ABSTRACT
Diplomacy plays an important role in war and the avoidance of war. Foreign ministers rather than leaders carry out the majority of diplomatic efforts. The creation of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) is an excellent example of the role of diplomacy in war settlements. The causes of interstate war are a central, even defining, theme in international relations. Optimistic actors can also precipitate war by engaging in risky behavior in order to reveal credibility or obtain better terms of peace. Competence determines whether foreign ministers can secure a peace that provides the same goals of war but without incurring its costs. Substantively, diplomacy is important because it forms part of the same bargaining process as war. Rio Branco had used diplomacy, international law, and arbitration to give Brazil an additional territory the size of France (Mares 2001).
