Diplomacy 101: Undiplomatically Speaking
Where Beliefs Clash and Stories Flash
UNdeadlock and Shadow Summits
The final week of March exposed the widening disconnect between global governance frameworks and the realities they’re meant to manage. At the United Nations Security Council, a U.S.-backed resolution calling for a conditional ceasefire in Gaza was vetoed by Russia and China, while a competing Russian draft failed to secure enough votes. Diplomats described the atmosphere as “ritual paralysis.”
Amid this, Egypt hosted a closed-door summit bringing together Jordanian, Qatari, and Turkish security officials alongside U.S. and EU envoys. Though officially described as “humanitarian coordination,” sources suggest discussions touched on future governance models for Gaza—post-Hamas, post-IDF, but still entirely speculative. The absence of Palestinian representatives underscored how distant a political solution remains.
Elsewhere, Brazilian President Lula da Silva traveled to New Delhi for a BRICS+ mini-retreat, where the bloc discussed a tentative blueprint for a cross-border digital payments system. Analysts view this as another cautious step away from dollar hegemony, with an eye on enhancing South-South trade flows. India remains hesitant to move too quickly, wary of regulatory gaps and cyber vulnerabilities.
Meanwhile, climate diplomacy took a symbolic step forward as Kenya and Germany co-chaired a pre-COP30 ministerial in Nairobi, reaffirming commitment to climate financing targets—but without a binding framework or enforcement mechanism. The declarations read more like aspiration than architecture, but they kept the lights on ahead of the November summit in Brazil.