Ensuring National And International Peace Through Civic Diplomacy

We live in a world where peace is just turning into an idealistic term instead of a practical one. War is rather becoming practical everyday and empirical whiles peace is becoming normative.

The global world is gradually heading towards a normative peace and an empirical war instead of an empirical peace and a normative war. The reason being that, the groups emerging from the civilian population have decided to interpret life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in their own way.

The national and international world view desires everlasting peace. The attainment of peace and stability in a country is a cherished virtue- but whiles some want peace to be achieved through democratic principles, others prefer dictatorial means in realizing peace. Whether democracy or dictatorship, soft or hard power; in a conflict situation, diplomatic foreign policy interventions must promote the general good of the civic population”.

[This article aims at exploring several thoughts and disciples in the international system and digesting in details the role of civic diplomacy in achieving peace and stability. This episode will be preceded by series of other publications every week on the same subject matter]

Once in Biblical literature, it was recorded that God met a man in the wilderness of Mount Sinai called Moses and gave him a commission to deliver ancient Israel from their ancient Egyptian task-masters unto the Promised Land. Moses was no doubt a prophet of God but to my political opinion he can also be described as an ancient biblical diplomat- for he dialogued with Pharaoh on a simple diplomatic issue that said, “Pharaoh, let my people go” – for captivity is over and the emancipation of Israel finally at hand. But according to the biblical story in the book of Exodus, Pharaoh stubbornly rejected this simple soft power diplomatic offer; hence his great nation and people ended up receiving series of hard power catastrophic plagues. The use of force finally made the king succumb to the demands of the ancient Israeli diplomat.

Over the centuries, philosophers, political and religious thinkers have all attempted to find solutions to problems confronting the international system. Several theories has been propounded, numerous books published at the libraries, on the internet and research works conducted, yet conflicts, sectarian violence, civil wars and postmodern plagues still persist in our very eyes. The approach to the maintenance of global peace in the international system through the usage of mortal principles is becoming an incontrovertible matter in this contemporary world. It is still an unresolved controversy.

Peace is an important treasure for all humanity for it helps prolong the life of men. Peace protects the living, promotes the life of men and facilitates human endeavor. It is a living virtue that influences every aspect of human systems and processes. Peace promotes the welfare of people, helps economies to flourish and protects the working population. It accelerates education, facilitates health and leads the way for communication, transportation and ensuring the success of globalization.

All civilians love peace and stability- in fact all mortals and even the military institution love peace; but unfortunately, this world has always been hunted by war as it struggles to capture the valley flowing with peace. Peace attained today is destroyed by war tomorrow−Peace restored again the next day is further broken to pieces by midnight forces of aggression.

There can be no silver-tongued mortal that cherish and love war as a solution to world peace. Even the mercantilist who advocates for a strong state and military for regulating national economies at the expense of rival national powers cannot neglect the variables of peace and diplomacy in their analysis. This is because war only brings extinction and the frittering away of valuable human and physical resources. We only know rational war in the irrational domain of the animal kingdom all because of their animalistic struggle for survival through diet and conquest- carnivores eating up herbivores; omnivores feeding on carnivores and herbivores. For instance, a game reservist will never be surprised with the nature of lions− constantly pursuing other fleshly animals or men perplexed about a domestic cat chasing the mouse at home. That is all they know in their kingdom- the survival of the fittest and strongest.

However, some of our human history has had the resemblance of this! We can talk of the Napoleonic dispensation, the first and second world war- just to mention a few. Did Napoleon Bonaparte prefer war to diplomacy in the 18th century? He fought with all his might, sacrificing the life of many French soldiers until the battle of Waterloo finally brought him down to humiliating disgrace and disappointment on the solitary Island of St. Helena.

What about the monstrous Adolf Hitler and his vicious counterpart Mussolini in the 1930's and 40's whose military actions almost set the entire world ablaze. Hitler had to mysteriously commit suicide because of the love for unnecessary military war and Mussolini the once great Italian fascist leader was disowned by his own people to death because of needless coercion. Eluded by the egoistic and intoxicating power of attaining world supremacy, racist annihilation and nationalistic expansion; war and conquest became the only tasty policy for these so called great world leaders of our human history over what diplomacy could have offered. A war drunkard is indeed very dangerous and unreliable as against a person inebriated with peace and diplomacy.

