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Plato and Diplomacy · Diplomacy and International Relations

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Imagine, just for a second, that you're walking into this really
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vast, kind of dimly lit room. OK, I'm picturing it.
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Right, So on one side of this long wooden table, there's a guy
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from ancient Sparta, and he's wearing like a rough woven tunic
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holding a wooden staff. And the only reason he got this
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incredibly high stakes job is because he happens to have a
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really loud, booming voice. Just a human megaphone
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basically. Exactly.
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And then on the exact opposite side of that same table sits a
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modern corporate lawyer, tailored suit, sleek laptop, and
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her hard drive is just loaded with, I mean, 10s of thousands
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of pages of international trade law, jurisdictional precedence,
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all that, right? Visually, they are completely
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different. Different languages, different
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technologies, but fundamentally they're doing the exact same
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job, just separated by thousands of years.
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It's a really striking image, honestly, and it captures the
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whole paradox of how we handle conflict.
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I mean, the mechanisms have changed so much, from shouting
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across a battlefield to filing digital briefs in Geneva.
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But that human desperation to, you know, figure things out
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without destroying each other, that hasn't changed at all.
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And that struggle is exactly what we are focusing on today.
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So welcome to Diplomacy and International Relations, a
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podcast focused on international relations, global politics and
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Danish political developments. Today we are taking on a really
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comprehensive analysis of the evolution of statecraft.
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Yeah, it's a huge journey. We're going to cover everything
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from the actual origins, the word diplomacy to Plato's pretty
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intense xenophobia, all the way to modern international
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arbitration. Right, and we'll also look at
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the just war theory and how that applies to current events like
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the Russia Ukraine conflict. Before we get into all that
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history, though, I just want to encourage you, our listener, to
1:46
follow and subscribe to the podcast right now.
1:49
And if you want to support the show, head over to our Patreon.
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That's where you gain access to bonus episodes, plus our weekly
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and monthly briefings on Danish politics.
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The link is right there in the description.
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So where do we start with statecraft?
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Let's start with the word itself.
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Like where does the word diplomacy actually come from?
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Well, the etymology is actually a story about technology in a
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way. It comes from the ancient Greek
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word diploma, which literally translates to folded into.
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Wait. Folded into like a piece of
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paper. A piece of parchment?
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Yeah. Back in classical Greece, a
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diploma was just an educational certificate.
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It showed you completed a course and they would literally fold it
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in half. OK, so a literal diploma.
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Right. But then the Roman Empire comes
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along and they take this word and repurpose it.
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For the Romans, a diploma became an official travel document.
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So think of it as an ancient passport that let you travel on
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their really restricted imperial roads.
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Wow, OK. And by that point it wasn't
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parchment anymore. They were stamping these passes
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onto double metal plates. Metal passports So how do we get
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from a Roman metal passport to, you know, people in suits at the
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UN? Well, over time the meaning
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brought in to mean any official state document, especially
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treaties. Then Fast forward to the 1700s
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and the French start using it to describe the people handling
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those documents. They came up with the phrase
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core diplomatique. The diplomatic corps.
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Exactly, and eventually that crosses the channel.
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Edmund Burke is the guy credited with bringing it into English as
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diplomacy right around 1796. So the word itself is mostly
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18th century, but obviously people were negotiating way
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before that. I mean, it's not just a Western
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thing, right? Not at all.
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It's a completely universal human reflex.
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Whenever a society gets complex enough to run into a neighbor
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group, diplomacy just sort of naturally emerges.
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We see it all over the world. Like where?
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A great example is the Australian Aborigines.
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Long before any European showed up, these indigenous groups had
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a really sophisticated system of diplomatic immunity.
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Wait really? I always think of diplomatic
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immunity as this modern like Vienna Convention thing with
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embassies and black SUV's. Yeah, most people do.
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But across early societies, not just Australia but Asia, the
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Americas, they all relied on Spegger Lee's non voice and they
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all developed this shared sacred rule.
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It was a protecting taboo. You absolutely do not kill the
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messenger. Even if they bring bad news.
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Even if they're delivering a declaration of war.
