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Papers by George Alexander

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This paper discusses how diplomacy has evolved from ancient times to our modern world today. It s... more This paper discusses how diplomacy has evolved from ancient times to our modern world today. It suggests that diplomacy has existed since ancient times and since human beings have interacted together. Further, is expounds on how diplomacy has developed and changed with the development of the nation-state and respect for its sovereignty and beyond to today's modern form of diplomacy regarding international relations. Diplomacy as a function of human interaction has existed since the beginning of the humankind. Indeed, diplomacy has existed for millennia and since the time that two people or two polities first conducted negotiations. Diplomacy as we think of it today is the concept of the interaction of diplomats acting as interlocutors between international polities. But it can be a negotiation handled "diplomatically" between two people. But we usually think of diplomacy in the much broader sense. The Greeks as early as 432 BCE conducted the Congress of Sparta that was a diplomatic summit between the city-states of ancient Greece. Further, Thucydides (460-411 B.C.E.) in his History of the Peloponnesian War describes the realist theory of international relations and therefore the discipline of diplomacy. He describes two people engaged in repartee who argue two sides of an opposing issue. In China, as early as 350 BCE Sun Tzu in his Art of War describes what we might call international relations between the kingdom of Wu and Chin. Throughout human history diplomacy has been a key element in the preservation of peace and in the creation of positive relations between nations. Diplomacy has prevented wars and has been a key element of the preservation of peace. If it were not for diplomacy international organizations of today such as NATO and the United Nations would not exist. No doubt the world would most likely be in a constant state of war.

This paper is a comparative analysis of the elements of successful diplomacy and the elements of ... more This paper is a comparative analysis of the elements of successful diplomacy and the elements of diplomatic failure. It examines and uses three cases as examples, the Helsinki Accord of 1975, the Six Party Talks ending in 2009 and the Iran Nuclear Treaty of 2016. Further, is expounds on how these successes and failures were achieved with respect to the modern nation-state in today's form of diplomacy and international relations. Diplomacy as a function of human interaction has existed since the beginning of humankind. Indeed, diplomacy has existed for millennia and since the time that two people or two polities first conducted negotiations. Diplomacy as we think of it today is the concept of the interaction of diplomats acting as interlocutors between international polities for preservation of peace. If it were not for diplomacy international organizations of today such as NATO and the United Nations would not exist. No doubt the world would most likely be in a constant state of war. We tend to think of the beginning and evolution of diplomacy in a Eurocentric sense. Certainly, the Greeks and Romans made their contribution millennia ago but almost every country in Europe has made some conceptual contribution to the corpus of material and the discipline that makes up modern diplomacy. The concept of the balance of power theory that we hold today in our global geo-strategic policies was part of the political doctrine of many well-known political realists such as Machiavelli, Guiciardini and Francsesco Sforza (Machiavelli, n.d.).