"The only summit meeting that can succeed is the one that does not take place"
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Barry Goldwater compresses a Cold War skepticism into a paradox: if leaders must stage a summit, prior diplomacy and deterrence have already failed. The line prizes a foreign policy that is so clear, credible, and strong that adversaries have no leverage to extract at-the-table concessions or to use leader-to-leader theater for propaganda. Goldwater distrusted high-profile personal diplomacy because summits create perverse incentives. Cameras and a ticking clock compel deliverables; communiques become trophies; and the side more sensitive to public opinion risks giving ground for the sake of an agreement. Autocrats can pocket the optics of parity, while democracies shoulder the expectation to show progress. Success, in his view, is built beforehand through unambiguous commitments, military preparedness, reliable alliances, and steady, lower-level negotiations that quietly manage crises without the need for salvation at the top.
The context is mid-20th-century brinkmanship. After the bruising Kennedy-Khrushchev meeting in Vienna in 1961 and the trauma of appeasement as a cautionary tale, conservatives like Goldwater saw summits as a stage where firmness goes soft. He preferred deterrence to detente, principles over atmospherics, and the clarity of strength over the ambiguities of personal rapport. That temperament aligns with his famous declaration that moderation is no virtue in defense of liberty. The claim is not a literal ban on talking; rather, it is a hierarchy of methods. When statecraft works, it precludes the drama that invites miscalculation, domestic second-guessing, or adversaries testing resolve under the klieg lights. History complicates the maxim, since some summitry changed trajectories, as with Reagan and Gorbachev. Yet Goldwater’s warning still reads as a bracing critique of momentum politics: do not convene a pageant and then let the pageant decide policy. If the policies are sound, the meeting is unnecessary; if the policies are unsound, the meeting is dangerous.
The context is mid-20th-century brinkmanship. After the bruising Kennedy-Khrushchev meeting in Vienna in 1961 and the trauma of appeasement as a cautionary tale, conservatives like Goldwater saw summits as a stage where firmness goes soft. He preferred deterrence to detente, principles over atmospherics, and the clarity of strength over the ambiguities of personal rapport. That temperament aligns with his famous declaration that moderation is no virtue in defense of liberty. The claim is not a literal ban on talking; rather, it is a hierarchy of methods. When statecraft works, it precludes the drama that invites miscalculation, domestic second-guessing, or adversaries testing resolve under the klieg lights. History complicates the maxim, since some summitry changed trajectories, as with Reagan and Gorbachev. Yet Goldwater’s warning still reads as a bracing critique of momentum politics: do not convene a pageant and then let the pageant decide policy. If the policies are sound, the meeting is unnecessary; if the policies are unsound, the meeting is dangerous.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
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