Tough negotiation

International relations theorists are often quite fond of brinksmanship. A certain brand of negotiation theory really likes to theorize about exactly how hard you can push or use threats, and the right strategy for using and reacting to strategies in which people exaggerate how committed they are to getting a better outcome for themselves, and walking out if they can't. I don't think I'm wrong in saying that this strand of literature believes that it's often the case that negotiators leave potential gains on the table that they could have gotten, because they aren't willing to push so hard that they risk having negotiations collapse, even when the risk may be justified by the potential gains.

This is probably true as far as it goes. Sadly, my impression is that often the only people who effectively and successfully practice brinksmanship in negotiation are those who actually don't want an agreement. So, for instance, I'm currently reading about Law of the Sea stuff, and the account I'm reading gives a beautiful example of tough negotiation. Near the end of the LOS conference, the US (which has just switched administration, with Reagan incoming) suddenly decides that the draft text that's been negotiated - which the US delegation helped shape - is not sufficiently friendly to developed country/maritime country interests. It sends back a set of very strong demands that require significantly shifting the shape of the treaty and who it favors. In response to this, there was an eventual proposal by a group of 12 developed countries (referred to as the "Good Samaritans") that conceded on many of the points the US was making demands on. The account I'm reading at the moment comments:

Leigh Ratiner [a US official involved in the negotiations] says today: 'The Good Samaritans' paper would have been supported by the Group of 77, if it had been backed by all industrialized countries. Combined with the "grandfather rights" clause [another concession to US desires], that makes the treaty highly favorable to industrialized countries, though not perfect... we could have walked away with a resounding success.' (52) 

(Clyde Sanger, Ordering the Oceans, 1987)

The problem is that this all happens because there's a large faction in the incoming administration that just has no interest in seeing the US sign an LOS treaty at all; thus, even when the US appears to have extracted concessions which are, diplomatically, apparently something of a coup... it still doesn't sign. I'm a little uncertain how publicly this all went down, but potentially the net effect is that the US humiliates a bunch of foreign delegations by demonstrating that they could be backed down from firm positions by a sufficient show of force - to no purpose.