CHAPTER NINE
Planning

THE BEST PEACE TREATIES STEM FROM THOROUGH PREPARATION combined with a sense of flexibility and spontaneity. The people involved in this planning stage are the same small group of peace leaders that is described in chapter 8—though the concepts in this chapter can also apply to NGOs, private companies, and civil organizations that are preparing to establish relationships with counterparts across the border. The various peace leaders can be assigned to working teams that address political leadership, planning, negotiating, peacebuilding, and peace ecology, with local government units, civil society players, and private-sector groups participating.

The planning stage must not be taken lightly. Establishing goals and expectations at the outset reduces the chance of surprises and deal breakers later in the negotiations—thus contributing to a stronger, more solid peace agreement.

Strategic Goals

The beginning of war is often all too obvious: a bomb, a battle, a deployment of troops. Defining the start of peace is far more difficult. Often, those involved in the planning stages of a peace process continue with a conflict mind-set; negotiations begin without defining ultimate goals because the goal seems obvious: peace. But failing to define the strategic objectives of a peace process is a mistake. Goals should not be defined in terms of the best outcome of the peace treaty but in terms of a strategic situation that has 98 both the optimal benefits for both sides and the greatest chance of sustainability. In peace, the object should not be to defeat the former opponent but to allow both parties to gain.

Long-term goal planning should include the creation of an “architectural plan” for the future that takes into consideration all relevant elements. The planning of long-term goals demands courageous decisions about political and social aims that may touch the very identity of nations. Peace generally instigates a movement toward a more liberal and open identity as physical and emotional borders open up. Simultaneously, the interests of the other side must be understood, to plan a reasonable compromise that will satisfy both parties and possibly their global and regional partners.

The New Peace Partner

Deciphering the needs and mentality of the new partner can prove difficult because the partner is also in a transitional process of defining its interests and goals. Still, a transformation in the national perception of the partner is integral. When peace leaders replace the concept of “enemy” with the concept of “partner,” they can bring about a similar change in public opinion—an integral element in shifting from a war ecology to a peace ecology.

The traditional means of applying historical lessons and information from intelligence services often have been misleading. The use of historical experience to determine the future is not an objective measurement but an interpretation. History can be defined as the prediction of the past, but expertise about the past does not engender an expert opinion about the future.

Furthermore, intelligence services have become the main vehicle for understanding and prophesying the interests and maneuvers of the former enemy. This reliance on intelligence services can be especially dangerous during the transition from war to peace. Today we can receive precise if partial information about a nation and can hear the private and public rhetoric of political leaders, but we have no way of assessing what is in the minds of leaders when 99 they approach a dynamic situation. Intelligence may be operational when time stands still, but it can rarely assess change. For example, neither the Israeli internal services nor the Western intelligence agencies predicted the revolutionary change of Egypt’s President Sadat coming to Jerusalem and offering peace in 1977.

A much safer and better way to understand the former enemy in the new role as a peace partner is simply to listen during meetings and negotiations. Although some fiction may surface, over time the facts prevail. Another method of appreciating the partner is to endeavor to grasp its environment, myths, and opinions; this can only happen through direct contact with the people, the place, and the media. In this context, open sources are superior to and safer than covert sources; we can more easily view and appreciate needs and interests in a dynamic cultural setting. Such understanding leads to the manufacture of a language that may make the parties more comprehensible and trustworthy to one another, enabling them to begin to think of solutions together.

Erecting the Four Pillars

To ensure that a peace treaty rests on the four pillars of modern peace, leaders can use the planning stage to discuss opportunities for incorporating glocalization, peace ecology, peacebuilding, and creative diplomacy into the agreement. Such a discussion acknowledges in a formal setting the value of the four pillars and reassures peace bureaucrats that they, too, will have a great deal of responsibility in peacemaking.

Even at the outset it is essential to coordinate with the other side the cultivation of a peace ecology; words and pictures transcend borders. The political, pedagogical line on the importance of peace needs to be predefined; those who interact with public opinion must determine a basic line of argument in this area. The media is a crucial channel for amplifying a peace campaign. Leaders can plan the arguments and interviews that will spread the gospel of peace. These campaigns should be jointly planned and 100 should avoid a race to recruit the media and score points during negotiations, which would only turn the sides against each other and poison the atmosphere.

Much lip service is wasted on the prosperity that comes with peace. This wealth does not simply fall from heaven. Economic planning in relation to each side’s national budget is crucial and generally is underestimated. The movement from a war economy to a peace economy is a transition that creates new budgetary priorities, including the gradual reduction of defense budgets and the strengthening of funding for infrastructure, social rehabilitation, and educational opportunities. New trade targets must be located and investment-friendly projects must be facilitated. Future economic relations with the peace partner must be planned on the basis of economic forecasts on both sides, serving as a foundation for increased regional economic development. Private-sector leaders can contribute a great deal to this economic planning.

It is also useful to identify other peacebuilding areas that will require cooperation, including culture, sports, health, agriculture, technology, and urban issues. Such cooperation does not come naturally and must be formally recognized as an important condition for a successful peace. The participation of local government leaders and NGOs in this part of the planning stage will open the process to a wider coalition of peacemakers, which can represent the needs of citizens with greater accuracy than can elite peace leaders alone.

Planning is, in its way, a sort of negotiation, which is why creative diplomacy can be especially useful. It is not difficult to identify the stumbling blocks that will create major crises between parties. But instead of each side imagining its own vision of the future and the elements on which it will not compromise, both can focus their energy on thinking of creative solutions to problems of the past. Such forward thinking will help smooth out potential blocks in negotiations and will ensure a more efficient and effective agreement. 101

Peace processes tend to be crisis-ridden, with both time and goodwill squandered over historical stumbling blocks. Creative diplomacy can provide imaginative solutions in which both sides feel that they’ve won.