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“Should you bargain with the Devil?” If I were pressed to provide a one-sentence answer to this question, it would be: “Not always, but more often than you feel like it.” “Not always” because I reject categorical claims that you should always be willing to negotiate. “More often than you feel like it” for two different sorts of reasons. First, the negative traps and strong emotions may make you feel like fighting when clearheaded analysis would demonstrate that you should negotiate. The second relates to morality. You may feel that choosing to negotiate would violate a moral principle you hold dear, or be inconsistent with your sense of self. In the very hardest cases, you may feel deeply torn between the “principled” choice and the “pragmatic” one. When one is forced to choose between the two, I lean heavily in favor of pragmatism, but I want to acknowledge how painful that choice can be. Why is it painful? Because you may feel that justice requires more than just a pragmatic resolution—it requires condemnation. In your eyes, the enemy has committed an act for which they should be punished, not rewarded. Your honor and integrity demand that you resist. This impulse can be just as powerful in business and family disputes as in international conflicts—perhaps even more so. I have empathy for this desire to punish those who have wronged us. I share it. When we are caught between the demands of principle and pragmatism, what we really need to ask ourselves is, To what extent should we look backward and to what extent should we focus on the future? There's often an inescapable tension between achieving justice for past wrongs and the need for resolution. It is another aspect of the Faustian bargain. If you want to resolve the conflict and move forward, you may have to give the devil something you feel he doesn't deserve. This is a bitter pill to swallow. Now that our journey is nearly over, I owe you some general advice. We've explored together eight high-stakes conflicts where real people had to decide what to do. We've seen the traps at work. We've applied my framework. Eight stories can't capture the full range of situations in which the Devil may make an appearance; nor can they illustrate all the factors that may be relevant in applying my framework. But drawing on my framework and these stories, I can suggest four general guidelines.1. Systematically compare the expected costs and benefits.
When we feel like fighting, we may jump to the conclusion that negotiating a satisfactory resolution is simply out of the question. The best antidote to that kind of knee-jerk impulse and the negative traps is to go through Spock's five questions carefully. Who are the parties and what are their interests? What are each side's alternatives to negotiation? What are the costs of negotiation for each side? Are there any potential negotiated agreements that might better serve the interests of both sides than their best alternatives away from the table? If such a deal is reached, what is the likelihood that it will be implemented? (In other words, can you trust the other side to live up to it? If not, can it be enforced anyway?) I am the first to acknowledge that asking these questions will not necessarily lead to a single right answer. This isn't a mechanical exercise, like balancing your checkbook. This is tedious, it's hard, and it requires you to make predictions about future behavior in a context of uncertainty. It isn't value-free. Judgments about values and priorities—what's “good” and “bad,” what counts as a benefit and what counts as a cost—will of course beincluded in your analysis. For example, when evaluating costs, one might ask, “Will a deal here encourage more evil in the future?” Reasonable people assessing the same alternatives may reach different conclusions. There are also deeper critiques of cost-benefit analysis, two of which I'll address briefly. They suggest that Spock's sort of analysis is not infallible and should not be your exclusive guide to decision-making. The first is that it favors analytic over intuitive reasoning. As I said earlier, I believe that rationality encompasses both analysis and intuition. (Think of an experienced doctor making a medical diagnosis.) But with cost-benefit reasoning, the analytic side of the brain is in charge. Spock doesn't understand intuition, so he may discount or ignore valuable information. I am not suggesting you ignore your emotions or your intuitions. Instead I'm advising you to probe them. They may be traps, or they may be valuable insights. Ask yourself, What may have triggered this reaction? Is there evidence to support it? Evidence that would point in the opposite direction? A second criticism of cost-benefit analysis is that it values pragmatic concerns over moral categorical principles. This goes to one of the most profound issues in philosophy: Is it proper to judge the morality of an act only on an assessment of its consequences? Cost-benefit analysis is consequentialist at its core—one makes choices among alternative courses of action solely by evaluating and comparing the consequences of those actions. Some philosophers would argue that this is an incomplete and inadequate form of moral reasoning, and many ordinary people would intuitively agree. There are well-known philosophical puzzles that expose its limitations. Consequentialism doesn't explicitly leave room for philosophical and religious traditions that emphasize categorical principles for human conduct. So why do I still insist, at least as a first step, that you assess costs and benefits? To prevent you from relying solely on intuition or unarticulated moral claims, and to be suspicious of those who do. Conduct the analysis first. If you are still conflicted, you must make the difficult decision whether your moral principle is so absolute that you cannot negotiate, even under these extenuating circumstances.2. Get advice from others in evaluating the alternatives: don't do the analysis alone.
