Even more so than domestic politics, diplomacy is rife with games. Take all the egos and self-interest and throw in the international variables of cultural differences – social, economic, spiritual — local and national objectives and military goals, and you have a world teetering on the brink. The games that countries play can be literal or figurative. When the Nixon administration attempted to engage the Peoples’ Republic of China, they broke the ice through ping pong tournaments drawing on the best players in both countries. Of course, this was dubbed ‘ping-pong diplomacy’.
Then you have all sorts of other games:
USSR: “We shot down one of your spy planes and we’re holding the pilot.”
US: “But we’re not spying on you.”
USSR: “Yeah well we have one of your U-2 planes that flies at extremely high altitude…”
US: “Are you saying you have missiles that can go that high?”
USSR: “Um, no.”
To facilitate this careful tango, nations like to have their embassies really close to one another. In DC, I’m learning, they’re all clustered around Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues.
It’s a lot like college really. The dorms hold what they call “Around the World” parties. Each dorm room takes a country as its namesake and prepares a horribly cliched drink associated with that country. For example, Ireland might serve Irish coffee, Mexico serves something made with tequila – but most kids just mix Everclear and kool aid and call it something exotic.
The concept is ostensibly a “cultural” exchange, but no one is really learning anything along those lines. The real objective of the Around the World format is to go room to room with your buddies and drink yourselves stupid along the way. The typical aftermath involves waking up next to the Russian Bear the following morning and realizing that you inadvertently extended international relations. And now you must diffuse the situation without further escalating the crisis.
DC is a bit of a party town, not to mention the fact that embassies are considered foreign soil, not subject to US laws. You also can’t arrest a diplomat. Combine all that time away from home with a consequence-free environment and I’m sure the place gets fairly crazy. The Around the World parties on Embassy Row probably go something like this:
Germany: “Let’s hit it. Let’s drop by India and Mexico early and then hang out at the the British Isles. I want to end up at Iceland later, so that’ll give the Scandinavian and Costa Rican girls time to have a few drinks.”
Canada: “Totally stoked. Can we skip Australia? Last time I got head-butted in the face.”
Germany: “Yeah, but I need to swing by Saudi Arabia for a minute to score some petroleum.”
Canada: “Bro, I told you I’d hook you up, and I definitely don’t want to get stuck there again. They don’t even drink and last time the Prince had that guys hands cut off.”
Germany: “He was stealing appetizers. Look, we’ll have a signal when it’s time to leave. But to be safe, let’s show up with Israel. He wasn’t invited and they won’t be sorry to see us go.”
Just like your drunken dorm days, big countries all get together for a summit or a treaty every now and again, but not a lot gets done. And in between, everyone’s trying to “borrow” everyone’s meal card, hog the community bathroom, screw everyone elses’ significant others, and then deny it later.
