A Review of A. Wess Mitchell's "Great Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger" (2025) by Sir Ivor Anthony Roberts KCMG

Wess Mitchell has written an important and very readable book on diplomacy seen through the prism of statecraft from the time of Attila the Hun through to Henry Kissinger. His argument is that diplomacy enables states to access others’ assets or strengths to cut off, deflect or divide threatening opponents. In other words, he says “the essence of diplomacy in strategy is to rearrange power in space and time so that the state avoids tests of strength beyond its immediate ability to bear”. In placing diplomacy within the realm of strategy he sets out to challenge two contemporary ideas of diplomacy: one that a society’s safety can only be found in a preponderance of military power where diplomacy has no place and the other that, in our progress inexorably towards a liberal utopia, diplomacy should work to abolish war and
the nation state itself. But as he cogently argues “even the United States has to manage the gap between the means at its disposal and the seemingly infinite ends presented by the threats in its outside environment” And managing the gap requires mobilising diplomacy as a tool of grand strategy to build coalitions and divide opposing alliances as well as concentrating military resources. Mitchell presents a series of case studies as precedents for strategic practice in diplomacy and illustrates the practice as a guide to solving contemporary international
problems.

Mitchell as a prelude takes us back to the fifth century BC and the Peloponnesian War (as described by Thucydides) between Athens and Sparta. He reminds us of the wisdom of King Archidamus II who opposed the Spartan instinct to rush to war and counselled his countrymen to argue for peace with the Athenians while Sparta improved its strategic position. While the Spartans initially ignored their King’s advice and voted for war they came to realise the wisdom of using diplomats to assemble an impressive array of allies, including the arch enemy Persia, and after a two-decade struggle Sparta won out narrowly in the brutal conflict with Athens. The Spartans had used the qualities of diplomacy- patience, prudence flexibility and self-control- to ensure success. Mitchell’s examples in the rest of this book demonstrate how the “Archidamus moment” has repeated itself so that, when military might hasn’t proved up to the task, great powers have resorted to diplomacy to build the necessary alliances and divide their opponents. It is he says “of foundational importance to the survival
and prosperity of a successful great power”.

Mitchell’s analysis is particularly timely given current international circumstances which lead us to compare favourably the approach of Archidamus with that of the Athenians. During the Peloponnesian War, in what is known as the Melian dialogue, the Athenians sought to force the Spartan-colony island of Melos to join their empire while the Melians argued for the rights of states to remain neutral. The Athenians responded that morality was only for equals in power; for others, self-preservation dictated submission. They demanded that the Melians join their coalition or face destruction. For, as the Athenians put it: “the strong do what they can while the weak suffer what they must”. which has an all too contemporary echo. The deputy chief of staff at the White House must have had Thucydides in mind when he said a few weeks ago “We live in the real world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time”. Or at least, one might say, since the 5 th century BC. The same kind of coercive diplomacy recurs in Mitchell’s first case study, Attila the Hun who forced the Roman Empire into treaties including tribute payments, hostage exchanges and political concessions. In examining Byzantium he describes how the Byzantine Empire successfully played rival tribes against one another occasionally subsidising enemies to encourage their focus elsewhere and surviving against stronger enemies by using diplomacy as a primary instrument of national survival. Theodosius the Younger and his skilful chamberlain, the eunuch Chrysaphius, had a myriad of problems (Parthians, Sassanids) to deal with besides Attila the Hun’s hordes. They dealt with Attila successfully partly by feeding the Huns’ thirst for gold but also by exposing their enemies to Byzantine ways and economy. Overall the Byzantines were adept at using time to rearrange their military assets while also keeping an eye on their very dangerous neighbours to the east.

He then moves onto Venice in the 15 th century and the Doge, Francesco Foscari’s, attempts to settle accounts with its mainland rival Milan while focusing its attention on the threat from the Ottoman Turks under Mehmed II who had just captured Constantinople. His successful negotiation of treaties with the Ottomans and the Lombards gave La Serenissima a welcome breathing space and it used its ample coffers to bribe those inside the Sultan’s court with ducats to keep the Ottoman Turks out of Venetian space in the Mediterranean even while many adjacent territories were being gobbled up.

One of Mitchell’s key themes is that ideology must not trump strategic interests in great power diplomacy. Cardinal Richelieu was a leading practitioner of this. Despite his Catholicism, he led France into alliances with Protestant powers to free Louis XIII’s France from the threat of Habsburg encirclement. While he may not have coined the phrase raisons d’etat , he was the arch-exponent of it.

