Global Diplomacy & Cold War (Thesis 14)

How would the world fair absent diplomacy? There would be no secure medium of establishing, creating, maintaining, or amending arrangements, be they economic, political, cultural, or social, among nation-states, supranational states, and non-state actors. That means borders, resource management, currency exchange, extradition, and collective security would remain in constant flux. Additionally, the rules that would govern interactions among these actors would lack protocol, constancy, consistency, professionalism, and form, increasing the likelihood that crises of difference erupt. Very simply, a world absent diplomacy is a highly unpredictable, volatile, dangerous, and less prosperous place.

Diplomacy is the main avenue by which interested actors express their needs, desires, and grievances among its neighboring sovereigns and, when needed, the world community as a whole. Fundamentally, the representative of one unique cultural, economic, social, and political body consolidates the interests of the whole into one plenipententiary’s word or pen. By all practical considerations, diplomacy fosters efficient, effective, and binding intercourse superior to any other laissez faire alternative. Diplomacy results in structures capable of reducing mankind’s impulse to war via agreed upon means of mediation from individual citizens to governmental or corporate bodies.

The globalized world economy effectively makes bi- or multilateral trade agreements an imperative. In the simplest of terms, economist David Ricardo's idea of comparative advantage abounds. In Ricardo’s theory, one location has an economic advantage in efficiently producing one good compared to inefficiently producing several goods. When a consortium of such locations exist together, each exercises their comparative advantage with the expectation of exchange among the others. Ricardo posited this would engender the most efficient use of skills via specialization and natural resources via trade.

Hindrances to the supposed efficiency of a Ricardian system include tariffs, fraud, crime, and discrepancies in quality assurance practices- known collectively as trade barriers. Diplomacy establishes a bilateral or multilateral trade agreement to reduce or increase barriers to trade depending on the political, economic, social, and cultural circumstances implicated in the exchange. Diplomacy ensures there is a shared understanding about what goods shall pass between the sovereigns under certain conditions- negotiated, amended, and enforced via diplomatic commitments and resource sharing.

Diplomacy is the key mediator between national interests, national security, and resource management. In 2000, Germany started to phase out its coal and nuclear power plants. In 2011, Germany announced it would accelerate the process and shut down all plants by 2022. Since the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022, Germany has received fierce criticism as their dependence on Russian gas severely undermined their capacity to apply economic and political pressure upon Russia. As dependents upon an adversarial sovereign, the Germans tied their diplomats’ hands. The incorrect assumption that Russia is non-adversarial or that a mutually beneficial economic tie would deter Russian aggression proved false at historic proportions.

Currency is exchanged on the international market by a number of means. One way is through the SWIFT international payment network. Tens of millions SWIFT transactions are processed every day. When Russian banks were exiled from the SWIFT exchange, this was diplomacy in action. Supranational organizations and treaty organizations, namely the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), agreed to incur the cost of losing Russian capital in the international markets in exchange for a diplomatic condemnation.

Sanction, like the SWIFT ban, is critical to the execution of diplomacy. It is a form of diplomatic communication, but in particular, it is a special tool of the monied and/or powerful. The sanction of a small country against a larger country communicates disapproval but it does not convey power. It is like an open mouth but which makes no sound- good for catching flies and not much else. For instance, the sanction of a small country like Lesotho on South Africa may make a ripple. But the United States sanctioning South Africa would make for a tsunami like political and economic effect.

Extradition laws are subject to strict diplomatic procedure. When Edward Snowden and Julian Assange evade American prosecution living in embassies in the United Kingdom and Russia, the United States must respect each sovereign’s right to extradite or not. In the case of Assange, he lived in Ecuador's embassy for seven years within the borders of the UK. This is a good example of what an embassy means to all sovereigns and how diplomacy relies on mutual respect for diplomatic protocol. Diplomacy is key to extradition of criminals and exchange of prisoners of war. No one actor, but the state, can effectively bargain the freedom of an individual when there are deals to cut and arrangements to amend.

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In 2010, a cohort of American defense institutions recognized the threat an aggressive China posed to allies and strategic partners in East Asia. By that time, China's naval modernization program, which began in the 1990s, amounted to an imposing fleet. Indeed, China continues to produce ships at an alarming rate. In 2014, China started to manufacture islands in the South China Sea, artificially increasing their claim to otherwise international waters- despite the rejection of such claims by the international court of arbitration in 2018. Those islands now host airbases and naval shipyards. China’s Red Belt Initiative (RBI) is creating a list of client states unable to pay off the debt which China itself underwrote. While the RBI is currently dormant, the global outreach of Chinese capital and labor manifests as a Chinese led coalition of auctioned client states. Under the thumb of Chinese power, restructuring of client states’ economic, political, and social makeup could involve monumental realignments with Leninist-communist CCP systems. But how communist is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and how much does ideology drive their endeavors?

Ideology aside, China’s CCP annihilated democracy in Hong Kong despite prior commitments to the semi-independence of the Hong Kong state. Now, China edges closer to conducting a Sun Tzu-inspired campaign against Taiwan, to seize it without war. Taiwan, like South Korea and Japan, are beacons of democracy of mixed market economies- members of the so-called West.

Now let's reintroduce the ideological factor. Is the Chinese Communist Party communist?

A recent IntelligenceSquared panel discussion among European historians revealed resistance to the idea that the Cold War never ended. Notable among the panelists was renowned World War I historian Margaret MacMillion. The panel agreed that the Cold War ended when the ideological component, communism, died with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, Stephen Kotktin, Historian of Soviet Russia (and communism writ large), contends the Cold War never ended. He notes in many of his lectures and interviews that his biggest takeaway from studying the Soviet communists was that they were really communists- and not mere opportunists as some Western academics like to portray them. Professor Kotkin further argues the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) fervently studies the fall of the Soviet Union and intends to apply the lessons learned. Whatever manifestation of communism the CCP is, it is nonetheless driven by the thrust of self-preservation and empire.

If we assume the Chinese are really communists, then the ideological component of the Cold War never really died. Instead, the torch of communism simply passed from Russian to Chinese hands. Amidst a Cold War set by military calculus of mutually assured destruction, diplomacy must be utilized along a very fine line.

We must assume the CCP operates under the principle of antagonism to the West just as was assumed of the USSR. If there is no “long telegram” (George Kennan’s call to containment policies), there must be a persistent call to like policies from somewhere. And as recent lessons show, we cannot make the mistakes of a Germany who made themselves dependent upon an adversarial power. To do otherwise, would invite the dissolution of liberal democracy around China’s periphery, and from there, the dissolution of the liberal world order.

A world absent diplomacy is as real as Nowhere. The nature of mankind, in its stubborn desire to explore and discover, or in its deep and all too often depraved sense of jealousy, would, in any iterative state, clash man against man until extinction. Like war, diplomacy is forever. It is either proactive or reactive. Man can either mediate by sword or by pen. There is Nowhere this is not true. There is always work to be done.

Communism threatens liberty as near as Taiwan- a bastion of democracy, prosperity, and freedom. Under this existential threat, a coalition of the free must coalesce to contain this Chinese manifestation of totalitarian communism. Diplomatic efforts must bring union among the West to resolve the containment of CCP's communism.