The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY FEBRUARY 2015 19 Diplomacy is the instrument of communication, not the message communicated. Diplomacy’s Two Forms In other words, the medium is not the message—though the widespread confu- sion between the two obliged the legend- ary academic student of international politics, Hans Morgenthau, to comment that there was a common “confusion of functions between the foreign o ce and the diplomatic representative.” But the medium does have a corporal form; in fact, it has two. e rst is the activity itself, when o cials—from presi- dents to third secretaries and the occa- sional “special representative”—practice diplomacy: that is, conduct o cial com- munications between governments. e second form is an established institution. Even the Internet operating through the cloud requires some form of instrument at either end of a conversa- tion. For diplomacy, that physical instru- ment is a foreign service (the diplomatic and consular personnel of a country’s foreign o ce) such as the United States Foreign Service (a government service of diplomatic and consular sta established by law as part of the executive branch.) is corps of o cials is an instru- ment of the government, one of the tools in the foreign policy toolbox—not an independent force. Most countries try to organize that instrument in the form of a professional cadre, recruited, trained and educated for their task as representatives