We use the term strategic as shorthand for the most distinctive aspect of Kissinger’s approach to negotiation. Looking across several cases, we highlight five factors that characterize this strategic orientation:
1. Setting clear, long-term objectives—not having a short- term focus; 2. Emphasizing the broader context and possible links among parties, issues, and regions over time—not treating each negotiation on its “independent” merits; 3. Devising a careful plan to achieve negotiating objectives by acting directly “at the table” and, often, indirectly “away from the table” to create incentives and penalties for max- imum influence—not primarily relying on an improvisational approach limited to verbal persuasion; 4. Adapting the plan to new information, moves by others, and changing circumstances, while firmly maintaining long-term objectives—not sticking to a fixed blueprint for action, to be methodically executed; and 5. Fostering a reputation for credibility across negotiations and over time—not neglecting the influence of actions in one negotiation on expectations elsewhere.Loosely speaking, Kissinger the strategic negotiator “zooms out” to these factors to determine where and how to concentrate his efforts. We saw this clearly enacted in his negotiations for majority rule in Rhodesia, and we will shortly flesh out what this means in practice with his plans for peace in the Middle East and opening up China.
Strategic Negotiation to Enhance Regional Stability and Reduce Soviet Influence in the Middle East
Kissinger stressed how a strategic negotiation concept, articulated well in advance, could offer a useful framework for negotiating specific issues in relation to one another. Such issues could arise unpredictably. When a crisis hit, Kissinger stated that “it was not a question ever of saying ‘now, we deal with Russia, now, we deal with China.’ We tried to have a coherent policy.”
For example, of war in the Middle East in 1973, following attacks by a coalition of Arab states (led by Egypt and Syria), Kissinger notes: “[W]e hadn’t expected the Middle East war. But we had thought about it. What we had thought about was how do we solve—the dilemma we had on the Middle East was that the Soviets were pouring arms into Egypt and encouraging a number of other countries. How could we make progress towards a negotiation that does not look as if it had been produced by Soviet blackmail? And so we had a strategy. . . . when the [1973] war started, we had two problems. One was how to handle the day, the hour- by-hour crisis. And secondly, how do we put it into a bigger framework? But we had thought about it.” By a “bigger framework,” Kissinger meant an approach that would end the war and serve long-term U.S. objectives, namely, to create a more stable regional situation and dramatically reduce Soviet influence in the Middle East—a goal he articulated well before the 1973 war broke out. He explained: “If the United States played its cards carefully, either the Soviet Union would be obliged to contribute to a genuine solution or one of its Arab clients would break ranks and begin moving toward the United States. In either case, Soviet influence among the radical Arab states would be reduced. This was why, early in Nixon’s first term, I felt confident enough to tell a journalist that the new administration would seek to expel Soviet influence from the Middle East.
“Though that incautious remark created a furor, it accurately described the strategy the Nixon administration was about to implement . . . the best strategy was to demonstrate that the Soviet Union’s capacity to foment crises was not matched by its ability to resolve them.”
With respect to those “incautious” remarks, a sample (alarmed) headline from the Washington Post in July 1970, years before a version of Kissinger’s contemplated strategy would take effect in 1973 and 1974, read, “U.S. Seeking to Oust Soviet Units in Egypt: U.S. Seeks Soviet Pullback in Mideast,” followed by a skeptical editorial “On ‘Expelling’ the Russians from the Mideast.” A less strategic perspective might have focused on the specific, nominally separate negotiations that then dominated the news. For example, following the 1973 war, Kissinger conducted dramatic disengagement negotiations with Egypt in 1974 and with Syria through 1975 with respect to Israel. Both sets of shuttle talks led to stabilizing agreements among these countries, agreements that have endured to the present (2018). In the same time frame as these shuttles, Kissinger undertook negotiations with the Soviets over Berlin and European security aimed at a general reduction in tensions (“détente”) and an opening to the Soviets of a range of trade and other possibilities. But observe how Kissinger framed these multiple negotiations with respect to the larger strategy of reducing Soviet influence in the Middle East and moderating Soviet behavior in the context of détente: “In pursuit of this goal, the United States . . . blocked every Arab move that resulted from Soviet military support or involved a Soviet military threat; and it took charge of the peace process once frustration with the stalemate had brought some key Arab leaders to dissociate from the Soviet Union and turn to the United States. “American strategy was based on the proposition that the Soviet Union should be faced with the choice of either separating itself from its radical Arab clients or accepting a reduction of its influence. In the end, this strategy curtailed Soviet influence and placed the United States into the pivotal position in Middle East diplo- macy. The Nixon Administration pursued two courses to achieve this goal. During the Middle East War, it kept open an almost daily channel of communication with the Kremlin to avoid permitting decisions to be taken in the heat of the moment or on the basis of inadequate information. . . . “. . . Simultaneously we conducted negotiations on a range of issues in order to give the Soviet leaders a stake they would be reluctant to jeopardize. The Berlin negotiations contributed to Soviet restraint in the Middle East until well into 1973. Afterward, the European Security Conference helped to moderate the Soviet reaction during the various diplomatic shuttles that moved the Soviet Union to the fringes of Mideast diplomacy. . . . Détente not only calmed the international situation, it created inhibitions which caused Soviet leaders to accept what amounted to a major geopolitical retreat.” Other analysts have confirmed the significant economic effects on the Soviets of these nominally separate negotiations. Absent Moscow’s expectation of greatly enhanced trade with the West, these linked talks would not have played such a significant role in the diplomacy surrounding the Middle Eastern conflict. Kissinger’s success in limiting Soviet and then Russian influence in the Middle East largely endured for more than forty years, until September 2015, when Russian president Vladimir Putin launched military actions in Syria following President Obama’s pullback of American engagement. This example highlights the characteristics of Kissinger the strategic negotiator: clear long-term objectives (ensure regional stability, enhance détente, reduce Soviet influence in the Middle East), a focus on the broader context and possible connections among parties and issues rather than treating them as independent (forge linkages among negotiations over disengagement with those over détente involving Berlin and European security that included the Soviets, Europeans, Egyptians, Syrians, and Israelis), as well as a clear plan with direct and indirect elements, enhanced American credibility, and flexibility of means while firmly maintaining ends.Excerpted from Kissinger the Negotiator: Lessons from Dealmaking at the Highest Level by James K. Sebenius, R. Nicholas Burns, and Robert H. Mnookin. Courtesy of HarperCollins. Copyright © 2018.