The Foreign Service Journal, November 2022

62 NOVEMBER 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL does not reveal whether he had been assigned only to report on events in Madrid or whether he had the power to negotiate and conclude agreements. Developing contacts is Machiavelli’s first concern, and the ambassadorial contacts most worth knowing are the sover- eign and the courtiers immediately around him who know his thoughts and his character and who could obtain a good reception for the new chief of mission. “Any difficult business, if one has the ear of the prince, becomes easy,” according to Machiavelli. In other words, access is everything. But Machia- velli continues later on that the king and his immediate advisers should not be the only objects of the ambassador’s attention. Royal courts are always filled with busybodies, Machiavelli says, who make it their business to know what is going on, or at least to know what is rumored to be going on, and these people can be cultivated with banquets and entertainments. The goal of contact work is to obtain information, or intel- ligence, on what important actions have been decided, what actions are in the process of being decided or are under negotia- tion, and what will likely happen in the future. While it should be easy to determine what decisions have already been made, diplomatic decisions of great importance to the home govern- ment, such as the conclusion of a secret alliance detrimental to the ambassador’s prince, are very difficult to uncover. The ambassador can only use his judgment to conjecture or surmise what may be happening in his host court, and Machiavelli sug- gests, vaguely, that the way to do this is to develop hypotheses based on contacts and to test those hypotheses on the basis of further contact work. Finding out what your own capital needs to know is crucial. In Raffaello’s day, as at present, knowing who in the host-country court is doing what to whom was an important piece of the puzzle. Machiavelli urges Raffaello to observe the emperor’s character and intentions toward Italy closely, find out what kind of men he relies on for advice and whether or not they can be bribed, determine the extent of Spain’s current relations with France, assess conditions in Spain and its territories, and judge the possible effects on Florence. To get something, you have to give something. Diplomats and courtiers are not in the habit of providing information for nothing. Machiavelli therefore urges Raffaello to ensure that home office officials provide him with as much background on events in Florence and other capitals as possible, because a “city which wants her ambassador to be honored can do nothing better than to provide him abundantly with reports, because men who see that they can get something are eager to tell him what they know.” Effectively reporting what you know is also crucial. Accord- ing to Machiavelli, ambassadors with all the right judgments may yet tarnish their reputations if they fail to report what they know. Machiavelli suggests that the newly arrived ambassador report his first meeting with the emperor immediately, following up with a broader report containing more general first impres- sions of his new host country. Machiavelli continues that regular, periodic reporting on Spanish conditions will greatly facilitate decision-making in Florence and enhance Raffaello’s reputa- tion. Machiavelli even offers advice on how to couch embassy judgments in individual reports, explaining that in uncertain circumstances it would appear presumptuous for an ambas- sador to make an outright prediction as to what might happen. Rather, Machiavelli urges Raffaello to disguise his judgments as “the views of thoughtful local observers.” Ageless Wisdom In their book Diplomatic Theory fromMachiavelli to Kissinger (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), G.R. Berridge, M. Keens-Soper, and T. Otte claim that the Florentine Secretary’s missive “is little more than a codification of the conventional wisdom of the age.” But the text still speaks to us because we practice such an ancient art. As diplomats, we face the same kinds of challenges that Raffaello faced almost five centuries ago. Newly confirmed American ambassadors, some career professionals, some politi- cal appointees, depart for post all the time, just like Raffaello. Their predecessors offer up advice, just as Machiavelli did. Now, as in Machiavelli’s day, new chiefs of mission must gain the con- fidence of their hosts, scour capitals for information, and furnish their home governments with reliable judgments about how the news of the day affects their national interests. More deeply, now as then, home offices’ insatiable need for diplomatic reporting poses timeless problems in knowledge, judgment, and action. An ambassador facing a crisis in the host country never has all the information necessary to make Resource Notes The quotes fromMachiavelli and descriptions of his advice to Raffaello are from Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others , Volume 1, Allan Gilbert, translator, Duke University Press, 1989. The quotes fromMachiavelli’s The Prince are from the edition translated by Peter Bondanella and with an introduction by Maurizio Viroli (Oxford University Press, 2008).