Book review: The Shifting Grounds of Conflict and Peacebuilding

 This book is an increasingly used form of oral history collection — sometimes transformed into a book, sometimes kept as oral archives usually in university libraries. John McDonald, U.S. diplomat, U.N. administrator, and Track II diplomacy pioneer, is interviewed by Noa Zanolli in The Shifting Grounds of Conflict and Peacebuilding on the different stages of his life and what lessons can be drawn, especially for Track II-citizen diplomacy efforts.

Track I is official government-to-government diplomacy among instructed representatives of the State. Track II is a non-official effort, usually by a non-governmental organization (NGO), academic institutions, sometimes business corporations directed either to other NGOs or directly with government representatives. Noa Zanolli, a friend of mine from her days of working on drought programs in the Sahel for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, asked the key questions at each stage, recorded the oral presentation, cut some duplication and turned the effort into a useful overview of diplomatic practice since the end of the Second World War until the present — a period during which the 86-year-old McDonald played important roles.

In this review, I will stress the lessons for Track II efforts since that is the aspect of most concern to the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and other Track II practitioners. However, as McDonald points out, it is his experience as a Track I Foreign Service officer that gave him the skills for effective Track II efforts. McDonald quotes a little verse of the Quaker economist and peace worker Kenneth Boulding:

When Track One will not do,
We have to travel on Track Two.
But for results to be abiding,
The Tracks must meet upon some siding.

McDonald had a rare career for a U.S. Foreign Service officer in that nearly all his work was related to multilateral settings, dealing  with numerous countries at once, rather than bilateral (U.S. to one foreign country at a time) which is the usual career pattern. McDonald started as a young law school graduate in the legal section of the administration of Berlin in 1946, when the city was still divided into four zones and agreement had to be reached among the Soviets, English, French, and Americans on each point. Later the city was re-structured into two zones — a Soviet and a Western zone. After the 1948 Berlin Blockade and Airlift, there was little administrative contact between the two zones.

McDonald shifted from Germany to Paris with the start of the Marshall Plan and region-wide planning and administration within the Organization for European Economic Cooperation. In Paris, he worked directly for the Marshall Plan Director, General William Draper, and learned his first skill useful later for Track II: how to write short, clear analysis with policy choices set out. Draper wanted everything on one page — a practice learned from General Eisenhower, for whom Draper had worked during the war. The ability to write and speak clearly and to set out alternative policies or actions is a key skill — one that McDonald sharpened as briefing officer for Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. McDonald would have to give global briefings for high-level foreign visitors who wanted some understanding of U.S. policy. He did the same thing for members of Congress, thus getting a feeling for how Congress worked on foreign policy issues.

After Washington, he went to Turkey for the Dulles-inspired Baghdad Pact (CENTO), grouping Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States — countries that were not much more friendly to each other then than now. Thus conflict resolution became a central concern early on.

Two other assignments shaped McDonald’s career and thus his views on the skills needed for Track II work. One was as part of the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs, and the second as Deputy Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva from 1974 until 1978.

In the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, he was in charge of all U.S. delegations to U.N. conferences, such as the U.N. Conference on the Environment in Stockholm in 1972, as well as day-to-day relations with the 30 agencies and commissions across the U.N. system. In the ILO, he came to see how U.N. agencies work, how they do or do not cooperate and the increasing role that non-governmental organizations play in all aspects of the U.N.’s work.

He left the ILO in 1978 when the U.S. pulled out of the ILO, leaving with the 25 percent of the ILO budget that it contributed. The U.S. pullout was the debt that President Carter owed to AFL-CIO President George Meany, who had been the last organized support for the U.S. war in Vietnam. Meany thought that there were too many Communist and Third World States in the ILO. It is impossible to have high-level staff from non-member States in U.N. agencies — a problem which also hit U.S. staff at UNESCO when the United States pulled out the first time.