Like Churchill, you should be willing to expose your reasoning to rigorous questioning by people you respect. When they ask how you reached your decision about whether to negotiate, “I just know it in my gut, I can't explain it” is not an adequate response. We saw how Churchill initially floundered under fire from Halifax and Chamberlain. It's hard to reduce a powerful instinct to rational explanation. Churchill huffed and blustered, tossing out one half-baked rationale after another. But finally he managed to build a sound argument: Hitler had shown that he was an unreliable negotiating partner, there were substantial risks that negotiations would fail, and a failed negotiation would have a devastating effect on Churchill's ability to rally the British people for war. This logic persuaded everyone but Halifax. In our own lives, particularly in conflicts that involve demonization, there are times when we all need a War Cabinet. Talk with at least one person who's less emotionally involved. It may be a lawyer. It may be a trusted friend. It may be a group of advisors whose perspectives are different from yours. It may be a mediator who can help all the disputants understand the trade-offs. The point is, let other people help you weed out the traps. In assessing the costs and benefits of the alternatives, members of your team may disagree. They may be making different trade-offs and predictions, or different value judgments about what counts as a benefit and what counts as a cost. Exposing these differences is helpful, for it will better ensure a considered decision.3. Have a presumption in favor of negotiation, but make it rebuttable.
Suppose your advisors disagree. Suppose that after thinking it through carefully, your mind is in equipoise—you think the costs and benefits of negotiating are roughly equal to those of not negotiating. In case of such a “tie,” I would apply a presumption in favor of negotiation.Now the obvious question is: Why tip the scales in favor of bargaining with the Devil? Why not be neutral, or even have a presumption against negotiation? After all, this is the Devil we're talking about! The reason for the presumption is to provide an additional safe-guard against the negative traps: Tribalism, Demonization, Dehu-manization, Moralism, Zero-Sum Thinking, the Impulse to Fight or Flee, and the Call to Battle. As we've seen, these traps can distort clear thinking. And their effect can be subtle. You may think you're en-gaging in pure Spockian analysis, but you may be fooling yourself. The traps may already have sprung. You may be starting with your conclusion—having already intuitively decided what to do—and selectively looking for evidence to justify it. My presumption can mitigate this risk. Apart from breaking ties, my presumption operates in a second way. It puts the burden of persuasion on those who don't want to negotiate. Think of your pugnacious brother-in-law Fred Kramer from the early chapters, who wants to sue Bikuta. My presumption would require him to stop spouting clichés and explain why a lawsuit makes practical sense. It also puts the burden of persuasion on that part of yourself that wants to fight; it will force you to justify that impulse. Note that my presumption is not a flat rule. It is simply a guideline—and it is rebuttable. If you think the situation through and decide you are better off refusing to negotiate, the presumption is overcome. We've seen several examples in this book.4. When deciding on behalf of others, don't allow your own moral intuitions to override a pragmatic assessment.
