Interesting article (very quick as well)

http://uspublicdiplomacy.blogspot.com/2010/12/delivering-humanitarian-aid-in-bamyan.html

Delivering humanitarian aid in Bamyan, Afghanistan
It is freezing cold in Bamyan, and as I am getting ready for another day of
a journalism workshop for young women, my colleague tells me, "Mahtab, we are receiving humanitarian aid by Afghan Air force and we need your help for distribution." I told her, "Of course, count me in."

Click on the link to see the whole article! Hope you enjoy it.

My conception of diplomacy today

I cannot quite recall what I wrote as my ‘first impression’ of diplomacy in the first lecture. I can only suppose that it went along the simplistic lines of “it is a set of rules that define how to handle issues of peace and conflict; it implies the work of diplomats, who travel the world representing the interest of their country and try to negotiate the best for their government”. This is basically the definition that anyone could give – anyone who has not thoroughly studied diplomacy in its multi-faceted aspects as we have in our module, “The New Diplomacy”.

Lecture after lecture, and thanks to visits to embassies in London as well, we learnt to dispel all stereotypes on the matter. We discovered that real diplomats do not only have the function of sitting at richly laid tables in every corner of the world to chat with each other and make friends; we found out that diplomacy is not only made by diplomats; and we realised that it is in fact much more complex than it is usually depicted by collective imagination. To start with, I was particularly surprised to find out that the term ‘diplomacy’ does not correspond to ‘foreign policy’ and that it undertook so many structural changes in the past hundred years or so, becoming more open, inclusive, and dealing with more technical issues as opposed to the secrecy, connected with the use of force in case of ‘necessity’ and to a focus on high politics, of earlier years. I have to admit that I still find it confusing when I hear about ‘old’ and ‘new’ diplomacy: having studied the history of diplomacy and the theories of some of its scholars in detail, I cannot get to a satisfactory conclusion recognising the existence of the two, as they look to me as being one (the ‘new’) the natural continuation of the other (the ‘old’). In fact, there is no significant historical divide between them. The term ‘modern’ is equally unclear to me, as it sometimes refers to the last century, while some other times it is employed with reference to the establishment of the first embassies, in Renaissance Italy. In any case, this is certainly a topic that deeply interested me and got me thinking.

I also enjoyed the video on how to be a foreign secretary: before taking this module, I had at times thought that I could pursue a career in the diplomatic service later on, after I finished my studies. This video dissipated any doubt about it, in the sense that I realised that I am too open and straightforward to possibly make a good diplomat. Above all, I would like to add, I know that I could never perform my duties if I believed they were unethical, immoral or hypocrite, and I am afraid that in this respect I would often disagree with the decisions of my government. Besides, I had never thought about it before, but it is evident that a diplomat cannot care for a family or for real friends. My understanding of representatives abroad has therefore changed in every way, and my esteem for them has decreased although I understand their job is extremely important and delicate.

On the other hand, NGOs as a non-state actor in para-diplomacy have my complete support and I was happy to learn that they actually have a few strengths I was not aware of, that make them significant in the diplomatic arena. I am convinced that NGOs have a right to intervene alongside the states, as we now live in a globalised world where everything is connected with everything else, with no exceptions. As for the rest of the module, it excited me less, but in general I can really tell that my conception of diplomacy has broadly developed and most importantly detached itself from pre-conceptions! “The New Diplomacy” helped me build the basis to keep learning about diplomacy by myself, as well as to have a deeper understanding of diplomatic processes nowadays.

Three articles and a story

• - 19 July 2010: Nancy Birdsall, Molly Kinder and Wren Elhai wrote about “Building, not buying trust in Pakistan” on http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07/19/building_not_buying_trust_in_pakistan;
• - 25 July 2010: the Guardian wrote “Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-military-leaks);
• - 20 October 2010: the Guardian Development Network, in partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, asked “Can US aid change minds in Pakistan?” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2010/oct/20/us-aid-humanitarian-pakistan-winning-hearts-minds).

The three articles listed above have at least one thing in common: they are very skeptical on the significance of the United States’ public diplomacy nowadays.

