Back from my Negotiations seminar with those perky young diplomats.

If you can force X to do something, no need to negotiate.

If you can persuade X to do something by your eloquence, ditto.

But if those options fail, you have two choices.

Negotiate. Or give up the whole idea and walk away to try something else.

A key aspect of negotiating is changing the other side’s view of the costs and benefits of alternative outcomes.

People tend to focus on the upside of their preferred outcome and the down side of their adversary’s preferred outcome. So a good plan is to spell out unexpected costs to them of their success, and unexpected benefits to them of your own view prevailing.

A more ruthless strategy involves increasing their pain, one way or the other. But that works only if your willingness and ability to inflict pain exceeds the other side’s willingness to tolerate it.

Another version: how far are you willing to watch the other side inflict pain on an innocent third party? 

How strong is your Will to Win?

Thus in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese just would not give in to US bombing, thereby compelling the USA either to up the stakes more than public opinion would accept, or pull out. Out they pulled.

In Kosovo the Albanians’ willingness to tolerate Serb-inflicted pain exceeded the West’s readiness to let the Serbs inflict it. So the Albanians won.

In the Middle East there is an existential negotiation going on over the very existence of Israel.

Either Israel exists, or it doesn’t. The Iranians under current management are contriving to give the impression that Israel should not and will not exist, hoping to weaken Israeli morale. Plus they are hinting at the possibility that Israel will take Supreme Pain, a nuclear attack, if it does not submit to Islamic terms.

Israel after the Holocaust knows all about extreme pain, and is ready to hit back. So this negotiation is an ultimate existential test of bluff and nerve – how far can Iran and its followers go in stepping up the military and psychological pressure on Israel before Israel retaliates and is denounced as the aggressor and/or provokes a wider deadly ‘final solution’ showdown? Which side is willing to inflict – and to take – the greater pain?

In this case the Palestinians alas are collateral damage. Just as the Zimbabwe population are collateral damage in the negotiation between the West and Russia/China over how global rules are to be applied these days, and by whom.

In the North Korea case, the North Korean regime is holding its own population hostage to test Western resolve. Are we prepared to let maybe millions of people die of starvation, or will we agree to propping up the regime through food aid on its terms? Here the regime’s willingness to inflict pain on its own people exceeds our readiness to watch that happen. 

The idea of the hero unable to be as cruel as the enemy is a key movie theme. Watch the Incredibles at the point where Mr Incredible has been captured but grabs the baddy’s assistant:

Syndrome: [after the plane is shot down] Oh, you’ll get over it. I seem to recall you prefer to…”work alone."
[laughs maniacally; Mr. Incredible tries to catch him, but Mirage pushes Syndrome out of the way and is captured]
Mr. Incredible: Release me, now!
Syndrome: Or what?
Mr. Incredible: I’ll crush her.
Syndrome: That sounds a little dark for you. Eh, go ahead.
[Mirage gasps]
Mr. Incredible: It’ll be easy, like breaking a toothpick.
Syndrome: [chuckles] Show me.
[after a tense few moments, Mr. Incredible lets go of Mirage]
Syndrome: I knew you couldn’t do it. Even when you have nothing to lose! You’re weak! And I’ve outgrown you.

So, questions for the next US President.

In these numerous unending global struggles of wills, how much pain are you willing to inflict to defend democracy and democracy’s friends?

How quick will you be to walk away and try to wash your hands of a problem if you find that those who attack democracy somewhere round the planet are more determined to win than you are?

And if you do start walking away from defending Western values in this case, where precisely do you plan to stop?