The big idea: we need to rethink how we do diplomacy | Politics books
At the UN building in Geneva, in the early hours of 24 November 2013, I reached for a microphone and announced we had come to an initial agreement with Iran on its nuclear programme. Standing with me were the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN security council – France, the UK, the US, China and Russia, who together with Germany had stuck together throughout the years it took to get us to that point.
It was a moment when everything seemed possible, especially if we could harness the power of international institutions and their core members to work together with common purpose.
Nine years later that sense of possibility has passed. Russia’s war in Ukraine and rising concerns about China have made it very difficult to imagine a similar collaboration today. Even securing the survival of our planet has proved difficult to the point of dismay, despite the best efforts of some and the desperate needs of others.
At our disposal we have two fundamentally different models of collaboration, which I think of as tankers and yachts. Tankers are big and difficult to manoeuvre, but they survive for long periods of time, despite rough seas and battering winds. The United Nations is such a tanker. So are Nato and the European Union. They can be slow and unwieldy, often taking ages to reach agreement. Nevertheless, all do vital work, much of it unglamorous and little reported. And each was founded to further ideals such as rule of law, democracy, freedom and human rights – even if these are frequently honoured more in the breach than the observance.
In the last 20 years, though, we have seen the rise of the yacht: fast in the water, able to manoeuvre quickly to respond to changing circumstances, but prone to capsizing. Yachts are coalitions of the willing, brought together to tackle a particular issue. There is no membership, and beyond the immediate objective, there may be no agreed values or views. Making sure Gaddafi did not murder the people of Benghazi led to a coalition, brought together initially in Paris, under French and UK leadership. Eventually the tanker, Nato, took over the military work once the immediate danger of a massacre had been averted.
Both models are important; both have their place. But over the years we have increased the use of yachts and failed to maintain tankers. We scorn their slowness, waving from the yacht that nips past them in a good wind. But while these faster vessels can make a big difference, they are only designed to confront a specific problem. They have a temporary function, not a lasting purpose.
Walking through Benghazi and Tripoli a decade ago following Gaddafi’s downfall, I was struck by the sense of optimism and hope in the cheers, laughter and occasional rapid gunfire into the air. I knew from experience that it would not last; the euphoria would soon give way to the harsh reality of building the future. Different ideas and expectations would clash in argument or worse, as rival camps set their sights on winning, come what may. A country awash with guns and with porous borders descended into chaos. We had intervened swiftly, but there were no viable plans to stay the course and help in the reconstruction. Some of the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have similar roots.
It was significant that the Iran talks were hybrid – making use of both tanker and yacht. Authority to do a deal came from the UN security council, which brought the five permanent members, plus Germany, together to work on ensuring the purely peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme. The EU led and chaired the discussion. It had only one issue to resolve, and whatever else was happening was irrelevant to that goal. During 2013 and 2014, the Ukraine crisis began with the Maidan demonstrations and Russia’s invasion of Crimea. At the same time as I sat with the Russians in Vienna (which had taken over from Geneva as the site of the Iran talks) I was working on sanctions against them – flying between Vienna where they were allies, to Kyiv where they were invaders. People asked how we managed it; I explained that we compartmentalised our work. It would have been hard to tell when we were together in Vienna that we were in a bitter dispute with them a few hundred miles away.
What lessons can we learn for the future? First, we must cherish the tankers. The United Nations was created out of the ashes of the second world war. If it is allowed to rust and fall apart, the prospects of recreating it are virtually nil. Second, we must build more yachts, acknowledge that they exist to undertake specific tasks and strengthen their ability to complete them. Third, we must look for ways to combine the best of both these approaches, to make sure we value long-term commitments as much as short‑term action.
If any proof were needed of the importance of hybrid action, it can be found in the two crises that confront us most urgently: Ukraine and the climate crisis. Ukraine needs peace, for its infrastructure to be rebuilt and its sovereign status protected. Climate change will affect every nation on Earth and will require unprecedented coordination. Both have an urgency we cannot ignore, yet both require long-term sustained action. A more flexible architecture of diplomacy in which big decisions are made by the tankers, giving direction and authority, with specific initiatives undertaken by yachts, could help us act on both time scales. When consensus is hard to find and compromise seen as weakness, we must renew and reimagine what’s possible. The means are there if we have the will to use them.
Catherine Ashton is the former high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and author of And Then What?: Inside Stories of 21st-Century Diplomacy (Elliott & Thompson). To buy a copy go to guardianbookshop.com
Further reading
They Call It Diplomacy: Forty Years of Representing Britain Abroad by Peter Westmacott (Apollo, £9.99)
United Nations: a History by Stanley Meisler (Grove/Atlantic Monthly, £11.99)
Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power and Persistence by Wendy R Sherman (PublicAffairs, £20)
At the UN building in Geneva, in the early hours of 24 November 2013, I reached for a microphone and announced we had come to an initial agreement with Iran on its nuclear programme. Standing with me were the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN security council – France, the UK, the US, China and Russia, who together with Germany had stuck together throughout the years it took to get us to that point.
