BOOK REVIEW: Great Power Diplomacy: The Skill of Statecraft from Attila the Hun to Kissinger
By A. Wess Mitchell / Princeton University Press – Oct 14, 2025
Reviewed by: Ambassador Gary Grappo
The Reviewer — Gary Grappo is a former U.S. ambassador who held senior positions including Minister Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad; U.S. Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman; and Charge d’Affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He’s currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Middle East Studies at the Korbel School for International Studies, University of Denver.
REVIEW — As a university professor of foreign policy in the Middle East and of diplomacy and as a former diplomat, I was delighted when I learned that a new book has taken up the banner of diplomacy. It’s long overdue and Wess Mitchell’s superbly measures up.
Some may be disappointed that he does not directly address how the lessons of his brief apply to today’s challenges. Mitchell clearly explains why in his introduction. Nevertheless, he does make clear, as have others, the United States has returned to an era of “great power competition.” Thus, the salience and prescience of Great Power Diplomacy. It is part history lesson and part instruction manual for national leaders and diplomats, reprising the tactics, strategies, methods and actions of previous major state leaders and diplomats who found themselves confronting similar great power contests. Using history, he offers insightful, valuable and instructive lessons to guide today’s leaders and citizens alike.
The standard for literature on statecraft and diplomacy was set more than 30 years ago with the publication of Henry Kissinger’s seminal and brilliant Diplomacy. (Kissinger is the subject, along with President Richard Nixon, of the penultimate chapter of Great Power Diplomacy.) In its review of Kissinger’s 912-page mega-tome, the New York Times compared it to Machiavelli’s Discourses, predicting it would be read well into the future “for its wisdom.” So, by any standard, Kissinger would be a tough act to follow. Yet, Mitchell does much more than a credible job in an eminently readable, cogently argued and approachable style.
Like Kissinger, Mitchell makes the case that the world has returned to what has been a state of normalcy throughout much of the history of international affairs. That is to say a balance of powers, today the U.S., China and Russia… in Cardinal Richelieu’s 17th century (as Mitchell recounts), France, Spain, and the Habsburgs, among others. As such, today’s national leaders and diplomats must awaken that muscle memory of great power diplomacy, which atrophied after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The author refers to this in an early chapter of the book as “The Lost Art of Diplomacy.” The skills and strategies of the post-Cold War period weren’t so much lost as changed to fit the circumstances of that period when the U.S. stood alone atop the global power structure. It would have been foolish, if not pointless, to employ such skills when the times and conditions didn’t require them. There was only one great power. But that situation of an American unipolar world was never going to last. Today’s powers, most specifically the U.S., must now recognize that the skills of great power diplomacy are vital to the nation’s interests and survival.
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The author presents well researched and documented cases to make the convincing case that diplomacy, encompassing the “art” and its hard skills, trumps a single-minded pursuit of hard, i.e., military, power to contend with the myriad challenges of great power contests in which not only national interests but also survival is at stake. His historic examples are bookended by the Byzantine Empire’s fifth century dealings with the invading forces of Attila the Hun and Nixon’s Kissinger-inspired realpolitik diplomacy with China in the late 1970s, and include: the Venetian Republic’s quick adjustment in the 15th century to the new reality of Ottoman power in the Middle East; Austrian master strategist Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz vis a vis the Habsburgs and Prussia in the 18th century; Austria’s Klemens Von Metternich, the brilliant architect and conductor of the early 19th century’s Council of Europe, one of Western history’s most impressive diplomatic achievements; Germany’s Otto Von Bismarck’s realpolitik of the late 19th century; and, the successful and less successful efforts of British leaders and diplomats to protect an empire facing a great power for the first time in history pressures on a global scale.
Mitchell importantly highlights what made the efforts of these states and their diplomats successful, or not. There are brilliant leaders and advisers willing to undertake risks often at odds with the institutions they lead. But there is also the realization that risk-taking leaders need a deep bench of expert diplomats and analysts working within disciplined institutions to supply leaders with indispensable information and expert advice obtained through years of diplomatic service abroad and/or years of observation and study. That includes a need to understand the role of culture, history and language of other states, both adversaries as well as allies, in the application of great power diplomacy. What might surprise some readers less familiar with diplomacy is the limited utility of money to solve many problems, e.g., compelling a nation to act a certain way, or not, though it’s unquestionably helpful in some cases. Critical to the success of the nations cited in his examples is the necessity to define clearly the mission and then ensure that the institutions of the state internalize that mission at all levels.
Several other valuable lessons are worth mentioning. Success is never guaranteed. That is especially important for democracies often imbued with a sense of superiority. In the end, it’s the smart application of power that secures success. Democracies, as opposed to autocratic, top-down states, may be better equipped to identify and produce options and opportunities, but the essentials of great power statecraft do not include a democratic form of government. Other notable lessons include the importance of lesser states – that is to say allies matter – and the inevitability of compromise. Nations unwilling to compromise can fail; and even if they win it may be at a cost that undermines longer term viability and security.
Mitchell is right to concentrate on what is required to navigate the dangerous waters of today’s great power competition. But he does not address the supra-national problems that make today’s great power diplomacy so complex, e.g., climate change, the threat of pandemics, non-state terrorism and others. These require the application of some soft-power tools not mentioned. If we accept the basis for his great power diplomacy approach, national survival, we must also accept that there are exceptional challenges to national survival shared by all great powers today that can only be resolved through other forms of diplomacy.
Mitchell’s Great Power Diplomacy represents an important, timely and invaluable addition to the library of diplomacy. For instructors and students of international affairs and diplomacy, his work will prove an ideal source for teaching what diplomacy potentially offers to today’s problems. More importantly, it offers essential lessons for decision makers, diplomats and interested citizens as the world enters into a new stage of world history. Mitchell has performed an exceptional service in drawing out the important lessons that human history offers us to address the challenges of our time. This is especially true for Western nations.
Finally, and most gratifying to this reader, Great Power Diplomacy is a resounding reaffirmation of the value and importance of diplomacy as an indispensable component of national power not just in the past but even more so today. The skills of its practitioners may need rejuvenating. But there is no denying that diplomacy ultimately holds solutions to the problems of today.
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