, i.e. the UN disarmament negotiation body. On the eve of the meeting, the Soviet delegation received from Moscow a directive to break off the session. No reasons were given to them by Moscow. But they blindly had to follow the directive. So Naszkowski was asked for a meeting with the Soviets and the instructions were properly communicated to him. Naszkowski, who had served his time in the Red Army, accepted the instructions for implementation without asking anything. And he did it very efficiently. He first gave the floor to the Warsaw Pact countries, and then cold-bloodedly ended all polemics (despite procedural protests) by closing the meeting, not allowing the West to speak, and placing the Committee in a state of suspension, or de facto liquidation. It later turned out that the instruction stemmed from the text of Khrushchev’s then-prepared speech, which was to accuse Western states of using the Committee to cover up their arms race.

It was much more difficult for Ambassador Włodzimierz Konarski to block the West from taking the floor at the CSCE Madrid plenary meeting in early 1982, but he managed to do so, which entered the annals of the CSCE for good. At that time, numerous Western foreign ministers attended the first session after the introduction of martial law in Poland to express their condemnation of the Polish authorities. Konarski managed (using his procedural rights) an unbelievable thing – he did not allow, among others, Claude Cheysson, French Minister for Foreign Affairs, to take the floor. In the memoirs of Ambassador Edouard Brunner, even President Francois Mitterrand himself was said to have maliciously appreciated it, saying in a comment: “Moi, je félicite le représentant de la Pologne qui a empêché Cheysson de parler. Il est à peu près le seul à avoir réussi à l’empêcher de parler.” But Konarski is said to have been banned for a while from entering France (where he had worked for many years as a diplomat) as a punishment.

At the Madrid meeting, however, there was a mediation rivalry between the neutrals and the host country, Spain, at the final stage. The Neutrals drafted a final compromise in the summer of 1983. It did not quite suit the Americans, however. They wanted three more “small” changes. So they persuaded Prime Minister Gonzalez to present his own compromise on behalf of the host country, of course in line with their expectations. This infuriated the neutrals. But they led to the merger of the two projects and the final compromise (not entirely according to the American idea) was saved (waiting out, as we already know, the Maltese obstruction).

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During his function as the chairman of the meeting of the Committee of Ministers’ Deputies in the Council of Europe, in 2007 the Russian ambassador tried to show an imperious disposition. At one of the sessions, he interrupted the speakers, argued with their theses, and even tried to prevent delegates who might criticize Russia from speaking. I spoke up and asked him not to do that. “But I can…” he argued. “I can doesn’t mean I have to,” I continued. And I reminded him of the story from the Congress of the Defenders of Peace in Wrocław in 1948. It was then that the Soviet writer Fadeev asked Antoni Słonimski: “Where can I take a piss here?” “You? You can do it anywhere,” replied Słonimski. “He could have gone anywhere, but he still went to the toilet,” I continued. “Take an example from Fadeyev, Mr. Ambassador! You can also do everything and anywhere, but you don’t have to” – I summed up the explosion of laughter in the room. And the Russian ambassador clearly lowered his tone.

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Sometimes the host and chairman of the meeting has no intention of saving the adoption of the document. In 2022, the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, at the CSTO summit in Yerevan, as chairman of the meeting, even blocked the adoption of the final document, because it did not reflect Armenia’s demands. Putin and Lukashenko could not hide their fury.

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The courage of the chairman of the proceedings may take on a historic dimension. This is how the actions of Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi at the summit of the European Economic Community in Milan in July 1985 are assessed. France, supported by Germany, then demanded the convening of an Intergovernmental Conference. On the table there was a report proposing institutional reforms, and France itself sought to make political cooperation a strong new pillar of the Community and transform it into the European Union. The works were at a deep impasse. Margaret Thatcher, supported by the leaders of Denmark and Greece, wanted to block the decision on reforms. She hoped that, like all decisions of the Council so far, there must be unanimity on this matter. Craxi, taking the bull by the horns, decided that since the needs of the common market required two amendments to the Treaty of Rome anyway, it was enough to invoke Article 236 of the Treaty to convene the Intergovernmental Conference, which required only a simple majority to initiate a revision of the Treaty. The British (and the Danes and Greeks) were outvoted. And after half a year, the Single European Act was negotiated, which became a milestone in deepening European integration. Without Craxi’s determination and his stratagem, the fate of the process could have turned out differently.

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There is nothing more depressing at the negotiating table than loneliness, and especially the feeling of isolation when final solutions are decided that do not suit us. I wrote about it on this blog in its “doctrinal” edition. I invite you to read the entries devoted to diplomatic isolation. Even the great powers, and the US in particular, do not like to feel alone. In some diplomatic services (e.g. Armenian) there are even gallows humour sayings about loneliness. One of the methods of putting pressure on recalcitrant states is to make them aware of their loneliness. Also in the social dimension. Their diplomats are ostentatiously ignored at parties and generally treated as plague-infested when they are cornered in the final stretch and attempts to appease them have failed.

