World class Negotiations 101

Listening to NPR on my evening commute, amid the many stories about politicians and Iraq, I suddenly started paying attention about three minutes into this conversation about Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What I found most interesting was how Robert Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, applied basic negotiation analysis to the situation - the logic of what he was saying brought me back to college Negotiations class.

If you want something, such as a stop to cross-border arms transports, you must give something. The U.S. can't set conditions before it is willing to start negotiations. Just think about it, only a desperate party would make concessions before even sitting down at the bargaining table. Such an action would signal weakness, starting negotiations at a disadvantage. Syria is unlikely to accept such an unfavorable scenario, so the U.S. will need to change tactics if it wants something from that country.

Another thing I learned in class is that you need to be able to trust your negotiations counterpart. It could be argued that the U.S. should not make agreements with the thus far unfriendly Syria, unless it makes concessions as a sign of goodwill. While I do think trust is a very important element in making confident agreements, it is impractical to think that you can build a strong relationship before the negotiation takes place. In order to take an agreement all the way through execution, guidelines and checks must be built into the agreement for the protection of all parties and assurance that all duties will be fulfilled.

I don't often apply business class lessons to geopolitical situations; it was an interesting way to look at international relations. Do you think this sort of academic approach is a good way to handle complex foreign policy?

Photo: crystal world by Rainer Schmied