Preface
All the “Case Studies” below need to be viewed in a very specific context. Public Talks will only come into existence after a political decision is made to create this formal negotiating process and this will precipitate many far reaching events and media attention.
Both supporters and critics would be very vocal throughout all of the steps leading to the analysis, development and implementation of Public Talks. Proponents would naturally seek a communications platform that would be widely recognized as a level communication playing field between two adversaries, thus the process of including representatives of many nations and organizations would be taken very seriously.
Opponents of Public Talks are likely to adopt a variety of different strategies. Some will view this process through the prism of a single issue and not as it relates to general U.S. interests in seeking peaceful solutions. Others, apologists for power, will adamantly oppose a process that allows their side to be on an equal playing field with an adversary that they currently dominate. But by doing so, Public Talks may lay the fundamental groundwork for rapprochement.
Once the political decision is made to formally create this international process, events surrounding the developing and shaping the rules and terms of Public Talks would be an unprecedented news story that would touch many people around the world.
Prior to any of these potential examples taking place in the real world, there would be immense worldwide expectation for Public Talks. As a result of international media coverage, enormous numbers of citizens would have become familiar with many of the intrinsic characteristics of Public Talks before the first Dialogue Document appeared.
Envision a time in the future where the American and world public develops a growing awareness that conflicts everywhere affect us all.
These possible examples of the use of Public Talks are supplied to illustrate variations of this process and not to pre-judge or take sides of any of these issues. None suggests a comprehensive analysis of a given adversarial situation but instead, each offers an opportunity to address one or more characteristics that may be shared by many different pairs of adversaries.
Burma/Myanmar:
The turmoil that unfolded in Burma in 2008 represented an example of how Public Talks could play a role in the type of crisis where a brutal regime controls all media in a given country. (Note that the junta changed the name of the country to Myanmar making even this fundamental issue a political one.)
The last thing any totalitarian regime like this wants is world attention. Hence, they cut off access to the Internet, ban foreign journalists, and suppress media attention as much as possible.
Once Public Talks becomes a widely accepted and established process, opposition leaders under a repressive regime would have a new means to challenge that government. But they would also have something far greater: They would have the ability to speak directly to the world public in a message of their own choosing. This could commence before the crisis at hand reached the level of violence in the streets. And that ability would continue regardless of whether or not that regime ever responded in kind.
Public Talks would allow leaders of the society being oppressed to issue a dramatic call for nearby nations to stand with them. This message would go over the heads of the leaders of these nearby countries and directly to those citizens. They could ask for specific sanctions and other measures in a way that would be difficult to ignore with the world public watching.
Would Public Talks work all the time? No. Sometimes the opposition to the government will not be able to speak with one voice, while still other problems may occur. Yet this new diplomatic mechanism may greatly magnify the voice of some societies at a critical time in their history and that may be just enough to make a decisive difference.
China-Tibet
One reason for the endless stalemate in resolving this issue has been the overwhelming dominance of the Chinese in terms of resources and military power. This is not going to change.
As the Tibetans are clearly the party most dissatisfied with the status-quo, they would be the natural initiators of Public talks. Written assurances provided by the Dali Lama in this new platform would be extraordinarily dramatic. People both in China and around the world may be moved by seeing these written commitments.
The Chinese, even if they allow the initial challenge to go unanswered, would face a more intense wave of international frustration than has already occurred. It is impossible to predict if this new form of dialogue would be enough to bring the Chinese to a more flexible negotiating position.
Public Talks could both literally and figuratively provide a unique forum for Tibet to seek answers to its questions, as well as international support for the limited autonomy that the Dali Lama has been requesting.
Cuba-U.S.
President Obama has signaled his interest in having a dialogue with Cuban leaders. After fifty years of failed attempts at normalizing relations, Public Talks could provide an interim step before formal talks. Similar to Iran-U.S. example below, Public Talks is more distant than personal meetings and therefore safer politically as the U.S. can spell out the parameters for all to see.
This back and forth process between Cuba and the U.S. would elicit intense interest not only in these two countries but around the world.
Once they are laid out on the public table for side-by-side analysis, the stark contrast between the respective historical narratives would dispel misconceptions and allow for each side to take incremental steps towards compromise, ultimately leading to normalizing relations.
Darfur
Many of the characteristics in the Burma example above would apply to Darfur. Yet while Burma has a readily identifiable bad actor and a well known opposition, in Darfur, the bad actor is clear but the opposition is not unified. Thus, until some measure of unity develops, the managing entity for Public Talks may not accept this challenge as it may not be deemed to have sufficiently widespread political support.
This precise issue is not unique in that there are many areas around the world where a society has been severely damaged in ways that have encouraged a splintering of the opposition to the controlling power in that region.
Indeed, the widespread knowledge of this negotiating alternative could motivate groups within a society to come together and form a unified approach that would be accepted by the international community. Once these leaders present a unified front, calls for sanctions against their oppressors may carry considerably more influence than if these leaders acted independently.
And thus, if that Public Talks process proceeded successfully, an agreement signed by these different opposition factions could be considered both definitive and legitimate regardless of future changes in leadership.
Ethiopia-Eritrea
Some may dismiss Public Talks in areas where many of the citizens either do not read or are not involved with media in any significant way. There is, nevertheless, still a potential for Public Talks to play a major role.
