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As the world devolves into a state of constant armed conflict, there never has been a more pressing need for the art of diplomacy to find solutions that could bring a sustainable end to hostilities. Diplomacy, however, implies a combination of process and tact. In a world where chaos reigns supreme, the traditional diplomatic skill set has become outdated. Indeed, some question the viability of traditional diplomacy at all. The reality is, however, that diplomacy provides much-needed structure to conflict, even when the goal of those engaged is to sustain, not curtail, the fighting. And even for those who thrive in chaos, there is a need to control or manage the chaos to one’s advantage. This process of managed chaos involves diplomatic methodologies of a mixed character, comprised of different, often seemingly contradictory elements — a hybrid diplomacy, so to speak. Understanding this form of hybrid diplomacy is essential in deciphering the complexities of modern conflict.I recently participated in a panel discussion convened as part of the 29th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which took place in early June. The panel topic, “The World Disorder. Is There Any Room for Diplomacy in Contemporary International Relations?”, was timely, given the situation around the world: the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war — the reality of which was driven home when Ukrainian long-range drones attacked targets in and around St. Petersburg on the opening day of the summit — and the once-again escalating conflict between the US and Iran in the Mideast Gulf.Dmitry Stolkov, an associate professor at MGIMO University of the Russian ministry of foreign affairs, who moderated the panel, identified the following dilemma: Is modern diplomacy capable of resolving growing geopolitical tensions, or is the world on the brink of a global armed conflict, with chaos spreading in international relations?Aleksandr Pankin, a deputy foreign minister of Russia, noted that there was, today, a systemic crisis in traditional institutions and a disregard for international law. Nevertheless, Pankin believed that classical diplomacy remains the primary tool for de-escalation and that maintaining working contacts with a wide range of foreign counterparts was an imperative task.I took a contrarian position, alongside other non-Russian members of the panel, attributing the spate of never-ending conflicts to the political nihilism of Western elites who have lost the moral right to impose their “rules of the game” on the world.Anatoly Torkunov, the rector at and an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, refuted our arguments, stating instead that diplomatic efforts have consistently served as the foundation for resolving the world’s gravest crises. “In the context of today’s ‘world disorder,’ diplomacy not only preserves its key value, but also expands its toolkit, seamlessly integrating economic, scientific and cultural formats of interaction between states,” Torkunov concluded.The Art of Diplomacy?Diplomacy, at least in the context that Torkunov speaks of, is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between nations. The implication inherent in the term is the concept of tact, namely the ability to handle affairs without arousing hostility. Moreover, from a Russian perspective at least, diplomacy implies a normative standard premised on the notion of predictability. This was articulated to me by the former Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, using the context of the 2024 US presidential election. “We don’t care who wins,” he said. “That is up to the American people. What we want most is predictability. We can formulate policies to deal with most situations if there is an element of predictability attached.”Antonov noted that former US President Joe Biden, whose policies were harmful to Russia, was predictable, while President Donald Trump, who articulated policy stances ostensibly favorable to Russia, was not.But predictability can provide a degree of reliability, which in turn helps establish the basis for workable relations between adversaries. Seen in this light, Torkunov’s intervention in favor of traditional diplomacy falters, an assessment shared by none other than Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who recently lamented, “We no longer trust the West’s declared willingness to find a negotiated solution [to the Ukraine conflict]; this reserve of good faith and hope has run completely dry.”Lavrov’s lament is grounded in what Russia sees as a pattern of deliberately deceitful behavior on the part of the West — and particularly the US — when it comes to diplomatic dealings with Russia.A 2022 exchange between Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard Kennedy School, and Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia, captured this tension. When Walt pointed out that Washington in 2021 kept repeating that Ukraine would join Nato, McFaul was quick to dismiss those promises as standard diplomatic procedure. Diplomats lying is “the real world,” he argued. Walt pressed back, asking how the Russians could then trust US assurances.The attitude reflected in this exchange recalls the concepts contained in the term perfidy, which in its ordinary usage implies deceitfulness and untrustworthiness.In the context of war, however, perfidy