Diplomacy is dead, long live diplomacy

Stephen Brown, the editor in chief of Politico in Brussels, published on November 14th an interesting take on the current feeling of crisis, end of an era, anachronism of diplomacy. The question he raises is an old one: does #diplomacy still makes sense and do we actually need #diplomats ? This is an old question but Brown points out it has become particularly acute in the #twitter era.

I thought I would share some thoughts on this, both as a career diplomat and currently as an outsider, being this year doing a fellowship in a think tank.

Things are definitely changing in the way to work on international politics and soul searching is always healthy but the number of international crisis suggest that having professionals trained to deal with them as well as civil servants specialized in bilateral and international cooperation is still necessary. 

At the end of the day, you still need people to provide solid and verified information and analysis to decision makers. Internet increased the flow of information available but not its quality and you can therefore not outsource the process of information gathering and fact checking.

As much as we like to watch world leaders shaking hands, diplomacy is more the art of quiet nerds laying the foundations of an agreement than a competition between Instagram stars.

As Talleyrand famously put it: "Diplomats do not get angry, they take notes"

One weak spot in this article is in that regard maybe the notion that direct contact between heads of states removes the need of diplomats. Heads of state still need advisers to do the preparatory work. You may think that civil servants are not the only kind of advisers a head of state should listen to, but this leads to a discussion on how you train and select your diplomats, not on whether diplomats are needed. 

Another dimension that is under-reported is the fact that globalization has maybe increased the intensity of international relations and led to bypass some of the traditional roles of diplomats (#gatekeepers) but it has also increased the number of situations where international professional expertise is necessary.

Diplomats have currently at least three missions that cannot be replaced.

1. Explaining complexity : the number of factors to take into account is increasing and the constant need to link abstract international discussions to facts on the ground required specific expertise and experience. I would also argue that this explanatory role is nowadays not only internal (explaining to your leadership) but also external (the democratization of the national foreign policy discussions induced by social networks requires diplomats to step in and explain international crisis to their own public opinion). Otherwise the risk is that the national political debate misses the point.
2. Deal making and standards setting : tackling issues like climate change or nuclear proliferation requires an extraordinary set of legal, scientific and political skills. Given their interdisciplinary nature, diplomats are best placed to design framework assembling all these elements. e.g. #ParisAgreement ; #JCPoA 
3. Protecting nationals abroad : each country has more and more citizens traveling abroad for work or leisure. Natural disasters or security crisis are just two examples of the situation where your citizen will need assistance. Again, you need an experienced network of professionals to react to events. In France for instance, the crisis center of the Foreign ministry plays a key coordinating role at the national level in case of terrorist attacks. 

Conclusion : like any industry #diplomacy has to constantly evolve and adapt to new realities. As much as you may like to mock some of the old fashion feature of diplomacy (e.g. the ambassador’s cocktails), diplomats still have a public service mission. They should be like any other public service under scrutiny and held accountable, but whether you like them or not, you need them.