60 pages • 2 hours read
Ken FollettNever
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Ethics and Counterproductivity of Diplomacy and International Relations
Content Warning: This section contains references to sexual harassment, sexism, and misogyny.
Follett’s cautionary tale involves the failed attempts of politicians, diplomats, intelligence agents, and the military as they try and ultimately fail to prevent nuclear war. It traces four intertwining narratives in which state actors employ various techniques (legal and seemingly extra-legal) such as diplomacy, espionage, and military conflict in their efforts to contain and dampen increasingly dangerous international and global conflict. The novel as a whole interrogates the ethics (and efficacy) of diplomacy and its relationship to other forms of international relations. These might include activities such as multinational corporations or organizations like the UN, trade agreements (such as the WTO), alliances and treaties (such as NATO), and war. After defining the terms, the following section will discuss how the novel reveals the ethics and limitations of diplomacy in contemporary international relations.
When spelled in lower case, international relations involves the interactions among state or international non-state actors (such as multinational corporations, transnational interest groups, and international organizations). When spelled in upper case (International Relations) it refers to the academic discipline that studies the above. While countries (or kingdoms) have historically engaged in trade, signed treaties, or gone to war, it was the rise of nationalism and imperialism in the 1800s-WWI that led to the creation of the League of Nations (1920), which evolved into the United Nations in 1946. In the 21st century, international relations is mostly concerned with issues of international political economy, security, migration, human rights, and the environment. Diplomacy is one of the forms a state uses when it interacts with other states or non-state actors. As an ideal, diplomacy uses negotiations and dialogues to promote peaceful relations. But in the novel, readers see that these negotiations and dialogues often use a “carrot and stick” approach as well as other non-diplomatic forms of statecraft.
Pauline Green, as the President of the United States, is the nation’s “Chief Diplomat” according to Article II of the Constitution. There are many instances in the novel where she is preparing for or engaging in dialogue with leaders of other countries, such as Chen from China or No from South Korea. She also makes speeches to her own citizens, to which the entire world listens, to inform and calm them about mounting tensions. Sometimes Green is successful, like when she gets Japan to agree not to retaliate, but many other times in the novel, dialogue between leaders becomes a failed form of diplomacy. President Chen, increasingly pressured by hardliners in his country, hangs up the phone on her (796), and earlier, Present No refuses to end her country’s incursion into the North (639).
In the field, diplomacy has much less efficacy than other forms of negotiations between countries. For example, in Chad, the novel presents the military and the CIA as much more powerful actors than the American ambassador. Going undercover is the best way to gather the most important and actionable information. Abdul does this to track the cocaine shipment to the terrorist leader’s headquarters. Many others do this through clandestine conversations. There are multiple instances in which CIA agent Tamara obtains crucial information from her informant in the Chadian government, Karim, involving the missing drone or the ex-terrorist about the imminent suicide bombing attack of the Chadian president (421, 458). On several occasions Chinese spymaster Kai exchanges information with his counterpart in the US Embassy, which provides information needed by both countries to make effective decisions. Kai also meets multiple times with his informant in North Korea to pass information to the rebels in an effort to diminish the chance of nuclear conflict.
Communication often fails at diffusing tensions, and in some cases, communication even causes issues and escalations. The novel questions how effective diplomacy and even international relations are on a global scale; the attempts by these governments often result in escalated tensions and certainly do not prevent WWIII. It is even possible they contribute to the nuclear war. The final image of diplomacy in this work is one of convolution and entanglement; as the members become increasingly involved with each other, tensions only rise. These efforts result in chaos, a comment on contemporary international relations on such a massive and interconnected scale. Even allegiances are not very helpful and may lead only to increased antagonism from the other side.
The novel questions the ethics, and ultimately the efficacy, of diplomacy. Diplomacy cannot prevent nations from ignoring international laws. It cannot halt the buildup of tensions between nations or avert nuclear war. The dependence of the US government on the CIA as shown in the novel is problematic, too. The agency has been mired in legal and ethical controversies since its inception after WWII in 1947, including with domestic wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, security and counterintelligence failures, and human rights concerns such as funding and training terrorist groups, human experimentation, assassination, and torture. While Abdul is clearly meant to be the hero of the novel, he does engage in extra-legal behavior, such as crossing a border illegally or killing terrorists. Members of governments or spy agencies exchange information and make promises without clearance from their own government. In the end, neither the official diplomacy of government members, nor the shadowy diplomacy of government representatives, is able to save the world from WWIII. It is very possible that both in fact led to the war.
