"If we humans were unable to obtain things like food and security that are fundamental to survival with a certain degree of ease and certainty, then we would not have prospered to the degree that we have," He commented. "It is because they are important that nations do everything to make sure that they have enough of both. While there are certain impoverished and vulnerable nations that make heavy concessions to obtain one or both of these interests from foreign parties. Most nations have obtained satisfactory national and food security. Or to be more accurate, most nations have acquired enough of the two to, at the very least, not be in a crisis."
"I see..." Rui nodded as he understood his error. "That definitely makes sense."
"If anything, it is the secondary set of interests that you mentioned that are levied in diplomatic negotiations. Things like securing enough resources to maintain highly vital technological sectors, institutions, and foundations of the country usually play a much bigger role when trying to incentivize foreign parties to engage in a trade with you. You mentioned communications, which is certainly very important. Another important sector of modern society is transport, the ability to move to distant locations in relatively short amounts of time and with no personal effort is an important ability that has become a sector that is akin to the blood of the country," The man noted. "Development and maintenance of infrastructure is yet another highly important aspect of modern society. The fulfillment of each of these interests is much more difficult and thus can be used as powerful incentives in negotiations."
The man paused before continuing. "That is the underlying driving force of diplomacy, negotiation, and trade. Different parties have different needs and desires. One nation may be lacking food security, another may lack national security. Giving food to the latter and protection to the former is, of course, foolish. In order to offer what they want in return for what we want, we need to know what they want in the first place."
He turned to Rui. "How would we go about knowing what they want? After all, most parties will not divulge their weaknesses and shortcomings so easily to others. It gives an advantage to other parties in negotiations. If a man trying to purchase water were to reveal to me that he hasn't drunk water for days due to being stranded in the desert, then I may very well raise the price of water since I know that that water is priceless to him. I know that he will be willing to pay a fortune for just a mug of water."
Rui smiled wryly as the man droned on about ruthless and dubious ethical practices. Of course, Rui was cognizant enough to recognize that that was the way the world worked.
"That is where one of the foremost steps of diplomacy and negotiations come in," The man continued. "We have just discussed how you can levy the fulfillment of others' interests to fulfill your own. However, you cannot do this if you do not know what the interests of said parties are. And as I just mentioned, other parties will not come out and tell you what their interests are, because it generally puts them at a disadvantage at the negotiation table. So, you do not know what their interests are, and they are not willing to tell you... How do you find out about them, then?"
"Recognizing the signs of deficiency of one of the primary or secondary interests in a country through signs that cannot be hidden that would inevitably arise if such interests were not being met, or on the verge of not being met," Rui replied quickly, having already anticipated the conversation to go this way.
"That isn't incorrect, but let's get specific. What exactly does that mean in practice? What signs are you talking about? How will you even come to recognize such signs even if they do occur? What signs would we see were there, say, a chronic food shortage problem in a certain country that the country was doing its best to compensate for and cover up?"
"That's simple. We rely on data gathered through various means. Part of it would originate from public records, another part of it we would no doubt have to rely on our intelligence department," Rui replied.
"What data specifically?"
"We would need several things. First, we need to estimate the annual food consumption of the nation. This is rather simple to obtain as we can easily estimate this from the population and population demographics of the nation that should be easy enough to obtain. Then, the important question is whether the domestic food production sector of the nation is able to produce the necessary food needed to sustain the population's food consumption." Rui explained.
"And how would you go about finding out?" The man asked, curious to the degree to which Rui understood this matter.
"It's complicated, but there are still ways and means to do this. We can estimate the size of their crop and animal agricultural industries by gauging the amount of land that is used for these two sectors. This is also something that can't be hidden. Estimating food production from fishing or other broad sources of food is also not difficult. Together, they can be used to gauge the limit of the food produced by said nation. With that estimate, we can then learn whether or not there are signs of a chronic food shortage problem or not." Rui replied, before continuing. "We can also look at the price of food and food ingredients. That allows us to also gauge the balance of supply versus demand. If food production is less than that of consumption while the price of food is reasonable, then it can be concluded that the problem is being averted through imports from foreign parties."
The man beamed as he nodded. "This is all correct, and in fact, these are the steps that we go take and have taken. It is quite remarkable that you have such a thorough understanding of economics. If I did not know better, I would have assumed you were a promising trainee of our foreign affairs department!"
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