In conclusion, a few minor and personal comments.
Diplomacy is a profession that can be a lot of fun. And participating in diplomatic negotiations can be a source of absolute fun. If someone does not find pleasure in performing their diplomatic tasks, they should change their occupation. There is nothing more embarrassing than to see a diplomat ostentatiously struggling at the negotiating table. Unless it’s part of his negotiating tactics.
Negotiating can be frustrating. A representative of a small and medium-sized country may be frustrated by the imperial behavior of diplomats from larger countries. The stronger always want to be right. If it concerns strategic and principled issues, when the interests of a stronger state directly determine the behaviour of its representatives, forcing their position against our arguments and views is understandable. Maybe something (from our point of view) does not make sense in their position, but it is beneficial for the interests of stronger partners, so it must be assumed that their behaviour is rational. It can only sometimes depress us that the diplomats of larger countries will not bother to justify their position, explain it, clarify its relationship with strategic or other interests.
It is worse for our well-being if the stronger ones try to impose their position on purely logical and even linguistic matters, just because it is their political position. And they will not be convinced by any arguments, evidence, appeals to common sense. They claim the right to prove that two plus two equals five, because that’s what their political decision-makers decided. It can spoil your nerves terribly.
Encountering resistance is generally frustrating. In every issue, even by the weaker participant in the negotiations. But it always soothes our dissatisfaction if there is a transparent national interest in this resistance. Stubbornness is frustrating when it eludes understanding. However, I often accepted the disinterested resistance of the weaker partner, which resulted from the fact that the stronger ones, those who felt particularly responsible for the outcome of the negotiations, made arrangements behind the backs of the smaller partners, without taking into account their sensitivity and views. I have a far-reaching aversion to directorates, quads and the like “narrow decision-making circles”. But I admit that sometimes their actions can be useful.
What can spoil your well-being is negotiators’ extensive egos. Diplomacy is a profession that (so far at least) has attracted strong personalities. So the trouble with an oversized ego is an inevitable collateral cost. Taming our partners’ egos takes time and distracts us from focusing on the real purpose of our work. But one can come to terms with it. And the “egotiations” can be avoided.
An unclear, confusing, twisted style of conducting a negotiation conversation can be equally frustrating. Rigid, wooden formulas, repetition of hackneyed phrases can be irritating, too. In particular, if repeated for hours, days, months. Speeches made in multilateral forums often reminded me long ago of the dispassionate and sexless texts being prepared today by ChatGPT and related programs, long before they were invented, and even long before anyone thought any artificial intelligence would appear. At least a few diplomats remind me of the ideal of a bureaucratic robot. But you can get used to that, too. Although I often got bored during multilateral negotiations. Boring and worn out formulas could turn off your attention which is dangerous. Yes, discussions at the negotiating table can be so boring that they can make you sick.
Empty conversations of diplomats, endless discussions about “trifles”, not only the usual “small talk” at cocktail parties, but also endless “big talk” about nothing at lunches, dinners and other sitting occasions can be irritating. This seems like a terrible waste of time. However, this is the ritual of confidence building in negotiations in diplomacy and you have to get used to it. I admit, it was hard for me to come to terms with it, even in my late years. I found little joy in it. Very rarely did talking about anything enriched me. I catered for social events more out of duty than pleasure.
And the rigid rules of procedure, rituals and customs that have grown around international institutions can also be trribly annoying. Sometimes they are so at odds with „common sense” that they seem out of this world.
However, what made me most uncomfortable was the guiding principle of negotiation, that everything can be discussed, that compromise is a cure for everything, and “the truth lies in the middle”. For I have always followed Władysław Bartoszewski’s thought that the truth does not lie in the middle, but lies where it lies.
Regrettably, more than once, in the name of compromise, at the negotiating table, I had to agree to manipulate the truth. In the name of compromise!
Therefore let me be honest: in many international matters, I would rather rely on the verdict of an independent international tribunal, a conciliation panel, or an arbitration commission, than on the outcome of diplomatic negotiations. Because in my idealistic understanding, courts and tribunals are guided by truth and justice, and negotiators, above all, by the political postulate of extinguishing national emotions and ensuring peace in international coexistence at any cost. This does not mean that the tribunals are infallible.
Well, all of the above can be a downer in the work of a negotiator. Where is the pleasure then?
First, it’s a cognitive pleasure. Because diplomatic negotiations mean getting to know new substantive, problematic and complicated worlds of international relations. I wrote about this at the beginning of my good advice to negotiators. Negotiations open the eyes to the interests of other countries, teach the mentality of their societies, make them aware of their sensitivity dictated by history, geography and culture.
