Diplomacy: A Brief History
As fascinating as the word ‘Diplomacy’ may
sound in present times, its relation with unnecessary wars, harrowing homicidal
intentions and perpetual aggression cannot be overlooked, especially in the
context of current Geo-Political scenario.
Ukraine-Russia war, Israel-Hamas conflict,
growing tensions in the South China Sea, all are nothing but the consequences
of failed diplomacy, because in almost all the cases the failure of diplomatic
channels leads to a full-fledged war and history itself bears testimony of such
events.
Objective
The eventual goal of diplomacy is to
establish/maintain peace, through compromises, treatises or any other possible
way. Though it cannot be used to completely destroy wars, because wars are
nothing but personification of an inexplicable tendency of humans to impose
their superiority over one another needlessly, mostly in the form of
‘patriotism’ or ‘nationalism’, which in fact stands lucid for what Leo Tolstoy asserts in his novel “war &
peace” that “To destroy war, destroy
patriotism” and destroying patriotism cannot be one of the objectives of
diplomacy, though it’s not completely out of its ambit.
History
Ancient
The oldest example of a recorded diplomatic treaty is “The treaty of Kadesh” which was signed
between Egypt and Hittites during the reign of Ramesis-II in c.1259 BC.
To understand the implications of this treaty we must first try to understand the Battle of Kadesh that preceded it.
In the year c.1243 BC, the conflict between
Egypt & Hittites over the control of present day Syria for various economic
and trade benefits took the shape of a full-fledged war, resulting in absolute
devastation and casualties from both the sides. Fortunately after 16 years of
war, a treaty was signed to establish peace and stability between both the
powers which was followed by marriage alliances to consolidate their diplomatic
relations.
While the Egyptians & Hitties chose
marriage alliance as a diplomatic catalyst. Ancient city-states of Greece chose
sports as a measure to maintain peace & stability in the Greece peninsula
by organizing the Olympics, where
passage securities were provided to athletes regardless of their nationality,
fostering solidarity among city-states.
(souce:moderndiplomacy.eu)
Romans in
this case were not quite the diplomats, therefore they prefer to use the old
ways i.e conquering regions with sheer strength and slaughtering people
mercilessly and as victory is always justified in history, we cannot do much
about it.
Medieval
By the time we enter the medieval era of world
politics, diplomacy had evolved into a much more nuanced concept, although in
Europe diplomacy was often ad-hoc relying on emissions and envoys, city-states
like Milan & Venice pioneered more formalized diplomatic practices including
resident Ambassadors.
In India also significant developments took
place, Bukka-I (c.1356-1377 AD) who
is credited with the establishment of the great Vijayanagar Empire, became the first king in the Indian
subcontinent to sent an ambassador to a foreign country ( Ming China).
Similar was the case with Sultan
Muhammad-bin-Tuglaq who supposedly send the famous Moroccan traveler Ibin
Batuta in c.1342 AD to the Mongol ruler of China as his envoy, although we
don’t have sufficient evidence to justify this claim.
Modern
The year c.1648 AD marked the beginning of a
new era in the context of diplomacy as well as of international laws as it was
the period when diplomacy evolved to emerge as a profession with signing of the
Treaty of Westphalia, which marked an
end to the thirty years war between catholic Spain and reformation Dutch with
Spain recognizing the independent Dutch.
The treaty was based on the Modal of equal sovereignty, where each
polity for itself adopts its own laws and eventually contracts with other equal
entities to form obligations between them but none of them has the authority to
impose those obligations on the other. Thus, the essence of the treaty was
“Equal sovereignty of states on their respective territories and without a
higher authority above them”.
And that’s
how jus gentium or laws of nation was
born, which currently serves as the foundation of many international
organizations like United nation, ASEAN,NATO,SAARC et al.
20th Century Diplomacy
The period from 1960’s to 1990’s witnessed the most intense
diplomatic struggles in the form of cold war.
Two world
wars had changed the Geo-Political Landscape of the entire world and with the
emergence of a bipolar world the conflict between the two biggest powers i.e
USA and Russia was almost given and the cold war was the result of that.
From c.1947 AD – 2000AD, India also experienced some drastic changes, she fought five wars during this period, of which the loss of 1962 Indo-China war still pains us. K. Natwar Singh, a former diplomat who witnessed the negotiation between India & China first hand, blames the diplomatic incompetency of Indian leaders as the main reason for war, he further writes in his autobiography that “Premier Chou Enlai and the entire Chinese delegation had the facts about the conflicts on their fingertips” which I assume overwhelmed the Indian leaders on the negotiation table.
Way forward
Richard Holbrooke, US Ambassador to United Nations once said “Diplomacy is like jazz: Endless variations
on a theme” and it definitely holds true for what diplomacy stands for in
the 21th century.
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