Back at the State Department in Washington, McDonald passed on his knowledge and insights on how the United Nations worked to other Foreign Service officers at the newly-created State Department “think tank” – the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs – and the State Department’s training center for new diplomats – The Foreign Service Institute. He also gave courses at the recently-created Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia.

The State Department has mandatory retirement at the age of 65. Thus when McDonald retired from the State Department, he had a good deal of experience and contacts to start in the relatively new field of Track II diplomacy.  He founded along with Dr. Louise Diamond, a psychologist, the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy (IMTD) to present Track II approaches and to carry out some projects, either individually or in cooperation with other NGOs involved in conflict resolution work.

There seem to me to be four areas where the skills of Track I and Track II overlap and two separate issues for Track II: selection of participants and fundraising. We will look at the four common skills which McDonald mentions through his experience and then the two specific Track II issues. Those involved in diplomacy require the same skills, but for Track II, they have to be even finer with more skilful means.

Governments are used to dealing with governments. No one will ask the ambassador of a country, “What is it that you do?” or “Why are you interested in this issue?” — two questions which are nearly always asked of NGO representatives. Therefore, NGO representatives have to have a ready answer justifying a universal concern. “We are dedicated to the resolution of all violence, local, national and among States” — “We live in a world society, and violence and suffering anywhere is of concern to us.” The reply has to be short and not very philosophical as one does not want to get involved in a discussion of ethics but to move on quickly to the issues involved.

Analysis and listening

As McDonald points out repeatedly, listening is a real skill: to hear what the other is saying, both the words and the intensity of the emotions behind the words. Too often, we do not really listen. We are waiting for the chance to present our own position. We need to be able to record the essence of what we hear without taking notes or using a recorder but rather to write up the conversation shortly afterwards. As McDonald stresses “Success in diplomacy is about people, about spending time with people and building trust relationships. During my career, I found that if you can’t build trust you can’t do anything. Trust is critical, particularly in conflict resolution. It takes time and skill to build a trust relationship with another person, and it’s amazing what you can do with that relationship.”

Analysis is an ongoing process. Additional contacts, changes in the situation, the actions of other actors — all can modify the original analysis. Thus there needs to be ways of presenting modified insights to all those involved in the negotiations.

Communication: written and oral

The ability to communicate clearly, briefly, and with policy options outlined at the end of a text, is at the heart of all forms of diplomacy. This is particularly true of multilateral diplomacy where a resolution accepted by consensus is probably the only action to be taken in the short run. The ability to choose the right words and to avoid those words that prevent agreement is a crucial skill. Drafting U.N. resolutions is a particular skill as words have to have similar meaning in all the official languages. U.N. resolutions have to be prepared well in advance. McDonald gives a good picture of the 18-month sequence in which U.S. State Department positions are developed for U.N. conferences.

Thus for NGOs, there is a need to know where governments are in their preparation cycle. Ideas presented too late in the cycle are simply ignored, while the same idea presented earlier might be seriously considered. As McDonald notes, “The timing must be right for an initiator of new ideas and programs to meet with success. The institution has to be ready for new ideas, even though it does not realize this at the time. Initiators must also master the bureaucracy they have to deal with.”

Cultural sensitivity and understanding

In a world in which an increasingly large number of countries as well as NGO representatives want to be involved in decision-making, sensitivity to cultural styles, values, sense of time, and proper behavior is crucial. As McDonald notes, “The only thing that works is people-to-people, consensus building. Sitting down, face-to-face and talking about the problem — that’s what I keep trying to do.”

Contacts and inter-personal negotiation skills

Closely linked to the ability to listen, to cultural sensitivity, and to communicating clearly are other inter-personal negotiation skills. Among the most basic is the practice of keeping in contact with people known earlier. McDonald gives examples of telephone calls to people with whom he had worked 20 years earlier who provided insights and information on issues with which he was dealing. The idea of “trust” — that people one knows will not deliberately mislead you — remains crucial.

