Power don't need diplomacy

It is a misnomer to characterise Genghis Khan and the Mongol leaders as a diplomats and his conquest of Europe right unto the gates of Vienna as anything but diplomacy. The Mongol hordes are a loosely confederated nomadic nation and after establishing his capital at Karakoram his followers swept into the grasslands of Europe bent on  conquest, pillage and looting with no established administration but ruled by terror and intimidation. They ruled Russia indirectly for 300 years . If the Mongols do not inflict violence and terror on other nation the Khan’s tribe may  turn on each other and start fighting among themselves.  Such are the political culture of tribal kingdoms like the Ashanti  in Ghana, and Shaka Zulu in South Africa, Attila the Hun from the steppes of Hungary-----all used a form of state terrorism to keep themselves in power. It is a political culture widely used by the Ottoman sultans right up to World War 1.

There are two very recent Russian made DVDs chronicling the rise and conquest of the Mongols, the storm from the east-----MONGOL directed by Sergei Bortov on the rise of Temudgin (1162) and BY THE WILL OF GENGHIS KHAN directed by Andrey Borisov which I recommend students to view so as to understand the real politics of the 12th century . Mongol history is devoid of any diplomacy because they either don’t need it or they don’t know how. It is all about power and how to use it in the realist view ( Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz, et al)   And this is no different from the realpolitik of today preached  by George W.Bush’s NEOCONS. The Second Iraq War initiated by the US and UK to get rid of Saddam Hussein and his sons in  2004 was no different from the Mongol system of political theory and belief system of subjugation.

They ignored Tariq Ali’s Iraqi diplomacy and manipulated various UN Resolutions to suit their own political agenda negotiating from a position of strength( Henry Kissinger, Gearge F.Keenan, et al ) both US-UK was not going to be deterred by world opinion. A shrewd Chinese political leader called Mao Zedong once said that political power emanates from the barrel of a gun continue to hold  true today .

The only Mongol leader that has ever used diplomacy was Kubilai Khan emperor of China and established the 12th century Yuan dynasty.  He used the Chinese court  diplomats to further China’s interest at home and abroad and attempted to invade Japan when she began to assert her independence from the Chinese World . Venetian traveller Marco Polo in his Travels has written widely about the Khan’s realm.

The Mongol conquests of Europe has built an empire greater than the British and in its legacy created the Ottoman state of Turkey, the Tartar-Muslim states of Russian Caucasia , Persia/Iran, Mughal India, and the Russian border states from Uzbekistan to Kirghizstan without any form of diplomacy being practiced .

So Daniel you have erred !!!!!!!! ToraToraTora .