Usually, negotiations begin with negotiations about negotiations. Then, the subject-matter, procedure, rules for conducting negotiations and organizational modalities are agreed upon. This stage of work cannot be underestimated. Mistakes made in the preparatory phase may backfire at every step in the future and make it difficult to achieve the intended goal. And the real challenge will be if any of the future parties to the negotiations put forward the so-called preconditions on which their participation will be subject. Preconditions can serve to strengthen their position in the negotiations from the very beginning. Especially if they are political in nature. Therefore, they must always be examined with caution. It is generally believed that one should sit at the negotiating table without preconditions.
*
The rules for conducting negotiations, i.e. rules defining their scope, the manner of proceeding, the way of making decisions, and even the place of negotiations and the arrangement of the room, undoubtedly have an impact on the substantive course of negotiations.
The more precise the definition of the subject-matter of the negotiations, the easier the negotiations will be later. Sometimes, however, even the “constructive ambiguities” used when drafting the mandate do not give any guarantee that the dispute over the subject will not paralyze the negotiations proper.
At the CSCE Review Meeting in Madrid in 1980-83, delegates held lengthy debates on the subject of negotiations on confidence- and security-building measures, which were to begin in Stockholm in 1984. The Warsaw Pact countries insisted that the negotiations cover not only the military activities of ground forces , which was fully agreed by NATO, but also the activities of naval and air forces, against which NATO countries opposed. After arduous negotiations, it was agreed that: “As regards the adjacent sea area and airspace, these measures will be applied to military activities conducted there … whenever these activities concern security in Europe, as well as when they form part of such activities carried out throughout Europe (…)”.
Over the next many years, and from 1984 to 1986, there was a fierce dispute over how to interpret the meaning of “as well as”. Does “as well as” mean “and” or rather “or”? NATO states claimed that this “as well as” means that naval forces can only be discussed when they participate as a component in the activities of land forces (e.g. in amphibious operations). The Warsaw Pact countries insisted that naval forces can be considered not only when they are such an integral component, but also when they exercise independently. Many hours, many days of linguistic and logical debates did not lead to resolving the dispute. I was their weary witness. Although I never directly participated in these skirmishes. In practice, NATO’s interpretation prevailed because it was translated into the provisions of the Stockholm Conference and later the Vienna Document. But the USSR and then Russia never departed from their interpretation.
I experienced a similar confrontation during the negotiations on the mandate of negotiations on conventional forces in Europe, which I am writing about below. The Warsaw Pact countries wanted the negotiations to cover not only the armament, but also the personnel of the armed forces. NATO countries treated arms reductions as a priority. A compromise formula was sought for a long time. It was found and stipulated that the notion of armed forces also includes their armament. But the Warsaw Pact countries themselves did not insist on reducing personnel numbers during the negotiations themselves. They adopted the NATO concept of arms reductions (and manpower limits were set in a politically binding way two years after the original Treaty).
*
The choice of the place of negotiations is sometimes also important. When in March 2022 the specter of defeat looked in the eyes of the Ukrainians, they not only agreed to negotiations with Russia, but also agreed that they should take place in Belarus, which territory, after all, was used as a base for an invasion of Ukraine. No need to mention how hard it is to conduct equal talks on enemy soil. As soon as the Russians began to get bogged down on the battlefield, they agreed to transfer the talks to Turkey. But continuing them ceased to make sense not long after that.
I personally encountered the practical effects of the dispute over the place of negotiations in the context of consultations on the mandate of new negotiations on conventional disarmament in Europe. Consultations were to start in 1987. The Americans unequivocally preferred Geneva. However, most NATO countries and all Warsaw Pact countries were in favour of Vienna. And not at all because negotiations on the reduction of the armed forces in Central Europe (MBFR) had been taking place there since 1973. From the beginning, there was a desire to dissociate from them and attach new negotiations to the CSCE process, especially since, unlike the unproductive MBFR negotiations, the Stockholm conference on confidence-building measures in September 1986 ended with a spectacular success. And the main reason for the preference for Vienna was that the CSCE review conference was already being held in Vienna, and military experts were also present there.
The Americans did not give up and convinced the Swiss to offer to host future negotiations almost free of charge. In the end, however, they agreed to Vienna, but stipulated that the preparatory meetings could not be held in any of the buildings owned by the Austrian state, that is also not in the Hofburg, where the CSCE met. The reason was the American grudge against Austria because of the assumption of the office of president by Kurt Waldheim, whose Nazi past had just been exposed. Due to the American position, it was decided that the consultations would be held in rotation at the embassies of NATO and Warsaw Pact countries.
