7

Multiparty Dexterity: Orchestrating Complex Negotiations

As Richard Neustadt, the great scholar of the American presidency, once trenchantly observed, “reality is not bilateral.”¹ We have seen the multiparty reality of Kissinger’s Rhodesian talks over majority rule. We have seen it in the Paris peace talks, which cannot properly be understood as a purely U.S.–North Vietnamese process—without even considering negotiations with contending factions inside the U.S. government. And some of Kissinger’s negotiations that we have not examined, such as the talks leading to the 1975 Helsinki Accords, were overtly multilateral. Intended to reduce Cold War tensions and elevate human rights, the Helsinki negotiations can be analyzed only in terms of the thirty-five nations that took part. For a scholar whose early work dissected seventeenth- through nineteenth-century European balance-of-power politics, it is hardly surprising that Kissinger’s approach to negotiation consistently displays sharp insight into multiparty dynamics, and coalition formation and dissolution.

Multiparty talks inherently distinguish themselves from purely bilateral negotiations given the possibilities for varying multiparty groupings (or “coalitions,” as we’ll sometimes say) to align in support of, or against, an agreement. In negotiations with only two parties, of course, coalitions are impossible; there is either a deal between the two or not. When three or more parties are involved, however, agreements may be possible between any two of the parties or, sometimes, among all three (or more), and these alignments often shift during the negotiations. If A, B, and C are jockeying for advantage, the result of their negotiations may be an A-B deal, an A-C deal, a B-C deal, an A-B-C deal, or no deal at all. As the number of parties increases, the number of possible alignments and agreements increases even faster. No wonder multiparty dexterity is of a wholly different order than more familiar two-party negotiations. The negotiator in such settings must envision which multiparty alignments (“coalitions”) are likely, which are desirable, and which undesirable—and then figure out the negotiation strategy that is most likely to build or block them.

Recall, for example, the central coalitional dynamic of the Southern Africa negotiations that we analyzed in chapters 1 through 3. Start with the sheer number of parties: in addition to the Ford administration and its Republican critics of the initiative in Southern Africa, Kissinger catalogued them: “There were five front-line states, each with its own emphasis; internal groups competing with each other inside Rhodesia and Namibia; the government of South Africa; the authorities in Rhodesia; and the special position of Great Britain. Their purposes were partly overlapping, partly adversarial. But a change in the position of one party could send shock waves through the entire system and threaten to unravel what was being so painfully constructed.”² From this welter of parties, Kissinger sequentially pieced together a tacit coalition whose members, collectively, pressured Ian Smith to accept black-majority rule.

As more recent negotiations underscore, one of the negotiating skills required to forge a sufficiently large coalition in favor of an agreement is multiparty dexterity. Consider the 196 parties who negotiated at the 2015 climate change talks in Paris. Further, many of the delegations in Paris were not monolithic, but represented diverse, often conflicting “internal” interests that had to be reconciled. For example, the U.S. delegation included four cabinet secretaries and high-level staff from multiple departments, not to mention the wide array of passionate nongovernmental organizations that sought to influence the talks. Similarly, the Iran nuclear negotiations that concluded an agreement in 2015 took place directly among France, Britain, Russia, China, Germany, the United States, and Iran; many other countries, such as Israel, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, played important indirect roles.

Henry Kissinger was at home in such multiparty negotiations. Ironically, the simplest such situation in which he played a vital role involved a “mere” three parties: the United States, China, and the Soviet Union. Yet this “merely” triangular negotiation had considerable significance for the world. We will examine its dynamics in some depth before moving to observations about Kissinger’s approach to negotiation involving many more than three parties.

Triangular Negotiation

The United States, China, and the Soviet Union

During the two-decade period when the United States had no formal relations with China, the U.S.-Soviet superpower relationship was largely hostile and, in many important respects, frozen along a bilateral (U.S.-Soviet) axis. Along with Richard Nixon, however, Kissinger saw the possibility, via a carefully managed opening to China, of converting this bilateral superpower structure into a “triangular” one, with the United States at the apex of a U.S.-China-Soviet triangle. The Soviet Union’s increasingly threatening military action toward China offered a potential opening to bring this new structure into being.

