86 DECEMBER 2024 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Eizenstat likes deadlines as “action forcing” events. In some cases, this was true. But my own experiences and study of Iraq and Afghanistan show that when we bluff, when the deadlines are neither real nor enforced, they make negotiations more complicated. An illustration of this contrary result was in negotiations for a bilateral security agreement in Afghanistan. In that case, one senior official after another threatened troop withdrawal if President Hamid Karzai would not agree by a certain date. No withdrawals took place, and the false deadlines only strengthened Karzai’s belief that these were bargaining tactics that he could safely ignore. Eizenstat has a realistic sense of how domestic political forces and the geopolitical context shape negotiations and limit what is possible. This was particularly the case in Vietnam, when ebbing domestic support for the war steadily cut the ground out from under U.S. negotiators. In the case of Afghanistan, President Donald Trump’s demands for speed coincided with Taliban patience to push America to steadily weaken its demands for peace as well as a withdrawal agreement. In reviewing major conclusions, Eizenstat in no way suggests that his lessons learned can be used as a cookie cutter or magically applied. But he does make clear that ignoring them will come with a high price. Whatever debates one may have about either the description of individual events or the greater lessons drawn from them, it remains the case that this readable and ambitious book is a significant achievement in the understanding of negotiations. I believe it will remain in use for many years for scholars and practitioners alike. Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann is president of the American Academy of Diplomacy. A member of the Senior Foreign Service, former deputy assistant secretary of State, and threetime ambassador—to Algeria, Bahrain, and Afghanistan—Neumann retired in 2007 after a distinguished 37-year diplomatic career. He is the author of two books: The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (2009) and Three Embassies, Four Wars: A Personal Memoir (2017). Learning from the Best Diplomatic Tradecraft Edited by Nicholas Kralev, Cambridge University Press, 2024, $44.99/paperback, 352 pages. Reviewed by Denise Geronimo In June 2024, alongside other Charles B. Rangel Fellows, I attended a lecture at the United States Institute of Peace, “Preparing the Next Generation of Diplomats.” We heard Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Executive Director of the Washington International Diplomatic Academy Nicholas Kralev discuss Diplomatic Tradecraft, Kralev’s new book, and the current state of global diplomacy. As a newly minted university graduate, I listened to their concerns regarding the training of the future generation of diplomats, and it made me nervously wonder, “How prepared am I to join the Foreign Service?” Structured as a textbook, Diplomatic Tradecraft maps out some of the inner workings of the Foreign Service and its areas of engagement, along the way covering a wide range of topics from the differences among the career tracks to ambassadorial protocols. In each chapter, former practitioners and current diplomats explain an aspect of the Foreign Service, and their firsthand experiences not only make the guide more digestible to readers but also convey the tangible effects of diplomacy in action. Contributors include Ambassadors Chas W. Freeman, Lisa Kubiske, and Thomas Pickering, as well as 15 other former and current diplomats who together document an outstanding history of the Service and offer troves of empirical knowledge. As Kralev explains in his introduction, the book aims to “go beyond theory and history” to provide “practical” information for future diplomats. The United States stands as one of the most influential state powers on the international stage. Yet to this day, no official diplomatic doctrine exists to prepare U.S. diplomats to enter the Service. The book addresses this gap by breaking down the structure, functions, and purpose of diplomacy, covering topics including the interagency process, embassy hierarchy, and bilateral and multilateral negotiations. To my relief, charts and diagrams complement the authors’ explanations, and bolded
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