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And these weren't just random people, they were the most
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respected elders of the tribe. Which makes sense if you're
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walking into a hostile camp, you want a rock solid guarantee you
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won't be killed, and you want your smartest person doing the
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talking. Do we have like written records
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of early negotiations though? Oh yeah, tons, especially from
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Egypt and the Near East. We actually have a fully
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preserved peace treaty from 1278 BCE.
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Over 3000 years ago. Yeah, between the Egyptian
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pharaoh Ramses the Second and the king of the Hittite Empire,
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it's amazing. And later on, the Assyrians kept
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massive libraries tracking all their envoys.
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So the foundation is ancient, but what I find fascinating is
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how the actual skills of a diplomat change depending on who
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was in power. Let's talk about the Greeks.
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Like that Spartan guy I mentioned earlier.
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Right, the human megaphone. Yeah, they modeled their envoys
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was after Hermes. Yeah, they did.
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And Hermes was the God of travelers, merchants and,
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tellingly, thieves. He was Zeus's messenger.
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So early Greek diplomats around the 8th century BCE were just
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heralds. Their job was just to memorize
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terms and shout them across a valley.
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Because they didn't have microphones.
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Exactly. But as Greek society got more
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complex, you know, Athens, Sarta, all these intricate
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alliances, shouting wasn't enough anymore.
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I actually had to convince people.
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Right O By the 5th century BCE, they started sending their best
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orators and philosophers. Diplomacy became this highly
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intellectual debate. OK, but then the Romans take
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over and from what I understand the Romans were actually
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terrible at negotiating. Like they regressed.
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They completely deprioritized it.
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Yeah, Roman diplomats were mostly priests, and they acted
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more like archivists, just rigid administrators.
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Why though? If Rome is this massive
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superpower, why let those skills die?
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Was it just arrogance? Well, it's the reality of being
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a hegemon. If you have absolute military
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dominance, you don't really need to negotiate a middle ground,
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you just dictate the terms of surrender.
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Right. It's basically agree to this or
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we crush you. Exactly.
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So what mattered to Rome wasn't persuasion, it was legal record
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keeping, filing the treaty and strictly enforcing it.
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But then Rome falls, power shifts to the Byzantine Empire,
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and suddenly Byzantine diplomats are completely different from
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those Roman clerks. Because their reality was
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different. The Byzantines didn't have
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unassailable military dominance. They were surrounded by enemies,
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expanding caliphates, barbarian tribes.
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They couldn't just crush everyone, so they.
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Had to get creative. Very creative and ruthless.
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They basically dark artsified diplomacy.
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They used three main strategies. First, weaponizing rivalries.
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Like getting 2 enemies to fight each other.
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Exactly, They would fund one tribe just enough so they'd
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attack another tribe, keeping them both distracted.
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Second, they shamelessly bought peace.
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Massive bribes. And third, they used religion,
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converting tribes to Orthodox Christianity to bring them under
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their influence. So Byzantine diplomat is
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basically a spy. Essentially, yes.
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Their job was to embed in a foreign court, figure out who
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could be bought, find the internal weaknesses and send
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encrypted intelligence back to Constantinople.
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That brings us to Renaissance Italy around the 13th to 15th
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centuries. And this is a huge structural
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shift, right, The invention of the permanent ambassador.
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Yes, a massive innovation. You had all these wealthy,
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competitive city states in Italy, Venice, Florence, Milan.
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They realized that waiting for a crisis to send an envoy was too
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late. Because things were moving too
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fast. Right, so they started sending
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people to live in rival cities full time.
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Venice basically perfected this. They had massive archives of
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detailed instructions and daily intelligence reports.
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It became a lifelong profession. So Italy gives us the permanent
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residency model, but it was the French who really locked in the
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modern theory of diplomacy, right?
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Cardinal Richelieu in the 17th century.
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Yeah, Richelieu made a huge philosophical pivot.
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He argued that diplomacy shouldn't just be an ad hoc
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reaction to a crisis. It has to be a continuous
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systemic process of building relationships.
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It's like instead of hiring a plumber when a pipe bursts, you
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hire a full time engineer to maintain the pipe so they never
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burst at all. That is a perfect analogy.
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And France was so dominant at this that French actually
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replaced Latin as the language of diplomacy.
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Wow, really? Yeah, treaties used to be in
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Latin, like the Treaty Westphalia, but by the Congress
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of Vienna in 1815, French was the undisputed language.