This coalitional objective was informed by historical analogy. Kissinger explained: “Since the Soviet Union was the only country capable of dominating Asia, a tacit alliance to block Soviet expansionism in Asia could be envisioned between the United States and China (not unlike the Entente Cordiale between Great Britain and France in 1904, and between Great Britain and Russia in 1907).”³

While historical insight offered some guidance, Kissinger and Nixon were crystal clear on the rationale, in terms of American national interests at the time, for pragmatic, “triangular” moves: “We agreed on the necessity of thwarting the geopolitical ambitions [of the Soviet Union], but we had no reason to become involved in the ideological dispute . . . If Moscow succeeded in humiliating Peking and reducing it to impotence, the whole weight of the Soviet military effort could be thrown against the West. Such a demonstration of Soviet ruthlessness and American impotence (or indifference—the result would be the same) would encourage accommodation to other Soviet demands from Japan to Western Europe, not to speak of the many smaller countries on the Soviet periphery.”⁴

In broad concept, therefore, triangular diplomacy potentially had decisive advantages over the bilateral superpower relationship that then existed between the Soviet Union and the United States. But what did this mean as an objective in practice? Kissinger explained the structure of the triangular equilibrium that he and Nixon aimed to bring into being: “[S]o long as China had more to fear from the Soviet Union than it did from the United States, China’s self-interest would impel it to cooperate with the United States. By the same token, China did not pursue its opposition to Soviet expansionism as a favor to the United States, even though it served both American and Chinese purposes. Impressed as Nixon was by the clarity of thought of the Chinese leaders—especially of Premier Zhou Enlai—he had no conceivable interest in placing the United States unambiguously on either side of the conflict between China and the Soviet Union. America’s bargaining position would be strongest when America was closer to both communist giants than either was to the other.”⁵

This core conception of how most advantageously to deal with the Soviets and the Chinese appears to have its origins in Kissinger’s careful study of Otto von Bismarck’s approach to Prussian survival in the center of a multipolar European continent. In a prescient 1968 essay, Kissinger wrote that Bismarck “proposed to manipulate the commitments of the other powers so that Prussia would always be closer to any of the contending parties than they were to each other. If Prussia managed to create a maximum of options for itself, it would be able to utilize its artificial isolation to sell its cooperation to the highest bidder.”⁶

NEGOTIATING THE TRIANGULAR RELATIONSHIP: THE OPENING TO CHINA

It was not enough to recognize the situation that Kissinger hoped to bring about with the United States at the pivot point of the triangular relationship. Actually negotiating the dynamics of making this happen would be tricky. As Kissinger described the challenge, “Clearly, triangular diplomacy required agility. We had somehow not to flex our own muscles, but, as in judo, to use the weight of an adversary to propel him in a desired direction.”⁷

Central to this agility was the American opening to China that stunned the rest of the world, not least the Kremlin. Yet this opening had its roots in the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. Early in the Nixon administration, the Soviets seemed to signal a willingness to begin negotiations on the mutual reduction of nuclear arsenals, which had reached frightening levels in the midst of the Cold War. For the first time in a generation, a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) appeared to be conceivable.⁸ Through their policy of détente, Kissinger and Nixon sought to reduce U.S.-Soviet tensions on a broad front, including with respect to nuclear arms. Progress on these complex negotiations ensued, partly through a secret “channel” involving Kissinger and Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. (We discuss the potential roles of this kind of “channel” in greater depth in chapters 10 and 13.)

By late June 1971, a summit meeting between Nixon and Brezhnev appeared essential to bridge the final gaps for a SALT agreement. Yet, perhaps because the Soviets believed they had the bargaining edge or that Nixon was overly keen on the summit for domestic reasons, a “go slow” attitude seemed to prevail in Moscow. As Kissinger put it, “Moscow had been stalling for over a year on arrangements for a summit between Brezhnev and Nixon. By a sort of reverse linkage, it tried to make the high-level meeting dependent on a whole list of conditions.”⁹

With the U.S.-Soviet talks in slow motion or stuck, Henry Kissinger stepped off a plane borrowed from the president of Pakistan and onto the tarmac in Beijing on July 9, 1971.¹⁰ To keep his trip secret from reporters in Pakistan, a body double had been employed and (the actual) Kissinger was disguised in a black hat, sunglasses, and a dark raincoat. As the first senior American official to engage in talks with the Chinese government in two decades, he was greeted with warmth and hospitality, and was taken to the State Guesthouse to await the arrival of Premier Zhou Enlai.¹¹

Background to Kissinger’s China Trip: Mutual Hostility and Suspicion

By the time Kissinger became Richard Nixon’s national security advisor in January 1969, the United States had been engaged in largely formulaic talks with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for a number of years.¹² Over the course of 134 sessions periodically held in Warsaw, U.S. support for an independent Taiwan, vehemently opposed by China, was publicly declared to be the reason for both sides’ entrenchment, with the talks devolving to the sterile stating and restating of unchanging, incompatible positions on both sides.

