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Abstract
The aim of this article is to challenge an ideologically overestimated view of diplomacy as a universal self-sustaining value and remedy for unpredictably chained and escalated conflicts in the world. The article shows the necessary connection between diplomacy and the fragility of human ethical decision-making, including in the areas of strategy, international politics, and military defense. This more modest approach also applies to proposals for diplomacy built on direct or indirect religious inspirations. The article calls for a nuanced critical approach to religious diplomacy and the positive transformation of the limits of human rational negotiation by the paradoxical “power of the powerless” and transcendental mystery. The final part provides three biblically-inspired Christian opportunities for this transformation: endurance of faith, voluntary self-denial (kenosis), and the complex “two level”—both protective and eschatological—pursuit of peace.
Notes
1 The original meaning of the Greek term δίπλωμα is “an object folded in two,” i.e., a document conferring its bearer a privilege to negotiate in the prince´s name or (in modern terms) on behalf of the state. Britannica. Accessed October 10, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/diplomacy.
2 The former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described his negotiations with the Russian president Vladimir Putin as “dealing with a crocodile, which has your leg in his jaws.” Kitty Donaldson. “Johnson Urges Missiles for Ukraine to Hit ´Crocodile´ Putin.” Accessed June 20, 2022. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-27/johnson-urges-more-missiles-for-ukraine-to-hit-crocodile-putin#xj4y7vzkg. The nexus between diplomacy and politics is also reflected in the recent decision of the United States to veto the Security Council resolution demanding ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza while actively supporting only pauses in fighting and the delivery of some humanitarian aid. Michelle Nichols. “US blocks UN Security Council demand for humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.” Accessed December 10, 2023. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-vote-delayed-demand-gaza-humanitarian-ceasefire-2023-12-08/.
3 In the open letter of Boris Bondarev, the Counsellor of the Russian mission to the UN Office in Geneva, we can read: “For twenty years of my diplomatic career I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on February 24 of this year. […] Today the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not about diplomacy. It is all about warmongering, lies and hatred. It serves interests of few, the very few people thus contributing to further isolation and degradation of my country. […] I studied to be diplomat for twenty years. The ministry has become my home and my family. But I simply cannot any longer share in this bloody, witless, and absolutely needless ignominy.” [2022-23-05]. Boris Bondarev. Statement. May 23rd, 2022. Accessed June 15, 2022. https://tvpworld.com/60341190/russian-diplomat-resigns-over-ukraine-invasion.
4 This passage should rather be understood as a call for the so-called parallel, silent or citizen diplomacy (Lynch Citation2015, 11). If the moral position of the adversary improves, some elements of the so-called détente (strain relaxation) political diplomacy might be also applied, but its particular forms and criteria must be reviewed continuously, sensitively and very critically (Slantchev Citation2014).
5 This very term is systematically promoted and used in the book On the Significance of Religion for Global Diplomacy (McDonagh et al. Citation2020).
6 With a considerable departure from its original context, I adopt the expression “wrestling with the boundaries” from the American political scientist Michael Barnett.
7 Nevertheless, it would still be interesting to ask to what extent this principle of “neutrality” or equality before the law usually understood only in a formal (procedural) way is itself inspired by the Judeo-Christian trust in God´s impartiality to every human person (Acts 10: 34-35, Romans 2:11, Colossians 3:25, Galatians 3:28), which has become an ethical pillar (if not a social-political revolution) of the whole Western culture.
8 Within the last 30 years, the community has organized a successful peace mediation in Mozambique (1992), peace negotiations in about twenty other countries (for example in Quatemala, Albania, Algeria, Burundi, Togo, Niger), a health diplomacy project DREAM fighting against HIV, a global campaign against death penalty, a low-barrier educational network Schools of Peace, the International Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi promoting peace through interreligious dialogue, and the ongoing research and project platform Foundation for Peace and Dialogue (2018). Since June 2023, we have seen the Community member, cardinal Matteo Zuppi, in the role of the special envoy for peace negotiations in the war against Ukraine [2022-23-05]. See Sant´Egidio Foundation for Peace and Dialogue, https://www.santegidiousa.org/sfpd/. See also Phillip Pullela, “Pope asks Italian cardinal to carry out Ukraine peace mission,” Reuters, 20 May 2023. Accessed December 20, 2023. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pope-asks-italian-cardinal-carry-out-peace-mission-ukraine-war-vatican-says-2023-05-20/#.