has a narrower legal meaning: It involves inviting an adversary to rely on a protection provided by the laws of armed conflict, with the intention of betraying that confidence in order to kill, injure or capture. This can include feigning an intention to negotiate under a flag of truce before launching an attack.Diplomatic deception or negotiating in bad faith does not by itself necessarily meet this legal definition. Nevertheless, negotiations used deliberately as a cover for an imminent surprise attack could raise serious questions under the laws and customs of war, depending on the circumstances. Article 23 of the Hague Regulations of 1907 prohibits treacherously killing or wounding an enemy and the improper use of a flag of truce, while Article 37 of Additional Protocol I provides the more explicit modern definition of perfidy.The West has a track record of conduct that Russia and others have interpreted in this light, including the Minsk Accords of 2014 and 2015 regarding Ukraine, even if this troubled process did not serve as a cover for any surprise Ukrainian attack on Russia. Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Petro Poroshenko — the former leaders of Germany, France and Ukraine, respectively — subsequently said that the Minsk agreements had given Ukraine time, which it used to strengthen its military.Russia has cited their remarks as evidence that the process was intended to buy time rather than secure a lasting settlement, although Merkel and Hollande presented Minsk more broadly as an effort to halt the fighting and give diplomacy — and Ukraine — a chance.But disingenuous diplomacy is a two-way street. Russia and the US were engaged in on-off talks ahead of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and as late as Feb. 18, 2022, less than a week before Moscow invaded, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that the Russian military’s wider exercises, as 150,000 troops massed on the Russia-Ukraine border, were “purely defensive” and “not a threat to any other country.”Similar questions have arisen over the nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran in both June 2025 and February 2026. Israel attacked Iran in June 2025 shortly before another round of US-Iran talks was due to take place, with the US subsequently joining the campaign. In February 2026, the US and Israel attacked Iran while further negotiations were still anticipated. In both cases, Iran and its supporters argued that the diplomatic process had been used to create the conditions for a surprise attack.The same suspicions surround the current memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran, which critics have portrayed as a device to buy time for securing energy supplies and rearming pending a resumption of hostilities. The memorandum itself, however, was formally presented as an interim framework for further negotiations.Hybrid DiplomacyHow can diplomacy survive in a world where one side expects the rules of the game to be adhered to, while the other side openly engages in what are perceived as acts of deception? The answer lies in recognizing the reality that the predictability Antonov seeks can only be achieved if one acknowledges that the only thing predictable about diplomacy today is its inherent unpredictability. Order is no longer the objective, but rather a permanent state of chaos.In my view, the need for chaos is driven by the fact that the West, inclusive of the US, no longer possesses the means to directly dictate outcomes under the “rules-based international order” that had been imposed on the world for the past eight decades. The world is transitioning away from the hegemony of the US — the author and enforcer of the aforementioned “rules” — and toward a new multipolar reality.The US and its Western allies lack the means to block this transition outright. Diplomacy, in its traditional form, is designed to bring order to chaos. But the US and its Western partners view “order,” when it manifests itself in the form of multipolarity, as detrimental to their own goals of holding on to a world singularly responsive to Western direction — and thus have an interest in sustaining conflicts designed to be disruptive to nations central to the new multipolar world. This, at least, is how the emerging diplomatic landscape is increasingly understood by Russia and Iran.The tensions are between managing the chaos, from the US and Western perspective, or containing the chaos, from the Russian and Iranian perspective. This means diplomacy has morphed into a hybrid structure where deception and mistrust are openly acknowledged as conditions of interactions between nations, and sustaining conflict in a manner most beneficial to the involved parties takes priority over actual conflict resolution. Hybrid diplomacy is the diplomatic equivalent of pairing an arsonist and a firefighter when it comes to safeguarding a community, an inherently contradictory notion until you realize the arsonist has become the new societal norm.Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer whose service over a 20-plus-year career included tours of duty in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control agreements, serving on the staff of US General Norman Schwarzkopf during the Gulf War and later as a chief weapons inspector with the UN in Iraq from 1991-98. The views expressed in this article are those of the author.