An array of issues compounded and exacerbated the isolation of one nation from the other. The United States ideologically opposed the Communist leadership of China, and believed that the PRC was intent on spreading communism across the region. Chinese support for the North Vietnamese regime confirmed this view. The Cultural Revolution, a series of violent social and political policies implemented by PRC chairman Mao Zedong, further fed American fears that the Chinese leadership would sacrifice millions of its own people, and consequently people of other nations, to impose its vision of communism on the world.

In the Americans, Beijing saw an equally ideologically driven opponent, one willing to use brutal means to achieve its ends. Mao, Zhou, and other PRC leaders found support for their beliefs in the U.S. intervention in Vietnam, which to the Chinese leadership seemed to resemble U.S. involvement in the Korean War. Of course, massive Chinese intervention in that war had led to the rupture in diplomatic ties between the United States and China in the early 1950s.¹³

Widening Rift Between China and the Soviet Union: Could the United States Benefit?

During the 1950s and ’60s, the foreign policy consensus in the United States envisioned a monolithic Communist bloc linking the USSR and China, united in their opposition to Western democracies. However, relations between the PRC and the USSR had worsened in the early 1960s. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, which caused serious concern in the United States, had also outraged the PRC, which believed it signaled the beginning of Soviet aggression against fellow Communist nations. Soviet justification for the move, announced in November 1968 as the “Brezhnev Doctrine,” further confirmed Chinese suspicions by formally asserting the Soviet Union’s right to intervene in Communist countries (possibly including China) in order to suppress opposition movements.¹⁴

In March 1969, mutual suspicion exploded into outright conflict between Chinese and Soviet forces in Siberia, along the Ussuri, the river marking the border between the two countries. Tensions escalated further when China counterattacked to signal that it would defend its borders. Intended to warn the Soviets off, the move had the opposite effect. The largest two Communist countries in the world were now locked in a military standoff with some 658,000 Soviet troops in forty modernized divisions confronting 814,000 Chinese troops along their mutual border. This tense standoff often erupted in military clashes, with significant casualties on both sides.¹⁵ It later became apparent that Chairman Mao was concerned enough about the Soviet military threat to secretly move most of the Chinese government ministries out of Beijing.¹⁶

Pressured to declare an American stance on the Sino-Soviet split, Kissinger and Nixon reflected on what would be the right policy if the conflict between the two countries were to widen. Central among their objectives was constraining the expansion of Soviet influence. To that end, Kissinger and Nixon supported leaning in favor of the Chinese, something Nixon had already largely favored by 1969. Concerned about Soviet domination of China and signaling this to Mao, Kissinger stated, “Nixon took perhaps the most daring step of his presidency by warning the Soviet Union that the United States would not remain indifferent if it were to attack China.”¹⁷ Given that there was no formal Sino-U.S. relationship or official communication at the time, this was a striking message.

An Awkward Process of Coordination

Nixon and Kissinger scarcely understood that Mao was simultaneously attempting to signal a willingness to negotiate a significant thaw in relations between China and the United States. Heretofore, communication had often consisted of insults hurled at each other (“running dogs,” “imperialists,” “lackeys,” “ideological fanatics,” etc.). Coldly taking stock of the geopolitical situation, Mao feared war with the Soviets. He looked to the United States as a potential ally in a coalitional triangle. Like his American counterparts, Mao believed that a substantive, public agreement would offset the significant pressures against his regime, especially from the Soviets.