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It stayed that way until English kind of pushed its way in after
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World War One. Which perfectly sets up the
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final big evolution. World War One ends, Woodrow
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Wilson brings out his 14 points and he basically detonates the
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old European model. He really did.
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Wilson hated the old system of secret bilateral treaties made
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in dark rooms by unaccountable aristocrats.
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He blamed that secrecy for dragging the world into the war.
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Right, his first point was open covenants of peace openly
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arrived at. Transparency.
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He wanted to pull statecraft into the light.
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He envisioned multilateral conference diplomacy.
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Instead of two guys whispering, you have dozens of nations at a
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giant table. Which eventually becomes the UN.
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Exactly. So that's the evolution of the
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mechanics. So the way.
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A state conducts diplomacy completely depends on how
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vulnerable they feel. Superpowers dictate, vulnerable
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states manipulate. But to really to understand that
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psychology, we need to look at how the ancients viewed the
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whole concept of a foreigner. Which brings us to Cleo and
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Aristotle. Right exopolitics, how they
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viewed the outside world. And to understand that, you have
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to grasp the Greek concept of physis versus polis.
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OK, break that down for. Us.
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For the Greeks, the polo, the physical city state, was
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civilization, border law, morality.
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Everything outside the polis was physics, which means nature.
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And nature wasn't a nice hike in the woods.
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No nature was savage, the law of the jungle, so the outside world
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full of non Greeks or Barbarians was seen as this chaotic
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infection just waiting to spread.
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And Plato was terrified of that infection.
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I mean, his views are intensely isolationist.
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He basically wanted to build a wall and hide.
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He really did. He thought interaction with the
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outside world, especially through free trade, most toxic.
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He argued that foreign trade brings in luxury goods which
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causes excessive consumption which leads to wealth
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inequality. And inequality destroys the
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state. In his view, absolutely.
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He was so terrified of it that he wanted to ban private
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citizens from engaging in commerce entirely.
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The state would have a total monopoly on trade.
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That is incredibly extreme. No private businesses across
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borders at all. And his rules for torrents are
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even crazier. He had these four highly
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regulated categories of visitors.
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Yes. Diplomats get full honors,
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scholars get some freedom. Merchants are strictly contained
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to specific markets. But the 4th category of private
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tourists is chilling. They had to be watched
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constantly by state officials. No talking to average citizens.
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He was terrified of foreign ideas corrupting domestic
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morals. Honestly, it sounds exactly like
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how modern authoritarian states operate today.
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Like getting a highly restricted tourist visa to North Korea with
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a state minder following you around.
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The parallels are definitely there.
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The fear of cultural contamination is an ancient
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anxiety. But.
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Logically, I have to push back on Plato here.
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You can't just build a fortress and expect to survive
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economically. A city state needs resources.
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And that is exactly what Aristotle pointed out.
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Aristotle was the realist. He looked at Plato's fortress
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and said, look, total self-sufficiency atarchia is
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impossible. You need to eat.
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You need bronze. Right.
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You can't produce everything internally, so Aristotle
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defended merchants and commercial treaties.
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He knew that isolation was a delusion.
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A smart state engages with the world prudently.
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It's the classic debate, protectionism versus global
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trade. But interestingly, they did
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agree on one big exopolitical issue, imperialism versus
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colonialism. Yes, though we have to be
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careful with definitions here because they view them
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differently than we do today. Both Plato and Aristotle hated
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imperialism. Really.
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Yes, they thought conquering and ruling over another equal state
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was illegitimate and would corrupt the ruler's soul.
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But they liked colonialism. Because to them a colony wasn't
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an empire extracting wealth, it was a demographic pressure
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release valve. If Athens got too crowded or if
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there was political unrest, they just sponsor a group of citizens
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to leave and build a brand new politically independent city.
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Just. Hey, the plumbing can't handle
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this many people. Go build a new town across the
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sea. Exactly.
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Tied by friendship, but not subjugated.
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OK, so to understand why Plato was so deeply paranoid about the
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outside world, we really have to look inward at his absolute
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contempt for democracy. Yes, his critique of democracy
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in the Republic is blistering. He saw it as a fatal
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vulnerability. He called it a denial of the
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principle of qualification. And the analogy here is so good.
