Negotiations should be preferably conducted honestly, without question. Every negotiator, even the most seasoned in diplomatic battles, must confront his behaviour with his own conscience. Does the end always have to justify the means? Can negotiations be conducted without a moral compass? These are important questions for the effectiveness at the negotiating table.
The conventional understanding of international politics stipulates that states are not subject to moral evaluations in their activities, and if so, these evaluations may only concern methods, but not goals. This view is increasingly questioned in the public consciousness, especially in the West. Citizens increasingly expect their state to behave ethically.
Diplomacy as a profession has also been for years under pressure to purge it of unethical behaviour.
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Lying is undoubtedly considered unethical behaviour in generally applicable moral codes. Is it possible to conduct diplomatic negotiations without lying?
Not completely. First, diplomacy remains the realm of “white” lies. Partners are told nice things, although not necessarily true, so as not to offend them, not to violate the majesty of the countries they represent, and their personal dignity as diplomats. In diplomacy, dignity and honour are still the subject of the greatest sensitivity. Never even the most senseless proposal or statement of a partner will be called idiotic and dumb, even if it deserves it. We will describe it as unusual, puzzling, unexpected, and maybe even absurd and irrational if we really have a problem with it, but never moronic, goofy, or stupid. It is not accepted to do it.
It is quite common to use “white” lies in order to cajole the partner, ingratiate ourselves, win his sympathy. The master of flattery was undoubtedly Henry Kissinger. He showered his interlocutors with compliments, praised their cunning, foresight and prudence, regardless of who he was talking to: Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabs or Soviets. Reading the minutes of his conversations, I had the impression that his interlocutors often could not resist the charm of flattery. Well, maybe apart from the Soviets, especially Gromyko. Kissinger later devoted to him some sour comments.
So be ready for the other negotiator during the discussion to congratulate you on your “excellent analysis of the situation”, to highlight your “convincing logic”, to marvel at your ability to “grab the bull by the horns”, to thank you for submitting a formula “that no one else could formulate”. You have to nod your head in gratitude for the recognition, but don’t fall for these compliments. Although many times on my way I met Polish diplomats who fell for it and let themselves be transported into the world of diplomatic illusion.
Apart from “white lies”, lies related to the limit of our concessions („red lines”) and expected gains are subject to moral absolution. If we were to explain to our partners the depth of our “red lines” at the very beginning, the negotiations would be pointless. So we can talk about the partner’s proposal as unacceptable, even if we know that it could be accepted as a last resort. But maybe we can still get more from him.
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There are many colours of lies in psychological and sociological descriptions: not only white but also blue, purple, pink and others.
Blue lies are usually told among allies. For fear of group anger, we applaud the allied position, although it does not suit us at all, but we know that it has no chance of success on a wider forum. So we feign loyalty so as not to feel excluded, and we act against the group’s position. In the early stages of the CSCE, some EU diplomats did so. When the Union coordinated its position, they discreetly informed the United States. And when they became sure that the EU consensus would be dismantled by the US as part of NATO coordination, they forgave themselves the stress of influencing the EU position, even though it did not suit them. Because they knew that the Americans would break it.
Red lies are lies of anger and retaliation. We reject someone’s proposal, even though it would be quite acceptable to us, in order to get revenge for some earlier behaviour of the partner that was not to our liking.
There are also gray lies, i.e. half-truths. In the disarmament negotiations, I learned that it is easier to bend reality to make it clear that we have more than we have, rather than trying to underestimate what we have.
And the worst of lies, i.e. black lies, are brazen and destructive lies, straight-faced lies. I strongly advise against their use, unless at a time of existential threat to the country. Then moral absolution is beyond question. But a black lie can completely destroy the capital of trust that we can earn from our partners. And, as we mentioned at the beginning, effective negotiations cannot be conducted without elementary trust. Caught in a lie, hardly anyone will believe you later, even when you confesses the 100% truth as in the final judgement. So if you are going to lie, do it so that the lie doesn’t come to light before the end of the negotiations. But if it comes out even after years, the risk that we will sit down to the negotiating table again with those we have misled is high. And then we’ll sit down with a reputation as a diplomat not to be trusted. And that will bode poorly for our chances of success.
