International Security Negotiations: Lessons Learned From Negotiating With The Russians On Nuclear Arms

ix, [1], 100, [6] pages. Notes. Ink marks to text and margins. INSS Occasional Papers 62. Mike Wheeler is an authority on negotiation theory and practice. Since joining the Harvard Business School faculty in 1993, he has taught negotiation and leadership to thousands of MBA and Executive Program students. In 2017 his eight-week Negotiation Mastery course launched on HBS Online. It has now been taken by leaders, managers, and students from 153 countries around the globe. He admits that over the years he's become a something of a contrarian. Specifically, he's skeptical about popular one-size-fits-all approaches, whether they're of the "win-win" or "take no prisoners" variety. Instead, his view is that great negotiators are also great improvisors. They are agile strategically and quick on their feet moment-to-moment. After all, the people you deal with have their own hands on the steering wheel, too. You can't script what they choose to say and do, any more than you'd let them dominate you. Adaptability is key for negotiation success from start to finish. For more about this approach, see his Jazz of Negotiation newsletter, which launched in January, 2021. He cohosts the Agility at Work podcast with Dr. Kimberlyn Leary. His other research interests include emotion and inter-personal dynamics; computer-based technologies for teaching, managing, and studying negotiation; and negotiation ethics. International security negotiations and agreements (one seldom sees the term "arms control" in active government parlance today) have always been a focus of debate within the political and policy communities. The debate weighs the "promises" on one side against the "pitfalls" presented by the other, with varied interpretations of the relative danger or effectiveness of each individual negotiation or treaty. This paper cuts through much of that debate, presenting detailed analyses of diplomacy, negotiations, and agreements prior to, across, and beyond the Cold War. It examines motivations and expectations, rationale for results, criteria for "success," key factors that explain various outcomes, and draws lessons for today and beyond. From the early nuclear age experience of the Baruch Plan (and Wheeler is perhaps THE expert here), through negotiations on testing, across the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and through detailed development of the strategic and theater arms limitation, reduction, and elimination negotiations, Wheeler develops the negotiations and agreements in relevant detail. He then presents a balanced discussion of the relative and weighted contributions of the overall process and its products, giving both sides of the debate its due. But perhaps even a bigger contribution than this historical journey and analysis is Wheeler's development of the "lessons" that we should draw to apply today and into the future. He draws general observations about international security negotiations, and then presents equally sharp "lessons" on both the United States and Soviet/Russian negotiation behaviors. This template-negotiations process, self knowledge, adversary/opposite party insights-should apply to any security discussion and decision. And he ends with five general "lessons" on international security negotiations and five "general principles" of negotiations that should also frame our approach to all cooperative security discussions and efforts today and tomorrow.…