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It's like if you need to hire a pilot for a commercial flight
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and instead of checking if they have flight hours, you hire the
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person who gives the best emotional speech about the
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clouds. That's the perfect way to put
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it. Plato thought it was completely
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hypocritical. In medicine, we demand an
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expert. In navigation, we demand an
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expert. But for the hardest job on
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earth, governing a state, democracy just lets anyone take
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over if they win a popularity contest.
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Which leads to his biggest fear, the orator, right?
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In a democracy, the currency isn't truth, it's persuasion.
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The order succeeds by telling the mob exactly what they want
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to hear, stocking their base desires.
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Because telling hard truths loses elections.
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Exactly, and Plato believe this inevitably leads to moral decay,
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chaos, and eventually a tyrant seizes control.
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So his solution is the philosopher king, but the resume
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for that job is insane. It's designed to be brutal.
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Decades of education. You can't even take power until
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you're 50, so your passions have cooled.
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But the craziest part isn't the age limit, it's that the
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Philosopher King isn't allowed to have any private property or
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a family. Right, this is his ultimate anti
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corruption measure. If a ruler has money, they'll
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use state power to get more. If they have kids, they'll
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create a dynasty. So to ensure total public
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spirit, the rule must own nothing.
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It's total self sacrifice. But The thing is, Plato actually
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tried to make this happen in the real world in Syracuse, and it
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was a complete disaster. Wasn't.
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It oh an absolute catastrophe. We know about it from this
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autobiographical text called The 7th Letter.
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Plato had a friend there named Dion, who invited Plato to tutor
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the new young tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius the Younger.
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The dream scenario? Turn an autocrat into a
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philosopher king. But Dionysius was just a
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paranoid hedonistic autocrat. He just liked having the famous
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Plato around as a trophy. He got suspicious, exiled Dion,
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and brutally confiscated all of Dion's wealth.
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He basically sold off Dion's property and humiliated his
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family. It broke Plato's heart.
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He was trapped there completely disillusioned is the brutal
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collision of idealism and real world corruption.
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And that trauma led to a really massive philosophical pivot for
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Plato, something called the doctrine of the unwritten
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teachings. Yes.
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After failing to implement his written laws, Plato concluded
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that the deepest truths about justice simply cannot be written
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down. Which sounds paradoxical for a
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guy who wrote so much. It does, but he argued that
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written words are static. They're just shadows of reality.
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True wisdom only comes from a shared, lived experience of
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intense questioning. He compared it to a flame
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kindling another soul. You have to live it together
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exactly, which is beautiful, but a huge problem for statecraft.
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If isolation is impossible and philosopher kings fail, then
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conflict is inevitable. Which brings us to the dark side
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of this How did ancient thinkers justify war?
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Let's talk about the Just War theory.
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Right. This is one of the most
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agonizing intellectual projects in history.
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How do you draw a moral line between barbaric slaughter and a
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tragically necessary use of force?
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Plato just thought as economics. Yeah, expanding populations
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needing resources. But Cicero, the Roman
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philosopher, added a moral layer.
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He said war must be an absolute last resort and it's only
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legitimate goal is peace, not glory or plunder.
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But the real theological gymnastics happen when
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Christianity becomes the state religion of Rome.
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Exactly. Jesus teachings are explicitly
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pacifist. Turn the other cheek.
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But suddenly Christians are running an empire facing
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barbarian invasions. How do you reconcile that?
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And Saint Augustine is the one who has to figure that out.
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Yes. In the 5th century, Rome had
16:32
just been sacked. Augustine leaned into the
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concept of original sin. He argued that in a fallen
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world, violence is sometimes a necessary remedy for sin.
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War as a remedy. He argued that doing nothing
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while the innocent are slaughtered is a greater sin
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than fighting, so a just war becomes a moral obligation to
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protect the innocent and secure peace.
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And then Thomas Aquinas later systematizes this into a legal
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framework in the 13th century using the Apostle Paul.
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Right Romans 13 Aquinas created the criteria for Jose Adbelem,
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the right to go to war. He had three main rules,
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legitimate authority, just cause, and just intentions.
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You can't just fight for greed, it has to be for a moral good.
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Exactly. And those evolved into the
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modern 6 fold criteria we use today.
