Fairfield County Weekly (12/8/2010)
The recent leaking of correspondence between the U.S. Department of State and its missions abroad shows that we seem to treat our diplomats as spies, encouraging them to root around and report the secrets they find. One can imagine other countries do the same or even more; diplomacy and espionage have gone hand-in-hand for centuries.
Henry Kissinger defined diplomacy in many ways but perhaps most usefully as “the art of relating states to each other by agreement rather than by the exercise of force.” Sounds reasonable, right?
It is reasonable, if you replace “states” with “corporations.” A corporation is an entity with a specific mandate and governance. It is more than reasonable for an officer of a corporation to negotiate with other corporations; it could be that person’s entire job. And no employee could justifiably complain about any negotiation taking part, even if it would substantially alter that employee’s job, because the employee is being paid for his or her time. About the only way the employee could dissent would be as a loyal objector, arguing the negotiated policy is bad for the company as a whole.
But the sole legitimate function of states is to enforce the rights of their citizens. To the extent the state controls or regulates production, it is a mixture of both a corporation and a state, but with two key differences: “employees” of corporate states do not get paid, and they can never quit.
A standard textbook, Diplomacy: Theory and Practice, defines diplomacy as “communications between officials designed to promote foreign policy either by formal agreement or tacit adjustment.” This just means diplomacy is a tool of foreign policy and the foreign policy itself is the question.
The best foreign policy, and the one with the longest history in America, is non-interventionism. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense argued against alliances with other countries. George Washington beseeched us in his farewell address to “have as little political connection as possible” with other countries. Thomas Jefferson famously summarized the policy as “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” Non-interventionism just means keeping our political heads down. It is different from isolationism, which seeks to avoid trade among nations. On the contrary, non-interventionism allows anybody to trade with anybody else, but they have to negotiate the deals themselves.
A recent book on foreign service as a career, Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the U.S. Foreign Service, takes seriously the question of why we need diplomacy at all. The authors list its primary mission as advancing our “national interests” abroad.
Is it at least possible that a country of several million people has conflicting interests? Domestically, we are able to negotiate amongst ourselves. Why not let us negotiate with others as well? Other nations also have millions of citizens with conflicting interests. Let the benefiting parties each find themselves. People are quite capable of advancing their own interests.
If America followed the policy of non-interventionism, we would see a massive reduction in all branches of the military, including the foreign service. We would bring home just about all of our troops and diplomats. We’d have more prosperity and more freedom as a result of the increased trade and the decreased terrorism.
The newly leaked documents tell us what we knew all along: Diplomats advance not the many and varied interests of the people, but the single, overarching interest of the state to usurp as much power as possible for itself.