In 1973-1983, Malta was a difficult partner in the CSCE process. Several times it single-handedly blocked consensus in Geneva, Helsinki and Belgrade. In the summer of 1983, when everything was ready at the CSCE review meeting in Madrid, Malta vetoed it again. This was done personally by Prime Minister Dom Mintoff (as before). This time, however, he faced not only the other participating countries, but also his own diplomats (led by Ambassador Evarist Saliba), but he kept the entire meeting on hold for the entire two summer months. In the end, for a small price, he gave in. The Maltese factor stuck in the minds of the negotiators so much that at the Stockholm conference, when the structure of the negotiations was being decided, a special channel was launched through Yugoslavia’s ambassador Bozowic to check with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Malta Alex Trigona whether they would again put a stick in the spokes. Mintoff retired from politics and the problems with Malta ended.

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In some cases, the final compromise is reached by the method of simple haggling. Arguments, reasons, interests no longer come into play. Some experts call bargaining anti-diplomacy, which consists in manipulating the emotions and behavior of the other party, but unfortunately, this is how dealing with very serious matters sometimes looks like. This was the case at the Stockholm Conference in September 1986, for example, when setting the thresholds for the notification and observation of military activity. Several ambassadors (recall: on the Warsaw Pact side – the heads of the USSR and Poland delegations, on the NATO side – West Germany, Great Britain and Norway) bantered just like at an oriental bazaar (or at the horse market in Skaryszew). NATO’s initial position for the notification threshold was 6,000 soldiers, the position of the Warsaw Pact was 20 thousand soldiers. “We can go up to 9,000, but you have to go significantly lower from your proposal.” “We’re going down to 17,000, but that’s our last word.” “Don’t be kidding. Let you be 11 thousand. It doesn’t make sense above.” “No way…” . Thus, by bargaining, the notification ceiling was set at 13,000 and the observation ceiling at 17,000 soldiers.

Ambassador Max Kampelman (quoted on this blog earlier) recalled how he negotiated with KGB General Kondrashov on his own, in the shadow of negotiations over the final document of the review meeting in Madrid in 1983, a list of USSR citizens whom the Soviet authorities would allow to emigrate. Kampelman especially wanted to get Pentecostals and Jewish “refuseniks” free. He presented Kondrashov with a list of 80 names. He asked to check whether they should also launch a channel with Dobrynin in Washington. Kondrashov preferred to negotiate without Dobrynin’s knowledge, who, according to him, poked his nose into all matters (also not his own). Using the bargain method, Kampelman negotiated the release from prisons and emigration of several hundred people persecuted by the Soviet authorities. Years later, he decided that what he bargained for (name by name) was more important than the Madrid document itself.

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Negotiation theorists use the formula of expanding the field covered by distribution (“Increase the cake!”) as a panacea for breaking up the deadlock. In political negotiations this is not always possible. Maybe in the old days this kind of approach worked. And Sweden could be appeased for losing Finland in 1815 by putting Norway under Swedish control. But most issues on today’s international agenda cannot be dealt with this way.

Sometimes you have to make painful compromises, make concessions without compensation. But ensure that the final deal is balanced. Unilateral benefits, lack of balance can overturn the agreement at the first opportunity.

The most effective method of reaching the final deal is to combine concessions into packages. And, as a rule, by straining out the easier-to-reconcile issues, one arrives at a few essential elements that can be agreed upon by the quid pro quo method in the collective sense, on the principle of political equivalence of concessions, without resorting to pharmacist calculations. If I have to give in on some things, you have to give in on others. Package deals give a sense of balancing concessions while saving the faces of all participants.

Such packages are not made at the negotiating table. They arise outside of official conversations, in whispered conversations. Through confessionals with a chairman or mediator. In discretion.

Integral to such final deals are a variety of face-saving devices. In some cultures, making concessions is considered dishonorable, as a loss of face. Not only in Oriental cultures. In the CSCE process, such measures included interpretative statements. They had no consequences for other participants in the negotiations. They were included in the journal of the final meeting. Another solution was statements by the chairman. They meant much more, but they did not weaken the consensus agreements.

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An inalienable feature of a good diplomat is the psychological ability to accept the necessity of concessions. Experts and advisors can always have a problem with this, because they are very attached to their personal views on technical matters. Diplomats see the meaning of their mission in reaching agreement. And there is no agreement without concessions. And that is why the demand for good diplomats should not decrease.

However, for all the genius of negotiators, their ability to resolve differences, the key to the success of negotiations is always the presence of political will. Without political will, the best acrobatics of negotiators will not help much.

Because in the end, negotiators have to face the harsh reality in which everything is decided by politics.

Next entry on September 18, 2023.