Traditional Diplomacy Outmoded?

The art and practice of diplomacy is an ever evolving discipline. It is questionable whether one can distinguish between ‘old’ and ‘new’ diplomacy as two separate forms of diplomacy. Indeed many changes have occurred in world politics and technological innovations have also had an effect on the conduct of diplomacy, but pronouncing the traditional forms of diplomacy dead all together does not reflect the reality. Traditional forms of bilateral diplomacy conducted by more or less professionalised staff of foreign offices and embassies have developed throughout the past centuries and, although Kissinger and Brzezinski in the 1960s and 1970s thought the resident missions were useless, these continue to exist today. Many of the tasks of resident missions and professional diplomats have, however, changed over the past years, in part due to the invention of the telegraph, the telephone, aircrafts and the internet.
The emergence of summit diplomacy and the increased involvement of state leaders in diplomacy have furthermore transformed diplomacy. Yet such summits could not take place without traditional channels of diplomacy, which allows for the planning of such a summit and which makes sure that the processes initiated at the summit are continued. Moreover, heads of state are not able to be at more than one place at the time and as they cannot spend all their time flying around the world, there is still a need for professional diplomats and foreign offices to maintain the day-to-day relations between states.
With the advent of the internet, which allows information to be available very fast and to many people, means that diplomats are no longer the only source of information about the country in which they are posted. However, there is still a need for the resident diplomat who can interpret information and hopefully get information from the most reliable sources and information that will not appear in the media.
The roles of traditional institutions and diplomatic relations have changed, but they have not become outmoded. Embassies are no longer only concerned with ‘high politics’ and official state matters. Besides collecting and interpreting information, embassies also increasingly assist trade missions and take care of citizens of their home country who find themselves in problems. Although it can be argued that the increased involvement by heads of states in diplomacy has undermined the role and authority of professional diplomats, these are still important in conducting relations between states and state leaders would not be able to fulfil their new roles as diplomatic actors without the assistance of the traditional institutions of diplomacy. State leaders would be unlikely to reach any agreements at their summits if it was not for the preparatory work done by the staff of the foreign offices and resident missions.