The Relationship Between War & Diplomacy

Warfare can only be effective and accomplish political objectives when it is accompanied by diplomacy.

An extremely painful and frustrating feature of public life in recent years has been the loss of the art of diplomacy in the West. I suspect that much of this is a symptom of the world being taken over by energetic, self-assertive, ill-bred people who have never lived in a foreign country and learned a foreign language.

Such people remind me of the Comanche, who called themselves Nʉmʉnʉʉ (or Numunuu), which translates to "the People.” As far as the Comanche were concerned, they were the ONLY people. They regarded every other tribe as subhuman, to be subdued by annihilating warfare and terror.

The name “Comanche" is derived from a Spanish adaptation of the Ute word kohmats (or kümanuuchi), which translates to "enemy," "stranger," or "anyone who wants to fight me all the time.”

There was a time not so long ago when civilized people who wished to pursue a career in the military or in the foreign service were familiar with Carl von Clausewitz’s seminal work On War (1832), in which he famously declared that “war is merely the continuation of policy by other means.”

Carl von Clausewitz

As Clausewitz understood it—and as we should understand it—warfare is not an isolated enterprise, but an instrument of statecraft that is ALWAYS subordinate to political objectives and inextricably bound with diplomacy.

Diplomacy is the primary means by which states pursue their interests peacefully, employing persuasion, alliances, threats, and compromise. When diplomatic efforts reach an impasse, war becomes the adjunct of those efforts. War does not replace political conversation; it merely backs it up with force.

“The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it,” Clausewitz asserted. Thus, he rejected the mindless conception of war as an end in itself, and he warned against allowing the “military point of view” to dominate the enterprise.

Armies exist to advance the statesman’s objectives, not to pursue unchecked escalation or total destruction for its own sake. In the “trinity” of war—that is, violence and hatred (the people), military actions (the commander and army), and reason (the government)—it is essential for a rational government to direct the other elements to prevent war from devolving into senseless destruction.

Clausewitz observed that war is fraught with uncertainty, and that statesmen must therefore use war with restraint and careful calculation. Victory on the battlefield is only useful insofar as it translates into diplomatic advantage at the negotiating table.

It seems to me that Clausewitz’s observations are as true today as they ever were. And yet, as we have seen in the West’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine—and now in the US war against Iran—the so-called “leaders” of the West wage immensely destructive wars with no clear concept of how warfare could result in achieving rational and realistic political objectives.

Our politicians claim that diplomatic relations aren’t possible with our adversaries because, they say, our adversaries are subhuman and depraved. Increasingly, this strikes me as psychological projection. Many of our leaders remind me of accounts of jealous men and women who are themselves inclined to infidelity.

The European heads of state refuse to speak with Vladimir Putin. Now, in the latest war against Iran, we hear Christian Zionist fanatics— in the grip of eschatological fantasies—proclaiming that we cannot negotiate with the Iranians because they are Islamic religious fanatics.

And yet, when we watch interviews of Vladimir Putin or Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, we are presented with men who seem for more calm, composed, reasonable, and articulate than their counterparts in the West. They also comport themselves with far more dignity and decorum.