When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
The New Yorker's Steve Coll reports on our (no longer) secret negotiations with the Taliban:
The Obama Administration has entered into direct, secret talks with senior Afghan Taliban leaders, several people briefed about the talks told me last week. The discussions are continuing; they are of an exploratory nature and do not yet amount to a peace negotiation. ...
Coll basically approves:
Negotiations with the Taliban must eventually be transparent, so that the Afghans themselves can examine them. And more than a deal with Taliban leaders will be called for. American efforts to calm the violence will succeed only if they are part of a broader strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia, one that gives priority to economic development, energy links, water, and regional peacemaking, including in the conflict between India and Pakistan.
It is past time for the United States to shift some of its capacity for risk-taking in the war off the battlefield and into diplomacy aimed at reinforcing Afghan political unity, neutrality, civil rights, and social cohesion. The recent talks are nevertheless a constructive step.
This is Hilary Clinton's justification for the idea of negotiations:
I know that reconciling with an adversary that can be as brutal as the Taliban sounds distasteful, even unimaginable. And diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends. But that is not how one makes peace. President Reagan understood that when he sat down with the Soviets.
Ann Marlowe discusses this in an excellent piece in World Affairs Journal. "The most potent argument against negotiations is the nature of the Taliban itself. Watch this security-camera video of a February 19 Taliban attack on a Jalalabad bank. Then try to argue that the Taliban is just like, say, the Soviet Union ... The idea that the Taliban, sans al-Qaeda, is just another political party is ridiculous. Watch that video again. The problem with the Taliban is that it’s the Taliban."
Here's the video in question--with a very strong warning; it is terrible.
(Keep this video in mind when next you hear that the Muslim Brotherhood isn't "some radical group like the Taliban." That's quite true. It's not. Compared to the Taliban they look like Quakers. Next irrelevant point?)
Marlowe is right, but her argument needs a deeper theoretical underpinning. The Soviet Union wasn't moderate compared to the Taliban. That we don't have video footage of Soviet atrocities on YouTube does not mean they never happened. They did, and they dwarfed those of the Taliban.
Negotiation with an evil enemy under certain conditions can be morally justified and strategically shrewd. But can we be more precise? Can we list those conditions and provide examples?
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May '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
I think diplomacy should be the art of saying "Nice Doggie" while looking for a big stick.
I think, to get negotiations, at a minimum, you should be a nation, not a band of thugs. Never negotiate with terrorists or criminals.
And never negotiate with the little powers. That just elevates them.
With the Taliban, there should be no talks, unless they are a ruse to get them closer so we can hit them with the stick.
Feb '11
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
One difference: It was not possible to defeat the Soviet Union by strictly military means without incurring about a hundred million American casualties. The Taliban, OTOH, does not possess nuclear weapons, although the feckless behavior of the Obama administration wrt Iran seems to ensure that that condition is only a matter of time.
May '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
It was in 1945. We choose not to do it when we could.
It is funny how we always wait for things to get much worse before we do anything.
Oct '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
Our best example of how to deal with ruthless killers was Roosevelt's and Churchill's position towards Germany and Japan... unconditional surrender. Stalin, on the other hand, genuinely represented the left's position on evil, you're OK with me as long as I need you.
This is what we can expect from the Obama regime, re: the Taliban.
May '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
Are the Taliban rational actors as the Soviets to some extent were. I don't think the Soviets wanted mutually assured destruction. I can't see myself trusting the Taliban to adhere to any diplomatic treaty.
Claire and James P. had some posts a few months back about whether we should talk with Iran. It seems to me as if the same arguments can work with the Taliban. Diplomacy takes two sides, and if you think they'll tear up whatever treaty is agreed upon it is not moral or strategically shrewd.
Oct '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
The nature of the enemy must dictate the negotiations. If the enemy is dedicated to the destruction of your form of government, your way of life, your 'civilization', and the spread of their own? What if their measure of worldy (and otherworldy) success depends on your destruction? What, realistically, is to be gained by negotiating?
Theocracy is the ultimate "the ends justify the means" form of government, and a Taliban theocracy would be instructed by the Quranic to only enter into agreements with enemies when the enemy has the upper hand, and that war is deceit.
I suppose agreements could be reached just to have some way of showing the enemies insincerity, when the agreement is broken; that doesn't seem to be helping Israel much.
May '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
Ain't nothing wrong with parley, as long as the goal is allow the enemy to say they quit on your terms.
I've never heard of Steve Coll, but a statement like "Negotiations with the Taliban must eventually be transparent, so that the Afghans themselves can examine them." indicates he really has no idea what he is talking about.
