For millennia diplomacy has been a critical aspect of international relations, involving the use of political bargaining to advance the interests of a state or group of states in relation to other states and peoples. Diplomacy typically, but not always, seeks to avoid armed conflict and to preserve peace; it has a strong bias toward negotiation to achieve agreements and solve problems.
A diplomat’s primary task is to build goodwill for the country he or she represents, nurturing relations with foreign states and peoples that will ensure cooperation, or, failing that, neutrality. Diplomacy is also a form of strategic communication; it seeks to convey the country’s point of view in ways that maximize its chances of success.
Historically, diplomacy has primarily focused on bilateral relations between a large power and one or more other countries. The practice has involved sending and receiving ambassadors, or minister plenipotentiary, as well as other ranks below the top post. It has also involved establishing and managing embassies abroad, with the staff to assist a nation’s diplomatic efforts.
The best diplomacy requires vision and nerve. It also requires great stamina, as negotiations often become marathons (Kissinger spent two weeks with nearly no sleep on the shuttle between Syria and Egypt in 1973; Jim Baker and George H.W. Bush in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall; Crocker and Henry Kissinger on China; Eizenstat at the climate change negotiations); or risking one’s core reputation (Holbrooke in Bosnia, Mitchell in Northern Ireland). It also requires a high degree of intelligence, not just test scores but wisdom and understanding of people.