Our historical accounts should have been a peaceful one but unfortunately historians have only learnt and can speak objectively of antique histories as characterized by battles, wars, invasion of nations, and the fight over land- dominations, Romanic supremacy, Barbarian attacks and incursion, Arabian assaults, Crusading clashes and others.

The prevention and curing of war as well as the promotion of lasting peace in the world was the very reason for the establishment of several organizations in the world today. The League of Nations in the aftermath of the First World War and the United Nations Organizations after the Second World War, the establishment of the European Union and African Union are no exceptions. Today, the United Nations has come to stay as the global international organization for the promotion of peace and stability among states in the world.

Diplomacy is an important variable that helps to prevent or quench the flames of war. It is a foreign policy mechanism in this postmodernist world that can never be overemphasized as far as the promotion of national and international peace is concern. Uncountable wars have erupted in the history of this world and military force has been applied to resolve those wars- but does that make coercive force the antidote for peace?

The cost of applying rigorous hard power in a conflict situation could be equated to using fire to quench a blazing fire. Just consider the USA's invasion of Iraq and former President Bush's doctrine of the war against terrorism due to the September 11 2001 attacks. The painful cost of these wars and its ramifications has become a regrettable scar among many Americans in their current economic crises. Those who suffer most in such chaotic situations are the greater civic population- feeble men, women, children and the physically challenged. Billions of cash that can be used to boost the economy for the creation of employment and promoting the general welfare of citizens are given a heavy budgetary allocation and spent on high-tech military equipment and artilleries that only end up destroying men and property rather than repairing them.

DIPLOMACY AND WAR
Diplomacy is an essential phenomenon that if adhered to properly, can heal the world greatly. It bears the fruit of peace, harmony, discussion, consultations and other peaceful resolution mechanisms. This is the main reason why every country has representatives in other countries serving as ambassadors and high commissioners with the function of securing diplomatic ties and peaceful bilateral relations. They are normally referred to as diplomats.

Encyclopædia Britannica describes diplomacy as “the established method of influencing the decisions and behaviour of foreign governments and peoples through dialogue, negotiation, and other measures short of war or violence”. But diplomacy is mostly preceded by war, or sometimes when it fails to yield a concrete result; war erupts. War! -the disliked and monstrous term among civilians; always blinking in our horizon, the shades of human historical wreckage. (Encyclopædia Britannica: Diplomacy, 1980)

War in historical and contemporary sense can be described as an inevitable force in the life of men in a state of nature. It begins with disagreement among individuals or groups of people and nations that escalates into hostilities, conflicts and battles.

Could you imagine how the assassination of Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Bosnian of Serbia origin brought the entire world to an erroneous, baseless and devastating war?

The First World War in historical terms has been described as follows;

“an international conflict that in 1914–18 embroiled most of the nations of Europe along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. The war pitted the Central Powers—mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey—against the Allies—mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and, from 1917, the United States. It ended with the defeat of the Central Powers. The war was virtually unprecedented in the slaughter, carnage, and destruction it caused. World War I was one of the great watersheds of 20th-century geopolitical history. It led to the fall of four great imperial dynasties (in Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey), resulted in the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and, in its destabilization of European society, laid the groundwork for World War II”. (Encyclopædia Britannica: World War 1, 1980)

The world had to pay this painful cost because diplomacy failed to resolve the conflict between Austrian-Hungry and Serbia.

Perhaps for psychologist, war does not begin with physical disagreement or on a battle field but in the minds of the parties- just like what the Führer Adolf Hitler thought in his mind before becoming German Chancellor and instigating the Second World War of 1939-1945. The inception of war is the mind and thought of men that is later expressed and externally ignited.

“Sociologists usually apply the term to such conflicts only if they are initiated and conducted in accordance with socially recognized forms. They treat war as an institution recognized in custom or in law. Military writers usually confine the term to hostilities in which the contending groups are sufficiently equal in power to render the outcome uncertain for a time”. (Encyclopædia Britannica: War, 1980)

Coercive force and Diplomacy are two contrasting variables that political leaders and international actors contend with in their option of finding solution to a national or international difficulty. When diplomacy successfully prevents war, it automatically prevents any form of human and physical casualties. Diplomacy plays the role of applying peaceful engagements or soft power to neutralize the angry animalistic traits of men in any condition.

