The Caliph, it seems, is well acquinted with both Muslim and Roman Sha'riah
And tis' good to see our Happy Syria restored to the Dar!
And tis' good to see our Happy Syria restored to the Dar!
Corrections in red.
In that case congratulations to pissing of the entire world with something as harmless as bartering. Not many of history´s worst diplomats can claim such an "achievement".
You've compressed the image too much, OY; the text isn't readable.
Frosty seems to be demonstrating a common fallacy: That when bargaining, it is best to start ridiculously high so you can be haggled down. Wrong. There is a zone of possible agreements, agreements acceptable to both parties; starting with an offer outside that zone merely pisses off the other negotiator, and in this case also the rest of the world. You can't start arms reduction talks by saying "Ok, suppose we dismantle three of our obsolete ICBMs, and you take apart all of yours and allow five armoured divisions of NATO inspectors to check for compliance?" (That is, assuming these are actual negotiations between equals. If you are dictating terms to a conquered enemy, that's something else again.) The Soviets will walk out of the conference, and what's more, they will publish your offered terms all over the Third World as propaganda, saying "This is what the Americans think is reasonable? The proletariat laughs bitterly! We know this kind of 'negotiation', it is what capitalists always 'offer' the worker - that or starvation!" And it'll work, too; it'll be clear to everyone that the US wasn't actually intending that to be taken seriously; it'll be a propaganda coup for the Soviets. "Americans negotiate in bad faith; film at eleven." (And any idiot in the State Department who tries to defend himself with 'Well, I was starting high' will be summarily fired, and quite rightly so.) That's why actual diplomats do not make such offers. They look for something within the zone of possible agreements, and offer something on the high end of that zone. Not something ridiculous that the enemy will fight rather than accept.
Now the zone of possible agreements is not always known, of course; it's possible to make a mistake, to offer something that you think could be accepted, but that the enemy will recoil from and launch the missiles rather than accept. This is why real-world diplomatic negotiations are so slow; people are offering hypotheticals, trying to probe the borders of the acceptable space without pissing off the other side. And of course there's such a thing as a bluff, saying you'd rather fight than accept terms X even if that's not really true. This is why negotiations sometimes break down, even when there was a possibility of an agreement. (That's not always the case, you should note. Suppose the Jews of Germany had been an armed resistance movement; what would negotiations with the Nazi Party have looked like? "Well, suppose we only exterminate half of you..." In this case, no agreement was possible.) This is what 'skilled diplomacy' means: To be able to find the actual borders of the possible agreements, and then driving a reasonable bargain within that border. It doesn't mean offering three dollars for a used car, expecting to be bargained up. The salesman will say "Get out of here", and he'll mean it, too. He doesn't need your custom that badly. (I actually had this happen to me once, and I wasn't offering any three dollars, either. Six thousand looked reasonable to me, but apparently not to him. I bought a different car.)
Apparently you did not learn much from that experience with the salesman, considering your initial demands in the Russian war and the international outcry after it.
My mistake in that case was that I thought I was dictating terms to a conquered enemy, but it turned out I was negotiating with neutrals wanting to maintain the balance of power.
Byzantine propaganda said:Frosty is the worst negotiator since forever!
Yoshi's comic said:We just had to stop a war because the Egyptians don't know crap about peace
Yet I note that despite having been defeated militarily, Persians flooding across the border, my base of power under siege and half the world calling for my holy lands to be made into a buffer state I still somehow ended up gaining a respectable amount of land...
Since you admit you were bluffing, that would clearly have been a mistake on OY's part.
As for me, I'm regretting giving up Roman Syria.
Yet I note that despite having been defeated militarily, Persians flooding across the border, my base of power under siege and half the world calling for my holy lands to be made into a buffer state I still somehow ended up gaining a respectable amount of land...
Please, at least pretend we got a good deal and that your boasts of "we will defeat you next session, just you wait" had some substance. Kumbaya remember!?
Our alliance would have won, but it would have taken for ever, and the distribution of spoils would not have been as slanted in my favour.