Diplomacy and the scourge of war

More than 25 years ago, when I had just joined the Philippine foreign service, my then 10-year-old nephew JM asked me what diplomats do for a living. Knowing that I had to give him an answer that was short and simple enough for him to understand and appreciate at his age, I said that diplomats spend their days doing their part to make sure that countries will not go to war against one another, but will instead help one another achieve a better life for their citizens and for all the people of the world at large.

My answer, of course, only partly described the wide-ranging work that diplomats do. But it did depict one of the essential tasks of diplomats—a task that now preoccupies many of us as the scourge of war is once again beating the flesh and spirit of many countries around the world. Behind the scenes, in areas where war is either currently raging or is about to ignite, diplomats are hard at work trying to help resolve conflicts. The effort entails helping their national leaders and decision-makers rise above their countries’ differences and work together instead for the attainment of their mutual interests. For the diplomats of countries like the Philippines, a sizable number of whose citizens work in many parts of the world (including in countries which are now in the grip of serious conflict), the responsibility also includes ensuring that their citizens will be out of harm’s way if the situation deteriorates.

There are those who say that wars will always be a part of humankind’s continuing story. A school of thought in international relations theory called realism asserts that wars are hardly avoidable because human beings are driven by a desire for power and domination, and therefore states—which are made up of human beings—will always struggle with one another for power and domination (classical realism).

Another wing of realism called structural realism or neorealism posits that because the international system is “anarchic” (there is no global government above states that can enforce security for the international community), each state will be constantly worried about its own security and will do whatever it thinks will be necessary to protect itself. Its efforts in this regard will, in turn, threaten other states which will then do whatever they think will be necessary to protect their own security. This so-called “security dilemma” creates an environment where a miscalculation on the part of one state could trigger a war that would involve several other states.

Another school of thought called conflict theory argues that countries’ competition for markets and resources, the economic inequality between countries, and some countries’ desire to expand their territories make war a recurrent and inescapable feature of human life.

Yet, for all the seeming inevitability of war, what ordinary citizens really want at the end of the day is peace. And it is the path of diplomacy that can lead us to peace.

My nephew JM is now a grown man who is a practicing physician and a father of two. But if he were to ask me again today the same question that he asked me more than 25 years ago, I would give him essentially the same answer that I gave him then. And this time, given the wars and conflicts that are unfolding in different parts of the world today, I know that he would be in a better position to understand and appreciate what that answer truly means.

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Ambassador Emmanuel R. Fernandez, Ph.D., is the current Philippine ambassador to Pakistan.