It was a moment when everything seemed possible, especially if we could harness the power of international institutions and their core members to work together with common purpose.
Nine years later that sense of possibility has passed. Russia’s war in Ukraine and rising concerns about China have made it very difficult to imagine a similar collaboration today. Even securing the survival of our planet has proved difficult to the point of dismay, despite the best efforts of some and the desperate needs of others.
At our disposal we have two fundamentally different models of collaboration, which I think of as tankers and yachts. Tankers are big and difficult to manoeuvre, but they survive for long periods of time, despite rough seas and battering winds. The United Nations is such a tanker. So are Nato and the European Union. They can be slow and unwieldy, often taking ages to reach agreement. Nevertheless, all do vital work, much of it unglamorous and little reported. And each was founded to further ideals such as rule of law, democracy, freedom and human rights – even if these are frequently honoured more in the breach than the observance.
In the last 20 years, though, we have seen the rise of the yacht: fast in the water, able to manoeuvre quickly to respond to changing circumstances, but prone to capsizing. Yachts are coalitions of the willing, brought together to tackle a particular issue. There is no membership, and beyond the immediate objective, there may be no agreed values or views. Making sure Gaddafi did not murder the people of Benghazi led to a coalition, brought together initially in Paris, under French and UK leadership. Eventually the tanker, Nato, took over the military work once the immediate danger of a massacre had been averted.
Both models are important; both have their place. But over the years we have increased the use of yachts and failed to maintain tankers. We scorn their slowness, waving from the yacht that nips past them in a good wind. But while these faster vessels can make a big difference, they are only designed to confront a specific problem. They have a temporary function, not a lasting purpose.
Walking through Benghazi and Tripoli a decade ago following Gaddafi’s downfall, I was struck by the sense of optimism and hope in the cheers, laughter and occasional rapid gunfire into the air. I knew from experience that it would not last; the euphoria would soon give way to the harsh reality of building the future. Different ideas and expectations would clash in argument or worse, as rival camps set their sights on winning, come what may. A country awash with guns and with porous borders descended into chaos. We had intervened swiftly, but there were no viable plans to stay the course and help in the reconstruction. Some of the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have similar roots.
It was significant that the Iran talks were hybrid – making use of both tanker and yacht. Authority to do a deal came from the UN security council, which brought the five permanent members, plus Germany, together to work on ensuring the purely peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme. The EU led and chaired the discussion. It had only one issue to resolve, and whatever else was happening was irrelevant to that goal. During 2013 and 2014, the Ukraine crisis began with the Maidan demonstrations and Russia’s invasion of Crimea. At the same time as I sat with the Russians in Vienna (which had taken over from Geneva as the site of the Iran talks) I was working on sanctions against them – flying between Vienna where they were allies, to Kyiv where they were invaders. People asked how we managed it; I explained that we compartmentalised our work. It would have been hard to tell when we were together in Vienna that we were in a bitter dispute with them a few hundred miles away.
What lessons can we learn for the future? First, we must cherish the tankers. The United Nations was created out of the ashes of the second world war. If it is allowed to rust and fall apart, the prospects of recreating it are virtually nil. Second, we must build more yachts, acknowledge that they exist to undertake specific tasks and strengthen their ability to complete them. Third, we must look for ways to combine the best of both these approaches, to make sure we value long-term commitments as much as short‑term action.
If any proof were needed of the importance of hybrid action, it can be found in the two crises that confront us most urgently: Ukraine and the climate crisis. Ukraine needs peace, for its infrastructure to be rebuilt and its sovereign status protected. Climate change will affect every nation on Earth and will require unprecedented coordination. Both have an urgency we cannot ignore, yet both require long-term sustained action. A more flexible architecture of diplomacy in which big decisions are made by the tankers, giving direction and authority, with specific initiatives undertaken by yachts, could help us act on both time scales. When consensus is hard to find and compromise seen as weakness, we must renew and reimagine what’s possible. The means are there if we have the will to use them.
Catherine Ashton is the former high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and author of And Then What?: Inside Stories of 21st-Century Diplomacy (Elliott & Thompson). To buy a copy go to guardianbookshop.com
Further reading
They Call It Diplomacy: Forty Years of Representing Britain Abroad by Peter Westmacott (Apollo, £9.99)
United Nations: a History by Stanley Meisler (Grove/Atlantic Monthly, £11.99)
Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power and Persistence by Wendy R Sherman (PublicAffairs, £20)
