bout de papier, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1985) — March 1985 // Mars 1985, pp. 21–22
The Oxford Dictionnary defines diplomacy as “the management of international relations by negotiation: the method by which these relations are adjusted and managed by ambassadors and envoys.”
There is no doubt that the authority and prestige of diplomatic envoys have declined in recent years but at the same time their field of action and their opportunities have been enhanced through emerging trends.
Global interdependence has produced halting, but nevertheless significant, progress in the development of international law to regulate relations between states and of international organizations to promote cooperation between them. Yet the scope of the problems facing the world places a serious strain on the capacity of the present structures to deal with them. We see protectionist trends which could cripple trade. We see the emergence of problems of global proportions which cannot be tackled by any state on its own. We also see such a multiplication of nuclear weaponry that it raises the spectre of global annihilation. For all states, even for the superpowers, diplomacy must involve the acceptance of constraints on their pursuit of purely national ends.
Another trend is the progressive blurring of the dividing line between the public and private sectors in democratic societies. In one direction there is the growing involvement of government not only in the everyday life of the nation, but also in the increasingly intricate web of exchanges between nations. In the other direction there is the growing involvement of the public in government operations, more public demand for information and more demand for democratic control over foreign policy and international negotiations. These trends have advantages: the public can expect to be consulted before the government makes decisions involving international commitments; the public can also expect more assistance abroad, whether as tourists or as businessmen. But there are also dangers: the public is not well versed in the facts of international affairs or the techniques of international negotiations; public debate of foreign policy is intermittent, and when it does take place, is too often conducted in vague rather than precise terms, in terms of slogans rather than analysis and with appeals to emotion rather than reason.
Posts Become Branches
These trends have, of course, been aided and promoted by a host of technological changes. These are also mixed blessings. The communications revolution has transformed diplomatic posts into branch offices of headquarters and heads of post into branch managers. This enables ambassadors to feed their reports and recommendations into the policy making process at home in a timely fashion but it also exposes the posts’ operations to the most detailed instructions from headquarters, even in areas where the crucial factor is the local situation and the people at the post are in the best position to know that situation.
Foreign offices and ministers of different governments are in direct touch with one another and jet travel has ushered in the era of visit diplomacy and wall-to-wall international meetings. These activities intensify international cooperation but they also make the ambassador’s job more difficult. They can arouse public expectations which cannot be met and they can lead to confusion rather than clarity of conclusions.
The information revolution has increased the media participation in international affairs, has led the public to demand more information and to distrust diplomatic secrecy. With instant news the public has the impression of being in direct touch with events around the world. Some even wonder whether in these circumstances diplomats may be obsolete and negotiations with foreign governments could be better conducted by experts sent abroad for the purpose. This view ignores the essential role of diplomats in preparing the ground for negotiations and in nurturing mutual accommodation and compromise away from the glare of publicity.
There is also the problem of dealing with propaganda and disinformation, either officially put out by foreign governments or clandestinely circulated by them. They have become an everyday weapon in the diplomatic arsenal and have been cleverly used in the past, especially by totalitarian governments. I remain of the rather old-fashioned view, however, that the most effective propaganda over the long haul is the truth.
These factors have had an important influence on the organization of international relations and the methods of diplomacy. For example, press relations have become an integral part of a diplomat’s functions and there has been a steady expansion of other functional areas of diplomatic competence. There has been a corresponding expansion of an ambassador’s functions, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Today he is involved, beyond the classic diplomatic exchanges and consular activities, in economic and commercial diplomacy, in cultural diplomacy and in public diplomacy of all kinds. He is dealing not only with other diplomats and officials but with a broad cross-section of the public such as businessmen, industrialists, bankers, academics, students, artists, parliamentarians and so on. When I was Ambassador in Bonn, I calculate that I spent more than half my time in German business circles; and this was in active search for new opportunities, not passively waiting for them to come to me. The ambassador also finds that a growing proportion of the embassy staff is made up of functional specialists and it is incumbent on him to know what they are up to.
If the environment and the contents of international relations have changed radically, the task has remained basically the same. The task of the diplomat is still to manage international relations by negotiation, rather than by force, to provide the government of the day with the information and analysis on which to base the formulation of foreign policy and to carry out the policies thus formulated.
Implementing Policy
Policy formulation is, of course, mainly the responsibility of headquarters but policy implementation depends to a large degree on the diplomats in the field and ambassadors are front and centre in this operation. The ambassador acts as a kind of hyphen, not just between his own government and the government of which he is accredited, but more broadly between the two nations. This works in both directions.
The image he projects of his own country, of his government’s interests and intentions, will have an effect on the media and influential circles in his country of accreditation. He must bear in mind that he represents the Canadian Government, not any department of government, and he must have the authority to coordinate all the activities at his post. This requires a clear mandate. He must also remember that he represents the whole of Canada and all parts of our federation. In the other direction he must understand what makes his host country tick. He must learn how to analyze its purposes accurately and how to assess its main trends. He must evaluate its interests but not promote them. He must explain its policies but not excuse them.
The Ambassador must build up a network of contacts not only in government and parliamentary circles but also with the most influential members of the private sector. For this personal relations of mutual respect are essential and these can be assisted by engaging in the right kind of social activities. This is a subject of some controversy because of occasional public criticism of extravagance, but it is my experience that the judicious use of entertaining can be very effective if it is selective and well focussed. It is also my experience that the ambassador’s spouse has a more significant role to play today then ever by making his or her distinctive contribution to the projection of Canada’s image abroad both by entertaining and by professional activities in his or her own field.
What I have said applies mainly to bilateral posts. At multilateral posts the operations are rather different. There one tends to have dealings mostly with other diplomats, though of many nations, and the subject matter is more specialized. Ambassadors accredited to international organizations must have, or develop, skills of negotiation and a grasp of technical material which go far beyond what is normally exercised in bilateral diplomacy. It can be intellectually stimulating but it can also be frustrating because of the disproportion between words and deeds, between good intentions and concrete achievements.
An inevitable result of these trends is to force a closer interface between domestic policies and foreign policies and between the various strands of foreign policy. By the same token, there is a new requirement for increased coordination between them. There are a number of possible organizational and procedural methods for doing this but there are three basic points which I should like to make. The first is that people are more important than systems. Good people can make even a bad system work, but even a good system will not work with the wrong people. The second point is a matter of philosophy. It must be recognized that domestic and foreign policies are just two sides of the same coin, two dimensions of what I would call “national policy”. The third point concerns the “rules of the game” Coordination requires a willingness to share information and to regard the task as more important than the turf.
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1985) — March 1985 // Mars 1985, pp. 21–22. Read the rest of this issue →