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Let's run through those quickly. Sure, number one just cause
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usually self-defense against aggression #2 Lawful authority.
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Must be a state actor #3 good intention. #4 is last resort.
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All diplomacy must be exhausted. #5 Reasonable chance of success,
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You can't launch a suicidal war and #6 proportional means the
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force has to match the injury. And then there's Justin Bello.
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The rules for fighting, Protecting civilians, using
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appropriate force, obeying treaties.
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OK, I have to push back here. These rules sound noble on
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paper, but aren't they totally subjective?
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Every leader claims they tried everything, and they all claim
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their intentions are pure. Doesn't this just let any
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autocrat justify whatever they want?
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That is the exact vulnerability legal scholars worry about.
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The fog of geopolitics rarely has that kind of moral clarity.
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But we have to recognize the historical shift.
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Ancient kings fought for glory and bragged about it.
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Today, because of this framework, even cynical
18:18
aggressors have to frame their violence in the moral language
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of just war. The international community
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demands it. Well, let's actually test that.
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Let's look at a modern conflict and see how these ancient
18:28
criteria are applied. Let's examine the stated
18:31
rhetoric around the Russia, Ukraine conflict.
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And to be absolutely clear, we are not taking making a
18:36
political stance here. We're just impartially analyzing
18:39
the source material. Absolutely.
18:41
This is an intellectual autopsy of the stated justifications.
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So if we look at the underlying philosophy driving Russia's
18:48
actions, the sources point to EUR Asianism.
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Where does that come? From it started in the 1920s
18:53
with a thinker named Nikolai Drubetskoy.
18:56
He rejected Western Eurocentrism and argued Russia should be a
18:59
unique hybrid EUR Asian civilization.
19:02
Rejecting the West, right? Then in the post Soviet era, Lev
19:05
Gomilyov introduced the Super ethnos theory, the idea that a
19:09
dominant ethnic group can evolve into a singular super
19:12
civilization. And then Alexander Dugan
19:14
weaponized that in the 90s. Yes.
19:16
In his book The Foundations of Geopolitics, he argued it was
19:19
Russia's destiny to absorb surrounding territories to block
19:22
Western liberalism. And if you look at Vladimir
19:25
Putin's stated justifications, they align perfectly with this.
19:30
He's claimed to be defending traditional values against
19:32
Western liberalism. He published that essay claiming
19:35
Russians and Ukrainians are one people.
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Which is a direct application of the Super Ethnos concept.
19:41
Right. Plus claims of defending
19:43
territories that allegedly chose to align with Russia and the
19:46
rhetoric about D nazification. But how does our source text
19:51
actually evaluate those claims against the just WAR criteria?
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Impartially, the academic analysis concludes that fails on
19:58
multiple fronts for just cause and protecting the innocent, the
20:02
text notes Ukraine didn't instigate an unprovoked attack,
20:05
and the massive civilian casualties violate the
20:07
Augustinian principle of protection.
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What about last resort? The text argues nonviolent
20:12
diplomacy was not conclusively exhausted before the invasion
20:14
began. But it does meet one criterion
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theoretically. Legitimate authority.
20:19
As the recognized head of state, Putin does technically possess
20:22
the formal authority to command the armed forces.
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It's terrifying how a dormant philosophy from a century ago
20:29
can be resurrected to justify a modern war.
20:32
It really shows the power of narrative.
20:34
Leaders fuse these ancient ideas like super ethnos with
20:38
Augustine's protection of the innocent to create a
20:40
justification. Even if the international
20:42
community views it as illegal, words and philosophy are potent
20:47
tools. Which brings us to the final
20:49
piece of the puzzle. When conflict doesn't escalate
20:53
to war, but it's an economic dispute, what happens to the
20:55
billions of dollars in investments?
20:58
How do we handle that without shooting?
21:00
We use international arbitration.
21:01
Right, because in the past, if a foreign government seized your
21:04
property, you either begged your military to intervene or you
21:07
sued the king in his own court, which never ends well.
21:10
Exactly so. The world developed a private,
21:13
legally binding alternative, and the linchpin of the whole system
21:16
is the 1958 New York Convention. Which does what exactly?
21:20
It guarantees cross-border enforceability.
