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The umbrella group representing Syria‘s rebellion on the world stage announced on Thursday that they would not attend peace talks proposed to take place in Geneva during June, a flat rejection that might appear to sideline the role of diplomacy in the civil war. But diplomacy is running full bore in the Syrian conflict, and even as horrors multiply on the battlefield, a good portion of the war is also being carried out in words. The best evidence might be the statements that overshadowed the rebels’ declaration in the same news cycle: President Bashar Assad hinted in a television interview that Russia has already delivered some components of an anti-aircraft battery known as S-300.

Assad’s remarks amounted to what was originally dubbed “CNN diplomacy,” the use of satellite television to deliver a message. The term is no longer in use, in part because it has become the norm and in part because there are so many alternatives to CNN. In this case, the medium was a significant part of the message: The embattled Syrian President spoke with Al Manar, the satellite channel run by Hizballah, the Lebanon-based militia Syria supports alongside the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose Press TV propaganda arm elucidated some of the finer points of the sit-down. Military commanders like to quote Carl von Clausewitz’s dictum that war is the extension of politics by other means. But you never hear diplomats reference Mary Poppins on the relevant criteria for the perfect nanny: “Play games. All sorts.” Consider some of the diplomatic games engendered by the Syrian conflict:

Sabre rattling. The S-300 is an impressive threat to enemy warplanes. When Russia made a deal to sell the system to Iran, the Pentagon was so unsettled by its implications for U.S. airpower that Washington pressured Moscow for years to renege on the deal, which it finally did in 2010, under cover of international sanctions aimed at Tehran’s nuclear program. Russia’s promise to deliver the same system to Syria means almost nothing in terms of the conduct of the civil war itself: The rebels have no planes. {More at link}

Facebook Diplomacy. Netanyahu made the same point on the premier social media site in March, by way of justifying his government’s decision to patch up relations with Turkey: “It’s important that Turkey and Israel, which both share a border with Syria, are able to communicate with each other and this is also relevant to other regional challenges….Syria is crumbling, and its massive stockpiles of advanced weapons are starting to fall into the hands of various elements. What we fear most is that terrorist groups will get their hands on chemical weapons.”

Preventive diplomacy. The most concrete evidence that Israel wants to stay out of Syria’s civil war is its repeated glossing of incidents on that shared border, which still exists as a military front from wars decades past. One day late last month, an Israeli foot patrol from the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance battalion entered no-man’s land between the two fronts, was spotted by Syrian regulars, and found themselves pinned down as the Syrians walked mortar fire toward them. Then, before other Israeli forces could rescue them, Syrian soldiers were spotted heading their way on foot, a sight that prompted Israeli commanders to launch fire that destroyed the Syrian position. Like an earlier episode when an Israeli Defense Force jeep took fire from the Syrian side, Israeli officials blandly suggested the problem may have been “stray fire.”

Gunboat diplomacy. A dozen Russian warships moved into Syrian waters near the base at Tartous, where Syria and Russia operate a joint naval base, Russia’s only warm-water facility. In a throwback to the Cold War, the deployment signaled solidarity with Assad and an implicit warning to those powers – the U.S., the EU, Turkey and other Sunni states aligned with the rebels, chiefly Saudi Arabia and Qatar – that Moscow will defend its stake it has maintained over generations in Syria, its one Middle East interest. More at http://world.time.com/2013/05/31/the-syrian-chess-board-behind-the-gam
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