Bargaining With The Devil

The art of negotiation—from one of the country’s most eminent practitioners and the Chair of the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. One of the country’s most eminent practitioners of the art and science of negotiation offers practical advice for the most challenging conflicts—when you are facing an adversary you don’t trust, who may harm you, or who you may even feel is evil. This lively, informative, emotionally compelling book identifies the tools one needs to make wise decisions about life’s most challenging conflicts.

In an age of terror, national leaders face this sort of question every day. Should we negotiate with the Taliban? Iran? North Korea? What about terrorist groups holding hostages? In private disputes, you may face devils of your own. A business partner has betrayed you and now wants to negotiate a better deal. Your marriage is ending and your spouse is making extortionist demands. A business competitor has stolen your intellectual property. Your sister is fighting you over an inheritance. In cases such as these, you feel outraged. Your gut tells you to fight it out in court. But when facing a devil — anyone you perceive as a harmful adversary — it may make more sense to negotiate rather than fight, says Robert Mnookin, the internationally renowned leader in the art of negotiation. How do you decide? In Bargaining with the Devil, Mnookin provides tools for confronting adversaries of all kinds. Using eight conflicts drawn from history (including fascinating examples such as Churchill's approach to Hitler, and Nelson Mandela's response to South Africa's apartheid regime), as well as his own professional experience, he offers a framework that applies equally to international conflicts and everyday life. 'There is no easy, categorical answer,' Mnookin warns. 'Sometimes you should bargain with the Devil and other times you should refuse.' The challenge lies in making wise decisions in particular circumstances. This book shows you how.

The art of negotiation—from one of the country’s most eminent practitioners and the Chair of the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. One of the country’s most eminent practitioners of the art and science of negotiation offers practical advice for the most challenging conflicts—when you are facing an adversary you don’t trust, who may harm you, or who you may even feel is evil. This lively, informative, emotionally compelling book identifies the tools one needs to make wise decisions about life’s most challenging conflicts.

Conflict is inevitable, in both deals and disputes. Yet when clients call in the lawyers to haggle over who gets how much of the pie, traditional hard-bargaining tactics can lead to ruin. Too often, deals blow up, cases don't settle, relationships fall apart, justice is delayed. Beyond Winning charts a way out of our current crisis of confidence in the legal system. It offers a fresh look at negotiation, aimed at helping lawyers turn disputes into deals, and deals into better deals, through practical, tough-minded problem-solving techniques.

Over the past thirty years, while the United States has turned either a blind or dismissive eye, Iran has emerged as a nation every bit as capable of altering America’s destiny as traditional superpowers Russia and China. Indeed, one of this book’s central arguments is that, in some ways, Iran’s grip on America’s future is even tighter. As ex–CIA operative Robert Baer masterfully shows, Iran has maneuvered itself into the elite superpower ranks by exploiting Americans’ false perceptions of what Iran is—by letting us believe it is a country run by scowling religious fanatics, too preoccupied with theocratic jostling and terrorist agendas to strengthen its political and economic foundations. The reality is much more frightening—and yet contained in the potential catastrophe is an implicit political response that, if we’re bold enough to adopt it, could avert disaster. Baer’s on-the-ground sleuthing and interviews with key Middle East players—everyone from an Iranian ayatollah to the king of Bahrain to the head of Israel’s internal security—paint a picture of the centuries-old Shia nation that is starkly the opposite of the one normally drawn. For example, Iran’s hate-spouting President Ahmadinejad is by no means the true spokesman for Iranian foreign policy, nor is Iran making it the highest priority to become a nuclear player. Even so, Baer has discovered that Iran is currently engaged in a soft takeover of the Middle East, that the proxy method of war-making and co-option it perfected with Hezbollah in Lebanon is being exported throughout the region, that Iran now controls a significant portion of Iraq, that it is extending its influence over Jordan and Egypt, that the Arab Emirates and other Gulf States are being pulled into its sphere, and that it will shortly have a firm hold on the world’s oil spigot. By mixing anecdotes with information gleaned from clandestine sources, Baer superbly demonstrates that Iran, far from being a wild-eyed rogue state, is a rational actor—one skilled in the game of nations and so effective at thwarting perceived Western colonialism that even rival Sunnis relish fighting under its banner. For U.S. policy makers, the choices have narrowed: either cede the world’s most important energy corridors to a nation that can match us militarily with its asymmetric capabilities (which include the use of suicide bombers)—or deal with the devil we know. We might just find that in allying with Iran, we’ll have increased not just our own security but that of all Middle East nations.The alternative—to continue goading Iran into establishing hegemony over the Muslim world—is too chilling to contemplate.

