[MUSIC] The lack of ethics so,

I would say were we have more to a more parties again coming together and
with the aim of negotiating. Walking away with enmity,
walking away with a greater division between the parties,
I think that is failed diplomacy. Thing is that, there are probably possibly
opportunities where parties can reconcile one another but, I just feel maybe where
parties walk away with more divisions and more enmity towards each other
that is failed diplomacy. The lack of ethics. So, I would say where we have more
two or
more parties again coming together. It was with the aim of negotiating,
walking away with enmity, walking away with a greater
division between the parties. I think that is failed diplomacy. Thing is that,
there are probably
possibly opportunities where parties can reconcile with one another but I just
feel maybe where parties walk away with more divisions, and more enmity towards
each other, that is failed diplomacy. >> If you're not talking and relations
are completely broken, and whether it's especially if there's not even any back
channel discussions, then clearly this is a failure and the most important thing of
diplomacy is to keep the dialog going. Even it's going around in circles. Even if
you're shouting slogans at each
other, when things have, who's job, is, is the issue on the table. The fact that
you keep talking eventually,
I think, is gets us. So the moment you stop talking, you say
I'm not speaking to the other side, unless you have a mediator who's coming
in and shuttling from room to room, that's clearly the worst thing,
to not have any dialogue whatsoever. >> As I said in the beginning, the first
part of diplomacy is to stop doing it. Secondly, to recap on that previous point,
to some people want
the failure of diplomacy. So, you can't assume in
any kind of bargain or negotiation that everybody
wants an agreement. You often see diplomats
frustrate agreements. And you often see this within the context
of conflict that, and that actually, to sort of rewind a little bit, many would
argue that the use of force is the failure of the diplomatic process the world's
fight has started, then diplomacies failed, of the various definitions
of diplomacy along those lines. But I prefer a sort of a version of class
that is war is politics by other means. War is still part of
the diplomatic process. Until you've reached all out conflict, what's actually
happening is how
you're doing in the conflict. Whether or not you're taking losses. Whether you're
making gains. All these things will feed into what's
hopefully an ongoing diplomatic process because there's always a point
at which an agreement can be reached. So the failure of diplomacy is as I said
both to continue the diplomatic process, but also to understand
that even within conflict, you keep searching for that point at
which some kind of acknowledgement that you both suffered enough or
that one side understands that it's probably going to lose at this
continuous to be militarize conflict. So, successful diplomacy is about keeping
that conversation going up to the point at which more than anything else,
conflict will cease. Diplomats did not often
have high expectations. You've got to be realistic. It's about small incremental
gain. >> Well I've latch a much more difficult
thing to identify, because that sort of presumes that you know what diplomacy is
setting out to do in the first place. I think one thing for me is,
I think diplomacy is an iterative process. In other words, it's not a one shot
thing. I think that's how it's often portrayed,
that again, you go off to a conference, or you'd go off to a meeting. And if you
don't come back with an
agreement, then somehow that's a failure. I don't necessarily see that is a
failure, because as I say I think
diplomacy is iterative. So you keep very often going back to
the same problem again and again. Likewise, what I found in my own
experience both personal and looking through academic and doing
research here, is that very often when one diplomatic path is closed or
blocked, others remain open. So, an example that I would give here
is very often something like a G7 or a G20 meeting. Yes, they'll come away with a
communique,
but there'll be certain areas where
perhaps no deal has been reached. And you think,
well that's maybe a failure of diplomacy. The very often what happens is those same
people who were at that meeting, will go off into another organization, or other
setting, and negotiations will continue. And the OECD in my experience is
very often where that happens. So the same group of people will go away
into a perhaps a less public forum and quietly resolve the matter that they
haven't been able to resolve in a more public space. >> Well if they start fighting
again,
which of course is a very, very direct sign of failure. I think apart from that,
if they resume hostilities, even if it's not armed hostility, but they
are politically antagonistic towards each other, if the grounds of difference
are worse than what they were before, than all you did as a diplomat was to
complicate an all ready bad situation. And I think that is absolutely
something which need to be avoided. I think one of the key elements
of good diplomacy is to sort out all the different
complicated strands. Try not so much to simplify them, but to
make them transactable, and in that way, a transactable problem becomes
something which can be negotiated. There's something there which
could possibly be settled. >> Well, interestingly and you and
I have talked about this in the past. I think boycott is an interesting thing,
boycott very popular in the modern world. Boycott is the kind of conscious
severing of any formal dialogue. So I do think that if a starting point for me
isn't dialogue, then,
possibly the point where diplomacy has completely failed is when there's
no possibility for dialogue. And again as we were saying earlier,
given the fact that states have found ways to have dialogue even
when they're at war with each other, I do think that that is
the staring point and the absence of dialog I think ends
the possibility for any improvement and what personal so I would be very, very,
very careful about the ending of dialog. [MUSIC]