The characteristics of the Russian culture and the lack of recognized dissuasion power made the Ukrainian war unavoidable. Confrontations are unavoidable when there is a conflict of interest and there is no recognized dissuasion power.

Diplomacy can only be exerted in a context where a Nation has superiority in a field that allows having dissuasion power. The nation’s dissuasion power is stronger than the dissuasion power of alliances because of the individual interests of their members.

Functionality of Diplomacy

The dissuasion power needs to be objective, and the work of diplomacy is to transform this objective characteristic into a “subjective and objective” perception. Diplomacy depends on the capacity to build cooperation sustained by the superiority of a Nation in some field, its competitive capacity, and its capacity to manage conflicts.

The confrontation capacity of a culture defines the dissuasion power of a Nation. The dissuasion power ensures the minimum strategy of a country. Understanding possible confrontations allows empowering the available dissuasion power knowing in which environments one can rely on this power.

Dissuasion Power

The dissuasion power is given by the capacity to expand or inhibit others without needing to confront. The dissuasion power has been associated in the past to military capacity. And there is no doubt that it still is and will always be.

The dissuasion power requires having a supremacy that avoids confronting. This supremacy needs to be recognized by the counterpart. If not, the dissuasion power is inexistent. It can be based on:

1. Having a “technological” supremacy.
2. Having destruction power to ensure the future vital space.
3. Being able to manage and adapt to time to be able to manage opportunities.
4. Being able to defend the vital space one has.

Access

Economic Dissuasion Power

The purpose of a confrontation is to impose someone’s authority upon others. This can happen in any field (military, economic, personal, emotional, etc.). A confrontation has begun when there is an attempt to impose an authority to someone.

But even though most of the population in the world is not involved in a war, the economic dissuasion power is implicit in the competition of who “sells” to whom. Which is the economic war that significantly substituted military wars in the world. The one who “sells” produces jobs and wellbeing and the one who buys must have the money and other jobs to pay for what has been bought.

In the global world confrontations are part of everyday activity to expand the possibilities of a country or to ensure survival.

The one who imposes a standard, a culture, values, or duties is the one who rules and implicitly is the one who “won” a confrontation. Eluding confrontations without losing requires using the necessary and recognized dissuasion power to avoid paying the prices of an explicit conflict.

Peter Belohlavek
The Unicist Research Institute

NOTE: The Unicist Research Institute has been, since 1976, the world-leading research organization that introduced the functionalist approach to science to manage the functionality of the real world. www.unicist.org