A captivating history of diplomacy-and an urgent reminder of why we need to revive its lost arts to survive in a dangerous era of great power competition
From the beginning of time, human societies have found themselves confronted by enemies too numerous or ferocious to defeat solely by force of arms. In these dramatic moments, wise leaders have turned to diplomacy to rearrange the gameboard in their favor and stymie seemingly unstoppable foes. In Great Power Diplomacy, American historian and diplomat A. Wess Mitchell recounts the forgotten story of how history's most legendary empires have used diplomacy as a tool of grand strategy to outwit, outmaneuver, and outlast militarily superior opponents.
Through fifteen centuries of history, Great Power Diplomacy recreates the perilous junctures, colorful personalities, and intricate statecraft that led to some of history's most stunning diplomatic achievements-and greatest disasters. The protagonists include giants like Richelieu, Metternich, Bismarck, and Kissinger, but also a lesser-known cast of scoundrels, eunuchs, drunkards, and fools. At every turn, fortune favored those great powers with the foresight and dexterity to build winning alliances, splinter enemy coalitions, and, when necessary, make peace with their bitterest foes.
Diplomacy of this kind has become a lost art in recent years as Western elites embraced the illusion that globalization and the spread of democracy would create a borderless world where nations would live in harmony and war would be abolished from the human story. But, as Great Power Diplomacy reveals, we will need to rediscover the secrets of skillful statecraft as the world enters an unstable new era in which continent-sized great powers compete for territory, resources, and prestige. By recalling diplomacy's rich past, we can equip ourselves for a more dangerous future. A. Wess Mitchell is a historian and diplomat. He served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and is the author of The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire (Princeton). He is cofounder and principal at The Marathon Initiative, a think tank that focuses on U.S. diplomatic, military, and economic strategies. "An illuminating account of the possibility of great power diplomacy as an alternative to war."-Graham Allison, author of Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?
"In Great Power Diplomacy, Wess Mitchell offers a powerful corrective to the current state of conducting foreign affairs, which too often relies on snap unilateral interventions, retaliatory and preemptive air strikes, and international sanctions, with little if any diplomatic or strategic considerations. Yet lasting solutions in the past were rarely achieved by any of those means. Through a variety of historical episodes, Mitchell shows that, more often, enduring peace and-if it came to war-military success followed classical diplomacy, including the lost art of realist assessments of the strength and intentions of enemies, crafting temporary coalitions, forging lasting alliances, and balancing power among the great nations. A comprehensively researched, livelily written, and timely antidote to the current age of wars that have brought us no peace, and 'peace' that brought us only war."-Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won
"In his ambitious and wide-ranging book, Wess Mitchell recalls a Cold War adage that Americans 'look upon diplomacy as the antithesis of conflict'-an absence of war-whereas, he argues, 'diplomacy has from the beginning been an integral part of conflict, and therefore of strategy.' In his assessments of masters of statecraft from Richelieu to Metternich, and from Salisbury to Kissinger, Mitchell is erudite and judicious, but also highly readable. His insights have a relevance that extends far beyond today's U.S. fo