There were no appropriate conditions for the reception of representatives of 23 countries in our embassy, but for reasons of prestige we wanted to host the meeting, of what was prickly described as the “traveling circus of disarmament”. The only way was to combine the spacious ambassador’s room with the adjoining reception hall at our embassy on Hietzinger Hauptstrasse. So we did. After the talks, it was necessary to restore the rooms to their previous state, that is also to check whether there were any listening devices left in them. A special team came to sweep the area. And it turned out that it found two bugs in the ambassador’s office. Whether they were there before the consultations, it seemed impossible to determine. And for the next two weeks we had to deal with the organization of an exchange of raincoats by an Italian diplomat and a Hungarian diplomat, who left our embassy in wrong coats and did not notice it at all. It was quite strange because they were more than twenty centimeters apart in height. The incident had, however, no political consequences.
These weekly wanderings so tired the negotiators that after a while the consultations were anchored at the Liechtenstein Palace in Vienna. The Americans could save face because it was a private facility and in the hands of a royal family of a foreign country. And Vienna thus became an unquestionable place of negotiations. Without much ado, the Americans agreed that the negotiations proper (CFE) should begin at the Vienna Hofburg in March 1989.
Of course, Geneva did not always lose in the competition for the choice of the place of negotiations. It usually won. In the spring of 1973, when in the vicinity of Helsinki (the famous “Dipoli” hotel) work was being completed on the negotiation procedure on the CSCE Final Act, it turned out that, contrary to the expectations of the Swiss, many delegations were inclined to carry out the work in Helsinki instead of going to Geneva on the so-called the second phase of consultations, which the Swiss had hoped for. The Soviets and their entire bloc began to lean towards Helsinki (because it was closer and more convenient). Even some Western Europeans had nothing against it, and the Spaniards were openly opposed to Geneva (there were anti-Francoist demonstrations in front of their consulate). But then, fortunately for the Swiss, Finland was paralyzed by a transport strike, something unthinkable in Switzerland. Even the Soviets were convinced to move to Geneva. The Soviet delegation reminded the decision-makers in Moscow that Lenin had lived in Geneva for several years (he hid in Helsinki for barely a few weeks in 1917) and liked the city. CSCE went to Geneva.
Multilateral negotiations are usually conducted in cities that offer diplomats comfortable living and working conditions. It will always be difficult for Chisinau or Tirana to compete with New York, Geneva, Paris, Vienna, Helsinki or Oslo, and even, albeit far away, with Bali. However, creating too comfortable conditions may turn out to be counterproductive.
While on posting in Nairobi (1999-2002), I had the opportunity to follow negotiations on national reconciliation in Somalia. Of course, I did not have access to the negotiations themselves, but I used every opportunity to ask the mediators how the settlement of the conflict in Somalia was proceeding. One of the negotiators remarked bitterly: “Listen, when they met in Eldoret (a provincial town in Kenya, with no major attractions), they moved forward. As soon as we convened a meeting in Nairobi and the participants were accommodated in a five-star hotel, the pace of progress slowed down. It’s as if they wanted to stay there as long as possible.” After negotiations moved to Mbagathi, an agreement was reached in 2004.
*
In preparing the framework for negotiations, an important element of the dispute may be the arrangement of the room, and even the shape of the negotiating table. The most famous case of a sharp polemic about the shape of the table was the Vietnam peace negotiations, which began in 1969 in Paris. The North Vietnamese side insisted on a square shape of the table, which would allow the Viet Cong delegation to be seated on equal terms. The government in Saigon, however, did not recognize the Viet Cong as a party. The South Vietnamese authorities favoured a rectangular shape that would reflect the fact that there were two sides to the conflict. After lengthy discussions, a compromise was agreed (supposedly proposed by the Soviets, who did not participate in the Paris talks at all), which took the form of a round table (although the well-known American diplomat Philip Habib, who was participating in the talks at the time, claimed that the compromise was obvious from the beginning and there was no need for long debates to agree on that, and the role of the Soviets in achieving it was none). North Vietnam and the US were recognized as parties to the negotiations, but South Vietnam and the Viet Cong also sat at the table, which necessarily took on gigantic proportions.
It is always better for negotiations if the parties can maintain eye contact without any problems, and ideally be able to look into each other’s eyes. In bilateral negotiations, the parties usually sit across from each other. Admittedly, I personally could not get used to the tradition practiced in Asia, and especially in China, to seat the heads of delegations sideways during talks. So that they are supposed to be partners, not opponents. During courtesy conversations, it even looked nice. But with longer consultations, the discomfort was sometimes unbearable. The neck ached and stiffened. And contact with the other members of the delegation was not easy.
The record of distance was undoubtedly set by Putin receiving Western interlocutors in the Kremlin at the turn of 2021 and 2022. Even if the Russians could explain such an arrangement with concerns about the health of their leader during the pandemic, the psychological effect was shocking. Separated by a few meters of empty space, the interlocutors could not feel the slightest sense of freedom, closeness, intimacy. And that was certainly what Putin had in mind since he had no intention of letting himself be persuaded to abandon his war plans. The very arrangement of the table should make the guests think that the conversation with Putin did not make sense.