Globalization and the Threat of Nuclear War in the 21st Century
Author Ken Follett is renowned for the meticulous research he does in preparation for writing a novel. Many believe that the risk of a nuclear incident is higher now than at any other time in history. While tensions between the superpowers of the US and the USSR were high during the Cold War (1947-1991), until recently the military’s greatest concern was the fear of a limited rather than all out nuclear war. But as the novel clearly demonstrates, in the 21st-century era of globalization, there really is no such thing as a limited nuclear conflict and any use of nuclear weapons is bound to lead to a nuclear WWIII.
The novel exposes one of the key concerns of nuclear conflict today, that of unstable or non-state actors obtaining nuclear weapons. It also shows the weakness in the limited nuclear conflict theory and the dangers of the umbrella of influence structure. In the end, it concludes that North Korea remains the biggest nuclear threat, and that what might start as limited conflict will inevitably lead to all-out war, due to the domino effect and bilateral treaties.
After the end of the Cold War, the former-USSR broke up into what is today 15 countries, and due to diplomacy and treaties, the only one remaining with nuclear weapons today is Russia. There was great concern at the time that nuclear weapons would fall in the hands of unstable states or non-state actors. This was a storyline that Follett could have chosen to pursue, with Chad or Sudan obtaining nuclear weapons or the terrorists smuggling not only cocaine and gold but also missiles with nuclear warheads. Even a dirty bomb (a weapon improvised from radioactive nuclear waste material and conventional explosives) could have been a catastrophic weapon in the hands of these kinds of actors. While North Korea does supply weapons to both Sudan and the terrorists in the novel, these are non-nuclear ballistic missiles. Kai, however, is “shocked” to hear this when he is told by his US informant Neil (577). This is one of the three threats that Follett has combined in his narrative that ultimately leads not to the dreaded Cold War mutually assured destruction (MAD) but to a nuclear WWIII.
While the number of weapons has decreased since its peak near the end of the Cold War, a larger number of countries today possess nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapon states (the technical name) are as follows: the United States, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, and the United Kingdom. There are several others that began and abandoned nuclear programs or destroyed or surrendered their weapons. Although Russia and the US have the largest number of weapons (over 90% of them), the greatest threat, the novel believes, comes from North Korea. The threat is not from a direct attack on the US homeland but rather an attack on one of the countries that fall within the US nuclear umbrella. These are countries with which the US has mutual defense or similar treaties to protect against attack by nuclear armed states. The idea is that knowing the US is bound to protect a country (like NATO countries or Japan or South Korea) will deter others from attacking. There are problems with this rationale, as well as the concept of limited nuclear attack, both of which the novel suggests. The extensive alliance networks actually lead to bigger problems in this novel, as the work questions if alliance networks do less to create friends and more to create or inflame enemies. The novel depicts international relations as a corrupted form of togetherness, motivated only by power and destruction and not by a concern for the planet or humanity.
The novel also questions if these are truly alliance networks or just a modern form of imperialism, as states that are loyal to the West and China act as buffer zones for war and serve on the front lines for these proxy conflicts. A limited nuclear attack is not possible in that case, as both sides have colonized such large portions of the planet that an attack anywhere is ultimately a pointed attack on one side or the other. Lake Chad, Chad’s life source, is dwindling, and the Chadians’ only chance to save themselves is to ally themselves militarily with China, to serve in the war between superpowers that they want no part in.
According to many experts, and the novel, North Korea is the greatest nuclear threat today. Its leadership does not adhere to the rationale of MAD or other deterrents that would prevent it from launching an attack. It sees the US and by extension South Korea as an existential threat, and in the novel’s view, it is subject to internal instability, which results in rebel forces gaining control of nuclear military bases. While the US is able to prevent Japan from a direct attack, it cannot stop the South Koreans from invading North Korea, which results in what experts would call a limited nuclear attack on the South. But because of the concept of the nuclear umbrella and treaties signed by the US requiring mutual defense, the attacks on South Korea require the US to launch nuclear missiles in retaliation for the North’s attack. Despite the stated desires throughout the novel by both China and the US to retaliate not escalate, a domino effect occurs, and each small incident leads to another and increasingly more dangerous response.
Neither the US nor China can control Korea in its sphere of influence. The novel ends with China attacking Hawaii with nuclear weapons and Green retaliating by launching nuclear missiles against China, which is the start of WWIII. Again, ostensibly colonies of the countries bear the first attacks of this war. The powers have turned the world into massive colonization, and the result is complete destruction.