Secondly, it is an intellectual pleasure. There is nothing more creative in diplomacy than working on negotiation proposals, inventing formulas, wrapping one’s own interests in textual constructions that would give the impression of neutrality and objectivity. Looking for one’s own arguments, refuting the opponent’s arguments, conducting a debate, arguing, persuading can be a challenge that develops the mind remarkably, more than studying the deepest philosophical works.
Thirdly, it is a competitive and sporting pleasure. Because negotiation is a strategy game more graceful than chess, go, bridge. And more sociable than ludo or Monopoly. Negotiations develop situational imagination. Particularly in the multilateral dimension, their course is often incredibly unpredictable. The positions of the parties turn out to be difficult to anticipate. Their clash leads to quite unexpected results. And you always have to think ahead, try to be ready for plot twists and even plan them.
Fourth, it is causative pleasure. Reaching an agreement during negotiations gives the diplomat’s work the impression of influencing reality, co-participation in creating changes, a sense of agency. Sometimes it is very deceptive, but always irresistible. And direct mediation, the invention of a compromise formula that everyone is ready to accept, can be an unquestionable reason to be proud.
Fifth, it is a social pleasure. Negotiations create an opportunity to be in a group of people, sometimes even of extraordinary, outstanding personalities. This is a place to make good friends for years. They build a sense of “brotherhood in arms” between diplomats who were sitting in the trenches even on the opposite sides.
So there is a lot to enjoy in negotiations.
After reading my advice, the reader should not fall into complexes. There is no ideal negotiator. And I didn’t want the advice given on this blog to create that impression. However, it is good to have a solid knowledge of negotiations, to master elementary professional skills, to be aware of what good negotiation should look like. The principles of good negotiation do not always have to be followed, but they should be known.
In particular, may my readers be reassured by my sincere confession that I have never considered myself a born negotiator. I was an impatient person. I was annoyed by the ritual of negotiating “sniffing” for many hours, beating around the bush, procrastination. I preferred to take shortcuts. And impatience is not welcome at the negotiating table.
I was also a blunt person. I liked to say what I thought. And that doesn’t win sympathy either. If I was going to probe someone’s position, I always preferred to probe, as the military advisers used to call it, ” by the direct question method.” I was sick of the diplomatic code of communication. If I used it, it was for fun.
I was bored to the bone by empty speeches, having to sit through dull debates. I was annoyed by the banality, the desire to ingratiate yourself by preaching obvious truths and theses which are always right. And I’ve always been tempted to provoke, to go against the flow, to run ahead with a provocative thought, to banter for the sake of banter, to tease the egos of opponents. To the point of mockery. It usually doesn’t pay off in negotiations.
And I didn’t socialize.
I watched with annoyance as my colleagues became fascinated by arguments over an editorial detail. My negotiating skills were definitely limited by the expansion of my imagination, which showed me that the changing political reality would deprive this detail of any meaning in a few years. And it, that detail, could be everything for the negotiators, it obscured the whole world for them. So I looked at my colleagues from the height of my imagination. I might have looked stout arrogant back then.
And I could never internally accept compromises that went against my understanding of logic and common sense, my idea of honesty. Even today, years later, some of the compromises that I was instructed to accept from above disturb my inner peace.
I have played the role of a mediator several times, although I do not consider myself a born mediator. I’m usually biased. My views can be very solid and inflexible. I can’t turn them off just like that in the name of reconciling the parties. And as a mediator, I had to. Twice my mediation work was very demanding. The fate of the 1992 Vienna Document and a significant part of the provisions of the CSCE Review Meeting in Helsinki in 1992, including the decision to establish the institution of the High Commissioner for National Minorities, depended on it. And I managed quite well, so I think that anyone can do it, even with a deficit of personal qualities. Which I also note here for the comfort of hearts of negotiators afraid of falling into complexes. But I have also seen how even the most outstanding mediators, even diplomats ideal to settle disputes, turned out to be simply powerless in certain situations.
How did I compensate for my shortcomings? I think it’s primarily thanks to cognitive empathy. I have always tried to understand the reasons of others. I have always analyzed in my mind, through a negotiating gedankenexperiment, how the possibility of agreeing to the arguments of negotiating partners will affect our interests. I have always been interested in the sources of different thinking of opponents. I was attracted to otherness.
It was out of curiosity about the world that I became a diplomat. I became a diplomat by accident because I never had such connections in my family. I saw the first living diplomat in action after leaving to study at MGIMO. And I went there, tempted by a modest advertisement posted in the corridor of the Faculty of Journalism and Political Science of the University of Warsaw about the recruitment of candidates for studies abroad. I was enrolled without any support or protection.
