Brian White on diplomacy:

To first start, Brian White is quite critical in his views of Diplomacy. By analysing the meaning of the term Diplomacy and how tricky it can sometimes be; he points out how important it is that individuals understand and properly differ the various types of Diplomacy (if one can state that to be the case). This is because there are always the misleading assumptions that diplomacy is said to be the same as global politics or even foreign policy ideas that he stated right when he said that it causes confusion and controversy.

White then goes on to distinguish ‘traditional’ from ‘new’ diplomacy, a comparison made by him relating to the three main ideas behind diplomacy shows that the bases are still more or less the same with the big differences being the alteration from bilateral to multilateral, and the formation of diplomacy as a specific profession. Reality, that in one’s opinion makes it no more than just a little change towards it and its new mentality because although it became public the public itself doesn’t get involved directly in solving diplomatic issues.

During the Cold War period, White saw diplomacy between superpowers become more significant than any other undergoing mission at the time as it was through diplomatic means that countries at war would negotiate. The Cold War era brought a sense of necessity to create global interaction- fact that gave developing countries a place in international diplomacy and politics as they became important allies for either the USA or the Soviet Union. But personally, one sees these developments in Cold War diplomacy as a mere need to use developing countries in order to achieve Western and Eastern political and economical aims. Similar ideas are been used today to try and irradiate terrorism; the Western political views are in contraction with the Islamic views making diplomacy a powerless instrument when trying to solve conflicts, attitude that is causing suspicion among all. So is diplomacy just another way of manipulating politics?