An article on diplomacy with contribution from Sally Marks and C.W Freeman Jnr states the following,

*“The purpose of diplomacy is to strengthen the state, nation, or organization it serves in relation to others by advancing the interests in its charge. To this end, diplomatic activity endeavors to maximize a group's advantages without the risk and expense of using force and preferably without causing resentment. It habitually, but not invariably, strives to preserve peace; diplomacy is strongly inclined toward negotiation to achieve agreements and resolve issues between states. Even in times of peace, diplomacy may involve coercive threats of economic or other punitive measures or demonstrations of the capability to impose unilateral solutions to disputes by the application of military power. However, diplomacy normally seeks to develop goodwill toward the state it represents, nurturing relations with foreign states and peoples that will ensure their cooperation or—failing that—their neutrality”.

The implicit inference from this quote is the simple fact that no matter the form diplomacy takes, whether negotiations or the threats of some economic and military force, it should eventually lead to peace and the development of a strong goodwill among states in the international system. Foreign diplomats must not give up on diplomacy but diplomacy must nurture everlasting relations within and among foreign states.

The article further states that;
*“When diplomacy fails, war may ensue; however, diplomacy is useful even during war. It conducts the passages from protest to menace, dialogue to negotiation, ultimatum to reprisal, and war to peace and reconciliation with other states. Diplomacy builds and tends the coalitions that deter or make war. It disrupts the alliances of enemies and sustains the passivity of potentially hostile powers. It contrives war's termination, and it forms, strengthens, and sustains the peace that follows conflict. Over the long term, diplomacy strives to build an international order conducive to the nonviolent resolution of disputes and expanded cooperation between states”.

For instance, the USA's threat to strike Syrian military targets in 2013 quickly made way for a successful diplomatic engagement. President Assad has since failed to step down and give up political power that he inherited from his father. The opposing forces to Assad called rebels today, have decided to use coercive force to get him out of office. Since he has the national army on his side as well as external support from powerful allies like Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and even China- ready to defend Syria and sometimes use their veto powers at the UN Security Council; the Syrian conflict is still overflowing. The USA threatening to strike Syria militarily because of the evidence of the use of chemical weapons against the civilian population brought another twist on the matter. The strong man of Russia president Putin eventually became a diplomat, using tactical diplomatic strategies to neutralize the intended action of the USA. The eventual result was that, Assad now agrees on the destruction of his stockpile of chemical weapons by an independent UN committee. If 'Putinic diplomacy' could neutralize the foreign policy decision of military strike by the USA, why can't “putinism” successfully help bring the war to its final end?

When diplomacy failed to materialize in the electoral disputes in Ivory Coast between Alhassane Outtara and Laurent Gbagbo; the end results was civil war that almost ruined this treasured state built under the strong ideals of Félix Houphouet-Boigny. In the case of La Cote D'Ivoire, it took coercive force from the French to restore back a form of lasting peace.

In Palestine, the failure of diplomacy has only worsened the conflict between the State of Israel on one side and the Palestinians with other Arab states on the other. The six day war in 1967 and Yom Kippur war of 1973 between the Arab states and Israel were all as a result of failure on the part of diplomacy to materialize in a conflict situation. For instance, after the toppling of the Egyptian president Mubarak, the Israeli-Egyptian diplomatic relations since the signing of the Camp David Accord in September 17 1978 was broken by the Egyptian people with an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Egypt.

In Sudan, for several years' diplomacy and peaceful engagements was far from their way− the Southerners fought tirelessly against the north; leading to annihilation of several civilians and military personnel. Political instability has still not ended in the midst of a successful division of Sudan into two sovereign countries.

Diplomats are the main arbiter for the promotion and implementation of diplomacy. They are described in broad terms as:

*“the primary—but far from the only—practitioners of diplomacy. They are specialists in carrying messages and negotiating adjustments in relations and the resolution of quarrels between states and peoples. Their weapons are words, backed by the power of the state or organization they represent. Diplomats help leaders to understand the attitudes and actions of foreigners and to develop strategies and tactics that will shape the behaviour of foreigners, especially foreign governments. The wise use of diplomats is a key to successful foreign policy”. (*Encyclopædia Britannica: Diplomacy, 1980)

At the hike of any conflict, political actors, diplomats and organizations responsible for dealing with intractable circumstances must diplomatically develop strategic and tactical policies to nullify the weapons of intangible and tangible war with weapons of words backed by state power or the type of organization they have been called to represent.