[A quick reminder on what is commonly intended with the term “public diplomacy”:

‘Official government efforts to shape the communications environment overseas in which American foreign policy is played out, in order to reduce the degree to which misperceptions and misunderstandings complicate relations between the U.S. and other nations’,

see http://www.publicdiplomacy.org/1.htm for further definitions]

One could argue that public diplomacy is wonderful. I agree, to the extent that it is transparent as it promises and that it avoids propagandistic power games. The problem arises when it isn’t wholly sincere, when you find out that the information made public doesn’t quite correspond to some other hidden information that was labelled as ‘unsuitable’ to the sensitive minds of the public.

Like those bloody questionable hundreds of “errors” at civilian expense by American and British troops in Afghanistan, recently made available to every online reader in the so-called Afghanistan War Logs on WikiLeaks.

According to the article, the White House stated that their secrecy was necessary in order not to ‘threaten the national security’.

Or like the US intention to “win hearts and minds” in Pakistan. In a part of the world that is not ready yet to trust the Americans, their clumsy attempts to flood the country with aid to quietly obtain a positive return on their image just could not work. As reported by a journalist for the Guardian Development Network,

the more the US seeks out a public relations boost from its aid, the less likely it is that this will materialise [...] A Pakistani journalist recently captured this sentiment rather bluntly. After I reported on the large relief pledge of the US, he said to me: "Yes, but isn't it all just too contrived?"

As pointed out by Birdsall, Kinder and Elhai, the US are (in)famous in Pakistan for abandoning their aid commitments as soon as ‘diplomatic imperatives’ vanish, regardless of the needs of the Pakistani people. American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reassuring speech in the country on 19^th July is not enough for the US to meet Pakistan’s favours, unless the States start to seriously stick to the promises they make and to achieve them under the public eye, forgetting once and for all their back-up games behind the scenes. Same goes, of course, for the American military effort in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, it is amazing what a single American citizen can do to improve the perception of his country abroad, without even meaning it. Greg Mortenson, 51, has arguably achieved more in terms of American public image among the Afghani and Pakistani people than the government itself. Author of best-selling book Three Cups of Tea (http://www.threecupsoftea.com/)

and of its sequel Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, Mortenson has established over 90 schools in rural regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 34,000 children, including 24,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before. He started his work in 1993 in a small village close to the K2 and has recently received the honorifical prize of the “Star of Pakistan” (https://www.ikat.org/2009/03/24/bdc-3-24-09/) for his achievements in the country, which include publishing workbooks and grammar books in local languages, building libraries and playgrounds, initiating women’s development projects, clean drinking-water projects and scholarship programmes. All of this, he did thanks to generous grants from private benefactors, to lots of hard work and determination, and with the help of dozens local co-operators. Now it might be asked, how is this relevant to public diplomacy?

Greg Mortenson represents the best of America. He’s my hero. And after you read Three Cups of Tea , he’ll be your hero, too.” -U.S. Representative Mary Bono (R-Calif.)

I read Mortenson’s book. It is truly awesome. It tells a beautiful story, that of thousands people who live in remote areas and used not to know anything about the rest of the world; people who cherished the first American person they ever met as a family friend, because he did something concrete for them, which now allows them to have a better and better life style; people who now love the whole of the United States, just because that’s where Greg Mortenson, their ‘angel’, comes from. How inspiring to read that, in spite of religious, cultural and –especially- political challenges, Good can still triumph if it comes from a genuine desire to help others. How heart-warming to think that there real ‘public diplomats’ like Mortenson around.

Modern ancestors

“Expressions such as ‘Old Diplomacy’ and ‘New Diplomacy’ bear no relation to reality”

This quote from French diplomat Jules Cambon (1845-1935) is the inspiring opening sentence of “Old and new diplomacy: a debate rivisited”, an article printed by the Review of International Studies in 1988 (click here for the online version - http://0-journals.cambridge.org.emu.londonmet.ac.uk/action/displayFulltext?type=1&pdftype=1&fid=6280880&jid=RIS&volumeId=14&issueId=&aid=6280872).

To make it short and simple, the article suggests that

1. it is inappropriate to talk about ‘old’ and ‘new’, as diplomacy has not lived long enough to be split in eras yet;
2. the functions of diplomacy have not changed relevantly in the past few centuries, and its older forms have actually resisted evolution in spite of the costantly developing nature of international relations: even if we can find significant developments in diplomacy today (such as the “appearance of multi-lateral diplomacy and the institution of summitry”) they are nothing but additional elements to the traditional ‘parent cell’.