You can always try to pretend that you were not aware that you were not telling the truth. As the famous formula from the sitcom “Seinfeld” said: “Remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it”. I have encountered similar explanations at least a few times.
The Soviet and Russian ambassador Oleg Grynevskij, who headed the Soviet delegation at the Stockholm Conference in 1984-1986, wrote in his memoirs about his fellow diplomats: “I obmanywayut, i „dezu” (disinformation – my explanation) zapuskayut. No mozhno obmanut’ raz ili dva, a na tretij s toboy razgovarivat’ nie stanut. I oczen’ skoro vychislyat tiech, kto „dezu” zapuskayet. S takim potom prosto nie obszczayutsya – im viery nyet.”
Can a diplomat get in trouble if he is lying? A malicious observer might caution that your career suffers more often when you tell the truth, as a certain Polish ambassador to the Czech Republic found out not so long ago after taking office. The promoter of my doctoral dissertation, Professor (and Ambassador) Roland Timerbaev, in his memoirs described the case of Ambassador Valerian Zorin, permanent representative of the USSR to the United Nations in New York. In October 1962, when the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out, Zorin lied profusely that there were no Soviet missiles on the island and there would be none (Timerbaev admits that he, being Zorin’s subordinate, also lied, but he lied because he did not know the truth, and Zorin could know it). Zorin lied not only in diplomatic contacts, but he also lied to the media. He lied to such an extent that after revealing the truth and defusing the crisis, the authorities in the Kremlin came to the conclusion that Zorin had to be withdrawn from New York because he had lost his credibility. But, if true, he had a soft landing, for he was made deputy foreign minister and in 1965 he was sent to Paris as an ambassador.
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It’s easier for politicians to lie. Because they change positions more often. Because they can always say that they were misled by their environment, advisors, experts. We remember that Western politicians reacted for quite a long time after meetings with Putin, during which he served them absolute blunders without batting an eyelid, saying that Putin simply lives in his own world, detached from reality. The misleading lies he gave his interlocutors just before the invasion of Ukraine, in which he especially assured that Russia would not start a war, left no doubt that he lied to his partners cynically and over and over again. Lavrov, a notorious liar, may have signaled that he was only articulating the official version of events according to the Kremlin, but Putin would no longer be able to cover himself with anyone.
Treating Putin as an exceptional case, politicians are said to lie to their own voters more often than to their counterparts in state positions from other countries.
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Misleading partners, not necessarily with the help of lies and manipulation of facts, about one’s own intentions and negotiating power is commonly called bluffing. In particular, one can bluff as to the degree of interest in an agreement during the negotiations. The conventional wisdom is that exaggerated signs of willingness to compromise weaken the bargaining position. Everyone knew in the spring of 1990 that the Soviets, from a political point of view, should be interested in the success of negotiations on conventional disarmament in Europe. But in the negotiations, the Soviets used their old tactic of waiting, of questioning NATO ideas, of slowing down obvious decisions. Until they put the Americans in a state of nervous fear that an agreement would not be reached in time. And they managed to obtain a much better deal from the Americans bilaterally than they could have negotiated with the participation of all parties to the negotiations. This was a good example of a successful strategic bluff.
You can also bluff by hiding your weakness in negotiations, masking your isolation, inability to stop the unfavorable development of the situation.
Of course, bluffing should be credible. I remember how in 1992 Liechtenstein blocked the decision to convene the CSCE Economic Forum in Prague. It threatened that, following the example of Malta at the review meeting in Madrid in 1980-1983, it was ready to go to the so-called “extreme”. However, when delegates from other countries learned that the reason for their objection was the lack of compensation for the property of the princely family in the Czech Republic confiscated after World War II, the anxiety subsided, because then such bilateral problems were not treated as a legitimate reason to block the CSCE process, especially since Prague has been already the seat of the CSCE Secretariat since 1990. The bluff failed, but the bilateral problem remains unresolved to this day.
