PROTON DIPLOMACY

PROTON DIPLOMACY - my current response to those calling for military intervention in Syria
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If America is a peaceful nation, then why did we develop the Neutron Bomb - a bomb that kills people, but doesn't destroy buildings - before we developed a bomb that destroys buildings but doesn't kill people?

We need to be a whole lot better at diplomatic solutions and we need to eliminate war as a go-to foreign affairs solution to international conflict.

I propose a new kind of diplomacy for the United States in the new millennium. I call it Proton Diplomacy, for two reasons.
1. It is the opposite of a neutron bomb. If we must take invasive measures in another country, do so with the least likelihood of taking life.
2. It recommends being proactive and preventative.

We need to invoke a diplomacy that has never been invoked in the history of our country before. Imagine a level of intensity and resolve that was manifested at the JFK Bay of Pigs stand-off, only with diplomatic might as our escalation threat, not military intervention.

We need a statesperson who is more willing to be a civil servant than to either accumulate wealth and power or to kowtow to the wealthy warring interests in this nation.

We need to reinvent diplomacy. Those five words are incredibly complex.

There are several things that we need to realign and areas where we need to rethink. Consider just a few.

1. We need to use preventive diplomacy. We need to be allies with as many countries as possible in mutually beneficial relationships.
2. We need to mean what we say diplomatically and stand by it.
3. We need to recognize that traditional diplomacy is not adequate. No nation in the world is upset or chastened when we pull the credentials from their Ambassador and send him/her home. That’s a diplomatic joke that has no meaning for a seriously rogue nation.
4. We need to generate consensus when we use diplomacy and the results of that diplomacy, like sanctions.
5. We need to be serious about sanctions; they need to be like the wrath of God, short of violence. Sanctions need to be swift and serious. If we want sanctions to take the place of war, they had better be capable of making a foe change their minds and actions.
6. Economic sanctions have to be swift and severe, when necessary, and must be decisive. They need to be as humanitarian as possible.
7. Economic sanctions – if we are to be honest – may have to have secondary and tertiary targets. We cannot target one country while continuing to aid or do business with a neighboring country that is funneling resources into the original target country.
8. We need to come up with a way of targeting specific political leaders with non-violent sanctions and actions; FOR EXAMPLE: if there is the possibility of fomenting a bloodless coup, we need to make it crystal clear that we will aid in that effort. Money, resource support to the opposition, garnering support among the nations of the world, sharing of intelligence information and analysis with the opposition. As I said, short of violence, nothing is off the table.
9. Certainly, insofar as we can do so, without serious harm and deleterious effects on the populace, traditional sanctions and embargoes should be utilized, but quickly, surgically and with strength and resolve.

These are just a few, rudimentary ideas. There are many other ways to invoke Proton Diplomacy. This is an area that has never been fully developed or utilized because America has been so unhesitant about invoking military options.

Basically Diplomacy needs to be reinvented. Part of diplomacy may involve non-military aid and presence past a crisis. We need to be prepared to demonstrate a resolve to the nth degree, to a new level and using new methodology and mechanisms that have not yet even been invented (for example, offers to help build or augment a country’s infrastructure, following the successful resolution of the conflict where we’re intervening.

And we need a leader who can commit to that general model of diplomacy. Not sure who that might be on the American political front…