The West Destroyed Its Own Diplomacy | Ambs. Zorilla, Ruch & Kusai

## The silent murder of diplomacy What emerges from the conversation is a troubling diagnosis: Western diplomacy has been hollowed out from within. The once-respected craft of state-to-state bargaining, patient give-and-take and imaginative problem solving has been steadily displaced by a posture of securitised politics. Diplomacy used to be the business of foreign ministries and career envoys whose professional skill was the management of complexity and the preservation of options. Today, the conversation argues, many of those levers have been stripped away—often deliberately—into other hands. The result is not merely a change of personnel but a transformation in purpose. Where diplomacy once sought to prevent wars and build durable frameworks for coexistence, the new institutional ecosystem too often treats foreign relations as an extension of contest, threat assessment and force posture. This is not a rhetorical flourish. The exchange describes concrete mechanisms for the transformation: intelligence services, defence establishments, and private-sector actors—including parts of the military-industrial complex—have assumed roles that used to be the preserve of diplomats. They produce analyses, set narratives, and shape political decisions. Where foreign ministries might have advocated negotiation, restraint, and long-term settlement, the logic that now predominates privileges deterrence, isolation, and maximum pressure. The conversation sees this as a self-defeating process: securitisation cannibalises expertise, narrows the policy menu, and makes compromise seem politically or morally unacceptable. If diplomacy is to be judged by its outcomes—reduced violence, predictable relationships, and credible commitments—what the participants describe is a profession in retreat. The strategic consequences are immediate: missed opportunities for negotiated settlements, spiralling arms spending, and a public discourse that frames rivals as existential evils rather than negotiating partners. This reframing of foreign policy as primarily a security problem has real human costs, but it also weakens the West’s ability to navigate a more multipolar world. ## Securitisation and the rise of the security ecosystem A central theme of the discussion is the rise of what can be called a "security ecosystem": the intersection of intelligence agencies, defence ministries, think tanks, and media firms that amplify threat narratives. The conversation contends that this ecosystem has matured into an effective engine for policy formation—often displacing traditional diplomatic judgment. The new ecosystem is not just institutional; it is a cultural shift. Risk analytics, threat matrices, and worst-case scenarios have become the dominant idiom of foreign policy, crowding out more nuanced reading of motives and incentives. The implications are twofold. First, policymaking becomes short-term and zero-sum. Security actors are trained to think in terms of immediate vulnerabilities and hard balances, not in the patience required to construct political settlements. Second, an industrial-political complex has an interest in maintaining crisis and competition: higher defence budgets, arms sales, and a steady stream of research and media output that reinforces the same conclusions. The conversation warns that this creates feedback loops. A security-minded narrative justifies more resources for the security sector, which then produces analyses that further justify those resources. This ecosystem also reshapes public opinion. Think tanks and media outlets that are funded or sympathetic to strategic industries reproduce the simplest version of geopolitical narratives: rivals are malevolent, concessions are weakness, and victory is a matter of will and firepower. Diplomats, who once worked in the quieter realms of trade-offs and back-channel arrangements, increasingly find their options constrained by a political environment that equates negotiation with appeasement. The cumulative effect is that even states with deep diplomatic traditions find themselves rhetorically unprepared to imagine compromise. ## Memory loss and missed opportunities The conversation repeatedly returns to a historiographical problem: short institutional memory. An absence of historical perspective, the participants argue, helps explain why policymakers repeat avoidable mistakes. The failure to integrate former adversaries into post–Cold War security structures is cited as a key error that set later crises in motion. Where a generation of leaders could have chosen accommodation or structured inclusion, the West instead pursued policies that left resentments unaddressed and created a politics of insecurity ripe for exploitation. This memory deficit has practical consequences. Negotiated settlements require not only creative language and guarantees but also a political class that remembers the delicate bargains of earlier times: arms control regimes, confidence-building measures, and the patient work of verification. Once the generation that negotiated treaties retires, and once the institutional memory of those deals fades, there is a vacuum. Into that vacuum rush the security specialists who view relationships through the prism of vulnerability and power asymmetry rather than mutual restraint and complementary interests. The dialogue also highlights specific missed openings: moments that might have routed away from escalation and toward negotiation, but were allowed to pass. The explanation is not only strategic miscalculation; it is political calculation. Domestic politics, ideological frames and alliance dynamics can make compromise seem impossible, even when states could materially benefit from de-escalation. The combined effect is a cascade of lost opportunities that are hard to recover without a deliberate reorientation toward statecraft. ## The decline of European statecraft Europe’s predicament receives a grim diagnosis. The conversation suggests that statecraft—as a capacity to coordinate domestic priorities and foreign policy ends—is in decline. This erosion manifests as shrinking diplomatic clout, overreliance on external security patrons, and a foreign policy discourse ill-equipped for great-power competition. The continent’s traditional strengths—normative influence, treaty craftsmanship, mediation skills—are underutilised or ill-suited to the current environment because they have been starved of institutional support and political patience. A crucial component of this decline is the narrowing of personnel pipelines. Where once foreign ministries nurtured