Once, in a casual conversation at the beginning of my career, a Western diplomat asked me why I was so curious about the world. I jokingly replied that I had grown up and lived for the first fourteen years of my life at the crossroads of two of Europe’s most important road routes: the E30 route and the E75 route. Route E30 starts in Cork on the west coast of Ireland, crosses it consistently and, after a ferry interlude, crosses Great Britain. It resumes at Hoek van Holland and, going east through the Netherlands, Germany it reaches Berlin. And then Świecko, Poznań, Krośniewice, Warsaw, and then the exotic Minsk, Moscow to the end of geographical Europe to Omsk. Route E75 starts in the north of Norway in Vardo. It runs through the whole of Finland up to Helsinki. It reaches Gdańsk via the ferry bridge. Then Toruń, Krośniewice, Łódź, Katowice. Further south it goes through Bratislava, Budapest, Belgrade to Athens and then to Crete. The intersection of these two roads for Europe is like the intersection of Aleje Jerozolimskie and Marszałkowska Street for Warsaw (and for Poland). The very center, the heart. Growing up in such a place must have stimulated the imagination. And the intersection invited you to travel. There were roads, you wanted to go, but there was no possibility. There were no passports, no money. There was the iron curtain. All that was left was to read the books. Szklarski, Fiedler, Centkiewicz. Verne, Kipling, Stevenson. Curiosity of the world influenced my choice of the field of study. Instead of studying science in the hope that mathematics (and physics), my favorite at school, would reciprocate my feelings, I chose journalism at the University of Warsaw, deluding myself that if I was able to use a pen efficiently, learn foreign languages, sharpen my sense of observation, the world not only I would watch but also describe. And indeed, I inspected it quite well, though not as a journalist, foreign correspondent or reporter, but as a diplomat.
I encourage young people who think about becoming a diplomatic negotiator to get to know the world from an early age. It is different to negotiate with partners whose culture, religion, geography and social life you have seen up close, even touched with your own hands, than when you know so much about them, what you read on the Internet. Years ago, I was tired of negotiations in Strasbourg with my Western European colleagues on the assessment of the situation and recommendations for Ukraine, Georgia or Armenia, because it turned out that the vast majority of them have never travelled east of Warsaw, and those few who did, they visited only Moscow.
While exploring the world, this or that corner can cause us a cultural infatuation. It must know its limits. Once, examining candidates for the Polish diplomatic service, I heard from an adept that he would like to become a diplomat because he loved France. “But you should love Poland, because you will join the Polish diplomatic service! Other nations you should understand, like, know, but love you should rather restrict only the country that you represent”. It was so painfully banal that I was uncomfortable even talking about it. „And to love, besides, means sometimes to look at it critically. Even at France”.
Should curiosity about the world be combined in professional diplomatic activity with some specific vision of it? Messianism in the work of a negotiator should be avoided, my colleagues. But you should have a vision of the desired state of the world. It can motivate you in difficult negotiation moments more than a lure of promotion, award, order. Let it be secretive, discreet, unobtrusive, but let it guide you in moments of choice, help you resolve moral dilemmas, and encourage you to act. It can change over the years, mature, solidify. It has the right to be idealistic and naive at first. I remember well how it happened in my case. What was my vision of Poland, Europe and the world, that would be a topic for a separate and long conversation. That is still ahead of us.
Today ends my set of advice on diplomatic negotiations. Of course, my guide is not complete. Some of the themes I will want to develop on the next occasions. Nor have I used up my stock of anecdotes yet. Especially from the most recent times. Yet, this stage of my blog is closing. Let me remind you that for over a year I first talked about the substantive side of foreign policy, i.e. the doctrines and ideas driving it. Then for a year I told a story about its operational side, i.e. diplomatic negotiations. On my part, it was the fulfillment of a specific duty to share my knowledge, experience and observations from my own diplomatic activity. What have I done. So, I am happy and content to move on.
In January 2024, I will open a new chapter on the blog. No, no, not yet related to commenting on current events. I know how the reader likes to live in the moment, how he looks for original entries analyzing current events. I will still refer him to newspapers, TV channels, information portals. There are enough commentators, including retired diplomats. Their selection can sometimes (I emphasize – sometimes) be surprising. Both for political and substantive reasons. It then confirms my thesis, which I have been preaching for several years, that the Polish public is by no means demanding in terms of depth of international analysis. To be clear, I’m not talking only about the audience of TVP Info during the rule of PiS.
My perspective on international politics will become even more distant. So I don’t count on a mass reader at all. These will be entries made for the sake of order, for the record, as it were. And they will be titled serially as “Just For the Record”. Two per month. They will not be announced in advance. Anyone who stumbles upon my blog will read them. I promise he won’t regret it.
To new meetings!
