Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO

Abstract

interconnections. Its priority is ensuring the harmony of the whole. Its emphases include preserving diversity, mutual adaptation, and cooperation. It is informed by ancient cosmologies and indigenous pre-colonial diplomatic practices including the symbolic exchanges and visits that are prominent in Asian and African cultures. Diplomats need to work with all three logics, an argument which Zaharna makes visually, by elegantly combining symbols that she adopts for each logic (an arrow for individual, an infinity sign for relational and a circle for holistic) into a single figure. Having explained how differences of culture make communication more difficult, Zaharna goes on to demonstrate the potential for culturally-informed communication to bring people together. It is here that her argument returns to the more familiar territory of culture in diplomacy. She argues that collaboration and communication in the cultural field is the best way to use all three of her logics. Her book is hands down the best justification for international relations through the arts since the publication of Nye’s Soft Power in 2004, and – most significantly – her argument is made without falling back on the idea of one people exercising influence or winning over another that is implicit Nye’s book. Zaharna emphasises the win-win of mutual benefit. International actors able to work in these terms stand to develop their reputations even as they benefit from the collective solutions to the world’s problems. Hence Zaharna has arrived at a mechanism to enhance what I term ‘Reputational Security’, that element of security that comes from being known in the world and which is endangered by being unknown. One shared problem looms especially large. Zaharna’s work draws powerfully on the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. Memes from the crisis are reproduced in the text. The argument is brave. Having drawn on insights from anthropology throughout, her book steers away from that discipline’s emphasis on cultural distinctiveness to emphasise the astonishing degree of similarity between people. Her final chapters focus on the potential for mutual understanding and empathy based on the things that all humans share. In all, this is an original and valuable work which rethinks the links between communication, culture and diplomacy. The great joy of this book is its eclecticism and the comprehensiveness of Zaharna’s ‘world tour’ with the multiple insights she brings. The result is a consistently illuminating and fun to read in equal measure. This is a book to celebrate and, for those of us in the position so to do, to assign as required reading for anyone setting out of the journey of an international communicator or in Zaharna’s terms ‘Boundary Spanner of Humanity’.