Content Warning: This section contains references to sexual harassment, sexism, and misogyny.

Follett’s cautionary tale involves the failed attempts of politicians, diplomats, intelligence agents, and the military as they try and ultimately fail to prevent nuclear war. It traces four intertwining narratives in which state actors employ various techniques (legal and seemingly extra-legal) such as diplomacy, espionage, and military conflict in their efforts to contain and dampen increasingly dangerous international and global conflict. The novel as a whole interrogates the ethics (and efficacy) of diplomacy and its relationship to other forms of international relations. These might include activities such as multinational corporations or organizations like the UN, trade agreements (such as the WTO), alliances and treaties (such as NATO), and war. After defining the terms, the following section will discuss how the novel reveals the ethics and limitations of diplomacy in contemporary international relations.

When spelled in lower case, international relations involves the interactions among state or international non-state actors (such as multinational corporations, transnational interest groups, and international organizations). When spelled in upper case (International Relations) it refers to the academic discipline that studies the above. While countries (or kingdoms) have historically engaged in trade, signed treaties, or gone to war, it was the rise of nationalism and imperialism in the 1800s-WWI that led to the creation of the League of Nations (1920), which evolved into the United Nations in 1946.