External View

Mediterranean bitterness about German economic policy demonstrates that its diplomacy does not always deliver. Nor is the German government regarded as being in the frontline of the world’s leading diplomatic innovators. But it will have to be if Germany is to meet the international economic and security challenges of the 21st century. 

Good diplomacy starts with recognizing growing complexity at home. In practice Germany already functions as a National Diplomatic System (NDS) in which other government departments have their own international capacities and roles to play. But some in the Auswärtiges Amt, instead of redefining their role in terms of knowledge and network management, may still dream of a coordinating role that more properly belongs in the Chancery.

With the recognition of NDS as a reality, hence with diplomacy being practiced across government, more could be done to make it a seamless whole. In a volatile world National Diplomatic Systems should develop National Diplomatic Strategies. The analytical and policy planning roles of the Foreign Ministry should be central to this. Shared training and systematic staff exchanges between different departments are a mere first step. 

Non-governmental actors also have a growing role to play as "government" increasingly encounters situations where its servants are perceiving a lack of legitimacy vis-à-vis civil society or missing the kind of knowledge that is needed to address complex international issues. The German foreign ministry therefore increasingly has to leverage the capacity of civil society and policy network to enhance its own performance. The expanding National Diplomatic System with the Auswärtiges Amt at its core is then not merely "whole-of-government", but will be more and more characterized by a networked approach that is "whole-of-society". 

In Germany's bureaucratic culture, old-style officials still see the Foreign Ministry's relationship with citizens at home as a more or less unidirectional one, where government should "communicate better" what it is doing in the interests of society. This is a deeply traditional view on a fast-changing relationship between state and society that amounts to a diplomatic revolution. Future German diplomacy will get things "more right" if society will be seen as a resource for diplomacy. 

The opening up of the domestic diplomatic realm has its international equivalent in a state of "messiness", as coined by Richard Haass, which may actually be a condition for diplomatic success. The world today does not resemble the relatively neat international order of two generations ago. 

The state will no longer be the norm in future international relations and diversity beyond the state will increasingly be seen as "normal". Juxtaposing states and non-governmental organizations is a thing of the past. The term "polylateralism", coined by Geoffrey Wiseman, is already doing more justice to today’s world in which states collaborate with a plethora of other international actors. Describing the multi-actor world today in terms of neo-medievalism is however less helpful than understanding the relations between states and other actors. The essence and potential of diplomacy lies after all in the nature, quality and reach of very diverse sets of relationships.

In the new global environment German diplomats and German society will get accustomed to their country becoming a global player. To what extent are Germany's interests best advanced beneath the European brand, in the framework of the European External Action Service (EEAS), or as German foreign policy implemented by a German diplomatic service? If the latter is the case, what is the EEAS for? 

Apart from liberal tendencies, and depending on what is at stake, they may also see the kind of world that borrowed the word Realpolitik from the German language. The emerging international order shows a geopolitical trend in favor of new powers, and is in particular characterized by the rise of China and East Asia, as part of a highly significant and fast-moving eastward economic shift. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, Asian influence in global fora is growing. This development is offering German diplomats a glimpse of alternatives for existing codes of diplomatic practice, as for instance witnessed by the principles governing relations within ASEAN and inclusive discussions among democratic and authoritarian states in the Bali Democracy Forum. 

But the cultural challenge posed by non-Western and Asian interests and values is not merely substituting rules with relationships. For a future global player like Germany a lesson from recent events in Ukraine is that the West will be increasingly challenged by competing logics of international relations – from Russia, China and elsewhere outside the West – that contribute to unpredictability in the international realm.