9 “New styles of preventative diplomacy and conflict resolution ought to be explored, tried, improved, and supported. As a nation we should promote research, education, and training in nonviolent means of resisting evil. Nonviolent strategies need greater attention in international affairs. Such obligations do not detract from a state's right and duty to defend against aggression as a last resort. They do, however, raise the threshold for the recourse to force by establishing institutions which promote nonviolent solutions of disputes and nurturing political commitment to such efforts” (US Conference of Catholic Bishops Citation2017).
10 The Responsibility to Protect principle (R2P), adopted at the UN World Summit in 2005, is based on three pillars: (1) Every state has the responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing; (2) The wider international community has the responsibility to encourage and assist individual states in meeting that responsibility; and (3) If a state is manifestly failing to protect its population, the international community must be prepared to take appropriate collective action, in a timely and decisive manner and in accordance with the UN Charter. See Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, “What is R2P?” Accessed December 20, 2023. https://www.globalr2p.org/what-is-r2p/.
11 Although using military violence in Christian perspective can never be completely just or become an end in itself, it should not prevent our conscience from recognizing that in the case of Ukraine, the vast majority of the just defence conditions set by the traditional (and now rather abandoned) concept of "just war" have been met, even if they also have to be constantly reviewed and refined. The only condition which might be controversial (the probability of Ukrainian “success“ in the face of Russia's robust natural resources, personal and ideological mobilization and dramatically intensifying military production) can and must be fulfilled by solidary support of all democratic and “politically decent“ countries, because Putin's plan to re-establish his imperial dictatorship in Europe is in stark contrast to the most essential conditions of humanity, personal dignity, and civil liberties of all, including Russians themselves. Here, the classical CST criteria of just defence (just cause, legitimate authority, right intention, last resort, proportionality) must be completed with the principle of Responsibility to Protect or, in more biblical terms, with “counting soldiers in common” (Luke 14:31). In his recent study, the German Catholic ethicist Hans-Gerhard Justenhoven expresses this position even more concretely: “It is undisputed that the victim of aggression needs help if it cannot defend by itself. […] Therefore, I argue that Ukraine has the right to defend itself against heavy weapons used by the Russian army with corresponding appropriate means. This also includes heavy weapons. If it does not have these resources, it depends on appropriate assistance” (Justenhoven Citation2023, 12–13). Nevertheless, this form of just defence “must be oriented towards the end of overcoming violence in international relations and the means used for defence must be proportional to the two aims: self-defence and overcoming violence” (Justenhoven Citation2023, 10). For the detailed account of the just defence criteria in the Catholic social teaching, see especially The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, paragraphs 500–515.
12 “True love for an oppressor means seeking ways to make him cease his oppression; it means stripping him of a power that he does not know how to use, and that diminishes his own humanity and that of others. […] Those who suffer injustice have to defend strenuously their own rights and those of their family, precisely because they must preserve the dignity they have received as a loving gift from God. […] Forgiveness does not forbid it but actually demands it” (Pope Francis Citation2020, para. 241).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Vojtěch Mašek
Vojtěch Mašek (Ph.D., Philosophy of Education, Charles University, Prague) is a secondary-school teacher in Prague and a lecturer in fundamental and applied theological ethics at the Pedagogical Faculty, University of Hradec Králové, the Czech Republic. Since 2016, he has been a member of the Expert Board of the project CREATE (Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Saint Thomas, Rome). In the years of 2014–2019, he worked as a lecturer and researcher in Catholic social teaching, social and economic ethics at the Catholic Theological Faculty, Charles University, Prague. He published one book and various articles in hermeneutic philosophy, philosophy of education, social ethics, economic and moral theology, and moral and political philosophy. He is currently working on two books focusing on the ethics of memory and history.
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