La diplomacia: viejo oficio, nuevas habilidades

Alan Henrikson reflects on the old career of diplomacy and the new skills that diplomats will have to acquire in the immediate future to be able to respond to globalization, among other phenomena. In his essay, the author features the need to rehabilitate the diplomatic profession and, beyond that, proposes a restatement of the real nature of the diplomatic métier, considered in the entirety of its reach. In keeping with this, he describes and analyzes the skills and characteristics that, in his opinion, will define the diplomats of the 21st century: from the ability to set in motion and forge consensus, to the daily work of facilitating cooperation among societies that do not always think and react alike. For the author, although the international diplomatic community is not the strongest pillar of the multi-state system that has prevailed —and that will probably prevail in the new century—, it is one of its most reliable elements: it not only seeks out and achieves an accommodation of different national interests, but is actually one of the essential “orders” that characterize the organization of the world.