DİPLOMASİ

It is widely accepted, as Hamilton mentions, that the beginnings of diplomacy occurred when a human being decided for the first time that hearing a message is better than eating the messenger. At this point, with the decision to assure the safety of a messenger, the primitive rules of diplomacy began to emerge. Messengers were sent from one tribe to another mainly to make peace in a rudimentary way, based on custom and even taboo. These earliest types of diplomacy in primitive societies took the shape of exchanging gifts, in a sense, to buy peace. The correct answer is Choice C.

Although Greece is accepted as the birthplace of Western civilization, diplomacy was not born in Greece in contrast to what is widely thought. Diplomacy was born thousands of years before ancient Greece committed to diplomacy as a civilization. Nevertheless, the word “diplomacy” is itself borrowed from ancient Greek. It is derived from the word “diploma” meaning two fold. In the Roman Empire, the word was used to describe the passes, comparable to the modern day passport, which were stamped on metal plates. This word was later extended to cover other metallic documents, especially those embodying arrangements with foreign communities

The first system of city-states occurred in Mesopotamia between the 4th and the first millennium. The system was mainly based on that of the Sumerians in the south, Babylonian and Akadian in the center and Assyrians in the north.

Sumerians were the earliest practitioners of diplomacy (3000-2370 BCE). The diplomatic tradition emerged from this site mainly because the Sumerians were the civilization which invented writing sometime in the 4th millennium BCE. In the meantime, Sumeria was the site of the first urban communities consisted of complex social, economic and political structures each of which was ruled by an independent King.

The features of the first exchange systems of organized polities resemble in many ways the diplomacy as we now understand. They were conducted by envoys in a formal framework of law; and they were based upon the principles of reciprocity. With the emergence of the state system, the methods of diplomacy were transformed from primitive courses into trade agreements, dynastic marriages, and military alliances.

Diplomacy was used by Sumerians with a motivation to end conflicts through the conventional method of sending messengers with the messages written on clay tablets in cuneiform. Sumerian was used as the lingua franca of diplomacy until the Akhadian hegemony was established in the region.

The correct answer is Choice E.

The first known diplomatic letter was a message sent by the King of Ebla (in northern Syria) to the kingdom of Hamazi (north of Iran today), which shows a similar style of language and contend of modern diplomacy. This letter provides a clear evidence of the existence of a well performing mechanism, in which both sides knew the rules. The letter was not written by the king himself, but through the voice of an official, and was not directed to the Hamazi King but to his envoy (Podany, 2010: 27). Since the Ebla region had priority in trade, diplomacy was mainly a part of their trade relations, the reflection of which could also be seen in the Ebla letter. The correct answer is Choice A.

Envoys were appointed for specific missions with a specific set of instructions; and the type of the diplomatic envoys varied according to the circumstances. They can be simple messengers who carry royal mail, but they can also be plenipotentiary ministers. Diplomatic envoys were chosen from among senior officials of administration. Their primary function involved coordinating diplomatic efforts. Some of them were regarded explicitly as the king’s personal representatives. Diplomatic envoys were protected by their diplomatic status and they were free to journey across boundaries even in times of crisis. In other words, they had a kind of “diplomatic immunity” which was evident in many documents that found in Mari and later in other archives. Even to attest their status, diplomats seemed to have a kind of “diplomatic passport”, on which the name of the holder, the description of his delegation and his destination were written. The correct answer is Choice B.

A few centuries after Amarna diplomacy, another diplomatic system emerged between Hittite and Egypt. Hittite diplomacy was also a well-developed system, embracing all preceding diplomatic tools and rules of conduct. The nuance of the Hittite system was its different formulization which based mainly on treaties. These treaties were concluded either between kings or the Hittite King and his vassals. They were written in a structured pattern and they included the information about the Hittite King, conditions that brought the parties into forming an alliance, reciprocal obligations, a list of witnesses and the rules to be applied in case of disloyalty. The correct answer is Choice B.