The two nations warily and somewhat blindly had approached each other. They had been so isolated from one another for so long that, in the various preliminary attempts by U.S. officials to arrange a high-level communication, the results were almost comic. For example, an American diplomat’s (authorized) attempt at outreach at a fashion show in Warsaw caused his panicked Chinese counterpart to flee. Running away, the Chinese diplomat was pursued by the American, Walter Stoessel, who shouted his hope to establish a channel for high-level talks on behalf of the president of the United States.¹⁸

Kissinger realized that a limited number of secure interlocutors was needed for relaying a clearer message to the Chinese leadership. He identified Romania, a Communist country, and Pakistan as potential conduits through which to send messages to China. Neither nation was aligned with the United States, but both had contact with China and were not unconditional Soviet allies. In a series of preliminary exchanges, the United States communicated through Romania and Pakistan, and the PRC replied through Norway and Afghanistan.¹⁹ Within a matter of months, a message came through from Premier Zhou, inviting the United States to send a representative to Beijing. A subsequent message conveyed an invitation to Nixon. Zhou wished to discuss Taiwan, but Nixon and Kissinger read more into his letter.²⁰

They replied, testing to see if Zhou would be open to a broader agenda, and received positive signs. Anticipating ideological objections from Secretary of State William Rogers and a range of likely domestic opponents, Kissinger insisted on absolute secrecy. (We pause to note what an extraordinary, almost unthinkable, step it was for a national security advisor to embark on a negotiation of fundamental national importance without the knowledge of the secretary of state. In chapter 13 we will return in greater depth to the pros and cons of this kind of secrecy.) In early July, Kissinger boarded a plane with a handful of aides and Secret Service agents and set off on a “routine diplomatic mission” that would end in Pakistan.²¹ With each stop, the press progressively lost interest, until Kissinger’s entourage, only some of whom knew more than part of what was up, could secretly board the president of Pakistan’s plane and slip into China on July 9.²²

Negotiating with Zhou

Meeting with Zhou, Kissinger swiftly abandoned his prevailing assumption of Chinese hostility as his counterparts made great efforts to put him at ease. Initially concerned by the lack of scheduled time for negotiations, Kissinger realized that Mao and Zhou’s approach was meant not to placate him, but rather to signal a willingness to learn more about each other, especially their fundamental views of the international system, after many years without direct communication.

In the formal negotiating sessions that followed, Kissinger and Zhou discussed the two most pressing issues, Taiwan and Vietnam, to learn whether talks could usefully proceed. Kissinger found an easy counterpart in Zhou. Both negotiated their most important issues largely by talking around them, linking them to major priorities they both knew to be most significant. Kissinger tested Zhou’s desire to negotiate matters other than Taiwan, and received a favorable reply. Zhou would negotiate Taiwan but was not concerned by the order in which it and other issues would be negotiated; other issues could come first. Kissinger saw an opportunity to link potential Chinese concessions on Vietnam to potential U.S. concessions on Taiwan, dubbing Zhou’s position “linkage in reverse.”²³

Kissinger came to understand the driving interest of his Beijing counterparts in coalitional terms: “The Chinese want to relieve themselves of the threat of a two-front war, introduce new calculations in Moscow about attacking or leaning on the PRC, and perhaps make the USSR more pliable in its dealing with Peking. Specifically from us they want assurances against US-USSR collusion.”²⁴ Phrasing it more positively, Kissinger stressed Mao’s “commitment to the creation of a de facto anti-Soviet coalition.”²⁵

As his visit came to a close, Kissinger drafted an agreement with Zhou, to be announced by the leaders of both nations. Knowing of Nixon’s long-standing interest in China, Mao would extend an offer for a state visit. Richard Nixon would agree. For the first time in twenty years, the normalization of relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China was in prospect. On July 15, both nations made the stunning announcement.²⁶ As we will later explain, this “Nixon shock” enraged American anticommunists, deeply embarrassed U.S. officials and allies such as Japan that had been cut out of the process, and ultimately led to American recognition of China at the expense of Taiwan.

Kissinger immediately set about planning an interim trip, during which the significant details of a communiqué would be prepared in advance of Nixon and Mao’s formal meeting. Returning to China in October, Kissinger proposed a relatively bland, formal unified statement on the shared positions of both nations. In return, he left blank the statement of a position on Taiwan, to signal a willingness to shift the American position in order to find agreement with the PRC. Zhou’s reply was a firm rebuke. He demanded that each side state its positions, both common and conflicting, on key issues. Stunned at first, Kissinger realized that Zhou’s demand would not substantively alter either side’s position going forward, but could limit internal dissent from hard-liners.