Diplomatic correspondent Aubrey Leo Kennedy (1885-1965) supports this view:

"To the public eye the difference between the old diplomacy and the new seems to consist in doing business at conferences instead of in the chanceries and anterooms of professional diplomatists... Any change, to be real and lasting, must be in the spirit rather than in the method"

(371, ‘Old Diplomacy and New: from Salisbury to Lloyd’s George’, 1922).

Arguably, it all depends on what is considered to be a real change: there could be unanimity on the fact that nowadays it is not usual that weddings are organised between the heirs of two kingdoms in order to stop a conflict, ‘War of the roses’ style.

Nor is it the case anymore that a government leader diplomatically switches religion to turn civil upheavals into peace, like Henry IV of France did.

Nonetheless, the Roman Empire took slaves and animals for its popular Games from its recently acquired colonies, in exchange for peace and tranquillity: how far is that from the U.K. selling arms to Africa (for an approximate total of £1 billion, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/jun/12/uk.hearafrica05) in years as recent as 2005?

Whether you call this diplomacy or not, it is evident that empires, kingdoms and states have always behaved similarly, century after century, to obtain what they wanted from each other while sparing the least possible blood. Nowadays the rich and powerful might be politer than in the past when presenting their requests – I’ll admit that; but I would not consider it to be a change big enough to state that ‘traditional’ diplomacy has nothing to do with the present day.

The evolution of diplomats

Different sources give different accounts of the birth of diplomacy. Among others, the hypothesis include the Middle East in 1340 BC (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/unearthed-the-humble-origins-of-world-diplomacy-602173.html), Egypt about 60 years later (http://www.diplom.org/Zine/S1995R/Szykman/History.html), and Greek and Phoenician city-states in the 5^th to 4^th Century B.C. (http://www.ediplomat.com/nd/history.htm) but, as you can see in the following timeline, interpretations of the history of diplomacy are well wider than this (http://www.diplomacy.edu/Knowledge/evolution/org%20website/buttons/homepage.htm).

Whatever its real origins, the concept of diplomacy has existed since the start of human history, and consistently developed during the centuries. As a Northern Italian, I like to think of myself as a countrywoman of the so-called “modern diplomacy” which, some believe, started in the early years of the Renaissance – i.e. in the 13^th Century – with the establishment of the first official embassies in the area around Milan. At that time, however, ambassadors radically differed from nowadays’ diplomats, as the title was usually held by noblemen whose energies were conveyed in all kinds of striking displays of wealth and power, rather than being actually employed in an effective management of international relations. Nonetheless, there is no doubt they had to be naturally patient people, who well tolerated lengthy negotiations and were never prone to threaten their counterparts. After all, they aim was to keep a watchful eye on what happened in their neighbouring countries, in order for their homeland to hold on to its power.

Dr Joseph Siracusa, Professor in Human Security and International Diplomacy at RMIT University, Melbourne, believes that this is exactly what constitutes the greatest change in diplomacy from past to present. As he states in the first page of his ‘Diplomacy: A Very Short Introduction’,

“Traditional diplomacy has been most importantly concerned with the transition from a state of peace to a state of war, and vice versa; in other words, dealing with the interface of conflict and peace-making...today...(d)iplomacy has become something very much more than the diplomacy of states and governments.”

His point is that, although states are the only legal diplomatic actors according to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, nowadays it is unthinkable not to consider transnational corporations (TNCs), intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as equally significant co-actors in the international system. These interrelate not only with states, but among themselves, and in the last century they have come to constitute a whole world web of urgent delicate communications handling a brand-new set of topics, unfamiliar to yesterday’s diplomats. In fact, it is their goal to address contemporary issues such as international terrorism, sustainable development, civil wars, human rights and environmental emergencies, which go well beyond the control of one or few single states. Betsill and Corell support this view with vim:

“We contend that the increased participation of NGOs in...political processes reflects broader changes in the nature of diplomacy in world politics...(D)iplomats are actors who act on the behalf of a clearly identified constituency. International...negotiations cannot be understood in terms of inter-state diplomacy”

(NGO diplomacy, 2008, 2).

To sum up, if History is made by men and women, the History of diplomacy is necessarily made by diplomats. Consequently, it is believable that there cannot be most significant change in diplomacy than the change of diplomatic figures. On this ground, a question could be raised: what future for diplomacy?

(http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/project/61/future_of_diplomacy_project.html : apparently, I'm not the only one who's wondering...)