Overcoming the Four Horsemen of Reassurance Diplomacy: Explaining Variation in Face-to-Face Engagement

Abstract

The decision to engage in face-to-face diplomacy aimed at reassuring an adversary is one of the most salient ones a state leader will have to make. However, often leaders choose not to engage in such diplomacy because they follow those scholars and pundits who are skeptical of the reassurance value of interpersonal face-to-face diplomacy. This creates an important puzzle. Why do leaders sometimes choose to promote reassurance through meeting personally? And why, in other cases, do they not? The answer we provide in this article is that it depends crucially on the extent to which each leader in the dyad possesses security dilemma sensibility (SDS). We conceptualize SDS as varying both in intensity of the strength of the actor's intention and capacity to exercise it and in the extent to which actors believe the other actor in the dyad may possess SDS. The article develops a typology of three SDS leader types—distrusters, uncertains, and empathics—showing how the strength and orientation of SDS in each type shape their willingness to pursue face-to-face diplomacy. We then illustrate the utility of the typology in three short cases: Reagan and Gorbachev's decisions to engage in 1985 in Geneva, Kennedy and Khrushchev's decisions to meet in 1961 in Vienna, and finally, one of the “dogs that did not bark” (the summits that did not happen), the lack of face-to-face diplomacy between Obama and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-il. We conclude with implications for future research and recommendations for policymakers.