In multilateral negotiations, the shape of the table is usually determined by the number of sides. In the EU, NATO and even the OSCE (with its nearly 60 participating states), negotiators can still be seated at the same table (usually rectangular), but sometimes this requires a room and furniture so large that it is difficult to see what is happening on the other side of the table. At the UN and other global negotiations, the only possible solution is to seat the participants in an amphitheater format (or in the so-called class-room arrangement). I have experienced the inconvenience of such negotiations many times. In such a position, you speak to the backs of other negotiators, you don’t see their reaction, you don’t feel any connection with the audience. Well, but there is no other way to organize the room.
Since the mid-1990s, it has become fashionable to assist diplomats in the process of negotiating texts with computer screens placed on the table in front of them. They obstructed the diplomat’s entire view. He couldn’t see anyone anymore, couldn’t make eye contact with anyone. He could only stare at the screen. These screens annoyed me beyond measure. And if on top of it the computer was operated by a man who did not fully understand what the negotiators were submitting and what they were agreeing on, the mess could get monstrous. Well, that’s the price of the technological progress. However, I have always preferred the traditional paper-oral way of drafting agreements.
I have not been able to experience remote, online negotiations. But they have been widely practiced recently, not only due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. If today you can play top-level chess tournaments remotely, why not negotiate. But before starting them, check only if their participants are not deep-fake figures or robots.
*
Of course, the choice of the negotiation language is important. In the case of general debates, official deliberations, several languages may be used. As a rule, in international organizations these are their official languages or their so-called working languages (in the EU, English and French are used, and although German is also the working language of the Commission, but I have never encountered its use in my practice).
There have been as many as six official languages in the CSCE (OSCE). In the initial (conference) phase of its operation (i.e. until the early 1990s), the costs related to language services exceeded 80% of the entire cost of the CSCE’s activities. Because interpreters (especially booth interpreters) are well paid, and at that time CSCE liked to talk and negotiate for long hours, and interpreters demanded generous overtime pay.
When the choice of languages began to be discussed in Helsinki in 1972, three were taken for granted: English, Russian and French. It was difficult to oppose Spanish, because it is the official language of the United Nations. But then diplomats from West Germany began to strive for the German language. They didn’t have the political courage to push it themselves, so they asked the Swiss to do it. They argued that without German, they themselves would have to speak in English or French, and East German diplomats would use Russian, which would have a disastrous effect on the image, because it would highlight the political division of Germany. Adding German to the official languages would mean that the German states will be able to show unity, at least culturally. However, for internal political reasons, the Swiss had to put forward one condition: they would propose adding an Italian language alongside the German one. And they successfully pushed through their proposal, to the surprise of the Italians. It is good that the Swiss did not propose a Romansh one either (because for internal reasons they could too).
*
When it comes to drafting agreed texts, it is usually appropriate to choose one language. In my practice (both European, Euro-Atlantic and global) it has always been English. The exception was the time when I participated in the Warsaw Pact negotiations. There drafting was done in Russian.
English seems to have completely supplanted French as the language of negotiation diplomacy. Just like in the past, Latin was supplanted by French in European diplomacy. It is interesting to note that during the work on the Westphalian treaties, which laid the foundations for modern multilateral diplomacy, two working languages were in use. In Muenster, the Catholic camp negotiated in Latin. In Osnabrueck, the Protestants decided to abandon Latin and switched to German.
Neither English nor Russian have I ever mastered so as to be able to put myself on a par with the so-called native speakers. In order to negotiate effectively, however, one must get rid of all the complexes and inhibitions resulting from this. I think I did pretty well. But one should also beware of sending diplomats into the negotiation battle, who will never manage without an interpreter. I once saw the agony of the chief military adviser of the USSR delegation at the CFE and Confidence-Building Measures negotiations, sitting down to negotiate an English text without the slightest knowledge of English. I also saw the agony of some Polish diplomats who had elementary problems with English. It was so sad to see it.
*
When it comes to drafting the text of the agreement, an important issue is the way of writing down formulas on which there is a consensus of views, but above all the way of marking differences.
I started my negotiating adventure with CSCE. There, places in the agreed text for which there was no agreement or various text formulas existed were simply marked with three dots. The idea behind this was that the authors of competing proposals should not get too attached to them, that the dots would encourage the search for new compromise formulas. I became very attached to this method.
So much so that when I got to negotiations within the Warsaw Pact, I wanted to transfer this method to this ground. In the Warsaw Treaty negotiations the rule was that disputed fragments were marked with square brackets, and alternative formulas submitted by delegations, separated by a slash, were written in those brackets. Unfortunately, I was not able to convince partners to change it. Romania, in particular, objected. Very often, it wanted not so much to push through its own textual proposals, but to reflect them in a comprehensive document. In order to show that its views had an equal status with others, especially with the Soviet ones. And then, finally, they used to delete their suggestions and remove the square brackets.
The formula of putting square brackets on contested fragments was a very common formula on other forums.