Ancient China can be categorized under two different periods regarding the political structure of the time. The first is the Warring States Era between 656-221 BCE, characterized by the emergence of sovereign states. It was a period of a balance of a power system, so international relations was based on great power rivalry and ephemeral alliances. The Great Powers had leagues, missions and an organized system of correspondence between their many warring states. Diplomacy was based on bilateral relations and missions related to fleeting alliances including maneuvers, secrecy and bribery Chinese states had no permanent friends and enemies; therefore, their strategies were ruthless but still in an equilibrium. It is not surprising that Sun-Tzu, one of the best known military strategists, and his thoughts were influential at this period. Early records indicate that Sun-Tzu lived in the Warring state era and his very famous work The Art of War was influenced by the increasing violence of this era. In contrast to its name, the book does not really focus on war time strategies, but on strategies that would prevent the outbreak of war. The core of the strategy for Sun Tzu is not to defeat the enemy in battle, but to repress him without fighting. Sun Tzu therefore focuses on the pre-war period as the realm for strategy and hence pays particular attention to diplomacy at this stage. The correct answer is Choice A.

Kautilya defined the state system as a ruthless realistic system which was determined by self-interest, compatible with the structure of the existing state system of India in that time. India at this period was mostly composed of a number of small independent states, being in a rivalry with each other with the exception of the Magadha kingdom. Kautilya played an important role in the fall of the Magadha kingdom and the rise to power of the Mauryan dynasty. In fact, Kautiya was a political realist; and the key theme of his theory represented in his book was war. According to Kautilya, war is what defines inter-state relations. Kautilya defined six forms of foreign policy.

From Kautilya’s work, along with other valuable sources, we can derive that in Ancient India, diplomatic dealings were well-developed and structured, particularly in regard to diplomats and the roles they played in diplomacy. There were detailed rules of diplomatic immunities and privileges of the inauguration and termination of diplomatic missions and also of the selection and duties of a diplomat. In Ancient India, the functions of diplomats, or envoys as was named at this time, were threefold:

The correct answer is Choice E.

Diplomacy was a necessity for the Byzantine Empire because it had enemies on all of its borders and there was always a threat of invasion while for a certain time it had limited military power. The military force of the Byzantine Empire never exceeded the number of 140.000. While the threat of invasion came from all quarters, e.g., from Nomadic people to Germanic people, from Slavs to Hungarians and Russians, its internal resources were not enough to keep a military permanently in order to give a military response to these threats. Since the rulers of the empire were aware of their military weakness, they first adapted the practices of former civilizations and developed their own way of diplomacy with their political and cultural contributions. For example, they adapted the practices of protocol and dynastic marriages from the Near Eastern civilization, oration as a tool for public speaking from Greece, and the divide and rule tactics from the Roman Empire. In this manner the diplomatic methods they exercised were ranging from the, formation of alliances to dynastic marriages, from exploiting the enemy’s weaknesses, to deception and the use of religion. for a certain time it had limited military power. The military force of the Byzantine Empire never exceeded the number of 140.000. While the threat of invasion came from all quarters, e.g., from Nomadic people to Germanic people, from Slavs to Hungarians and Russians, its internal resources were not enough to keep a military permanently in order to give a military response to these threats. Since the rulers of the empire were aware of their military weakness, they first adapted the practices of former civilizations and developed their own way of diplomacy with their political and cultural contributions. For example, they adapted the practices of protocol and dynastic marriages from the Near Eastern civilization, oration as a tool for public speaking from Greece, and the divide and rule tactics from the Roman Empire. In this manner the diplomatic methods they exercised were ranging from the, formation of alliances to dynastic marriages, from exploiting the enemy’s weaknesses, to deception and the use of religion. In fact, the main motive in the use of diplomacy for the Byzantine Empire was to avoid war, and all diplomatic practice was devoted to this aim. Therefore, the empire used diplomacy as a means of foreign policy continuously, employing more emphasis on it than military means. The Byzantines employed a number of tactics, both overt and covert to achieve their aims through diplomacy rather than military force. It is therefore common to label Byzantine diplomacy as “war by other means” (Antonucci, 1993: 11). They were unique in their method of involvement in internal affairs of other countries. For this aim, the empire initiated a new institution for diplomatic practice, the Bureau of Barbarians. The Bureau of Barbarians as a department of government was responsible for foreign relations, primarily with the barbarians living on the Balkan Peninsula. The correct answer is Choice B.