career diplomats who gained experience across postings and portfolios, the modern pattern elevates political appointees, security specialists, or media-savvy figures who may lack the seasoning required for delicate negotiations. That shift alters incentives within ministries and reduces the reservoir of expertise for long-term strategy. The conversation also underscores a structural problem: Europe's fiscal choices. Enormous public debts and a willingness to channel resources into armament complicate any pivot toward the slower, costlier work of rebuilding diplomatic networks and arms-control architectures. Moreover, the discussion highlights a political culture that increasingly treats foreign policy as domestic theater. Symbolic gestures, moral posturing and punitive measures gain media traction but do little to manage systemic risks. That theatricality crowds out patient diplomacy, stigmatizes engagement and leaves Europe reactive rather than inventive. The result is a continent that may be wealthy and institutionalised, but strategically thin. ## Pathways back to negotiation and arms control Despite the grim portrait painted by the participants, the conversation also outlines actionable pathways to correct course. A recurrent theme is the revival of arms control and confidence-building measures as the backbone of any meaningful re-en

The West Destroyed Its Own Diplomacy What happened to the ancient arts of diplomacy and statecraft in Europe and North America? Why is it that there are no skilled foreign policy experts left in the West? Kaja Kalas, Marco Rubio, Annalena Baerbock, really? Is this the best we can get? And worse, think of the battalions of Rambo- Ambassadors the US sends all over the globe, who only insult foreign leaders, while the EU dashes out regulations that their embassy staff should only negotiate with autocratic states through written notes of protest—no real diplomacy allowed. What the hell happened? Well, there are explanations. A very important one is the silent murder of diplomacy as a profession in the West, by "securitising" foreign policy. While in the past, it used to be Foreign Ministry staff and their diplomats who crafted government reports and recommendations on how to approach the question of security and geopolitics, this has been largely usurped by the security crowd in the intelligence agencies, the defense departments, the military, and the military-industrial-complex linked think tanks. But there are other factors, too. In this talk, three former Ambassadors, José Zorrilla, Jean-Daniel Ruch, and Sandor Kusai, discuss the various reasons why the Euro-American world has lost not only its political but also its diplomatic skills. #M2 Hello, everybody. This is Pascal Lottaz from Neutrality Studies, and today I have the special honor of welcoming not one, not two, but three former top diplomats from Europe. I've got with me, from west to east, Ambassador José Zorilla of Spain, Ambassador J.D. Ruch of Switzerland, and Ambassador Sandor Kusai of Hungary. The four of us want to discuss the precarious state of diplomacy on Eurasia's western peninsula. So, gentlemen, welcome. Thank you to all of you for taking the time, because I think we're going through a very special moment, actually, in global politics and diplomacy. We've just witnessed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in the East. We've watched the efforts toward peace in Ukraine in the West. But we've also seen how European states rushed to Washington in order to make sure that it doesn't happen as soon as it could. I would like to get all of your takes first on what you think is currently happening in global politics and diplomacy. And maybe we start with José Zorilla. #M3 Thank you very much, Pascal. Well, I think we have reached a tipping point. Up to now, we were seeing the attempt of the United States to maintain a sort of hegemony in world affairs. And right now, it is clear that China has reached the point where it can claim it is not very far from the United States—or perhaps even more. The balance is now very even. It's not like it used to be, with a clear, hegemonic American world. I think we have to take account—we have to take serious account—of the People's Republic of China. I think the parade has been a very important event. -- 1 of 19 -- And if there were any doubts concerning the degree of isolation of Putin, I think they have, quite frankly, been destroyed by the presence of all these different countries behind China and Russia. Russia is not isolated. Probably Donald Trump is more isolated in the White House, not invited to the parade. Remember, India plus China is something like 3.2 billion people. It's an impressive percentage. And the United States cannot ignore that. Besides that, there has been a very important technological breakthrough. China has discovered and put on the market 6G. We are in a meager 4G, and they are in 6G, 5,000 times as fast as 4G. Pascal, the world is not what it used to be, you know. It is not what it used to be. #M2 Jean-Daniel, do you agree? And how do you see, especially, the event in China that happened this week? #M1 Yeah, thank you very much. Of course, I fully agree. I think we are living in a period of fundamental change, which is the end of the world order that was established by the Western powers—I would even say after the First World War, and then under American influence after the Second World War. The three pillars of this world order were: established international law and the UN; freedom of trade, with the GATT and then the WTO; and the Security Council as a sort of guarantor of the system. Now, all of these three things are being—maybe "destroyed" is the right word. And there are also economic reasons for that. That's what I would like to point out. In 1945, the United States was the factory of the world, and that's why they needed rules for freedom of trade, abolishing trade barriers. And today, China is the factory of the world. So we see that China is taking the lead in trying to create new principles, or even to push for those principles established in 1945. I mean, it's fascinating to see that the country which is speaking about international law, multilateralism, a multipolar world order, but also freedom of trade, is not the West, even though these were the principles that were very much at the core of liberal democratic values. But now these principles are being promoted by a country like China. What I find a bit sad—and this is something we may talk about later—is that it was a Eurasian summit in Shanghai without Europe. So the first three letters were not there, except for a few