Are there issues in world politics that cannot, even in principle, be resolved through diplomatic means? In other words, are there limits to diplomacy?
There are issues in world politics that are not viable to be resolved through the means of diplomacy, which inevitably causes limits to diplomatic means. A political issue is derived from a disagreement or dispute between two or more parties. In a worldly scale this is a discrepancy or conflict of interest between two or more states. For such political issue to be resolved through diplomatic means, both parties must be willing to initiate change or compensate one another. In a perfect union, diplomacy would thrive and would have no limits. Meaning, at least one or more states is disposed to change their ways or policies in order to co-exist peacefully with one-another. However, diplomatic means in world politics today has limitations and does not work flawlessly in an idealistic fashion. The Journal of European Public Policy journalist, Jozef Batora, defines diplomacy as “the process of dialogue and negotiation by which states in a system conduct their relations and pursue their purposes by means short of war.” This excerpt claims that perfect diplomatic measures exclude war as a resolution to conflicts in world politics. If there were no limitation to diplomacy, war would not exist because conflicts would be resolved through peaceful and diplomatic means. However, war subsists internationally today, therefore there are issues that diplomatic means cannot amend. This limitation of diplomacy is due to conflicts of interest between states and their inability to peacefully compensate one-another.
An example of limited diplomacy in history was the reign of Adolph Hitler. Two parties had such abstract inhibitions and goals that neither could come to a diplomatic agreement causing sadistic measure necessary for the benefit of the common welfare. When the wellbeing of the preponderance is at risk, diplomacy is limited because time and efforts may be limited as well. An example of present-day limited diplomacy according to John Judis of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is the war in Iraq over oil. The article “Determining Factor: Oil And U.S. Diplomacy” describes failure in diplomatic means. The United States desires oil and Iraq is unwilling to impart. This conflict of interest and unsuccessful diplomatic compensation caused the United States to reside to unmerciful measures to obtain oil. Due to an imperfect society and human nature there are limitations to diplomatic means inevitably leading to issues that cannot be resolved through diplomacy.
I agree with what was stated. While diplomacy is incredibly useful in countering unnecessary wars and establishing peace there are certain situations where it would not work at all. For example, if an organization wanted to build a church in Saudi Arabia and would not let up despite what anyone had to say, diplomacy would be impossible in the situation. There are certain parameters that even diplomacy has to respect and in my opinion during situations about religion diplomacy is not possible since there is no way to express that idea that one religion is better than another or where someone may practice their religion.
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