My understanding of diplomacy today

My understanding of diplomacy has changed drastically I didn’t even know about ‘old’ or ‘new’ diplomacy as I just thought that diplomacy was an effective way of dealing with issues. Now however, I believe that diplomacy is the art of creating harmony and unity out of diverse opinions and diverse understanding. My views of diplomats were that they were paid a lot of money to live in a life of luxury and given a diplomatic passport which gave them access to every country and they had limousines waiting for them. This was not exactly true as Diplomats have a painstakingly hard job to fulfil, with long hours and sleepless nights and endless reading in red boxes to finish for the next day. The following skills are necessary for a diplomat: Oratory, building good relationships and the art of secrecy. The ability to negotiate with lots of other states is a true skill for a diplomat and the ability to convince the other party that what is good for their country will be good for the other countries involved as well.
It can be said that most issues of diplomacy have traditionally been settled by military force however nowadays we use new diplomacy which have a wider section of ways such as trade, security and the environment to negotiate this issues effectively. From institutions such as Red Cross to bigger Organisations like the United Nations or the EU all play an effective part in helping resolve issues, holding conferences where all nations are heard. Secrecy has also helped diplomacy but now institutions want a transparency between nations so as they know what the other person’s agenda is.
Diplomacy is dealt with on many levels, bilateral, multilateral and well nearly polylateral and this can mainly be seen on an international level. What I had hoped for was a better understanding of how diplomacy worked within countries and I didn’t really look at where I lived, I live in Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Agreement was reached in Belfast in 1998. This agreement was essential for the troubles that went on between Ireland and England. Diplomacy was the only technique to be used, diplomats from Ireland, England and America and also with the help of Christian Churches they were able to ease the tension and provide an equal way for both to live in ‘somewhat’ harmony. They used a system called D’hondt – a system allocating party seats so it’s a fair representative for all people, they created a British Irish Intergovernmental congress to promote bilateral cooperation between the UK and Ireland as well as the equality commission and human rights commission to help the people that had been in the troubles and give them financial support.
So in my conclusion, I have been able to see that diplomacy is for the people and is not just for the elites and for international issues or conflicts, diplomacy is put in place to facilitate international relations and where national leaders cannot come to some arrangement diplomats are there to give more time and having done more research provide an appropriate agreement instead of just taking military action.