John Duncan

THE END OF DIPLOMACY AS WE KNOW IT?

This week Europe’s World magazine published a blog by the former British diplomat Carne Ross claiming “It is time to scrap ambassadors” Another former colleague Charles Crawford has responded on his own blog; so it is perhaps time for a serving Ambassador to give a view from the inside.

Certainly today’s ambassadors face major challenges to the way we do business and the need to demonstrate value for money in a climate of severe pressure on the public purse. But I tend to agree with many of Charles’ points and that Carne’s piece reflects some rather old fashioned views. I am old enough to remember the CPRS report that embassies could be replaced by the fax.

Paradoxically today’s Foreign Service is in some ways returning to its roots, to the task of communicating. If the core task of a diplomat was simply to faithfully represent the views of governments then Carne Ross might have a point. But it is more than this. Diplomacy involves an understanding of how to communicate those views to others.;  the building of personal relationships and trust. Diplomats need to be able to explain both sides of an argument, their own governments policy and the response of other governments to that.  It involves a degree of empathy (but not necessarily sympathy) to find out where the cross over in shared interest lies in order to form what David Miliband has described as“Coalitions of Consent”.  

Governments and the public service must respond to the communication revolution created by the internet and modern IT. Here Carne Ross is right and this is in fact happening in both the US and UK with the Gov20 phenomena . David Miliband himself a regular blogger will attend the next Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington next month. If this revolution reinforces the need for diplomat’s to have good  communication skills, it also allows us to achieve the restructuring of the  Foreign Service overseas operation that has been in train for well over a decade.

In the early 90s as the Soviet Union collapsed I was part of a group of (then young) diplomats opening new embassies across Eastern Europe. It was impossible to in the time and with the funds available to set up the traditional British embassy with all the trimmings, so we had to create a “virtual presence” often operating out of hotels, or in shared premises. Our teams were small and everyone from minsters to businessmen wanted to learn about and visit these countries and their new leaderships. Frequently we needed to bring in additional staff for short periods to share a workload that even larger embassies would have found a challenge.

Today the UK Arms Control mission in Geneva follows that same model. Only 10% of staff are permanently based here. The remainder only join us when and for as long as, their expertise is needed.  Modern communications tools;  from video conferencing to email and the internet, make this a viable  and cost effective approach.  Across the FCO network embassy’s are looking at these sorts of options.  Our bilateral embassies in the Nordic/Baltic countries already work as a network by pooling their expertise on a regional basis.  Bilateral Ambassadors  in addition to their traditional role and to providing a service to British citizens and companies, work increasingly on behalf of  a variety of  UK government departments and through both traditional and new players such as the NGO community.

It would be naïve to assume that such a sea change is anything other than difficult or without its detractors. But the professional life of an ambassador is already a far cry from that portrayed by spy fiction writers, chocolate manufacturers or indeed Carne himself.

In the next few days I will offer some further personal reflections on  “Diplomacy as marketing”  and the new communication agenda  in my blog on the Reuters Great Debate site.

Posted at 14:22 28 August 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[6]