Stereotypes of Women and Power
While early Follett novels like Eye of the Needle (1978) and The Key to Rebecca (1980) have strong female characters who pursue male antagonists, this novel follows the sub-narratives of several powerful women who are the protagonists within their own plots, as well as others who play strong supporting roles. This more accurately reflects geopolitics of the 21st century but also ensures that Follett is appealing to a wider readership. The power of these women is at times diminished by the insistence of the novel on including tropes typical of a romance novel or by the focus on stereotypical misogynistic behavior of the women’s male counterparts.
The four most important female characters are Tamara, Colonel Susan, President Pauline Green, and Kiah. The first three (Tamara, Susan, and Pauline) represent a branch of the US government. Tamara works for the CIA, an agency in which about 80% of the employees are male with few of the women being covert operatives or spies. That role in the novel is reserved for the Lebanese American Abdul, who is able to insert himself into the primarily male-dominated world of the terrorists. Tamara lacks self-confidence, not only in the professional but also in the romantic sphere. Her professional confidence is constantly eroded by her sexist boss Derek, who humiliates her in front of others, like with his joke about oral sex (94). He attempts to take over informants that she has cultivated (240), and he dismisses her professional acumen as “women’s intuition” (456). Her belief that Tab is having an affair erodes her personal confidence (243). It further erodes when she believes he is trying to control her by telling her what to wear when his parents visit (416-17). Yet she proves herself capable at managing her Chadian asset as well as handling a weapon and herself in a crisis.
Pauline Green, as president of the US, is one of the most powerful people in the world. Yet her relationship with her husband and teenage daughter troubles her, and on several occasions her growing desires for her confidant and head of the NSA Gus distract from tumultuous world affairs. In fact, the two of them have a romantic history, but she fears that allowing herself to fall in love with him would be akin to a disaster: “It would be a hurricane, a train crash, a nuclear bomb” (339). Critics have expressed that they are unconvinced by the romantic subplots of the novel, as they argue that it engages in stereotypes that diminish the women’s role and seriousness in these deadly serious dealings.
Although Colonel Susan is the least developed of the three American characters, she is the most professionally and personally impressive. As a military leader, she occupies a role traditionally held by a man, yet her command is never questioned by her troops or others around her. She demonstrates that she is brave and strategic in the battle over the bridge or in the refugee camp rescue of foreign diplomats. She also proves to be a good friend to Tamara, providing her with protection when her boss sends Tamara to the bridge by stating outright that he is “full of shit” (109).
Kiah is the most impressive of the female characters. As a young widow in a village on Lake Chad, she proves that she is able to stand up for herself and her young son in her patriarchal society. She is financially savvy and personally astute, saving enough money to finance her trip to the Mediterranean Sea and quickly realizes that the restaurant scenario was a cover for a brothel. She is also a good judge of character, realizing that Abdul is a good man and one she can trust. Kiah is also a woman of action; she leaves the village, kisses Abdul (559-60), and sets the gasoline on fire that saves his life and enables them to escape from the terrorist gold mine camp (556).
While both Kiah and Colonel Susan remain impressive throughout the text, the sub-narratives of Tamara and President Green are somewhat diminished by the inclusion of what at times seems like trite sexism or distracting romance. While many critics have celebrated Follet’s inclusion of so many strong female characters, others believe that there is still room for improvement to create non-stereotypical female characters. These women are in power and exercise a great deal of agency but are always tied to men as romantic interests; the author engages in stereotypes and sexism by suggesting that women cannot simply serve in roles of power without being romantically interested in or involved with a man. Even this depiction of them as political heads has to resort to sexist romantic clichés.
The president herself, especially at this time of global catastrophe, is portrayed as being romantically infatuated with a man; the implication is that she cannot fulfill her role as president without doing so. Whereas there are numerous depictions of male presidents simply fulfilling their role as president and not needing to focus on romantic relationships with women, there are very few in which women focus solely on their professional tasks, and this novel engages in these sexist stereotypes. Still, the women exercise a great deal of agency in their roles and even do so in the face of overt sexism and harassment, such as that perpetuated by Derek. They exercise their power and remain the central figures and players in these events of global diplomacy and warfare. In the case of Kiah, she is uniquely able to escape from male-dominated exploitation and save her male companion as well.
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By Ken Follett
