Review Two: Beyond Machiavelli

Review Two: Beyond Machiavelli: Tools for Coping With Conflict
Fisher, Kopelman and Schneider
Penguin (1994)

This triumverate details well the necessities of defining the tools described in this book. First of all they reiterate the perpetually refashioned adage that the world is becoming a smaller and smaller place therefore we must all attempt to get along better than we have in the past. However true this may be it has nearly always been said, at least as far as conflicts are concerned. H.G. Wells detailed the eminent threat in flavour at the turn of the last century in his introduction upon the super-gun, one capable of propelling its projectiles further and faster than any gun coming before it with a dread and fin de siecle grace which always appears to accompany such of the latest prophecies of doom.

So it leaves a reader positing that mankind (reserving the right to include womankind and even itkind in this proverbial discourse reference to a singular aspect of humanity and thus if humans are someday discovered on other planets I will then so refer to mankinds) has developed increasingly complex communications, technologies, logistics systems, investment, and global trading vehicles to the greater benefit of spurring yet further innovations but at the same time has not yet provoked or even balked at a similar adaptation between warring or conflicting folk which stabilizes and can be universally applied to suit all competitors. However it might be overly simplistic to assume that since there is no way of actually evaluating how many of these tools are already in common use, it would stand to logic that many of them are as more and more cultural groups meld and interact in any network of affiliations further and further to the benefit of a globalized framework set to enshrine such tools as the phalnax of standard worldly negotiations strategies.

Perhaps the writers are not in fact claiming any great properietary interest over the formation of these tools or seek to profit from their suggested assembly yet it could be possible that through the wisdom of their experience they have simply and considerately dragged and sedged over a useful trove through their experiences or searches for what works and seek to gather them together to differentiate them from those that do not do the job. In so doing they are holding them up each to the light of a reading mind hoping that this alone may impart the spark to action which many seeming negotatiors may need to retool in keeping with categorisation of what not only currently works but perhaps what has nearly always worked to define mutually self-interested parties. In effect, mutual profit for conflictors must not only be implied but tangibly real. Ploughshares must not only be deeemed preferred there must be a demonstrable winnowing of reapable furrows.

So the first chapter is necessarily that of defining a purpose and as in a paint by numbers, oil or gouache one must purposefully plan first by setting the horizon, looking to the future, and painting in the details to reach it or achieve it over the long term. These writers seek to generate advice in the theme of The Prince. However this example might not necessarily be the best one, advice is almost always rarely asked for and even more rarely followed. One must agree however that any hopes for resolving a conflict must include:

• Forming a means of analyzing a particular conflict.
• Using an agreed upon set of useful tools for deciding why the conflict exists and what are new steps available to approach a solution.
• Persuasive evidence and material to suggest, predict, or forecast the effects of any of a number of courses of action.
• Immediate actions as defined from end purposes to begin the trek from unresolved to resolved.

As far as on paper planning goes this all looks and feels logical. However as the authors reveal later in this book the hurdle is immediate, personal, and often unassailable. Are conflicts resolved because Harvard strategists put forth a plan for resolution? Hardly and as their examples will illustrate some of the world's most pervasive, polemical, and downright perpetual conflicts illustrate resistive and irresolute natures or apparently implacable cases of global conflict which seem to evade every enlightened, or thus educated (as I will assume educated to mean in the enlightened sense) attempt to reign them in sooth them and pacify them.

It is obvious then that some players in the field of conflict, thus competitors insist that resolution is not the purpose of conflict. Such would be the case perhaps where one feels another set of tools, perhaps guns and bombs, might be more useful or another set of horizons would be preferred, perhaps that of perpetual unrest. As one may divine from several history books, there are pockets and parcels of the global world where one may argue peace has never in fact reigned. So thus is the question, "Under certain cases, and certain conditions, to what degree are global cultures capable of establishing conflict resolutions which have perhaps global origins yet are provoked from no past precedents and are thus completely alien to local concerns?" Under such cases the arguments against perceived imperialist influences might be justified. One man's solution is almost as often another man's cause for further or renewed conflict. While many agree doing nothing is not a solution, does the world not only grow smaller because fewer and fewer people appear to play pivotal roles in deciding not only the horizons and tools for conflict resolution, but also the particular conflicts to attempt to address and those others to neglect?