How about apology as foreign policy?

Apologies make news. Recently, in a carefully orchestrated statement, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar that "we are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military", adding "we are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again".

The "losses" were the accidental killing, in November 2011, of 24 Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan demanded an apology, and after the US refused, Islamabad closed off NATO supply lines to Afghanistan.

Figuring out the apology took about eight months.