It is often associated with the by the approximation method. The chairman or the mediator submits a compromise text of the agreement. He asks the parties for comments and suggestions, he asks for a reaction to these initiatives from other partners, but instead of tediously proceeding with the text line by line, paragraph by paragraph, he submits successive compromise drafts (“chair’s best guess”), until the text does not cause controversy, or the mediator considers that his possibilities of seeking a compromise have been exhausted.
*
Diplomatic negotiations are usually conducted in private. And that confidentiality is or should be enshrined in their mandate. Journalists, non-governmental organizations and outsiders do not have direct access to the negotiations. There have, of course, been calls in the past and there are still calls for transparency in international negotiations. Right after the revolution, the Bolsheviks wanted to negotiate with the curtain open. But they quickly changed their mind. Negotiations require discretion. First of all, because building mutual trust requires it. You can’t do it by saying things “in public”. It is especially difficult to make concessions publicly and openly. And without concessions, no agreement can ever be reached. Preparing concessions also requires discretion. As a rule, this is done outside the meeting table: in the lobby, lounges, “in the city” (in restaurants or cafes).
Sometimes the good of negotiations requires their special secrecy. Even the fact of running them becomes a secret. Sometimes a secret channel is opened in parallel to the official negotiating platform. That’s how Kissinger decided to negotiate with the Vietnamese and made his first secret contacts with Le Duc Tho in February 1970. About secret channels, however, on a different occasion.
“Megaphone” negotiations still happen. They then testify to the lack of trust by the parties (we remember how Wałęsa negotiated with the communist authorities in 1980, because he simply did not trust them). Revealing confidential records of talks, as the Russians did in 2022 with regard to the Normandy Format consultations, often shows a lack of willingness to continue talks.
Of course, for the purpose of creating negotiating pressure and manipulating public opinion, the parties can organize controlled leaks. But they always try to cover up their sources then. It is assumed that even under the conditions of agreed confidentiality of the talks, a party may make public the positions expressed by it at meetings, but should not disclose the content of the speeches of other participants. At least this is the savoir-vivre I was taught at the beginning of my adventure as a negotiator.
Of course, the content of the negotiations can be disclosed after their completion. Especially when there are divergent interpretations of the agreement. Then the key argument becomes the so-called negotiation history. It was in this context that the US and the USSR published their SALT negotiation protocols from the 1970s quite quickly. But it turned out that these records differ in several places. The British published their reports and dispatches from the CSCE consultations at Dipoli, which were very helpful to historians. But even in this case, they do not always coincide with the accounts of diplomats of other countries.
*
The choice of the method of determining the fact of the agreement is important. In the case of closed negotiations, i.e. bilateral or multilateral negotiations conducted in a closed group, the rule is simple: decisions must be made unanimously. In the case of negotiations with open-ended participation, e.g. related to the development of instruments of a universal nature, unanimity is also preferred, but a qualified majority can be agreed, in particular one that would guarantee the approval of the draft by the UN General Assembly (in the case of conventions negotiated under the auspices of UN), or entry into force of the Convention in question.
Negotiating decisions within international organizations is a separate issue. Various types of special solutions may apply here (qualified majority and no objection by a permanent member in the case of the UN Security Council, the so-called double majority in the case of the Council of the EU, absolute majority in the case of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe). Needless to say, the way decisions are made always influences the negotiating strategy.
The European Union’s complete departure from the unanimity rule may undoubtedly change the character of the integration process. Insiders foresee a big deal: the agreement of Germany and France to enlarge the EU to include Ukraine (and Moldova) in exchange for a complete departure from the unanimity rule.
Unanimity still rules in NATO.
For the purposes of the CSCE, which was being created in the early 1970s, the consensus principle was invented. It is not the same as unanimity. Ambassador Edouard Brunner, a top Swiss diplomat and a legend of the first years of the CSCE, emphasized in his memoirs the role of his Romanian colleague Valentin Lipatti in consolidating the principle of consensus in the consultations in Dipoli. It meant not so much consent as the lack of serious obstacles to accepting the agreement. In the early 1990s, exceptions to this rule had to be defined. But even they do not currently allow the introduction of restrictions on Russia or Belarus on the OSCE forum.
*
But the most important part of the preparation is to be done at home. It consists primarily in carefully defining one’s own interests.
Determining your own interests in the subject of negotiations is not overly difficult, although of course it sometimes requires a lot of imagination, and especially the ability to distinguish short-term interests from long-term ones. The problem is that even for a medium-sized state, the particular interest to be pursued at a negotiation interferes with other state interests in external relations. They can be very rarely ignored. And then there are the interests related to domestic politics. Because negotiations are conducted by a specific government, which must think about how its actions will translate into its popularity and, as a result, electoral chances. Few governments will be willing to accept a negotiation outcome that will put them out of power. Unless they have to do so under the pressure of circumstances (because of a lost war, etc.).
That is why political considerations are always decisive in important negotiations. Politicians should be expected to help diplomats see through the prism of broader horizons, to look ahead when defining raison d’état. The momentum of political life, and in particular international life, is such that hardly any politician in power has enough time for calm reflection and accurate determination of the strategic course. Even politicians who are intellectually capable of it. It is enough to look at the total embarrassment of the political elites of France and Germany concerning the political course they set towards Putin’s Russia in recent years, a course imposed on the entire European Union.
