Do you think the ‘old’ diplomacy has any contemporary relevance?

Do you think the ‘old’ diplomacy has any contemporary relevance?

This blog would argue that it is not pertinent to talk about the relevance of the ‘old’ diplomacy to contemporary international system. This blog would argue that there is no such a thing as difference of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’. It is more about the ‘modern’ and maybe the ‘old-fashioned’; but the difference between the two is not that hard to distinguish.
According to Jules Cambon, the ‘new’ diplomacy, first, “should be more open to public scrutiny and control, and, secondly the projected establishment of an international organisation which would act both as a forum for peaceful settlement of disputes and as a deterrent waging of aggressive war.” (Hamilton&Langhorne (2000) The Practice of Diplomacy)
What is remarkable about this quotation is that Mr Cambon claimed this in 1905, not even ten years later none of the powerful states did conduct their diplomacy according Cambon’s ideas. The states of the Europe and the North America proclaimed need for the change in conduct of the diplomacy, certainly backed by a groups of pacifists; but question is if such a change happened or not. This blog would argue and would intitule such an idea as naive. Otherwise if those ideas would get into practical arrangements of diplomacy, there would be a great chance to avert the events which led the world into the WWI or WWII. Maybe it is more appropriate to ask ourselves if a secretive and exclusive diplomacy did or did not play its part that led us into the war. This blog does not hesitate to point out, that the same happened in 1938 onwards, when Germany, thanks to diplomacy – which certainly was not new, according Cambon’s ideas – seized Czechoslovakia (Munich Agreement) when NaziGermany, Britain, France and Italy decided in secrecy about the future of the Czechoslovakia, without even inviting it to the meeting. This blog unfortunately is too short for me to talk about all the other agreements throughout this period (i.e. Yalta February 1945, Potsdam August 1945); I am going to rely on reader’s knowledge.
The same has been happening throughout the period of the Cold War (important figure and good example of the ‘old’ diplomacy in the time of the ‘new’ one is Henry Kissinger, please watch included video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7NdNr4vndE) and there is no doubt that diplomacy carried all the specifics of the ‘old’ diplomacy; secrecy, exclusiveness and high politics.
So what has actually changed about diplomacy after the end of the Cold War?
Diplomatic channels are more efficient, public is better, faster informed about the happenings, thanks to telecommunication and technology development, but, still, public is fed with information which is approved and granted “for public”; we can find a lot on the internet by a click, but than again we can find what was decided that we can find.
This blog started with a claim about the ‘modern’ and the ‘old-fashioned’ diplomacy, ‘modern’ in a way that diplomacy is using all the benefactions of the technological development or globalisation to its advantage; and an ‘old-fashioned’ diplomacy in terms of keeping certain information and meetings secret in the name of national gain or security.
In conclusion this blog reasons that contemporary relevance of the ‘old’ diplomacy - if we have to necessary differentiate diplomacy to the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ – is evident.