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At the diplomatic negotiating table, other morally dubious behaviours are not welcome, such as resorting to threats, let alone the so-called coercive diplomacy.
In negotiations concerning, in particular, armed conflicts or even economic disputes, the policy of the so-called fait accompli is widely practiced. It is not without reason that for centuries it has been said that the shape of peace treaties is determined by the situation on the battlefield. Sometimes, however, military action is undertaken just to secure a favourable position in the negotiations. The best example is the so-called the Christmas bombing of North Vietnam by the Americans in December 1972. The twelve-day campaign (over 20,000 tons of bombs dropped) failed to achieve any significant military objective, but was credited with the political effect of bringing the Vietnamese back to the negotiating table, leading to the finalization of the January 1973 deal (under conditions undoubtedly favourable to the DRW, and negotiated before the start of the bombing).
In September 2022, Azerbaijan carried out massive artillery attacks on the border with Armenia and occupied almost 100 square kilometers of Armenia’s territory. Then, as if nothing had happened, it returned to talks on a peace treaty. This action was widely treated as another edition of the so-called coercive diplomacy. The purpose of using force in such a doctrine is not to settle the matter by defeating the opponent, but to force him to make concessions at the negotiating table.
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Corruption is a morally disgusting way to influence the course of negotiations. The first historically documented example of negotiation corruption was the negotiations in the Catholic camp in Muenster that ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. Bribes were constantly circulating there. They fuelled each other, so that they served primarily preventive purposes, i.e. preventing delegates from being bribed by another partner. In the opinion of historians, however, they had little impact on the course of the negotiations.
The bribery diplomacy of Russian ambassadors in the 18th century went down infamously in Polish history. Today, no one tries to bribe diplomats, especially in the West. Because there are registers of benefits, asset declarations, codes of ethics that exclude the possibility of corruption. But as the famous affair of Azerbaijan’s “caviar diplomacy” at the Council of Europe, or the Qatari money in plastic bags with deputies of the European Parliament, showed, even Western politicians can be greedy for easy money.
No one dares to offer money and gifts to diplomats. At most, on multilateral forums, para-study trips and other mild forms of soliciting for kindness are organized for them. Of course, diplomats exchange gifts, usually for holidays and usually alcohol (diplomats from Arab countries give dates or other local delicacies instead of alcohol). Small gifts like this can help break the ice. But they must comply with the codes of ethics applicable to diplomats. Ambassador Max Kampelman, who led the American delegation at the CSCE review meeting in Madrid in 1980-1983, recalled how in the first days of his stay, returning to the hotel after dinner, he found a case of Hungarian wine in the room without any business card or note. He guessed it was a gift from the Hungarian ambassador, to whom he had just done a political favour at the negotiating table. The next day, at the meeting, he complained to him: “You have caused me great difficulty, Mr. Ambassador. We have a rule in the State Department that we cannot accept any gifts that we cannot consume within twelve hours. It was a very difficult night for me…” And they became friends for many years.
If there is political corruption in diplomacy, it has a state dimension, but indirect, veiled. Most often it concerns the negotiation of the so-called electoral support. For the vote of support, injections of development aid, investments, and even a softening of the position in serious disputes (e.g. over the demarcation of the maritime economic zone) are offered. But no one will ever openly admit it. Nobody will admit even buying votes in the competition to host the final of the world championships or the Olympics.
There are no moral objections to financial compensation for certain concessions made in negotiations. The European Union has offered, for example, Armenia and earlier Moldova financial support for the process of abandoning the name “Cognac” for their brandy spirits during negotiations on association and other bilateral agreements.
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Blackmail is also disgusting. However, I am not aware of cases of personal blackmail of negotiators. Even if special services may have “compromising files” on individual diplomats (as experts say, most often there is a triad behind this: “sack, cork and fly”), their use during negotiation work is in practice very dangerous and does not guarantee success. But it cannot be ruled out that sometime such methods of blackmail could have been used.