From the stories of former US diplomats, I got the impression that only Kissinger, and to some extent Albright, could impress them with the ability to combine facts, events and processes into a strategic narrative. But still, they could be wrong. Kissinger underestimated the effects of the CSCE Final Act and the entire CSCE process as a lever of influence on the socialist camp. He even used to say to Dobrynin that the CSCE was irrelevant to the US, and what mattered was the MBFR (disarmament negotiations in Vienna, which ended in a fiasco in 1988).
*
“Information is a negotiator’s greatest weapon” – quite aptly stated Victor Kiam (the late American entrepreneur). Preparatory work must therefore consist in collecting as much information as possible on all aspects of the negotiations, and above all on the negotiation objectives, expectations and moods of the other parties to the negotiations. To this end, intensive consultations with partners are carried out before the essential negotiations begin. Their own diplomatic missions are asked to conduct research, expert analyzes are ordered. The result of these explorations should be the drawing up of a kind of map of interests that will allow us to properly locate our own negotiation goals, identify potential allies and identify the most serious opponents. Smaller and weaker countries in particular must constantly look for ways to join coalitions that are favorable from their point of view.
The map of own interests, when superimposed on the map of partners’ interests, should give an indication of the negotiation strategy. If the field of overlapping interests is solid, the chances of agreement will be good. If the comparative analysis shows that there is no such field, there are basically three solutions. Firstly, perhaps others, even mediators, will find such a field. Secondly, we try to impose our interests on the other side, which does not always have to be forceful or cynical. Third, we abandon the negotiations. Sometimes it’s better to give them up than to get involved in a process that won’t do any good.
Ivanka Trump is credited with quite the right idea, so I’m not ashamed to quote this thought, even if Ivanka herself went down in the history of diplomacy in a rather vaudevillian way (we remember her small talk with Macron, Trudeau, May and Lagarde on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka in 2019). : “Know what you want to achieve prior to starting to negotiate. It’s the golden rule but the one most people fail to heed. Without a plan, you allow the opposing party to define your goals instead of the other way around.”
*
The initial position, negotiation strategy, negotiation goals, red lines (of concessions) should be reflected in the instruction. Each country has specific procedures for drafting a negotiating instruction. In Poland, in the late times of the Polish People’s Republic, when I started working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there was a strict requirement to prepare instructions for the delegation (or for the plenipotentiary ambassador). In the case of negotiations on international legal instruments, the government imprimatur had to be given to the instruction. In the case of important political acts – a political imprimatur (Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party). Even then, I heard valuable practical advice: “If you want to feel good during negotiations, ensure maximum influence on the shape of the instruction, and preferably write it yourself.” So I often (whenever possible) wrote them myself (of course they had to go through successive levels of substantive and political acceptance).
The outstanding French diplomat Jacques Andreani, involved in the negotiations on the CSCE Final Act, found himself in a dream situation in 1973: he held the position of director at the Quai d’Orsay and at the same time he was appointed head of the French delegation for the negotiations of the second phase of the CSCE in Geneva. From Tuesday to Thursday he was in Geneva. At that time, he prepared proposals for the French position on contentious issues in the negotiations. He signed the telegram sent to Paris on Friday morning with these proposals as the head of the delegation. And on Monday morning, as head of the department in Paris, he approved them and signed the appropriate cable to Geneva.
Of course, the control over instructions is not so simple when negotiations concern matters that are also in the hands of other ministries. Then the preparation of instructions requires inter-ministerial coordination. In the early stages of my career, I dealt primarily with disarmament issues, so the Ministry of National Defense was a partner in the arrangements. The cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense in the 1980s and 1990s was excellent. What we decided together, the decision-makers at the top approved blindly. Of course there were problems. On my blog, I cited examples when the positions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense differed, for example on the issue of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact (in 1990) or the convention on the prohibition of anti-personnel mines (in 1997). But there was always some kind of compromise, eventually involving the political level (ministers). I experienced serious discrepancies between the Ministry of National Defense (or more precisely, the General Staff) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when I was a deputy minister in 2005 (for example, regarding the deployment of American missile defense systems in Poland), but they were managed somehow.
In my practice, I have never come across a permanent mechanism for harmonizing the positions of individual state institutions in Poland on international security issues. Similar to the American one, centered around the National Security Council. In the USSR, there was an informal institution of the so-called “Bolshaya/Malaya Piatiorka” (Central Committee of the CPSU, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of National Defense, KGB, Committee of the Council of Ministers for the military-industrial complex), where the position on disarmament and international security issues was hammered out. With us, as far as I know, everything was done ad hoc.
