What are negotiations? Negotiations are something that are a part of our everyday lives
that can be defined as a mutually acceptable result that is win-win solutionfor the parties involved within (Lewicki et al. 3). Negotiations have many layers to them; one important layer that impacts the outcome of negotiations is conflicts. Conflict is the disagreement of ideas, interests, morals, etc. and the current negotiation cannot be achieved (Lewicki et al. 19). One great example of the negotiating process is the crisis negotiations that took place in between North and South Korea in August 2015. Kim Jung-un, the leader of North Korea declared a quasi-state of war with South Korea. However this quasi-state of war (an undeclared war fought on water similar to the quasi-war in between France and the U.S, in 1798-1800) was short lasted and the countries entered into crisis negotiation (Encyclopedia.com). These crisis negotiations
spanned over 3 days in a remote village in between the countries top representatives in
negotiating who got together after a brief landmine incident and exchange of fire at the
Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in between the country (Rothwell). In order to prevent all out war in the country crisis negotiations took place and many tactics and concepts we learned in class were put into play.
One concept that I found that was taking place in these talks was ethics. Both sides of the country were trying to be ethical with the least amount effort possible. Ethics “are broadly applied social standards for what is right and wrong in a particular situation or a process for setting those standards” (Lewicki et al. 147). This is possibly one of the reasons why these crisis negotiations lasted 3 days long. With both sides having minimal ethics in these talks it lead to tensions rising and brought war into the horizon of the country. In order to avoid war both sides of the country decided that they needed to achieve results in these crisis negotiations through concessions (Rothwell). Concessions are counteroffers made after the initial offer in response to the initial offer by each party and consist of items each side is and is not willing to do. In this case the initial offer was North Korea will quit provoking the South and expresses regret in its actions. The South would stop playing anti-Pyongyang propaganda from the loud speakers at the
DMZ (Rothwell). One of the concessions made by the south was to explicitly express what actions the north was expressing regrets about. However, the North refused to explicitly express regrets for the landmine incident. This was met with resistance by the south and the north presented a concession of accept the previous terms or go to war (Rothwell). Neither of these concessions got the talks anywhere because they were deemed unreasonable by the other party. It can be seen as unethical for the north to threaten the south with war the way they did. Killing the innocent is more or less a social standard that is deemed negative and neither party wanted that; “Both sides are said to want to find a face-saving way to avoid an escalation that could lead to
bloodshed, especially the North” (Rothwell). Overall, if both parties used more than minimal ethics in this negation more would have been accomplished.
Some of the tactics we see the parties use are alliance with outsiders, intimidation and
chicken (Lewicki et al. 50,71, 72). The first tactic we see both parties use are alliance with outsiders. North Korea has an alliance with China and South Korea has an alliance with the United States. During negotiations North Korea’s army was fortified with Chinese military units. In response to troops being sent to North Korea, the U.S. sent a war plane to South Korea (Rothwell). In this instance the use of alliances to help bring close to the negotiations were negative in the sense that a war was on the horizon and that would create a gridlock where nothing would get solved. However when this tactic was used neither party backed down and was willing to go to war. Since war wasn’t declared it is assumed that both parties ignored this tactic that was used. Another tactic we see is intimidation. The North uses fear of war and bloodshed against the South in hopes to get them to concede to their terms. However, the South shows the North they know that they’re a hardball tactic and calls them out in the South’s newspaper (Rothwell). Finally, we see the North use the chicken tactic when they release
publically that “A million young North Koreans have joined army to "annihilate" South Korea - state media” (Rothwell). Here we see the North ramping up their armies to try and inflate themselves to appear bigger challenging the South; the first one who shows weakness loses the battle in this case. We see various hardball tactics being used by both sides. Since both sides are using these tactics it is slowing down the negotiation process and putting both sided at risk of losing people if war emerges. Overall, these tactics were dissolved in the negotiations at the small village instead of carried out which seems like the best thing for both parties to do.
In conclusion, negotiation is a part of our everyday lives whether it be on a small scale in
between two people or on a grand scale in between sides of a country. Either way there’s no avoiding negotiation. In the end both sides of Korea came to a truce and promised that there would be future negotiations about reuniting families separated by the DMZ as a result of the Korean War in 1950-53. The fact that both sides are willing to communicate in the future and possibly reunite families shows that this was a true negotiation because both sides in the end with truce got a win-win situation. Hopefully further negotiations will not be labeled as crisis negotiations and can be sorted out without the threat of war looming on the horizon. Will these future negotiations actually happen, the world may never know.
Works Cited:
Lewicki, Roy J., David M. Saunders, and Bruce Barry. Negotiation. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Rothwell, James. "North Korea 'agrees on Truce' with South Korea after Three Days of Crisis
Talks: As It Happened August 24." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 24 Aug.
- Web. 12 Nov. 2015.
.
"Quasi-War." Dictionary of American History. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 12 Nov.
2015http://www.encyclopedia.com
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