The aforementioned ambassador Max Kampelman, who in 1985-1989 headed the American delegation at talks with the Soviets on nuclear disarmament in Geneva, told how one late evening the Swiss police visited him. A drunk man was found unconscious in a street gutter near the American mission. The police thought it must have been an American diplomat because he was babbling something in a foreign language. Kampelman quickly recognized that the inebriated individual was Ambassador Viktor Karpov, the head of the Soviet negotiating team. Kampelman asked the police to take Karpov home and be as discreet as possible. The next day, Kampelman was approached by his associate John Tower at work. Full of larks, Tower announced that the Americans had managed to get Karpov drunk the day before and discredit him. “Max, we have an inside track now!”. Kampelman did not hide his indignation: “John, that’ll never happen again. That’s not the way the US is negotiating.” He later warned Karpov in a friendly way to be careful, because the KGB would catch him one day for drinking. And then in 1990, Karpov even became the deputy foreign minister of the USSR and in this role he came to Poland for consultations with deputy minister Makarczyk (I contributed to the preparation of theses for the talks and was even offered the possibility to present the Polish position on one of the agenda items).
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Special services are always active in multilateral negotiations. Conference diplomacy provides an excellent cover for conducting espionage under a diplomatic guise. In the Soviet delegations in the past, and now in Russia, on the forum of the OSCE, the Council of Europe or the UN, dozens of people were always notified, who could never, ever be met in a conference room. One can only guess what they were doing.
And diplomatic conferences, especially those of prolonged duration, are already perfect water in their turbidity to recruit foreign diplomats. Because you spend a lot of time together, because you go to parties and cocktails, because you build bonds of sympathy. Let adepts of diplomatic negotiations not be surprised that they should undergo mandatory counterintelligence training.
There was no shortage of Soviet spies at conferences where the fate of the world was decided. Whether they had an influence on how these fates were drawn is a matter of speculation. Accused of spying for the USSR, Alger Hiss from the State Department was in 1945 Secretary General of the San Francisco Conference that prepared the United Nations Charter. He was supposed to be the author of a note to President Roosevelt suggesting that all Soviet republics be granted UN membership (Ukraine and Belarus eventually got the vote in the General Assembly). Another American official, Harry Dexter Whyte, who played an important role in the Bretton Woods negotiations in 1944, which established the global financial and economic order, was also suspected of having ties to the KGB.
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From time immemorial, and certainly from the time of the Westphalian treaties, it has been known that rumor can be a powerful weapon in diplomatic skirmishes. This applies primarily to multilateral, conference, tapeworm diplomacy. Every day you have there, during parties or behind-the-scenes meetings, the opportunity to spread rumors.
The UN Delegates Lounge in New York has become a legendary place for diplomatic gossip. The conversations held there are guided by the motto: “What happens here stays here – unless it affects the whole world”. It is not without reason that the diplomats sitting there are called the Seventh Committee of the General Assembly (because formally there are six committees). In Brussels, a similar role, but more for young officials than diplomats, and yet much less political, is played by Luxembourg Square.
Of course, the most effective are rumors that carry a grain of truth. Never confuse gossip with disinformation. Rumor doesn’t pretend to be true. When we refer to a rumor, we frame it with reservations: “supposedly”, “people say that …”, “I don’t want to believe it, but I heard …”. Disinformation is falsehood deliberately fabricated to disguise itself as the truth. It can be fabricated for the purposes of the negotiations themselves, e.g. in the form of knowingly false information about the armed forces. But it can also be part of a broader information strategy conducted in the capital. Russia’s disinformation activities in recent years have led to the emergence of a very rich professional literature in the West, which helps to deal with disinformation. I recommend that young diplomats be trained in this area as well.
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The general advice I can give: believe that it is possible to negotiate without resorting to dirty and unethical methods. Be aware that others may not have similar inhibitions. But there are good ways to deal with it. Experts recommend that you follow at the negotiating table the old maxim by Seneca the Younger: “Quod non vetat lex, hoc vetat fieri pudor” (What the law does not forbid, shame forbids to be done).
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