When it comes to making decisions that involve a perceived “devil,” there is a difference between individuals acting solely on their own behalf and those acting in a representative capacity—deciding on behalf of others. For an individual, a decision to override a pragmatic assessment based on moral intuitions may be virtuous, courageous, and even wise—as long as that individual alone bears the risks of carrying on the fight. This is not true for a business executive deciding on behalf of a corporation, a union representative acting on behalf of a union, or a political leader acting onbehalf of his nation. Perhaps not even for a parent acting on behalf of a child. A person acting in a representative capacity not only must carefully and rationally assess the expected consequences of alternative courses of action, but also should be guided by that assessment. If cost-benefit assessment favors negotiation, I think it is improper for the representative to decide nonetheless to go to battle based on his personal moral intuitions. This last guideline brings to mind the challenges facing our national leaders in deciding whether to negotiate with terrorists or leaders of evil regimes. In the Introduction, I said that my personal journey began shortly after 9/11, when President Bush had to decide whether to accept Mullah Omar's invitation to negotiate with the Taliban, which then controlled Afghanistan. I explained why, after applying my framework, I agreed with Bush's decision not to negotiate with the Taliban. But I must confess that I became increasingly troubled during the remainder of his two terms with his general approach to the questions at the heart of this book. Indeed, there is evidence that the president violated all four of my guidelines. Let me explain. 1. According to Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, President Bush disliked and avoided systematic cost-benefit analysis of different policy options, preferring to make decisions based on his instincts. “President Bush has always been an instinctive leader more than an intellectual leader. He is not one to delve deeply into all the possible policy options—including sitting around engaging in extended debate about them—before making a choice. Rather, he chooses based on his gut and his most deeply held convictions. Such was the case with Iraq.”11 In other words, Bush was not a Spockian. 2. President Bush, of course, had any number of foreign policy advisors. But there is evidence that his “War Cabinet” acquiesced without pushing him very hard to think through costs and benefits, opportunities and risks. According to McClellan, “[O]verall, Bush's foreign policy advisors played right into his thinking, doing little to question it or to cause him to pause long enough to fully consider the consequences before moving forward. And once Bush set a course of action, it was rarely questioned. … That wascertainly the case with Iraq. Bush was ready to bring about regime change, and that in all likelihood meant war. The question was not whether, but merely when and how.” 3. President Bush's administration did not apply a presumption in favor of negotiation. Indeed, its rhetoric suggests quite the opposite. As Vice President Dick Cheney declared shortly after September 11, “I have been charged by the president with making sure that none of the tyrannies of the world are negotiated with. We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it.” This implies a strong presumption—if not an absolute rule—against negotiation with “evil” regimes. 4. In refusing to negotiate with certain regimes, President Bush may have allowed his moral intuitions to override more pragmatic choices that would have better served the interests of the American people. His rhetoric was highly moralistic,14 often strident, and made frequent references to concepts of good and evil. Of course, rhetoric and decision-making are not the same thing. The president's decisions may well have been made on the basis of a pragmatic comparison of the costs and benefits of different alterna-tives, and then only justified publicly on the basis of morality. With-out looking behind the veil, it is of course impossible to know. But a number of the administration's decisions and policies are consistent with the rhetoric. Bush did not negotiate with Saddam Hussein but instead invaded Iraq. His administration consistently refused to negotiate directly with Iran. And the administration refused to negotiate bilaterally with North Korea concerning its nuclear program. I am not going to explore here the wisdom of these particular decisions. Instead, my point is that President Bush may have relied on his own moral intuitions rather than a careful, pragmatic assessment of the alternatives. President Barack Obama's strategy and rhetoric are much more consistent with my approach. He avoids public statements that demonize regimes or their leaders. The following example, regarding relations with Iran, is worth quoting at length because of its sophistication and good sense:As odious as I consider some of [Iranian] President Ahmadinejad's statements, as deep as the differences that exist between the United States and Iran on a range of core issues … the use of tough, hard- headed diplomacy, diplomacy with no illusions about Iran and the nature of the differences between our two countries, is critical when it comes to pursuing a core set of our national security interests, specifically, making sure that we are not seeing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East triggered by Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, making sure that Iran is not exporting terrorist activity. In other words, President Obama is not only willing to negotiate with evil, his rhetoric implies a presumption in favor of it. He is focusing on American interests—avoiding nuclear proliferation and not exporting terrorism. That I like his approach does not mean that in the years to come President Obama's decisions will necessarily be wise. As of this writing in 2009, President Obama is still in the first year of his presidency. It is too soon to tell how his approach will translate into practice. President Obama faces many of the same foreign policy dilemmas that President Bush did. Should we negotiate with the Taliban, Hamas, or Hezbollah? Even though none of these groups currently controls a national government, they each have the capacity to harm the United States. It is easy to imagine possible deals that might serve U.S. interests but would expose a tension between pragmatism and principle. Should we negotiate with Iran and North Korea, and if so, how? I am eager to see how President Obama manages the tensions we've explored in this book. As he and future presidents grapple with these questions, we as citizens will have to decide for ourselves whether their decisions are wise. My goal in writing this book was not to offer easy answers. I end my journey with a deep sense of humility. Deciding whether to negotiate with the Devil poses profound questions and this book is hardly the last word. But my approach should allow you to think more clearly about how to navigate this terrain with integrity—and wisdom.
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