Manama, November 20 / BNA / Minister of Foreign Affairs. And participated in the third plenary session, Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani, along with His Excellency the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of Jordan. Ayman Safadi, and His Excellency the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iraq. Dr.. Fouad Hussein. The session, which was held in the seventeenth Manama Dialogue, entitled “Diplomacy and Deterrence”, was organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In his speech, the Minister discussed issues of special importance to the Gulf region and the Middle East, as well as to international peace and security.
He highlighted that in international relations, “deterrence” can be defined as the endeavor to influence the behavior of an actor to deter a particular course of action with the potential for sanctions or other negative consequences, adding that while traditionally, we tend to view “deterrence” in a “way” The Cold War is somewhat old-fashioned, as a state or group of states that seeks to influence the behavior of another state by explicit or implicit threat of force or sanctions.
The Minister also stressed that we need today a more comprehensive vision, one that includes deterrence in all its forms, and we can see more clearly how it can be linked to a broad definition of modern diplomacy.
He further explained that deterrence no longer applies to the behavior of nation-states only, as the world faces challenges from a range of state and non-state actors, including terrorist organizations, militias, proxy groups, and many others. He added that what might be effective as a deterrent against a nation-state might not be relevant in the case of non-state actors.
He also stressed the need to go beyond seeing deterrence in terms of military action or sanctions, what might be called “hard power” deterrence, and that in today’s post-COVID 19 era, we need to view deterrence as a broader. A possible outcome is that it can be leveraged to influence the behavior of potential adversaries, suggesting that “hard force” deterrence can be supplemented, for example, by cyber, economic and social deterrence.
The minister emphasized the need to allow internal pressure to influence the opponent’s behavior, and to allow the opponent’s population and supporters to see the consequences of the problematic behavior, both in terms of direct negative outcomes such as sanctions, travel restrictions and the like, but also in terms of missed positive opportunities.
He added that this is due to the fact that the opponent finds himself excluded from networks of peace, prosperity, trade and cooperation until such time as he adjusts his behavior, and sees others moving forward to a more positive future, he is under pressure. Insider to change his ways.
The Minister also made clear that in today’s post-COVID 19 era, countries want resilience, while their people seek hope, safety and positivity. He added that thanks to advances in data analysis and tools such as sentiment analysis on social media, we have a near-instant ability to not only measure and track our people’s feelings toward national development policies but also how our opponents and their people and supporters are responding to “soft power” deterrence efforts, to see how these efforts work. .
The minister noted that diplomacy plays a key role in effective deterrence, as diplomacy is necessary to ensure that our approach, whether it is “hard power” or “soft power,” meets the “four aspects” of effective deterrence, which are: credibility, calibration, coordination and consistency.
He emphasized that diplomacy is a vital tool for both active and passive deterrence, noting that it is private diplomacy that coordinates among like-minded countries to develop and implement effective deterrence frameworks; Public diplomacy that communicates deterrence with clarity, consistency, and credibility to the other party; and digital diplomacy that reaches directly to the other’s supporters and individuals, and assesses their response to our efforts.
The Minister also called, in the post-COVID 19 era, to ensure creativity in the use of diplomacy and data analysis in our approach to and implementation of deterrence, towards working towards an outcome for the Middle East, a safe, secure and prosperous region for all its peoples, an interconnected region based on the two pillars of coexistence and interdependence.
AOQ