“Saudi Arabia is more and more an irrational state—a place that spawns global terrorism even as it succumbs to an ancient and deeply seated isolationism, a kingdom led by a royal family that can’t get out of the way of its own greed. Is this the fulcrum we want the global economy to balance on?” In his explosive New York Times bestseller, See No Evil, former CIA operative Robert Baer exposed how Washington politics drastically compromised the CIA’s efforts to fight global terrorism. Now in his powerful new book, Sleeping with the Devil, Baer turns his attention to Saudi Arabia, revealing how our government’s cynical relationship with our Middle Eastern ally and America’ s dependence on Saudi oil make us increasingly vulnerable to economic disaster and put us at risk for further acts of terrorism. For decades, the United States and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a “harmony of interests.” America counted on the Saudis for cheap oil, political stability in the Middle East, and lucrative business relationships for the United States, while providing a voracious market for the kingdom’ s vast oil reserves. With money and oil flowing freely between Washington and Riyadh, the United States has felt secure in its relationship with the Saudis and the ruling Al Sa’ud family. But the rot at the core of our “friendship” with the Saudis was dramatically revealed when it became apparent that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers proved to be Saudi citizens. In Sleeping with the Devil, Baer documents with chilling clarity how our addiction to cheap oil and Saudi petrodollars caused us to turn a blind eye to the Al Sa’ud’s culture of bribery, its abysmal human rights record, and its financial support of fundamentalist Islamic groups that have been directly linked to international acts of terror, including those against the United States. Drawing on his experience as a field operative who was on the ground in the Middle East for much of his twenty years with the agency, as well as the large network of sources he has cultivated in the region and in the U.S. intelligence community, Baer vividly portrays our decades-old relationship with the increasingly dysfunctional and corrupt Al Sa’ud family, the fierce anti-Western sentiment that is sweeping the kingdom, and the desperate link between the two. In hopes of saving its own neck, the royal family has been shoveling money as fast as it can to mosque schools that preach hatred of America and to militant fundamentalist groups—an end game just waiting to play out. Baer not only reveals the outrageous excesses of a Saudi royal family completely out of touch with the people of its kingdom, he also takes readers on a highly personal search for the deeper roots of modern terrorism, a journey that returns time again and again to Saudi Arabia: to the Wahhabis, the powerful Islamic sect that rules the Saudi street; to the Taliban and al Qaeda, both of which Saudi Arabia helped to underwrite; and to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most active and effective terrorist groups in existence, which the Al Sa’ud have sheltered and funded. The money and arms that we send to Saudi Arabia are, in effect, being used to cut our own throat, Baer writes, but America might have only itself to blame. So long as we continue to encourage the highly volatile Saudi state to bank our oil under its sand—and so long as we continue to grab at the Al Sa’ud’s money—we are laying the groundwork for a potential global economic catastrophe.

Regardless of who you are or what you want, you can negotiate anything promises Herb Cohen, the world’s best negotiator. From mergers to marriages, from loans to lovemaking, the #1 bestseller You Can Negotiate Anything proves that “money, justice, prestige, love—it’s all negotiable.” Hailed by such publications as Time, People, and Newsweek, Cohen has advised presidents on everything from domestic policy to hostage crises to combating internal terrorism. His advice: “Be patient, be personal, be informed—and you can bargain successfully for anything.” Inside, you’ll learn the keys to using Herb Cohen’s proven strategy for dealing with your mate, your boss, your credit card company, your children, your lawyer, your best friends, and even yourself: •The three crucial steps to success • Identifying the other side’s negotiating style—and how to deal with it • The win-win technique • Using time to your advantage • The power of persistence, persuasion, and attitude • The art of the telephone negotiation, and much more “Power is based upon perception—if you think you’ve got it then you’ve got it!” affirms Herb Cohen, the world’s expert. And with this book, you’ve got the power to get what you really want right in your hands.

"A must-read for lawyers, business people, and other professionals wanting helpful negotiation advice." -Robert Mnookin, author of Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight "As social creatures, we are always trying to influence each other. Russell Korobkin’s book lays out five techniques that anyone can use to ensure you get what you want and leave enough on the table so others win, too. The book moves quickly, is full of examples, and provides step-by-step actionable instructions to help you negotiate anything. Everyone needs this book." -Paul J. Zak, author of Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies From leading negotiation expert Russell Korobkin comes this revelatory guide that distills the keys to bargaining into five simple-yet-sophisticated tools that anyone can master. The Five Tool Negotiator stands apart in a category saturated with breezy, self-help volumes as a compulsively readable and highly researched must-have for anyone looking to improve their bargaining skills. Nationally renowned UCLA law professor Russell Korobkin distills insights drawn from his decades of studying and teaching the keys to successful negotiations into five simple-yet-sophisticated strategies: Bargaining Zone Analysis * Persuasion * Deal Design * Power * and Fairness Norms. Incorporating lively anecdotes and fascinating social science experiments, Korobkin brings to life concepts from the disparate fields of psychology, economics, and game theory. Designed for use at both the flea market and in the C-suite, this game-changing, universal approach provides a formula that a savvy reader can implement immediately: · Tool #1, Bargaining Zone Analysis, enables you to identify the range of agreements that will benefit both parties. · Tool #2, Persuasion, convinces your counterpart that reaching an agreement will benefit them more than they otherwise would have recognized, making them willing to give you more. · Tool #3, Deal Design, structures the agreement in ways that increase its value to both parties. · Tool #4, Power, forces your counterpart to agree to terms relatively more desirable to you. · Tool #5, Fairness Norms, enables you to seal a bargain that both parties can feel good about. From negotiating the price of a used car to closing a multimillion-dollar merger, Korobkin meticulously explains how to answer the following questions that arise in every negotiation: Should you make the first offer or let the other side go first? What makes some proposals seem more fair than others? How do you decide whether to accept an offer, reject it, or make a counteroffer? When should you propose an unusual agreement structure? What steps can you take to make a bluff believable? Readers will come away with a roadmap to becoming a truly complete negotiator, able to understand bargaining as both a strategic and social activity. Intuitively accessible and reassuringly persuasive, The Five Tool Negotiator promises to be a classic in the art of bargaining strategy.