Professor Zeev Maoz Winter 2005

Diplomacy is the art of representing a nation’s national interests abroad, through the use of peaceful measures The art of diplomacy can be treated as: A profession that requires a set of skills and competencies to performA profession that requires a set of skills and competencies to perform A unique process the essence of which is negotiationA unique process the essence of which is negotiation A process of international cooperation centered on the making and maintaining agreements among nationsA process of international cooperation centered on the making and maintaining agreements among nations

We have little documentation about diplomatic activities or about events entailing diplomacy and negotiations in ancient times. For example, the alliance between Abraham and the four kings, leading to the war against the five kings (Genesis 11), The summit meeting between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheeba, etc.

The history of ancient Greece (due to sources such as Thucydides’s The Peloponnesian Wars) is full of accounts of diplomatic activity, e.g., exchange of ambassadors, military alliances, peace treaties, etc. In the middle ages, the practice of diplomacy was reduced to minimum with the practical disappearance of the state. Yet diplomatic practice re-emerged during the Renaissance, and preceded the formation of the modern nation-state in Europe