Poland’s accession to the European Union resulted in the activation of a working inter-ministerial coordination mechanism. Instructions on almost every issue discussed in Brussels at numerous meetings of the Council’s working bodies and, of course, at COREPER had to go through it. This mechanism has bureaucratized to the size of a caricature. The form overcame the content, and the procedure overtook the goal. Several times in my time, an instruction passed through my hands (to be initialed), which was completely out of date, because the development of events in Brussels was so accelerating that it already referred to irrelevant issues. It was no longer of any use. Maybe just so that there was a formal underlay that the instruction had been prepared and sent. In the event of an audit by the Supreme Audit Office?
I also observed with regret how in recent years the Ministry of Foreign Affairs abdicated from actively influencing the shape of the so-called sectoral instructions, leaving full freedom of action to the branch ministries without regard to the effects that their position may bring on the overall foreign policy of Poland. And I have seen in my own practice that even in such technical matters as environmental protection or family policy, the political consequences of seemingly technical decisions can be significant.
*
It is good if the delegation for negotiations forms an unbreakable monolith. However, it can always happen that individual members of the delegation, especially if they are dissatisfied with the actions of its boss, will forward their assessments to the headquarters through their private channels, i.e. simply send denunciations. If the delegation includes representatives of other ministries, the probability that they will activate their own channels of informing superiors is even higher.
Denunciations can put even the most powerful head of delegation under serious stress. Ambassador Oleg Grinievskij, who headed the USSR delegation to the Stockholm Conference in 1984-1986 and the CFE negotiations in 1989-1990, described his problems with denunciations in his book „Perelom”. In July 1986, when the negotiations were entering a decisive phase, he decided to suggest Moscow to agree to 2-3 on-site inspections a year, without which there was no chance of a final compromise. He prepared a corresponding telegram to the headquarters. He gave it to the members of the delegation to read. Diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs supported his text, but military advisers objected. In this situation, Grinievskij signed the telegram on his own and sent it immediately. That same night he got a reply. As he wrote: “(Otviet) prishol nochyu, i v sapogakh”. Grinievskij was urgently summoned to Moscow. He appeared after his arrival at the secretariat of Minister Shevardnadze. He was greeted by the minister’s clerk, Rudolf Alekseev, with the short: “He will show a denunciation on you.” It turned out that the delegation’s chief military adviser, General Viktor Tatarnikov, wrote a denunciation against Grinievskij, which the Minister of Defense, Marshal Sokolov, sent to several members of the Politburo of the CPSU. Shevardnadze signalled to ignore Tatarnikov’s denunciation. The matter was more serious: “Tut marshal-ministr oborony na Tebya zhaluyetsa”. It turned out that Sokolov sent a memorandum to Gorbachev himself, in which he accused Grinievskij of violating the directives approved by the Politburo and spontaneously agreed to transfer the subject of independent air force exercises to the next stage of negotiations. But Grinievskij got away with it, because Gorbachev wanted the success of the Stockholm conference at all costs.
Not only the army wrote denunciations against Soviet diplomats. General Sergei Kondrashov was until the mid-1980s the chief resident of the KGB at meetings in the CSCE process. And the undisputed „eminence grise”, with whom the Americans negotiated the most difficult issues in negotiations. And Kondraszow ended up in the CSCE as a result of an official denunciation, i.e. an internal KGB report on the work of the Soviet delegation during the negotiations of the Geneva phase of negotiations on the CSCE Final Act. Kondrashov recalled that in 1974 he was summoned by the head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, who told him that, in the opinion of the KGB officer in Geneva, the Soviet delegation was acting as if it wanted to commit an act of state treason: “They are giving up on all fronts.” Andropov instructed Kondrashov to immediately go there as his envoy, conduct an investigation and report back on his return whether he could confirm these accusations. Kondrashov went, talked to whomever he could and returned with an answer. He told Andropov that the West would accept the recognition of borders in Europe, but the price for that would be the liberalization of the Soviet system. Andropov supposedly replied that it was not a state treason. The Soviet authorities also wanted to reform the system, because it was impossible to continue ruling in a Stalinist way. And reforms in Russia could only be introduced from above. Perhaps it was better to sign a document and tell the people that the document must now be implemented and reforms introduced. There is no trace of this instruction in Andropov’s archives, but the fact remains that Kondrashov over the years saw to it that the Soviet delegation behaved reasonably and accepted compromises.
*
I have always been a supporter of general, strategic and orientational instructions. Many times in my practice I have found out that negotiations can go, and quickly, in a completely unforeseen direction. Then the rigid instruction becomes a ball and chain.
Rigid instructions incapacitate negotiators, but also take a lot of stress out of them. In the history of diplomacy, already during the negotiations on the Westphalian treaties in 1648, in the work of the so-called the Catholic camp in Muenster, rigid instructions prevailed. There, apparently, the role of negotiators was the role of a courier, i.e. only handing over positions to partners. On the other hand, Alexander I had the advantage over all other negotiators of the other countries during the work of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 that he did not need any instructions. Others, however, had to consult their monarchs. For Russia, it turned out to be quite convenient.
