Facts About International Negotiations
By Prof. Abdelhaq Azzouzi
I recommend that anyone interested in understanding the concepts of negotiations and international relations—particularly as taught in the literature of universities and decision-making centers in the United States—should read Donald Nuechterlein's book 'America Overcommitted: United States National Interests in the 1980s.'
In this book, Nuechterlein defines national interests as: 'The perceived needs and desires of a sovereign state in relation to other sovereign states that constitute its external environment.' The nature of the strategic environment, as described in the same book regarding the development of policy and strategy, implies a more comprehensive mode of thinking. It refers to: 'The needs and desires of a sovereign state in relation not only to other sovereign states but also to non-governmental actors, coincidences, and circumstances in an emerging strategic environment described as the desired end state.'
This inclusive definition reveals the dynamic nature of the strategic environment, which is subject to a number of actors, coincidences, and interactions. It also involves both external and internal components.
Nuechterlein identified four core American interests:
1. Homeland defense
2. Economic prosperity
3. A preferred world order
4. The spread of values
The value of clearly and precisely defining these interests lies in their utility for formulating sound policy and strategy. Precision is a crucial feature in creating good policy and strategy. It clears up confusion, sharpens vision, and provides clarity, enabling the elimination of intellectual obscurity that is unacceptable in international relations and comparative political science.
Rethinking the "Preferred World Order"
Focusing on the notion of a preferred world order brings up the need for a precise understanding of its mechanisms and outcomes, as well as how to integrate successfully within its frameworks and master its algorithms. This brings into question the concept of value-spreading mentioned by Nuechterlein, which appears less accurate in describing American foreign policy—particularly under President Donald Trump, who effectively buried that idea in favor of other priorities.
Trump grasped the secret behind China's Belt and Road success: that China is not an ideological or evangelizing state. Unlike Western nations such as the U.S. and France, which attempt to export their models and believe that no political openness or societal progress can be achieved without adopting not only their intellectual, cultural, and social models, but also their economic and political systems.
Thus, Western nations created development agencies, human rights organizations, and conditioned loans to developing nations on adherence to global human rights principles and political openness. They also established think tanks—often state-funded—that rank countries based on their respect (or lack thereof) for global human rights frameworks and categorize them as democratic, semi-democratic, or authoritarian.
The End of the Evangelical Model
Such rhetoric no longer holds sway in Trump's doctrine. China, for example, so long as its territory and sovereign interests remain unharmed, pursues a non-interventionist foreign policy that operates quietly and pragmatically without interfering in the sovereign affairs of other states. It pays no attention to Western 'evangelism,' rankings, or the classifications made by research institutions. It promotes a principle that any country's economic success does not necessitate another's failure, refuting the friend-enemy binary and instead embracing a win-win logic.
This understanding clarifies why Trump decided to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and withdraw from certain international organizations.
A New Doctrine of International Negotiation
Returning to the notion of a preferred world order, there's the issue of multidimensional international negotiations: strategic, security, economic, financial, and industrial. These are areas where the U.S. president excels, managing to disorient adversaries or force them into full compliance with his terms.
Negotiations, as we teach our university students, are not a science governed by fixed mathematical rules that help the negotiator or diplomat reach desired outcomes. Rather, they are an art form that relies on experience, foresight, and the ability to influence the future.
They require:
- Deep knowledge of the issue at hand
- A well-informed assessment of options and alternatives
- A level of mastery similar to internal medicine, which diagnoses and treats complex inter-organ diseases
Today's international negotiations—whether concerning the Russia-Ukraine crisis, territorial disputes, or tariff issues—are all driven by a new Trumpian doctrine. This doctrine may reveal the starting point, but it hides the end goal, making it impossible to predict outcomes. Negotiators thus find themselves in a highly uncertain environment, where conventional expectations collapse.
In this context, the negotiator must possess a keen strategic mindset, along with enough knowledge and expertise to extract the key components of this uncertain phase of negotiations, in order to reach targeted objectives and fulfill intended goals.
This becomes especially difficult when one of the parties is today's United States of America.
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