21:23
If a tribunal in London rules that a foreign company owes you
21:26
money and they refuse to pay, you can take that award to a
21:29
local judge where their assets are, say New York or Tokyo, and
21:33
that judge is bound by treaty to seize those assets for you.
21:37
So you can run, but your money can't hide.
21:40
Exactly. It's incredibly powerful and
21:42
arbitration offers a neutral forum, procedural flexibility,
21:46
and you get to pick specialized experts instead of a random
21:49
local judge. The sources mentioned ad hoc
21:52
versus institutional arbitration.
21:54
What's the difference? Ad hoc is DIY.
21:56
You set the rules yourself. It's tailored, but if one side
21:58
stops cooperating, the whole thing derails.
22:00
Because institutional is safer, yes.
22:03
Institutions like the ICC in Paris, the LCIA in London or the
22:06
ICDR in the US, they administer the process and keep it on
22:10
track. OK, that makes sense for two
22:11
companies. But what about investor state
22:13
disputes? The sources talked about
22:15
bilateral investment treaties or BITS, and this concept called
22:18
arbitration without privity. What does that mean?
22:21
Privity means a direct contract, so arbitration without brevity
22:26
means a foreign corporation can directly sue a host government
22:30
in an international tribunal, even if they never signed a
22:33
contract with that specific government.
22:36
The right to sue is baked into the treaty between the two
22:39
countries. Let me make sure I'm getting
22:40
this. Say I build a $2 billion power
22:43
plant in a developing country. A new government takes over and
22:46
instead of violently seizing it, they do something sneaky.
22:49
They pass targeted tax hikes and environmental rules that make it
22:53
impossible for my plant to operate.
22:55
That's called creeping expropriation.
22:57
Right. So under AB IT, instead of
22:59
starting a war or suing in their biased courts, I can drag that
23:03
sovereign nation to a tribunal in Geneva and demand billions.
23:08
That's exactly how it works. I have to push back hard on
23:10
that. A private, unelected company
23:12
suing A sovereign nation outside its own courts?
23:15
That sounds like a massive surrender of national
23:17
sovereignty. It's literally Plato's nightmare
23:20
of foreign capital taking over. Why would any state agree to
23:23
that? It is a surrender of
23:24
sovereignty, but states do it for one reason, to attract
23:28
foreign capital. They need the investment.
23:30
Right. A company won't build that
23:32
billion dollar plant if they think it'll be stolen.
23:35
By signing the treaty, the state trades a slice of sovereignty to
23:38
prove their hands are tied, which builds trust and brings in
23:41
money. And the protections are huge.
23:43
Protection against expropriation, fair and
23:46
equitable treatment, and most favored nation status.
23:49
It's an invisible web of law governing trillions of dollars.
23:52
It really is. And that brings us to the end of
23:55
our journey today. We've covered everything from
23:57
ancient Greek heralds to Plato's fortress, the agonizing theology
24:01
of just war, modern conflict rhetoric, and finally these wood
24:06
paneled arbitration rooms in Geneva.
24:08
We really ran the spectrum of human conflict resolution.
24:12
It shows that the human struggle for order hasn't changed, only
24:15
the mechanisms have. Which leaves us with a final
24:18
provocative thought. Earlier we talked about Plato's
24:21
7th letter. He believed that true justice
24:23
couldn't be written down. It had to be a living flame
24:26
shared between people. Right, because written laws are
24:29
just rigid shadows. But look at the world today.
24:32
Our entire global order, the UN bilateral investment treaties,
24:35
the New York Convention, it all relies entirely on the written
24:39
word. Absolutely everything is
24:40
codified. So the question to leave you
24:42
with is this, are we actually building a more peaceful world
24:46
through these massive legal contracts?
24:49
Or by relying so heavily on specialized lawyers and 10s of
24:53
thousands of pages of text, have we simply lost that share human
24:58
flame of justice that Plato thought was the only true way to
25:02
govern? It's a profound question about
25:03
the future of international relations.
25:05
And we'll let you Mull that over on your own.
25:07
Thank you so much for joining us for this analysis.
25:09
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25:11
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25:15
Next time you see a diplomat at the UN or a corporate lawyer
25:18
with a massive contract, just remember they're part of an
25:21
unbroken chain stretching all the way back to a guy with a
25:24
loud voice and a folded piece of metal.
25:26
Thanks for listening.