Chas W. Freeman Jr.

“Flatterers: "He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander."

— Napoleon

Flattery: Diplomats must have no delusions of grandeur, but they should know how to induce them in others.

Flattery: "Flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true; but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered."

— Samuel Johnson

Flattery, influence through: "Praise other men whose deeds are like those of the person you are talking to; commend other actions which are based on the same policies as his. If there is someone else who is guilty of the same vice he is, be sure to gloss over it by showing that it really does no great harm; if there is someone else who has suffered the same failure he has, be sure to defend it by demonstrating that it is not a loss after all. If he prides himself on his physical prowess, do not antagonize him by mentioning the difficulties he has encountered in the past; if he consider himself an expert at making decisions, do not anger him by pointing out his past errors; if he pictures himself a sagacious planner, do not tax him with his failures. Make sure that there is nothing in your ideas as a whole that will vex your listener, and nothing about your words that will rub him the wrong way, and then you may exercise your powers of rhetoric to the fullest. This is the way to gain the confidence and intimacy of the person you are addressing and to make sure you are able to say all you have to say without incurring his suspicion."

— Han Feizi, as translated by Burton Watson

[誉异人与同行者，规异事与同计者。有与同污者，则必以大饰其无伤也；有与同败者，则必以明饰其无失也。彼自多其力，则毋以其难概之也；自勇其断，则无以其谪怒之；自智其计，则毋以其败穷之。大意无所拂悟，辞言无所系縻，然后极骋智辩焉，此道所得亲近不疑而得尽辞也。——《韩非子·说难》]”
― Chas W. Freeman Jr., The Diplomat's Dictionary

“Battle: "[A battle is] a method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue."

— Ambrose Bierce

Battlefied results, diplomacy and: "Diplomacy has rarely been able to gain at the conference table what cannot be gained or held on the battlefield."

— Walter Bedell Smith, 1954

Blockade: The use by a state or coalition of military force to prevent imports or exports from the territory of another state or coalition, a measure just short of war that leaves the actual initiation of hostilities to the decision of those being blockaded.

Bluffing: Avoid deadlines and ultimata unless you mean them. Otherwise, the other side may use them against you.

Blunders, bureaucratic: "In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, when there is a quarrel between two states, it is generaly occasioned by some blunder of a ministry."

— Benjamin Disraeli, 1858

Blunders, diplomatic: "Our diplomats plunge us forever into misfortune; our generals always save us."

— Otto von Bismarck, c. 1850”
― Chas W. Freeman Jr., The Diplomat's Dictionary