The resulting “Shanghai Communiqué” had an unprecedented structure, completely unlike the relatively anodyne joint statements that often followed U.S.-Soviet meetings. Once the final terms were negotiated during Nixon’s visit, Kissinger observed that the “Shanghai Communiqué . . . was to provide a road map for Sino-American relations for the next decade. The Communiqué had an unprecedented feature: more than half of it was devoted to stating the conflicting views of the two sides on ideology, international affairs, Vietnam, and Taiwan. In a curious way, the catalogue of disagreements conferred greater significance on those subjects on which the two sides agreed. . . . Stripped of diplomatic jargon, these agreements meant, at a minimum, that China would do nothing to exacerbate the situation in Indochina or Korea, that neither China nor the United States would cooperate with the Soviet bloc, and that both would oppose any attempt by any country to achieve domination of Asia. Because the Soviet Union was the only country capable of dominating Asia, a tacit alliance to block Soviet expansionism in Asia was coming into being.”²⁷

Four months later, Nixon and Kissinger followed the preliminary meeting with a statement on Taiwan, setting the stage for Nixon’s state visit. Arriving in Beijing in late February, Nixon and Kissinger proceeded to the residence of Mao Zedong, and were greeted effusively by the ailing leader. Speaking in circuitous parables, questions, and statements, Mao invited a conversation with Nixon, signaling that no further agreement would be needed than the visit itself, should a formal agreement not be reached. In the long term, he conveyed, the two nations would draw together.

Nixon and Mao spoke in general terms while leaving the detailed negotiations to Kissinger and Zhao. Within days, the final Shanghai Communiqué was agreed upon at last, stating each side’s positions on the issues, agreed positions, and a way forward on Taiwan.²⁸ (We will return in chapter 11 to some of the remarkable creativity that resulted in this agreed document.)

With carefully crafted ambiguities, the United States pledged to support the concept of “One China,” significantly reduce support for Taiwanese independence groups, gradually reduce U.S. military personnel in Taiwan, and encourage regional peace and security.²⁹ Moreover, both sides agreed to move toward formal diplomatic ties and to avoid the pursuit of regional hegemony at all costs.³⁰

Nixon’s visit and the communiqué succeeded in achieving Kissinger’s immediate goals, linking an agreement on Taiwan to a tacit agreement by the Chinese to moderate their support for the North Vietnamese. Both sides stood to gain by checking the aggression of the Soviet Union, and by doing so in a way that de-escalated a growing military crisis.

Agility in Coalitional Negotiations: The Soviet Reaction

Despite the fact that “most Soviet experts had warned Nixon that improved relations with China would sour Soviet-American relations,”³¹ Kissinger was less worried about this possibility. He judged that soured relations were less likely given Soviet concern about acting in a manner that would deepen a possible U.S.-Chinese alignment and the potential value to the USSR of improved relations with the United States. (Recall our assessment in the last chapter of the high expected value to Moscow of improved trade relations, and the top-level Soviet commitment to that economic result.) Despite dire predictions, Kissinger noted that “the opposite occurred. Prior to my secret trip to China, Moscow had been stalling for over a year on arrangements for a summit between Brezhnev and Nixon . . . then, within a month of my visit to Beijing, the Kremlin reversed itself and invited Nixon to Moscow.³²

“Suddenly, the Moscow summit was not elusive. . . . Other negotiations deadlocked for months began magically to unfreeze: Berlin, for example, and the talks to guard against accidental nuclear war. . . . both these negotiations moved rapidly to completion within weeks of the Peking announcement.”³³ More broadly, “the Soviet Union began to move energetically . . . to deal with the new international reality. . . . [I]t sought rapidly to improve its relations with Washington: It was suddenly anxious to create the impression that more serious business could be accomplished in Moscow than in Peking.”³⁴

To Kissinger, “agility” in negotiating this outcome involved balancing a number of tricky Chinese, Soviet, and domestic U.S. dynamics: “If we moved too quickly . . . the Chinese might rebuff the overture. If we moved too slowly, we might feed Chinese suspicions of Soviet-American collusion, which could drive them into making the best deal available with Moscow. As for the Soviets, we considered the Chinese option useful to induce restraint; but we had to take care not to pursue it so impetuously as to provoke a Soviet preemptive attack on China. And at home we had to overcome a habit of mind that [saw] the People’s Republic either [as] an irreconcilable enemy or a put-upon country concerned only with . . . Taiwan.”³⁵

“In a period that was, in other respects, a high point of Soviet self-confidence and a low point of America’s,” Kissinger concluded, “the Nixon Administration managed to reshuffle the deck. It continued to see to it that general war proved too risky for the Soviets. After the opening to China, Soviet pressures below the level of general war became too risky as well, because they had the potential of accelerating the dreaded Sino-American rapprochement. Once America had opened to China, the Soviet Union’s best option became seeking its own relaxation of tensions with the United States.”³⁶

Playing the “China Card”: A Naïve Interpretation?