Diplomacy in the Islamic world began with the establishment of the first Islamic state in 622; and it was not founded through military means but by a social contract, the Medina Charter. The function of diplomats was to communicate with other states, to conclude an agreement or alliance which was decided previously, to arrange the exchange of prisoners and the truce, and to announce war. Most certainly, another function of envoys was to gather information about the weaknesses and/or strengths of the host country. The function of diplomacy in these early years was at the most basic level since the strength of the state in the absence of at least an equal power did not raise the need to a more complex function for diplomacy. Diplomatic contact between Islamic or Arab, Byzantine and also Latin rulers were frequent in the Middle Ages. The motives for diplomatic practice were similar to other ages and civilizations: political concern regarding peace and war, economic or commercial motives and definitely information gathering. Emissaries played the most important role in this vein; and it can be said that diplomatic envoys were great travelers in the Middle Ages. As Drocourt stated, they usually spent more time travelling than negotiating because of the distance between the Arab region and Constantinople or the whole Western part of Christendom. The correct answer is Choice C.

These first state-like polities with government, law, taxation, education systems and literature which were formed in Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean provide the great tradition of diplomacy in the ancient world (Cohen, 2001). Doğru cevap " A " dır.

One of the earliest and most informative resources regarding our knowledge on Near East diplomacy is the Mari cuneiform archives, which consist of more than 20 thousand letters, legal documents, diplomatic correspondences, and treaties written on clay tablets. Doğru cevap " B " dir.

At the core of this diplomatic relationship, we find the Amarna letters which
contain information about:
• Strategic-military cooperation,
• Treaty negotiations,
• Dynastic marriages,
• Trade regulations,
• Strengthening friendly relations,
• Negotiating alliances.  Doğru cevap " C " dir.

Hittite diplomacy is best known for the first peace treaty signed in 1270 BCE between Egyptian King Ramses II and Hittite King Hattusili III after the battle of Kadesh in Syria. The Kadesh treaty was signed to end the long war between the Hittites and the Egyptians, which lasted for nearly two centuries for the domination over Syrian region. Doğru cevap " D " dir.

Ancient China is another civilization where we could look for the origins of diplomacy as a system. The first records of Chinese diplomacy date from
the 1st millennium BCE. Ancient China can be categorized under two different periods regarding the political structure of the time. Doğru cevap " E " dir.

Double-dealing: When a state seeks help for attacking another state, it resorts to peace and war at the same time with different states. Doğru cevap " A " dır.

The tradition of equal diplomacy ended with Qin dynasty’s unification of China in 221 BCE. With the new coercive universal empire, China’s diplomatic dealing with the foreign world lessened to level of defense and trade issues. Doğru cevap " B " dir.

Another peculiarity of the ancient Greek diplomacy was that they preferred oral messages to written notes; therefore, there is not a large archive of diplomatic correspondence of ancient Greece. There were three kinds of representatives:
• angelos: a messenger used for brief and specific missions
• keryx: a herald
• proxenos: a resident consul but the proxenos were citizens of the city in which they resided, not of the city-state that employed them. Doğru cevap " C " dir.

The Byzantine Empire originally was the eastern part of the Roman Empire; and it was one of the longest lasting political entities in history, from 330 CE until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. One of the most important reasons for the empire’ slongevity was its use of diplomacy. Doğru cevap " D " dir.

Diplomatic contact between Islamic or Arab, Byzantine and also Latin rulers were frequent in the Middle Ages. The motives for diplomatic practice were similar to other ages and civilizations: political concern regarding peace and war, economic or commercial motives and definitely information gathering. Emissaries played the most important role in this vein; and it can be said that diplomatic envoys were great travelers in the Middle Ages. Doğru cevap " E " dir.