Selection of Negotiators

There are two issues with which government officials do not have to deal with as directly as do NGOs. The first is the selection of persons to be involved in negotiations and the second issue is fundraising.

Normally, the State Department and the Foreign Ministries of other countries have professional diplomats to carry out negotiations. For some countries, such as the United States, members of Congress and NGO representatives are added to the U.S. negotiations team for U.N. conferences to build post-conference support. However, all the work is done by professional State Department Foreign Service officers.

McDonald does tell the funny story of President Reagan naming his daughter Maureen to head up the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Third Women’s Conference in Nairobi in 1985, without telling the State Department until the last moment. This then provoked a last-moment rush on the part of the State Department to brief and control the U.S. delegation, all of whom had already been chosen by Maureen Reagan.

For NGOs involved in Track II, and where often the individual participant must cover his own costs, the situation is more delicate. In some cases, the NGO can prepare a Track II effort long in advance, cover the costs of participants, and thus choose “balanced delegations”— men/women, background, interests. This was true of a certain number of Quaker delegations during the Cold War years on their visits/discussions to China, East Germany, Israel/Palestine. The delegations were under little pressure of time as when to start. Thus delegations of people already involved in Quaker international work could be put together (1). 

However, often today, Track II is related to immediate conflict situations with relatively little time to raise funds and select participants. Thus, there needs to be a “pool” of people with experience, skills, and availability to move fast when the need or the opportunity is there. McDonald’s IMDT has used some 215 unpaid volunteer interns, usually graduate students working on conflict resolution issues.

While the use of graduate student interns is useful and often an important contribution to their training, the use also poses the issue of having the right people at the right time for an effort. There is also the question of relative age. In some cultures, age can be an advantage, a symbol of experience and wisdom (even if not the reality).

Fundraising

A theme which runs through all the descriptions of the activities of the Institute of Multi-Track Diplomacy is the difficulty of fundraising — an issue common to many NGOs. There are a good number of requests for help from people in conflict situations and opportunities for creative action. However, the funds are not there for follow up. As McDonald notes:

If IMTD had an endowment, I could focus more intensely and continuously on our work, rather than on researching for funding. We get invited to help in conflicts all the time; our program is effective. The issue is how we can find the money to help. If we had funds, we could expand our staff, pay them a salary, and do the things we are being asked to do. Many people don’t realize that the U.S. government, the World Bank, and many other donor agencies do not want to deal with small NGOs. They prefer very large NGOs and for-profit corporations. Why? Because it takes as much time to process a $50,000 grant as it does a $20 million grant. Donor agencies don’t have time for us. We have had great foundation support over the years, but boards of directors change, and we are left empty-handed. What this fundraising headache has taught me is patience. It’s hard to raise money for peace in the United States. I also had to persevere.

While there is a good deal of money “out there,” especially as one looks at the current campaign for U.S. president, not much of it is flowing into NGO conflict resolution activities. The IMTD has had the chance of having a small number of individuals who have been very generous, but there are also problems of being overly dependent on a small number of people. Fundraising is also a necessary skill but one that not all possess. There is a need for Track II efforts to develop cooperation with colleges having conflict resolution courses, with other NGOs working in the field and with governments — nearly a full-time job.

McDonald’s account of his efforts provides useful insights into Track II approaches — a field that is likely to grow.

[The Shifting Grounds of Conflict and Peacebuilding: Stories and Lessons by John W. McDonald with Noa Zanolli, Lexington Books, 2008, 341 pages]

René Wadlow, a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, is representative to the United Nations, Geneva, of the Association of World Citizens. He lives in Gravieres, France.

Notes:

(1) See:

Unofficial Diplomats by Maureen Berman and Joseph Johnson (eds.), Columbia University Press, 1977, 268 pages Quaker Experiences in International Conciliation by C.H. Mike Yarrow, Yale University Press, 1978, 308 pages When the Rain Returns by the International Quaker Working Party on Israel and Palestine, American Friends Service Committee, 2004, 326 pages