Observers of U.S. moves toward China were quick to interpret Kissinger’s China initiative as “playing the China card” against the Soviets. In a fairly typical example, strategy professor Evelyn Goh asserted that “It was clear to Beijing that the American opening to China was motivated by its desire to play the ‘China card’ in order to motivate the Soviet Union to negotiate detente with the United States.”³⁷

While superficially appealing—after all, the United States was siding with the weaker of two contending parties (China) to balance the more aggressive one (the Soviet Union)—the coalitional rationale for the American approach to China was far subtler. In fact, Kissinger sharply criticized those who glibly opined about the administration and its so-called China card: “So the ‘China card,’ as it was often presented, was let us do something with China that annoys Russia and for which we can bargain. [Instead] our view was that the existence of the triangular relationship was in itself a form of pressure on each of them. And we carefully maneuvered so that we would try to be closer to each than they were to each other. . . . And one way we achieved that was by rather carefully informing each side what we were doing with the other. So that created its own pressures, but we added no threat. We treated our relationship with each as if it were the most natural event in the world and kept the other side informed, which also had the practical effect, actually, that it improved their confidence in us, at least to the extent that they could be reasonably sure that we were not planning any secret machinations.”³⁸

Of course, keeping each side exquisitely well informed about what the United States was doing with the other side was consistent with simple courtesy and an independent spirit of transparency. Yet the underlying message was both obvious and unnecessary to state explicitly, let alone couch in threatening terms, as Kissinger explained to those who might miss the point: “the mere existence of these American options gave us a bargaining weapon. So I was always concerned that, if we announced that China was a weapon against Russia, then it became a mortal conflict, and all the more so as we were also pursuing a policy of détente with the Soviet Union, and we wanted to give them a genuine option of improving their relations with us.”³⁹

When analyzing triangular diplomacy at the tactical level—how to play A against B and vice versa, which is certainly useful—it is easy to miss the broader strategic and structural motivations and consequences. While protecting American foreign policy interests, Kissinger always sought to reduce the probability of a devastating nuclear conflict. A new triangular relationship, properly configured, promised greater underlying global stability, along with other advantages: “We really wanted a world less likely to go to war,” Kissinger explained. “And we also always had in mind that we wanted to settle the Vietnam War at the same time. And we didn’t want little victories. What we wanted was a structural improvement.”⁴⁰

As we saw during our analyses of the disengagement agreements following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and of the Paris peace talks, Henry Kissinger actively drew on the increasing stakes that China and the Soviet Union had in improving relations with the United States. As diplomatic and military supporters of North Vietnam, both China and the Soviet Union had to weigh, and chose to moderate, that support against the increasing value of relationships with the United States. Similarly, as Kissinger negotiated for a cease-fire during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War (and in disengagement accords among Egypt, Israel, and Syria), the Soviet Union was somewhat constrained in its response by the détente initiative and the benefits it promised. Not only was the “structural improvement” in the triangular U.S.-Soviet-Chinese relationship that Kissinger and Nixon negotiated valuable in and of itself, but it also proved to be an asset for addressing other key foreign policy interests.

From Three Parties to Many

Beyond the triangular negotiations just analyzed, Kissinger consistently sought to understand and act on the entire system of multiple parties and interests. As his biographer Walter Isaacson somewhat sardonically observed, “That type of thinking came naturally to someone who was both a brilliant conceptualizer and slightly conspiratorial in outlook, who could feel the connections the way a spider senses twitches in its web.”⁴¹ Kissinger offered a tactical example of adapting to this complexity: “Before formal positions could be advanced, it was necessary to reconnoiter the ground with all the parties and, even then, one had to be careful never to discuss the position of one side before committing the others—at least to some extent—lest concessions be pocketed and generate a new round of demands.”⁴²

Winning and Blocking Coalitions

While multiparty moves and countermoves can be complex, two fundamental negotiating tasks typically guide action. First, with a target agreement in mind, an advocate must build enough support among enough of the right parties to enable its adoption and implementation; we call this forging a “winning coalition.” Frequently, however, opponents of a target agreement seek to prevent it from being adopted or implemented; we refer to a group of opponents able to accomplish this negative task as a “blocking coalition.” For the advocate of agreement seeking to build a winning coalition, it is also necessary to thwart potential blockers.

