My understanding of diplomacy today

Over our lectures for New diplomacy we learned about the processes/ redefinitions of diplomacy till today, diplomacy today can been seen as more than embassies, it also exists in the form of summits, conferences, signing of treaties and many more. It refers to a communication process between various actors and much of its development came together with the technological progress. But it is my believe that diplomacy old or new has lost its relevance.

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 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. The same can be said of the role of non state actors that take part in certain negotiations their roles is also as mere advisors since they have expertise in certain areas that governments don’t have.

From Old diplomacy to public diplomacy is just an excuse for states to come together and push their wills, but making it we believe that they do this in a democratic way, nothing but public propaganda.