Each society, no matter how undeveloped, has leaders that need to form broad strategies that will motivate other nations to assist it in its hour of need. This could take the form of sanctions against its adversary or some other high profile plan.
Envision a time in the future where the American and world public develops a growing awareness that conflicts around the world affect us all. As many around the globe become involved in these very specific histories of individual conflicts, interest in Dialogue Documents may far exceed casual predictions and make this unique media among the most widely distributed documents in history.
Georgia-Russia
When the brief war between these two nations flared up in 2008, each nation repeatedly made a great effort to establish their version of historical events. This has continued unabated to today.
The importance of a nation’s historical narrative can not be overstated as it goes to the heart of the identity of that people. The “Rules and Terms” of this site have an initial description of the parameters for Public Talks and there is a specific section that the Institute believes will become very important in establishing historical truth.
This is the section within the Dialogue Document where each side will have the opportunity to ask questions of the other side after crafting a preface explaining why that specific question was posed.
This back and forth characteristic of Public Talks may be of immense interest to the American and world public. The culmination of a Public Talks process may very well find that the truth is shared, in varying degrees, by both sides.
Some may view this as a deficiency of the process, but it may be widely viewed as precisely the opposite. Acknowledgment that both views have legitimacy may become a starting point for steps towards agreement. Yet, this same process may lay bare the falsehoods put forth by one side of a conflict, resulting in the near universal rejection of that one side’s positions.
The Dialogue Document is a new media unlike any we have seen before. All will know that each of these documents represents one side of an issue and there will be great interest in hearing the other side of that conflict.
India-Pakistan
The complex, often adversarial relationship that has existed between these two countries since winning their independence from Britain in 1947 is exacerbated by the extremists on each side who don’t seek any type of a negotiated solution.
Public Talks would be a momentous story that would be closely followed by citizens of each side of this divide. Leaders from each country knows that major compromises will be necessary for an agreement and Public talks will allow for a very detailed description of the negotiating tradeoffs.
Extremists will be against both compromises and the very process of Public Talks. Yet the larger publics on both sides who want to move beyond confrontation may be very receptive to the idea of a slow, transparent negotiating process where everything is out front.
Iran-U.S./European allies:
One may legitimately hope that this issue – focusing on the development of nuclear capabilities by Iran - will be resolved before the political debate over Public talks commences. Yet, it would be a fascinating dialogue if the U.S. and its allies engaged in Public Talks with Iran.
In May 2006, the Iranian president sent President Bush a public letter that was dismissed and never answered by the White House. In an interesting way, that very public communiqué was an attempt at a public negotiating process that was of course not part of the formal structure proposed here.
Once serious ground rules are established and accepted by the world community, Public Talks may become a routine, widely used avenue of negotiations over time for a number of reasons. Citizens everywhere, and that certainly includes Americans who have a firm belief in their First Amendment Rights of free speech, may start to develop a simple realization: Secrecy needs to be justified, and when secret talks continue to fail, include citizens in the negotiating process. If not, can continued secrecy be justified in light of the failure of those negotiations?
Israeli-Palestinians
This high-profile, seemingly intractable conflict suffers from many well known difficulties. Israel has legitimate concerns about having an authentic representative partner to negotiate with. Moreover, they are understandably adamant that whatever agreement is ultimately negotiated, its terms will be respected and fulfilled.
Palestinians would need to form a unified government, otherwise they would not be accepted as legitimately representing their society. Moreover, many Palestinians feel it’s vital that terms of a given agreement not be reinterpreted in divergent ways. They point to previous Security Council Resolutions that were interpreted by Israel in different ways than they were expecting.
Public Talks constitutes a new form of peace process that, in varying degrees, addresses each of these concerns. Clearly, this will mean nothing to rejectionists on both sides who are adamantly opposed to any agreement.
A Public Talks process between Israel and the Palestinians would need to undergo many preliminary steps before this could take place. One could reasonably argue that it would be ideal to have Public Talks take place in a few other conflicts before this highly charged conflict is addressed with this new process.
Significantly, Public Talks is more distant and impersonal than the more intimate process of sitting down and shaking hands with a negotiating partner. With secret talks, each side comes back and explains to their constituency what those tradeoffs entail. And this inevitably leads to a need to trust the other side. Whereas with Public Talks, a final agreement is in the written word for all to see and this lessens the need for the personal assurance of trust.
The more that moderates on both sides of this conflict look to the long term future, they more compelling are the arguments in favor of Public Talks.
A final Dialogue Document distributed worldwide and signed by both sides would constitute a powerful event that would lessen the possibility of reinterpretation because all of the questions and answers throughout this process would largely eliminate any misunderstandings. Moreover, this final signed agreement would form a powerful force that the terms would be respected and kept by both sides because millions upon millions of people around the world would have these final documents in their hands.
Russia-U.S. suspended nuclear pact
With the end of the Cold War, nuclear issues between the U.S. and now Russia have receded in significance. Yet few issues involve the entire world as much as the question of nuclear arms. If Public Talks were established, it could spark a fascinating dialogue on this, perhaps one of the most important issues of our age. The world could watch these two great powers negotiate policies surrounding nuclear arms, which in truth, affect the whole world.
Europe would be very supportive of Public Talks between the U.S. and Russia as they are quite literally on the front lines of this crucial issue.
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