Sequencing and Negotiation Campaigns

Building supportive coalitions and preventing or breaking adverse ones often depend on choosing the most promising sequence of approach: whom to approach first, next, and so on for the best chance of success. This can mean negotiating a series of subsidiary agreements that advantageously set the stage for achieving one’s ultimate target deal. We have sometimes referred to such a series of negotiations as a “negotiation campaign,” which is aimed at forging a “winning coalition” that enables the target deal to be reached.⁴³ We analyzed such campaigns in the Rhodesian and Vietnamese negotiations, where Kissinger aimed to achieve an ultimate “target deal” and then mapped backward from that target to identify and put in place the subsidiary agreements that, when negotiated, made the final desired result more likely.

Success, in these cases, depends on a thorough assessment of which parties tend to defer to which others and on the patterns of influence and antagonism among them.⁴⁴ Going through this process clarifies where to place one’s negotiation emphasis first, next, and so on. In a simple everyday example, suppose Bob, from whom it would be tough to get agreement if he were approached directly, defers to Alice, who in turn pays strong attention to Kim, who is receptive to a good set of arguments for the deal you seek. The right sequence would be to persuade Kim to say yes, which would help with Alice, and in turn make an appeal to Bob far more likely to succeed.

Without reviewing the specifics, recall Figure 1.4, regarding Kissinger’s planned strategy to persuade Rhodesia’s Ian Smith to accept majority rule within two years. Collapsing a more complex sequence to its essence, the South Africans were key to the Rhodesians, while the British, Americans, and “Frontline” African states were keys to South African acquiescence. Figure 1.4 somewhat mechanically lays out this sequential strategy, which Kissinger later modified (Figure 7.1) as the situation evolved.

Similarly, as we described in chapter 6, Kissinger orchestrated a lengthy negotiation campaign to persuade North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho to agree to at least a minimally acceptable deal. Figure 7.2 reminds us of those sequential dynamics.

These two examples illustrate an important form of multiparty dexterity. Yet, beyond orchestrating sequential negotiation campaigns to build support for target agreements, a complementary set of skills is needed.

Figure 7.1: Kissinger’s Initial Strategy to Achieve Majority Rule in Rhodesia

Figure 7.2: Kissinger’s Negotiation Campaign for Agreement with North Vietnam

Note: Two-headed arrows imply direct negotiations; single-headed arrows imply pressure (political, PR, diplomatic, military)

Blocking and Opposing Coalitions

An advocate for a target deal must effectively contend with potential opponents, sometimes referred to as “spoilers,” who could block an agreement or its implementation. Several negotiating approaches exist for dealing with a possible blocking coalition: converting its members to your side by persuasive arguments; bringing them on board by meeting some of their key interests or making side payments; isolating and shaming them; sidestepping them; dividing and conquering them; or overwhelming them.

Negotiations that ignore or do not deal with potent blockers, however, often ends in failure. With respect to “left-out” spoilers, consider the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. Unlike the Congress of Vienna of roughly a century before, the defeated powers did not participate in the negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference. Kissinger observed: “Thus it happened that the peace concluding the war to end all wars did not include the two strongest nations of Europe—Germany and Russia—which, between them, contained well over half of Europe’s population and by far the largest military potential. That fact alone would have doomed the Versailles settlement.”⁴⁵

As with this and earlier examples, Kissinger frequently looks to history for insight into coalitional dynamics that could lead to decisive opposing coalitions. He warned against the dominant power throwing its weight around in a manner that would stimulate smaller states to coalesce in opposition. He observed that “Bordering more neighbors than any other European state, Germany . . . was stronger than any single neighbor but weaker than a coalition of all of them. . . . Ironically, Germany’s attempt to break up these incipient coalitions by threats or blackmail before the First World War became a self-fulfilling prophecy that rendered the emergence of hostile coalitions almost inevitable.”⁴⁶

Kissinger drew a similar lesson from the Soviets’ military buildup. “The generation governing the Soviet Union in the 1970s accumulated military and geopolitical power less as an expression of long-range geopolitical aims than as a substitute for them. Inevitably the pursuit of strength for its own sake frightened most of the noncommunist world and brought about a tacit coalition of all industrial nations plus China against the Soviet Union, which made its ultimate collapse inevitable.”⁴⁷ More recently, China’s aggressive actions in the South and East China Seas have worried neighboring countries, tending to drive them closer together. Russian invasions of Georgia and Ukraine (Crimea and Eastern Ukraine) in 2008 and 2014 produced a similar effect on European countries, who began to increase their defense spending in response.

