Diplomatic correspondence revolving the 21st century

The diplomatic correspondence across the globe has greatly evolved ever since the ending of the second world war in 1945, where countries have truly understood what a crucial role it plays in the development of their countries internally as well as the development of relationships that any country can have with another. Ever since this idea of developing diplomatic correspondence has come to light, there hasn’t been a single country that has taken this lightly. Whether big or small, every nation has come to see that not only is this going to have a major effect on the type of relations they have, but also it is something that is very flexible and changing over time. In the 21stcentury, we now live in an era of technology and electronic advancement, which definitely changes the way diplomatic ties are created.

Diplomacy, when it was starting out as an important factor in a country’s development, used to be simple. It was usually exclusively done through a formal representative that would travel to the hosting country to represent their own country and to discuss relations and portray their benefits and negotiate on their terms, as well as trying to help the other country get what they want as well. Right before then it used to take another form, where the king or ruler of a country would personally write letters and have a messenger send them to the ruler of another country. This would sometimes take weeks and months for the message to be read and replied to, it was affective in its own time but now that we live in a different time with faster means of communication that is certainly far behind us. There used to be only one type of diplomacy, and that was the traditional type. Diplomacy today however can take many forms and be done through many different ways.

We now have economic diplomacy, coercive diplomacy, intermediary diplomacy, public diplomacy, and most importantly, digital diplomacy. Today, we not only have diplomats go face to face to discuss issues and persuade others of their stance, they could simply do it through the means of media and the internet. This has become so popular that even the president of the United States, president Donald Trump, has taken this form of diplomacy to communicate his ideas not only to his people, but to the world. We also have some countries act as an intermediary in some diplomatic relations, as we have seen in the case of Kuwait being the intermediary between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, after the blockade recently. Not only this, but diplomacy has reached more people than ever in our time, because diplomacy is not only a tool used in between countries themselves anymore, but it also extended to the people in public diplomacy, since the rise of democratic countries and leaders and governments understanding what power the people really hold.

In the twenty-first century, we are more aware than ever that diplomatic correspondence is a crucial means of development and is important for every country to focus on and keep evolving with, through the many types and ways that it could be done.