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Relating a Range of Strategies to Negotiations
As discussed above in the section on negotiating typology, negotiations often involve negotiators representing various interests who differ consider-ably in the intensity of their interest. For the analyst as for the practitioner, this presents a particular problem. Negotiations may relate directly to a number of high-level strategies simultaneously. In practice, reconciling competing interests represented by the different strategic concerns is likely to be done intuitively and not systematically, if at all. Much too often, the primary negotiator will be unaware of or little concerned with implications for strategic concerns that are not at the top of the agenda. Some device, such as the application of a framework, surely, is called for to make this issue of concern a matter of routine planning procedure.
Capability Available for the Strategic Purposes Relating to the Negotiations
Probably no aspect of the literature on negotiations is more deficient than that related to the question of the capability that is available to the various negotiators. As a first step, an inventory of the power factors available to various negotiators is needed. Because the process of negotiation centers on bargaining, the power factors of direct concern will be available levers, and relative capability estimates for the negotiators can best be conceptualized in terms of systems of levers. Prior to a consideration of this point, however, a broader question should be addressed, namely: What power instruments and what levers are available for achieving the strategic purpose(s) within which the negotiating purpose rests? The importance of this question depends on the centrality of the negotiations to the larger strategic purpose. If centrality is high, those concerned will naturally try hard to
UNDERSTANDING NEGOTIATION: THE ACADEMIC CONTRIBUTION 11
increase their power to achieve the negotiating ends in view.
A striking example of this point is the Egyptian interest in negotiating the return of the Sinai to Egypt and other occupied Arab territories to Syria and Jordan.10 The bargaining position of Egypt was so weak after the 1967 defeat that a negotiating formula that could satisfy minimal Egyptian demands was certain to be rejected by Israel. President Gamal Abdel Nasser believed that the poor Egyptian bargaining position reflected an inaccurate view of Egyptian military capability and that no progress toward achieving his goal could be made without altering this image. Therefore, Nasser decided that a military engagement that would alter outsiders' images of Egyptian capability and thus improve Egypt’s bargaining position would be necessary before negotiations could proceed. To achieve this purpose, Nasser decided on an operation to cross the Suez Canal and to occupy a strip of territory eight kilometers wide on the east side of the canal. Israeli air superiority would make a more ambitious scheme impossible. The operation, if successful, would surprise Israel and the world and alter the image of ineptness that Egyptian military performance to date had produced. This, in turn, would compel Israel to view Egypt more seriously and, in the process, improve Egypt’s bargaining base. Then, a new negotiating formula that could be minimally acceptable to Egypt might emerge. Nasser died before the operation could be executed. But his successor, Anwar el-Sadat, carried out the operation in October 1973, and the intended effect was achieved.
The arms control example used in this essay is another case in point. President Reagan, whose views coincide with those of analyst “A” in the example, believed that there had to be an improvement in foreign (notably Soviet) views of U.S. capability before an acceptable formula could be negotiated with the Soviets. His first years in office, therefore, Reagan focused on demonstrating to the Soviets a sense of will and determination. He increased appropriations for security purposes and adopted a tough stance on issues of concern to the two governments. In his view and in the view of those who accept his assumptions, this policy was entirely successful, and it, in effect, improved substantially both U.S. power and the U.S. bargaining position. The apparent seriousness of purpose with which the Soviets entered into negotiations at Geneva confirmed, for Reagan, the wisdom of his strategy. His annoyance with members of Congress who seemed willing to soften the U.S. stance by
opposing, for example, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) is therefore fully understandable. Obviously, those Americans who accept the assumptions of analyst “B” would not agree with this interpretation in any particular. They would see the Soviet negotiating position in Geneva as fully in tune with long-term Soviet practices and in no way a reflection of being contained.
The issue of the seabed negotiations was of minor importance to the Reagan administration. Thus, the administration gave no thought as to whether it had enough power to achieve its purposes in this context. The seabed case demonstrates the danger in trying to deduce anything about overall capability from studying negotiations that are perceived unimportant by the country concerned.
In both the Suez and arms control examples cited in this section, the impression of increased strength sought by Nasser and by Reagan respectively was related to image and, hence, psychological. Both illustrate the important point that capability analysis requires far more than producing an inventory of available military instruments for achieving the strategic purpose.11 It requires an analysis of a range of power instruments and also of the levers that are available for bargaining purposes. The latter will be very much associated with imagery. What adversaries believe about one's power is as important as what is actually available. Thus, capability analysis is a demanding enterprise and one that cannot be addressed further here. A means for constructing leverage systems will be described at some length below, however, because that is always a critical factor in the application of power in the negotiating process.
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