James Harris, the first Earl of Malmesbury, the eminent (and perhaps greatest) English diplomat of the late eighteenth century, is said to have admitted, “I never received an instruction worth reading.” Because in fact, most of the time he acted on his own. If you don’t want to read the instructions today, choose those that come after time. This is a common case in multilateral negotiations, where developments usually overtake the mode of bureaucratic processing of directives.
Ambassador George Vest, the American representative at the negotiations of the first phase of the CSCE in 1973 in Helsinki (Hotel “Dipoli”), recalled that in the final part of the talks, one of the most difficult issues was the choice of the place for the so-called the final phase, i.e. the signing of the Final Act. After it was decided that the second phase should take place in Geneva, most of the delegations pragmatically favoured the Heads of State and Government to come to Geneva to sign the Final Act. Ambassador Vest asked officials in Washington, but they were skeptical about the possibility of getting the case to Kissinger. So Vest went on his own to support the Scandinavians who stood firm behind Helsinki. At the meeting where the issue was being decided, Vest was called to the phone. The code-clerk was telling him that an urgent message had arrived. Unfortunately, he couldn’t read it over the phone, because it was secret, so Vest asked that the code clerk bring it in person. He came, but then the polemics were in full swing. The clerk tried three times to get to Vest with a telegram, but Vest was so involved in the discussion that he pushed him away with a short “Not now”. When it was finally decided that the final phase of the CSCE would take place in Helsinki, and Vest could breathe a sigh of relief, he motioned to the clerk. The latter placed a telegram in front of him, which said: “Support Geneva.”
*
During the negotiations, a problem may arise that will require turning to the superior institution, i.e. the so-called headquarters (i.e. the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) with a request for specific instructions. It is also best to write this one for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yourself (be it directly, but discreetly, or by use of the method of self-evident suggestion). However, this is only possible if our relationships with superiors are based on mutual trust. This may not always be the case.
The worst thing for a negotiator is if he does not trust his superiors, if these people are just waiting for his mistake, if they do not hesitate to blame him for the failure of negotiations. I experienced this too, when in 2006-2007 some people at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were looking for any pretext to alarm the leadership of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with clear evidence that I had to be recalled as the Polish ambassador to the Council of Europe. It is impossible to negotiate well if you are not convinced that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters is extending the necessary safety net around the negotiating team. That is why many American ambassadors used to say to themselves: “Remember: your first task is to secure the base.”
*
And what happens if the outcome of the negotiations is contrary to the instructions received? In bilateral negotiations, the matter is simple: there may be serious consequences, at least administrative, if not criminal (in Poland, for example, such a situation can be classified as “diplomatic treason”, invented under the rule of PiS to “get” Tusk and Sikorski).
In multilateral negotiations, the matter is much more complicated. I already described in the previous issue of the blog how in December 1988 the Romanians suddenly realized that the upcoming compromise at the CSCE review meeting in Vienna was at odds with their directives (especially in matters related to human rights). They tried to convince the Soviets and the entire Warsaw Pact to reject the draft final document prepared by the neutrals in the name of allied solidarity. Without success. The Soviets told them: “Care for yourselves”. So the Romanians went to the NATO countries, and to the Americans in particular. Romanian diplomats despaired that if they accepted the document, they might even face death, if not long prison terms. Ceausescu was supposed to be ruthless in this respect. Previously, however, when the provisions were discussed, the Romanian delegates did not raise any objections (and they were mainly bothered by the commitments regarding religious freedoms). The Americans suspected that Ceausescu was not informed about the course of the negotiations at all. Romanian diplomats hoped that the Soviets would block everything and hid behind their backs. But a surprise came: the Soviets, in the name of building a common European home, agreed to the demands of the West. The Romanians were left in the cold. They threatened to block the document, but they did not. As Warren Zimmermann, the head of the US delegation to the Vienna meeting in 1986-1989, recalled: “We made informal plans for a political asylum if the Romanians felt it was just getting too hot for them.” There was no need to activate the plans. Ceausescu collapsed after a year, and several Romanian diplomats from the Vienna negotiations made a good career in democratic Romania.
But, on the other hand, in 2019, the world was informed that the leader of the DPRK, Kim Jong Un, had ordered Kim Hyok Chol, his negotiator responsible for preparing the failed Hanoi summit with President Trump, and four other diplomats to be shot for betraying the “supreme leader” and switching sides US in pre-summit negotiations. Although apparently some of them later appeared in public.
*
It is always possible that an instruction will come that conflicts with the negotiator’s personal views. Adapting Hirschmann’s theses about institutions in crisis, three options are possible: “exit, loyalty or voice”.
I have been lucky in my career that such a conflict has only surfaced in a fundamental way only twice. I wrote about it on my blog. I’ve seen different ways to deal with this problem. Some negotiators even resigned, usually without showing the real reason. I watched the almost theatrical gestures of ambassadors demonstrating their distance from the official position. I don’t recommend it to anyone.
