Do Embassies do more than supplying Passports/ Visas?

What is the role of embassies today and of those diplomats that work on them? How relevant is their existence? In 1970 Brzezinski said that “If foreign ministries did not already exist, they surely would not have to be invented”. In my opinion the words foreign ministers should be swapped to embassies (just to be more specific). In ancient time when communications were slow ambassadors had the power to take immediate decisions. Nowadays with the development of communications and the increase of bureaucratic system ambassadors have their roles reduced to mere advisors.

They gather information that they see as important and they send for foreign ministers, this information is then selected by “civil servants, (mostly probably people in a lower rank than them) who them forward to foreign minister who will them decide if is relevant or not. Even Foreign Ministers many times see their role being undermined by their political leaders, when dealing with sensitive issues (terrorism, etc). Also with the creation of bureaucratic systems such as CIA in the US, who also gather intelligence for their governments, (even more efficiently than embassies, I dare to say); embassies loose even more their relevance.


Shaun Riordan in his book ‘New Diplomacy’ talks about how embassies today are seem as buildings that represent enormous capital investment in order to cause a physical impact. Many states build their embassies has a way of a making a statement. Through this evidence my opinion about embassies today is that role or function is to help their citizens in foreign countries, and help advertising their home country for tourism and investment. This doesn’t mean that their role hasn’t developed, on the contrary, embassies have found a reason to still exist.