Thanks to the pandemic, diplomats have a bigger, better toolkit

BEFORE THE pandemic, it might have been mistaken for an elaborate April Fool. The State Department announced that Antony Blinken would “embark” on his first “virtual trip” to Africa and “engage with young people from across the continent”. On April 27th the secretary of state would “travel virtually” to Nigeria, meeting President Muhammadu Buhari, before calling on President Uhuru Kenyatta to reaffirm America’s strategic partnership with Kenya; he would then “visit” a few local renewable-energy companies. What next: summitry by hologram?

But virtual diplomacy is no joke. It has kept international relations ticking over during the past year, as travel became harder and face-to-face meetings often impossible. In the process, it has enlarged the diplomatic toolkit. Diplomats can make ample use of this in the post-pandemic future, too.

Many can’t wait to get back to meeting in person, and rightly so. Over Zoom, even if the “mute” button doesn’t play up, it is harder to build trust, the currency of diplomacy. It is easy to miss the subtle signs of body language—the twitch of an eyebrow, the curl of a lip, the uneasy shuffle—that can be as eloquent as words.

Proximity often makes all the difference. Having a seat next to Russia on the UN Security Council offers an excellent channel for conveying a message to President Vladimir Putin (such as: don’t invade Ukraine). The hardest agreements tend to be thrashed out in long sessions behind closed doors, helped by ideas floated in a corridor or a walk in the woods. With the best of intentions, Mr Blinken’s virtual trip to Africa cannot have the same impact as an actual visit by a statesman taking the trouble to travel and pay respects to faraway countries.

Gradually, physical diplomacy will come back. In London on May 3rd-5th G7 foreign ministers are due to meet in person for the first time in more than two years, with the help of daily covid testing and suitable social distancing. In June G7 leaders plan to gather in Cornwall, and a physical NATO summit will follow in Brussels. The trip to Europe is pencilled in as President Joe Biden’s first foreign foray as president.

It would be wrong to assume that diplomacy will simply return to business as usual, however. For one thing, virtual diplomacy has proved that it can be highly efficient. Mr Biden, for example, has been able to zip around the world without leaving the White House, joining European leaders on screen in Munich and Asian leaders in a cyber-summit of the Indo-Pacific “Quad”. He was able to bring together dozens of world leaders for a deep-green climate gathering on Earth Day. The UN General Assembly and other big diplomatic jamborees could happily be scaled back in future, as much of their routine business can be done perfectly well online.

Sometimes—for tricky negotiations, say—it will make sense to conduct business in person. Sometimes virtual meetings will be more practical and productive. Diplomacy will go hybrid.

That could allow it to be more inclusive. The pandemic has intensified experiments in bringing a wider range of voices to conflict resolution. In the physical world, arranging for groups of women or young people from a troubled country to meet in a safe place is a logistical nightmare. Using a digital platform, as the UN discovered in Libya and Yemen, it is relatively simple. Broad participation in “digital dialogues” can counter the criticism that a peace process is a top-down stitch-up and lend greater legitimacy to any agreement reached, giving it a better chance of working. Even old hands are excited about the promise of “industrial levels of inclusion”. This should become a standard part of peace formulas.

In the 19th century the telegraph shrank the time needed to contact envoys. In the 20th century the jet plane shrank distance. Now digital platforms are supplanting physical presence. Used wisely, diplomacy will be the better for it. ■