exceptions. But I believe that if Europe wants to find stature and a role in the world of tomorrow, they have to fundamentally revise their attitudes towards the big powers in the East. #M2 Do you think that is possible, Sandor, when you look at this—the absence of Europe from a Eurasian meeting and, of course, the absence of Eurasian thinking from European foreign policy? Do you think that—I mean, you're in Hungary, and Hungary has had a different role in the last couple of years—do you think there's a realignment going to happen there? -- 2 of 19 -- #M3 I think sooner or later there will be a realignment, but for that we need a fundamental change in the concepts, in the thinking, and in the personalities of the European leadership. This set of principles, this set of diplomatic and foreign policy practices, is not capable—and of course, those persons are also not capable—of implementing anything else. But if you allow me, I want to add one more idea to our discussion. I fully agree with my two colleagues' assessments from the global world order point of view. I think it's very important to understand that these meetings in China, and the meeting which happened yesterday in Europe, in Paris, formulate or close a very important phase also in the European situation, namely in the Ukraine war. This means that we were at a crossroads. Since Representative Vitkov's last visit to Moscow, we had the Vitkov visit, then the Alaska summit between Russia and the US, then the Washington meeting with the Europeans and Ukrainians. Then we had the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting and the celebrations in Beijing. So what we see now is that there was the possibility to change course from war to a peaceful, negotiated settlement. We have had such situations during this war three or four times already, but the choice of some important players was to continue the war. And this time, there was also a possibility to switch the road to a peaceful, negotiated settlement. I have the feeling that we have passed that crossroads moment, and now we are heading again towards the continuation of the war. President Trump was not able to press for a peaceful solution, neither on Russia nor on Europe. So we are moving, we continue to move in a war setting. The war will be continued for the foreseeable future until we reach a point again—a new crossroads—where there will be a possibility to switch the road to a peaceful solution. But for us to reach that point, we need further war actions and further destruction and death. That's the sorry thing. I agree with the global aspect, but as we are a neighboring country—Hungary—to Ukraine, we shall always see the immediate effects. And I think the immediate effect was that the possibility for a short-term, fast, peaceful, negotiated solution has been lost. That's the situation. #M2 That's a very sad outlook. But I need to ask you, because all three of you were practitioners in the past. You've all served as ambassadors in different countries, and you've all been career diplomats, so you've gone through the different ranks and the route. This assessment of yours, which the three of you share—and which I share—how prevalent do you think this assessment is among the current generation of diplomats in Europe? José, you are the one who told me, "Pascal, we all knew. We all knew it was just a speech act." José, do you still think that's also true about the current situation? #M3 -- 3 of 19 -- Well, you know, the point of view of a practitioner is different from the point of view of common people who don't know anything about foreign policy, which is a very, very restricted field of knowledge. It's something like, you know, operating on a brain tumor or something like that. Logically speaking, it's a very specialized field of knowledge. Not many people know about it. But it is quite clear that war was on the horizon. Remember the Minsk agreement. Finally, Hollande and Angela Merkel acknowledged they created Minsk to fool Russia and give Ukraine time to rearm or arm. Therefore, they knew that the purpose of all this was war. This is very elementary, you know. And we all know that there was an invasion. There was a peace treaty. There was a peace signed with initials. And Putin said, "Do not join NATO. I will withdraw. I will withdraw from the territories. I am not interested in land. All I want is that you don't join NATO." And they said, "Yes, no problem. We will do it." And then came the United States and Johnson, and they both said, "No, you have to go to war because the critical question is NATO." And war continues because, you know, Russia will never, never allow Ukraine inside NATO. There's no way. And Zelensky cannot go to a peace process because they will kill him. Parubiy recently passed away. Parubiy is the one who said to Zelensky, as soon as he won the election, "If Zelensky wishes to go to a peace process like the one he promised in his electoral campaign, he will be hanged in a chair on Khreshchatyk Avenue." It's self-evident that we cannot go to a peace process, whereas, of course, Putin, after so many casualties, cannot go to peace accepting the Ukraine created by the coup of 2014. Therefore, the positions are very far apart, and we all know it, but the political discourse is different. You know, the second level is a different story. For instance, in Europe, the second level is advising the top level not to sanction Russia anymore because the sanctions affect us more than they affect Russia—to no avail, to no avail, because this political class is intent on putting sanctions on Russia, which, of course, have no effect. Worse, they affect us, because sanctioning means we are not going to buy gas or oil from you. Good. He will sell it to India. India will sell it to us. Period. But we have to buy the oil and gas at a higher price. For years, you know, Germany has been in recession for the past four years. Four years—all due to that. And since they don't want to go back, as Sandor said, they don't want to go back and do something different, which is what they should do. They should do this, but they don't want to do it. Just to give you an example: two intellectuals, two well-known intellectuals, Kishore Mahbubani and Stephen Walt, a Harvard professor, said, "Go to the BRICS and start negotiating with Russia, and sign a good treaty with China." We are doing exactly the opposite. So this has nothing to do with diplomats or negotiating technique. This is, you know, a clear strategic decision at the top to continue fighting because they want to bleed Russia. That's all. And they continue. And right now, they are beginning agai