It is best to always ask the headquarters to revise the instruction whenever there is any chance that it can be changed. You can also count on the fact that the circumstances themselves will force you to revise it. From my first negotiating experience at the Stockholm Conference, I learned how to deal with bad instructions. In early 1986, the USSR Ambassador Oleg Grinievskij and the US Ambassador Robert Barry came to an informal and private agreement on a landmark decision to conduct an on-site inspections. But Moscow did not accept his actions. The Politburo itself reportedly rejected the idea. The USSR ambassador loyally informed the American that their deal was dead that he had just been disavowed by his superiors. Loyal to Moscow, he presented a tough stance at formal meetings. But he knew that if it was true that the Kremlin’s political leadership wanted a comprehensive agreement, it would sooner or later accept his initiative. And it was accepted when it turned out to be simply unavoidable.
*
Another advice that cannot be ignored: use the preparatory period to master the subject of negotiations.
Negotiation tasks have always been an opportunity for me to discover new worlds and enrich my knowledge. Of course, it can always be said that technical knowledge is for experts, and the role of a diplomat is to focus on the efficient conduct of the process of building consensus for the benefit of the interests of his country. But without mastering at least the basic canon of knowledge about the subject of negotiations, the head of the delegation may be completely incapacitated by experts, and above all, he will not be able to develop a sufficiently strong personal negotiating position.
My first negotiating experience was in disarmament and military confidence-building measures. And after all, I didn’t do military service at all, I didn’t even experience military training at the university. But I spent a lot of time reading scientific studies on armaments and the operation of the armed forces while writing my doctorate, using the restricted collection in the MGIMO library, i.e. the so-called special fund. So I didn’t have to rely entirely on the knowledge of our military advisers. It was a paradox in their expertise that while they willingly and in detail shared their knowledge about NATO equipment, they feigned ignorance about their own armaments. But that particular gap I could easily fill. And there were at least a few occasions when I managed to negotiate without having to rely on the knowledge of our officers. The lack of knowledge about their own potential was probably the affliction of the military advisers of the entire Warsaw Pact. Max Kampelman, head of the US delegation for nuclear negotiations with the USSR in 1985-1989, described how General James Abrahamson came to Geneva and gave Soviet military advisers a briefing on US and Soviet missile defense programs. It turned out that “he knew more about the Russian program than they did. And they were furiously taking copious notes.”
And even if the Soviet military advisers knew something, they did not share their knowledge with their civilian colleagues from the delegation. This was confirmed by Ambassador Thomas Pickering, already quoted on this blog, in the context of disarmament negotiations with the Soviets: “The fascinating thing was that in a lot of these negotiations, we had to tell the Soviet negotiators about their own military missile force, because the military wouldn’t tell the civilian negotiators.” I saw this distrust when there were intra-group negotiations under the CFE Treaty on the translation of group quotas into national quotas. The USSR delegation was unable to push its proposals through the plenary forum among the allies during consultations in Moscow. Therefore, it decided to invite the military members of the delegations to separate consultations at the headquarters of the General Staff. The Hungarians also notified the participation of a civilian diplomat, Isztvan Gyarmati, for this meeting. Despite this, he was denied entry to the building on the grounds that he was not an officer on active duty.
*
I had the greatest resistance to studying the subject of negotiations when I was working on the issues of ecology and human habitats while at the post in Nairobi. Biology was not my favorite subject in school. I didn’t really want to study specialized documentation in Nairobi, let alone professional literature.
Although I must say that I found out that with the right attitude you can build quite solid knowledge about the subject by osmosis, i.e. by spending a long time in a group of experts and listening to them patiently. Silently hiding ignorance.
When I was dealing with the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997, the level of complexity of the matter was even greater. And again I didn’t really want to study chemistry at school. But I also got rid of my complexes quite quickly in this field.
Then my horizons of knowledge expanded to include issues of human rights, the rule of law, and even economic cooperation.
And I managed to avoid being considered too specialized. I wasn’t just a disarmament or security negotiator, as I had been early in my career. I could negotiate with a sense of substantive comfort, maybe not everything, but certainly almost everything. A narrow specialization can sometimes speed up your career, but it certainly won’t be as much fun as versatility.
*
But however self-sufficient a negotiator may be, he must surround himself with good experts. One of the most important tasks at the preparatory stage is to build a well-coordinated negotiation team. A team that will be a random cluster of competences, composed of people who do not trust each other, are guided by different loyalties, will not achieve anything great in negotiations.
But don’t overdo it. Surrounding yourself with yesmen and buddies is just as dangerous. US Ambassador Paul Nitze, who negotiated disarmament deals with the Soviets, once gave explicit instructions through a third person: “(He) wants me to tell you that if you are going to continue to just simply agree with everything he says, he wants you to get off the delegation. If you are not prepared to challenge his views, you are of no value to him. He does not want to be surrounded by yes men.” I affirm the practical wisdom of this position.
*
No matter how well we prepare for negotiations, only proper negotiations will evaluate our preparatory work.
About the start of the negotiations proper on 17 April 2023.