KEYSTONE OF DIPLOMACY- PEACEFUL LIFE, LIBERTY AND HAPPINESS

The America we see today at its initial inception struggled with the British through diplomacy and war until emancipation and independence was proclaimed in 1776. Due to the lessons that the founding fathers learnt from oppression, suppression, bondage and slavery, they decided to create a state of free men, free society, free economic system, free government and free people.

Drawing from the writings of John Locke, (an English Philosopher)on democracy and the legitimacy of the government, the declaration of independence for the United States of America (1776), declared;

o “…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness”.

These are core value principles upon which the first thirteen colonies of the United States of America was built. The ultimate ambition of the founding fathers of the USA was to set the foundation for the establishment of a peaceful republic whose citizens will anchor their lives on a peaceful life, peaceful liberty and the pursuit of peaceful happiness in a liberal and democratic way.

But today, the USA is being accused of using its military might to fuel conflicts, wars and sectarian violence instead of standing for its core values and respecting the life, liberty and happiness of others.

Although all accusations against the USA on matters such as political instability of countries, the rise of terrorism and other national conflicts may be unfair; it is a fact that the vicious cold war foreign policies of the USA need no other argument. Playing back the policies, events and ramifications of the cold war, the superpowers- USA and Russia (Soviet Union) - capitalism and communism are guilty of many of the conflicts in the post-cold war era.

The two ideologies fueled by the two states are guilty of several post-cold war conflicts in Africa, Latin America, Europe and around the world including the supply of military equipment, toppling of governments, invading of countries, supporting rebels and interfering in sovereign states; just to mention a few.

The founding fathers of the USA like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln to my opinion were not just setting up inalienable principles for the establishing of an isolated country, but a country whose strong pillars will positively influence the rest of the world under the support of peaceful life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all men.

THE KEYSTONE
The keystone of diplomacy towards the maintenance of peace and stability is the promotion of the civic agenda. The pursuit of the civic agenda is the attainment of the general good that will eventually affect the welfare of the majority.

For instance, consider a state like Nigeria that has the following groups living and greatly influencing the course of the country- civilians, political government, national security (army, navy, air-force, police) and a rebel population ('Boko Haram'). Among the four groups in the state of Nigeria; civilians, government, national security and rebels; the group with the greatest population is civilians; Again, it is out of the civilians that the government, national security and rebels establish and feed their own population.

In simple terms, without civilians, there won't be a government, a national security or notorious rebels. Hence, these other three groups in the state must consider the basic agenda and objective of civilians− their peaceful life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the course of their operations or rebellion.

Secondly, diplomats who have been tasked to find solutions to conflicts, an emerging war or rebellion must do so with the aim that the final results affects the civic good. Diplomatic decisions should never negatively affect the civic population else it is no diplomacy.

Thirdly, diplomatic engagements should be bold enough to neutralize any attempt to undermine a peaceful life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness after all a life in the human world without peace is not worth living. This is the very reason why most civilians flee their countries prone with civil conflicts and painfully sacrificing to be refugees elsewhere.

Remember, all men are created equal to respect the life of each other- all men are created rationally to be rational in their mind and thinking towards their fellow men- Men whether tall or short, wise or foolish, black or white, affluent or impoverish; have the same mortal components- they can never go beyond gravity less they have a spaceship, they can't survive in water for long unless in a submarine, they cannot fly like birds until they get in the plane- they can only live once and die once. Notorious rebelliousness of men against their fellow men shows no superior human obstinacy but the follies of animal livelihood needlessly troubling a treasured human life. A peaceful life in the human world is like a bright morning light from the sun showering nutrients unto living things− but the darkness of war only refuses to recognize the presence of a shining light. A peaceful life wholeheartedly generates liberty and the pursuit of happiness eternally.

Ensuring national and international peace is a foreign policy tool that cannot be neglected and civic diplomacy is a diplomatic tool that must be a significant factor in our minds.

[Episode One; “Peaceful Diplomacy and War”:

The next episode with focus on The Pillars of Diplomacy…

January 12th to 18th 2014- By Samson Agbelengor]

References...
*Diplomacy. (1980). Encyclopædia Britannica. Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.

Mercantilism. (1980). Encyclopædia Britannica. Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.

War. (1980). Encyclopædia Britannica. Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.

World War I. (1980). Encyclopædia Britannica. Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.