Manipulating Diplomatic Atmospheres: The United Nations Security Council and Syria

Abstract

This article connects growing interest in affective atmospheres in human geography with critical geographies of diplomacy. Diplomats inhabit, discuss, and operate in and through atmospheres. Specifically, and uniquely, this article explores atmospheric manipulation by them and its connection to geopolitical claim making. In this way, it adds to the work in human geography on atmospheres by revealing its politics; that is, how atmospheres through spatiotemporal and relational processes are manipulated to do the work of geopolitics. Importantly, it also exposes how atmospheres are not incidental, accidental, or unimportant to geographies of diplomacy. Manifestly, atmospheres are political and have consequences. This article is grounded empirically in accounts of atmosphere in the United Nations Security Council by its high-level current diplomatic members. The focus is on the intensity of their “lived” experience and their registering and appraisal of the emerging, transitioning, and transformative atmospheres in the Council. Crucially, their accounts link the complexities of atmospheric perturbations, diplomatic “moments,” and subjectivity with manipulation. Collectively, they expose the cognitively penetrable although differentially affected nature of atmospheric manipulation and how the staging of an atmosphere is taken up and reworked by diplomatic bodies. The specific context for the study of atmospheric manipulation is a Council meeting on the worsening political and humanitarian crisis in Syria and the formulation of a military response by three of its permanent members (the United States, France, and the United Kingdom) in April 2018.

人文地理的情感氛围日益受到关注，本文将其与重大外交地理联系在一起。外交官们会在各种氛围中进行讨论和行动。本文以前所未有的方式特别探讨了他们对这种氛围的操控，及其与地缘政治主张之间的关系。文章通过揭示氛围中的政治因素，进而为人文地理学在氛围方面增添了新的内容，即如何通过时空和关系过程操控氛围，完成地缘政治工作。重要的是，本文还揭示了氛围对于外交地理学而言，绝非只具有偶然或意外的关系，也绝非是无足轻重的因素。很显然，氛围具有政治性，而且会产生后果。本文以经验为撰写基础，阐述了联合国安理中现任高级别外交成员所带来的氛围。侧重于他们以往的经验，以及他们如何评价安理会新出现的氛围、过渡阶段的氛围以及具有转型力量的氛围。最重要的是，他们的阐述将复杂的氛围波动、重要外交“时刻”以及主观性，与操控联系在一起。总体上揭示了氛围操控对认知的渗透，只是影响的方式各有不同。同时还揭示了外交机构如何进行氛围构建，以及如何对其推倒重来。对氛围操控的具体背景来自于 2018 年 4 月召开的一次安理会会议，讨论有关叙利亚不断恶化的政治和人道主义危机的议题，以及安理会的三个常任理事国（美国、法国和英国）提出对其采取军事行动的过程。

En este artículo se conecta el creciente interés por las atmósferas afectivas en geografía humana con las geografías críticas de la diplomacia. Los diplomáticos viven, discuten y operan al interior de atmósferas y a través de las mismas. Específicamente, y de manera única, este artículo explora la manipulación atmosférica que ellos practican y su conexión con la formulación de posicionamientos geopolíticos. De este modo, el artículo contribuye al trabajo que se hace sobre atmósferas en geografía humana revelando así su política; esto es, cómo se manipulan las atmósferas a través de procesos espaciotemporales y relacionales para realizar el trabajo de la geopolítica. Muy importante de notar es que el artículo también muestra cómo las atmósferas no son incidentales, accidentales ni carentes de importancia para las geografías de la diplomacia. De modo manifiesto, las atmósferas son políticas y producen consecuencias. Empíricamente, este artículo se fundamenta en los registros de atmósferas en el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas por sus actuales miembros diplomáticos de nivel alto. El foco está centrado en la intensidad de sus experiencias “vividas” y su registro y valoración de las atmósferas emergentes, transicionales y transformativas en el Consejo. De manera crucial, sus relatos ligan las complejidades de las perturbaciones atmosféricas, los “momentos” diplomáticos y la subjetividad con la manipulación. Colectivamente, ellos exponen la naturaleza de la manipulación atmosférica penetrable cognitivamente, aunque diferencialmente afectada, y la manera como el montaje de una atmósfera es asumido y rediseñado por los cuerpos diplomáticos. El contexto específico para el estudio de una manipulación atmosférica es una reunión del Consejo sobre el agravamiento de la crisis política y humanitaria en Siria, y la formulación de una respuesta militar, en abril de 2018, por tres de sus miembros permanentes (Estados Unidos, Francia y Reino Unido).

Key Words:

• atmosphere
• diplomacy
• manipulation
• Syria
• UN Security Council

关键词:

• 气氛
• 外交
• 操控
• 叙利亚
• 联合国安理会。

Palabras clave:

• atmósfera
• Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU
• diplomacia
• manipulación
• Siria

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the Editor, Nik Heynen, and referees for their positive comments and helpful guidance on this paper.

Notes

1 The drapes had been closed since 1964 when a bazooka was fired across New York’s East River toward the UN building when Che Guevara, Cuba’s industry minister, was delivering an anti-U.S. tirade. The drawing of the Security Council drapes was intended to protect diplomats from flying shards of glass in the event of another attack. The recent decision to open them was made possible in part by a refurbishment of the chamber, in which shatter-resistant glass was installed.

2 The Security Council chamber is the public setting for meetings, whereas informal, nonminuted meetings are held in the consultations room, a small anteroom next to the Security Council chamber. The consultations are closed to non-council member states.

3 Douma is located 10 km northeast of the center of Damascus. It is the center of the Rif Dimashq governorate and the administrative center of Douma District and a major city of the Ghouta region.

4 Permanent representatives are ambassadorial appointments. For some larger missions to the UN, deputies are also accorded this rank.

5 The P5 are permanent members of the Security Council: the United States, Russian Federation, China, France, and the United Kingdom. The E10 are elected members, normally for two-year periods.

6 Emergency Meeting of the Security Council, “Threat to International Peace and Security” S/PV 8225 on 9 April 2018.

7 Security Council 8225th Meeting (p.m.). A press release of the meeting is available at https://www.un.org/press/en/2018/sc13284.doc.htm.

8 At this time, Sweden, The Netherlands and Poland.

9 A state that is a member of the United Nations but not of the Security Council may participate, without a vote, in its discussions when the council considers that that country’s interests are affected.

10 On 4 March 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the U.K.'s intelligence services, and his daughter Yulia Skripal were poisoned in Salisbury, England, with a Novichok nerve agent known as A-234, according to official UK sources and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

11 The United Nations Charter requires a mandate from the United Nations Security Council for sovereign states to use force for the purpose of maintaining international security but not for acting in self-defense or the protection of populations threatened by extermination at the hands of their own government.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by UCD College of Social Sciences and Law (Research Grant number 12751).

Notes on contributors

Alun Jones

ALUN JONES is Full Professor in the School of Geography at University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the practices of state representation through critical geographies of diplomacy in the United Kingdom, European Union, and United Nations.