The chapters on Habsburg Austria are perhaps the strongest. Not surprisingly– Mitchell’s previous book is The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire. In a similar non-ideological vein to Richelieu, he describes how Empress Maria Theresa and her minister count Kaunitz formed an alliance with their arch-rivals France against the “monster” of Frederick the Great in Berlin. As Mitchell says “Austria was not going to recover Silesia and find lasting safety against Prussia on the basis of her military strength alone. She needed new friends even if they were old enemies, and even if she had to go through unsavoury channels to reach them.” The unsavoury channel in this case being King Louis XV’s mistress, Madame Pompadour. Unconventional perhaps but delivered the goods. Kaunitz also succeeded in enlisting Russia in reducing the threat from the Ottoman Turks.

Mitchell then turns to Metternich, the dazzling Austrian foreign minister who was the architect of the Congress of Vienna and married his idol Kaunitz’s granddaughter. He played a key role in shaping post-Napoleonic Europe and creating the Concert of Europe, managing relations and balancing power among the great powers which kept the general peace in Europe for a century with the exception of the Crimean war. He did this by advocating ‘curbs’ on the behaviour of states: not just through the balance of power but by binding treaty obligations and regular coordination among the great powers.

By contrast, the German chancellor Bismarck has a reputation as a warmonger but he was a skilful diplomatic manoeuvrer as well. He successfully isolated France diplomatically. Indeed he tricked France with his dishonestly edited and infamous Ems telegram which led her into declaring war on Prussia in 1870. This in turn led the southern German states to side with Prussia in the war and resulted in the unification of Germany. Once Germany was unified he studiously worked to prevent any coalition against the new state. It was no coincidence that the Franco-Russian alliance, ultimately so damaging to Germany, was allowed to form after Bismarck was dismissed by the young Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890.

In his analysis of interwar diplomacy, Mitchell picks up on the failure to read correctly the strategic environment and to rely excessively and fatally on legal institutions like the League of Nations. The alliances opposing the rise of the Third Reich were weak and believed less in traditional diplomacy than in a new diplomacy where political figures would conduct negotiations at a high level. Chamberlain’s fiasco in Munich demonstrated the fallacy of that approach.

In his case study of Henry Kissinger and triangular diplomacy, Mitchell highlights Kissinger’s strategy after the Vietnam debacle to improve the position of the United States vis-a-vis the Soviet Union by exploiting the Sino-Soviet split and daringly opening relations with Communist China thus creating a triangular diplomacy between the three major nuclear powers and weakening the Soviet Union’s overall position.

Mitchell rightly draws attention to what seemed like the demise of diplomacy after the Cold War where it seemed hard to detect an obvious role for diplomats after the collapse of the Soviet Union and no great congresses like Vienna or Versailles to thrash out a settlement. All unnecessary given the single superpower left standing. Or so it seemed.

Taken as a whole, Mitchell’s book emphasises the overwhelming importance of building favourable coalitions and preventing or splitting potential hostile alliances. He also builds on his initial example of King Archidamus to show how important diplomacy can be in buying time to stave off conflict or confrontation until the balance of power becomes more favourable and conditions improve. Mitchell rightly lays great store on the value of clear strategic thinking. Where great powers had and could prioritise one central core interest, identifying the main threat and which alliances should be pursued, they tend to succeed. When states by contrast pursue too many objectives at the same time failure almost inevitably results.

In conclusion Mitchell returns to his core argument about alliances, the need to strengthen them and prevent counter coalitions. He is also a firm advocate of the need to return to classical statecraft in creating alliances and negotiating successfully with adversaries We are not of course aware how he would score the current leadership in Washington whose attitude to its major military alliance, NATO seems ambiguous. He argues that as China is the most powerful rival to the United States the latter should avoid overextension. He also maintains, as Kissinger appreciated, the importance of ensuring that China and Russia are not permanently aligned against United States’ interests. In this context he argues that the most important strategic application of diplomacy “is to concentrate one’s own power while diluting that of an opponent.”

If Mitchel’s analysis has a weakness it lies in his underestimation of international institutions. They are not of course much in favour in today’s Washington unless we are to assume that the Board of Peace is going to play a major role in strategic diplomacy. (There hasn’t been much mention of it in recent days.) I think it is too early to rule out the role of international institutions in the medium to long term as they play a vital role in building rules for cooperation and providing forums for conflict resolution, as Metternich envisaged 200 years ago. We are in the 21 st -century of course in a different world to the case studies which Mitchell brings so vividly to life. Globalisation with its attendant problems was not something that bothered Metternich or even Kissinger and we are still in the throes of examining how cyber and technological innovation will ultimately change our lives, not necessarily for the better.