The Hammond Report

It simply does not work.

Actually, sometimes it does. Did we or did we not put the breaks on North Korea's nuke program, once we finally decided to talk with them. Why yeah. It seems the Bush administration had a rare moment of competence and accomplished that. Why shouldn't we use diplomacy with Iran? The Carter administration negotiated the release of 50+ embassy personel. Hell, to accomplish the same thing, Reagan talked with them and even gave 'em weapons. You're right though, appeasement is bad. Shame on you, Ronald Reagan!

Wulfgar-- Stick to what you know, like selling video games to teenagers.

«Did we or did we not put the breaks (sic) on North Korea's nuke program, once we finally decided to talk with them. (sic)»

Answer: False. It was the Clinton administration which entered into talks with North Korea (see, «Agreed Framework»). The North Koreans reneged on their promises after sucking Clinton into giving them millions of dollars in fuel oil, food, and cash.

«Keep your friends close ... but keep your enemies closer»

Nixon pulled the gloves off by deciding to visit China one day, and opened up a dialogue of such the world has never seen.

Our tendency to brand our enemies as terrorists or insurgents, and the subsequent policy of not «negotiating» with them is horrifying to our enemies and potential enemies. The first principle taught in negotiation is that you must separate the problem from the people, then focus on the problem. When we refuse to talk to them, it is sending the message, «We don't want to talk about the problem, we just want you dead.» That is a terrifying message that does not provide enough leeway for us to win over the hearts and minds of our enemies. They are compelled by the fight-or-flight reflex because our policies preclude the possibility to settle it like civilized people. It is extremely counter-productive to conflate people and problems; it is foolish, expensive, and inevitably not in our best interest to attempt to kill the people rather than talk through the problem.

The above is the complex modern explanation for the beautifully simple principle, «Turn the other cheek.» Organizations (such as Nations, «terrorist» groups, etc.) are macro analogies for people, and all of the principles that work best in interpersonal relations also work best in international or other inter-organizational relations

Perhaps the policy of not negotiating with terrorists is deliberately designed to give us an enemy that cannot be killed, thus fueling our Military Industrial Complex. That is, of course, only speculation.