The 3-wheeled car

this week, we have been asked to consider which is the most important aspect of the new diplomacy based on the discussions in seminars 5 -7. The main topics of these seminars were: public diplomacy, NGO's and their (questionable) role and (questionable) legitimacy and conference diplomacy.

the above 3 aspects of new diplomacy have taught me several things:
1. Soft power/propaganda is indeed a powerful force to reckon with as demonstrated previously in the world wars, the cold war, and the present day 'Americanization' blame-game.
2. NGO's such as medecins sans frontiers (doctors without borders) might be more useful in certain circumstances than any other form of state-led diplomacy, especially if outbreaks of a curable disease are concerned.
3. Conference diplomacy is another aspect that is highly useful if and when it is relevant to the circumstances in which it is used. for example, its interesting to note how the APEC (Asia-pacific economic cooperation) meeting held on the 9th of December 1999 held an additional meeting regarding Indonesia's failure to handle the situation in East Timor at the time, and although they failed to come to any unified agreement, it is still thought that just the fact that 75% of the worlds' GDP was sat around a table discussing an event like that placed a generous amount of pressure on Indonesia to attempt to resolve the problem more efficiently.

However, i believe that the most important aspect of the new diplomacy is not particularly any of the above, or a combination of all three, but rather the fact that they all work in conjunction with, and based on, the old diplomacy.
Therefore the most important aspect is not any particular part of the make up of new diplomacy, but rather its versatility.

Much like a 3-wheeled car, the 4th wheel of the new diplomacy and its effectiveness is everything that old diplomacy entails: both through the interactions that have been successful, and the interactions that haven't. the lessons we have learned, and those we have failed to. The rapid interactions, and the non-existent ones. The fact that we are still dealing with people, between people, for people.

If we were to take each aspect detailed from weeks 5 to 7 individually, we would find that each of the aspects has particular advantages and disadvantages, and that they are all aspects that are as important as the circumstance(s) may call for its relevance. Soft power cannot be used in every situation, as neither NGO's or IGO's for that matter can provide rapid-reaction forces for every latent conflict, as conference diplomacy might not be the most relevant form of diplomacy available when dealing with a problem that is strictly bilateral to begin with.
However, this is not an issue that is exclusive to the new diplomacy, old diplomacy also has this separation of useful aspects. After all, one has to be sufficiently knowledgeable to distinguish between a situation that calls for secret diplomacy and a situation that calls for open-channel diplomacy.

Evaluating the new diplomacy in terms of its individual components that may or may not make up this questionable theory (for Berridge denies its existence) does not, in my opinion, provide a sufficiently equal ground on which to evaluate its efficiency (or its importance for that matter). The fact that it has managed to integrate itself into what was originally considered to be a more state-centric version of diplomacy to turn into a seamless fabric of possible manners of diplomatic interaction is taking the turn from attempting to drive a car with a busted tire to a brand-spanking-new Porsche.