Stuart Diamond

After the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Albert Einstein said: "There is no secret, and there is no defense." He was referring to weapons of mass destruction. Today, with countries such as Iran and North Korea increasing their nuclear capabilities continually every day, the stakes are higher than ever.

Yet, according to leading negotiator Stuart Diamond, major political leaders continue to make mistakes and miss opportunities when dealing with foreign leaders. Whether due to lack of skill, lack of will, or both, the impact of their actions is moving the world closer to conflict, rather than away from it.

Professor Diamond, who won a Pulitzer Prize at The New York Times and whose negotiation course has been the most popular at Wharton Business School for more than a decade, wrote his first article on the coming terrorism problem 30 years ago. Just 12 days after the World Trade Center destruction in 2001, he wrote a then-controversial article, "A Violent War Against Terrorism Is Doomed To Fail," a prediction that has proven depressingly true. His revolutionary bestselling book on negotiation, Getting More, concludes that the conventional wisdom about negotiating with terrorists - and most everyone else for that matter - is wrong, in that it will not meet our goals.

His interactive lecture notes that the raw use of power, violence, threats and sanctions by the U.S. and its Allies, continues to mobilize the other side, when they can even be found. It cost terrorists only $4,200 to send unexploded bombs on airplanes in late 2010, costing millions of dollars to investigate and make changes. It cost only $500,000 to blow up the World Trade Center in 2001, costing perhaps trillions of dollars in response costs.

According to Prof. Diamond, The West cannot win a war of attrition when we have more to lose - and when suicide bombers don't mind blowing themselves up as long as they take us with them, and when a dangerous game of leapfrogging technology occurs.

Prof. Diamond advocates separating moderates from extremists using selective economic benefits and political amnesty, more effective and relentless communications, and starting with the perceptions in the heads of the other parties to link effectiveness with deep knowledge of the enemy. He suggests that the solutions be much more incremental. And he points to situations where some of these tools have worked or are being tried: including Ireland, Sri Lanka and Columbia, training former pirates in Somalia and connecting with tribal leaders in Afghanistan.

In addition to his expertise on terrorism in journalist and negotiation, Prof. Diamond has taught and advised 30,000 people in 45 countries over 20 years, including hostage negotiators and security agency officials. He has advised government officials and enterprises in Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, Congo, Russia, China and many developing countries, as well as Israelis, Koreans, Iranians, Indians, Pakistanis and Palestinians. He has also operated businesses in parts of the world with significant conflict.

His one hour lecture, with an hour provided afterwards for questions, covers the 12 strategies individuals and societies can use to pursue for a better model of human interaction to solve terrorism and other major public issues.