Carefully assessing all the relevant parties made Kissinger keenly aware of how potential opposition could be aroused. In a Middle East context, he cautioned against “exploratory” discussions of sensitive possible negotiating moves in an environment where those discussions would leak: “Concessions difficult enough to sell to passionate publics on behalf of an actual deal became nearly unmanageable when part of a hypothetical agreement more than a year away.”⁴⁸ Also, when he deemed it necessary to deal with all parties simultaneously, Kissinger was cautious about concluding any individual agreements, because “all the parties with nothing to gain would have an incentive to gang up on the leader most likely to proceed on his own.”⁴⁹

When evaluating the likely success of step-by-step versus comprehensive negotiations, Kissinger showed an acute awareness of the manner in which the dynamics might lead either to agreement or impasse depending on which parties were involved by what process. With respect to the most promising approach after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, he reflected that “we had to make a basic strategic decision: Shall we go now for an overall settlement or continue the step-by-step? An overall effort has its advantages. Most importantly one can put everything on the table; one can argue the framework of final settlement with full knowledge of the objectives of all sides involved. But the disadvantages are that it would bring all the Arabs together, and when this happens the radical Arabs would have the upper hand. Then the Soviets would always be able to outbid whatever else was on the table and the radical Arabs would, of course, have to opt for what the Soviets had to offer. Of course, the Soviets would not make an offer in the interests of achieving peace but rather in the interest of assuring that there was no progress.”⁵⁰ In short, under this set of circumstances, Kissinger saw a comprehensive process as enabling potential blockers.

Having forecast an impasse from the likely dynamics of a comprehensive approach, Kissinger contrasted it, for the 1973 case, with the very different process he structured to avoid these pitfalls. Notice that a significant aspect of his preferred process involved the parties that should not be involved: “First, we sought to break up the Arab united front. Also we wanted to ensure that the Europeans and Japanese did not get involved in the diplomacy; and, of course, we wanted to keep the Soviets out of the diplomatic arena. Finally, we sought a situation which would enable Israel to deal separately with each of its neighbors. We told the Israelis they could go to the Europeans if they wanted proclamations, but if they wanted progress toward peace they would have to come to us. Thus, the step-by-step process began. The step-by-step led to two disengagement agreements [Egyptian-Israeli and Syrian-Israeli].”⁵¹

In short, while Kissinger the dexterous multiparty negotiator was keenly focused on recruiting potential allies, he was equally aware of potential opponents, and of the process choices that might awaken or strengthen them.

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Kissinger the negotiator was simultaneously Kissinger the analyst and architect of the structure and dynamics of coalitions in multiparty, multilevel situations. He paid close attention to which parties would need to agree in order to forge a sustainable winning coalition to advance his objectives. Through carefully sequenced negotiation campaigns, he built up such coalitions, both explicitly and tactically, in the Rhodesian and Vietnam cases. In this process, he was mindful of different ways that blocking and opposing coalitions might be activated to frustrate his objectives. With respect to China and the Soviet Union, he transformed the formerly bilateral U.S. focus into a triangular one, with America holding the advantageous pivot point. In the Middle East, given awareness of the risks of many parties in a comprehensive process, he opted for a sequential step-by-step approach with a small subset of the much larger group of parties that might have been involved. Overall, Kissinger was exquisitely aware of the complex dynamics of multiparty negotiations, at the not only tactical but also the strategic and structural levels.

Together with the characteristics we discuss in earlier chapters (being strategic, realistic, and game-changing), multiparty dexterity enabled Kissinger to “zoom out” as he sought to analyze and advantageously shape the larger context for individual bargaining encounters. Now the challenge becomes how, at the same time that one zooms out to the strategic level, to effectively “zoom in” to the people with whom one directly negotiates.