Hearing Hillary invoke Reagan proves the memo was successfully delivered from the White House. Nice try.
Edited on Mar 9, 2011 at 6:47amMay '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
Pleasing your enemies do not make them your friend.
Jan '11
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
Do we have leverage with the Taliban?
Negotiation isn't just talking theories of peace and asking for favors. It's a deal. If you do X, we'll do Y; if you do A, we'll do B. The only way negotiations make sense is if you have meaningful responses to their behavior. Can you reward them? Can you punish them? If you can't do both, negotiations are pointless.
The problem with negotiating with these kinds of enemies is that they can effectively escape punishment. The danger is trying to compensate by adding to the reward. That imbalance is exactly what they're looking for. The less we can punish them, the more they want as reward. We wind up giving away the store, getting little in return, and the price of cooperation just keeps going up.
Jul '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
Negotiation with an evil enemy under certain conditions can be morally justified and strategically shrewd.
We should have something to gain from the negotiations. That thing could be an intangible -say diplomatic cover for withdrawal- but that's only useful insofar as it is believable. This is too big a story, and the Taliban too thuggish a player for that to work. Nobody is going to be fooled into thinking the terms of a negotiated settlement will be honored.
People have made cases (including some good ones) for withdrawal. I don't concur, but even if I did, I see zero reason to negotiate. We don't need anything from them to withdraw. What can the Taliban possibly offer?
May '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
The Afghan government is no more able to adequately police their caves and mountains than we are. Like KC, I wonder about our leverage, but I also wonder about our goals.
Feb '11
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
Bryan...The US could have defeated the Soviet Union in 1945 or a bit later, technically speaking (we had a nuclear monopoly but very few bombs) BUT it would have involved a great cost in lives...millions of Russians and probably a couple of hundred thousand Americans.
Given the climate of the times: war-weariness and the fact that the Soviets had been allies....I do not think it would have been psychologically or politically possible.
Dec '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
All those negotiations with the North Vietnamese worked out well, didn't they?
The negotiations with N. Korea and China in 1950-53 worked out well, didn't they?
Did Chamberlain's and Daladier's negotiations with Hitler turn out well? Stalin's negotiations with Hitler? Our negotiations with Imperial Japan in the fall of 1941?
And how about that negotiated settlement of WW I? It went well, right?
How are Israel's negotiations with the various Palestinian terrorist groups coming along?
Negotiations that are essentially appeasement don't work out well. Negotiations with a committed aggressive enemy that only buy time do not work out well. Negotiations that leave long festering conflicts just barely contained do not usually work out well, only delaying the inevitable.
Negotiations to provide a sham settlement as a cover for withdrawal from the conflict usually don't work out well.
Negotiations that provide only a temporary cease fire, armistice, or truce may or may not work out well.
Negotiations with an enemy that is essentially defeated and only looking for the best possible terms work out best, but even then not always.
Edited on Mar 9, 2011 at 7:44amMay '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
I'm not certain about any general rules concerning when and how to work with evil groups and leaders, but here are some thoughts.
The antipathy should be out in the open, with no pretense of friendship.
It should be clear the alliance will end the moment we don't need them.
We should constantly be seeking greater leverage.
Aug '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
One thing about negotiating with these folks: gives them time to rearm.
Duh-------
Edited on Mar 9, 2011 at 7:59amOct '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
Cal Lawton: Ain't nothing wrong with parley, as long as the goal is allow the enemy to say they quit on your terms.
· Mar 9 at 6:16am
Edited on Mar 09 at 06:47 am
The word 'enemy' has an implied perspective; from the Taliban point of view, it would appear that Hillary is attempting to surrender. My point of view agrees with that of the Taliban.
Jul '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
I'll answer my own question:
The one thing that the Taliban can offer is simple: our "Most-Wanted" list.
If they'll give up Bin Laden, Omar, etc., then negotiations have a purpose.
If not, then not.
May '10
Re: When is it Fruitful to Negotiate With the Enemy?
I agree. The nature of a Republic is to wait until the last moment. That could have let us to hundreds of millions dead in a nuclear war. It was still the right thing to do then.
Millions of them died anyway.
david foster: Bryan...The US could have defeated the Soviet Union in 1945 or a bit later, technically speaking (we had a nuclear monopoly but very few bombs) BUT it would have involved a great cost in lives...millions of Russians and probably a couple of hundred thousand Americans.
Given the climate of the times: war-weariness and the fact that the Soviets had been allies....I do not think it would have been psychologically or politically possible. · Mar 9 at 7:33am