International Relations

Diplomacy
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diplomatic matter. These usually drift into the public consciousness when they
involve critical international issues and draw in high-ranking officials. Because
they do get headlines and work their way into the history books, examples
drawn from this type of diplomacy are used in this chapter to offer a more
palatable access point.
To enable the reader to get a sense of what diplomacy is and why it is
important, this chapter will use two interrelated case studies. The first case
study involves the quest to manage the spread of nuclear weapons. The
second half of the twentieth century came to be dominated by conflict
between two nuclear-armed superpowers, the United States of America (US)
and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) – often called the Soviet
Union. In this tense climate, diplomacy ensured that few other nation-states
developed nuclear weapons. Hence, the diplomatic success in curbing the
proliferation of nuclear weapons is a major one, and one that involved nonstate
as well as nation-state actors. US-Iran relations form the second case
study. This case spans several important decades from the end of the Second
World War, to the present day. As times changed, the structure of
international relations also changed, often causing material shifts in the
patterns of diplomacy between both nations. By visiting that relationship, it is
possible to not just show the importance of high-level diplomacy between two
pivotal states but also to consider the importance of an international
governmental organisation – the European Union. The case studies were
chosen as they offer a glimpse of diplomacy between states that were sworn
enemies and had had little in common due to incompatible economic,
political, or even religious, systems. Yet, through diplomacy, they were able to
avoid war and find ways to achieve progress in the most critical of areas.
Regulating nuclear weapons
After the first use of an atomic bomb by the US on Japan in August 1945, the
world was transformed. Reports and pictures of the total devastation caused
by the two bombs that the US dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima confirmed
that the nature of warfare had changed forever. As one reporter described the
scene:
There is no way of comparing the Atom Bomb damage with
anything we’ve ever seen before. Whereas bombs leave
gutted buildings and framework standing, the Atom bomb
leaves nothing.
(Hoffman 1945)