Tracks of Diplomacy

The term "diplomacy" is traditionally referred to interaction between nation-states. More recently, however, scholars have delineated several levels of diplomacy. Tracks 1 and 2 are the most frequently used terms. A composite term is multitrack diplomacy.

Track 1 diplomacy: Official discussions typically involving high-level political and military leaders and focusing on cease-fires, peace talks, and treaties and other agreements.

Track 2 diplomacy: Unofficial dialogue and problem-solving activities aimed at building relationships and encouraging new thinking that can inform the official process. Track 2 activities typically involve influential academic, religious, and NGO leaders and other civil society actors who can interact more freely than high-ranking officials. Some analysts use the term track 1.5 to denote a situation in which official and non-official actors work together to resolve conflicts.

Track 3 diplomacy: People-to-people diplomacy undertaken by individuals and private groups to encourage interaction and understanding between hostile communities and involving awareness raising and empowerment within these communities. Normally focused at the grassroots level, this type of diplomacy often involves organizing meetings and conferences, generating media exposure, and political and legal advocacy for marginalized people and communities.

Multitrack diplomacy: A term for operating on several tracks simultaneously, including official and unofficial conflict resolution efforts, citizen and scientific exchanges, international business negotiations, international cultural and athletic activities, and other cooperative efforts. These efforts could be led by governments, professional organizations, businesses, churches, media, private citizens, training and educational institutes, activists, and funders.

Digital Diplomacy

In a world of likes and dislikes, tweets and what’s app, governments are using social media tools to reach beyond traditional diplomacy. Ministries and embassies are adopting new strategies for the digital age and exploring innovative ways to reach and engage domestic and foreign constituencies. the last decade has seen the unrelenting expansion of social media around the globe and fundamentally changed the way that governments interact with their citizens and it has changed how states manage the relationships associated with traditional statecraft. Digital diplomacy is just a new means for advancing the same end, building on the traditional heart of diplomacy–discrete government-to-government connections. The main plus points are:

Faster dissemination and Rebuilding: the rise of social media has allowed governments to disseminate information and amplify it to a select targetedaudience. It has built new connections and raised the importance of monitoring and listening.

Addition to existing strengths: the most powerful governments in the future will not be those with the largest armies, but rather those with the most connections and those have a control on most networks.

Transparency and power to citizens: digital diplomacy is all about interactions and it has opened up a new spaceof democratized decision making because social media can serve to enhance transparency. Social media can also increasingly bring citizens into contact with their governments and humanized the leaders of states.

Transforming the Diplomatic functions: The information is available to the diplomats in various domains which are easily accessible. In many situations countries face circumstances where Media and official diplomatic channels cannot be utilized. In such situations Digital Media can open of channels of exchange. The term “real-time diplomacy” has emerged as a result of the rapid spread of information facilitated by social media. These new forms of communication have pushed the traditional structure of diplomacy to adapt.

Social media technology is inanimate and value-neutral; it takes on the intentions and impulses of its users, and as a result, it is a force that governments need to learn how to harness. Social media also tends to punish moderation, and it often amplifies the voice of those at the extremes of society, so its increasing prevalence may present states with new challenges.

AID Diplomacy

AID is a twentieth-century innovation; foreign aid has become a familiar and even expected element in international relations. Why countries provide it? It has myriad uses.

• Support development in poor countries
• humanitarian relief,
• protection of human rights
• Promotion of democratic forms of governments
• Global fight against the proliferation of problems like environmental stress, infectious diseases, weapons proliferation, transnational terrorism

And on other end of spectrum for:

• Enhance security domain for countries
• Mould public opinion in the target countries
• Influence political decision in key areas
• Promotion of commerce (Opening of mining, forest resource etc)

Domestic politics and international pressures combine to shape how and why donor governments give aid. Foreign aid has pronounced and visible impacts on political institutions, interest groups, and the ways governments organize their giving.

Positive Aspects

During the past two decades, the greatest breakthroughs in aid quantity and quality came from the field of public health (unlike other social sectors, such as education and sanitation, where aid increases were far less notable).  As a result, the outcomes in public health in poor countries have also advanced markedly.  Not only did aid quantities for public health improve; new public health institutions, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, were created to promote the effective delivery of the increased aid.

The aid successes of the past decade have saved millions of lives (which has totaled just a tiny fraction of rich world income) on its own. Yet aid has delivered more than lives saved and improved. Various kinds of aid, including public health outlays, debt cancellation under the IMF and World Bank's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative (providing debt relief and cancellation for the poorest countries), and other programmatic and budget support, have helped to put sub-Saharan Africa on a path of much higher economic growth and development. For the first time in decades, Africa's poverty rate has come down notably (from 58 percent in 1999 to 48.4 percent in 2010) and the region's economic growth is now around 5 percent per year, making it the region with the second fastest growth (following Asia).

Criticism ofAid

Critics on the extreme right describe aid as a boon to bureaucrats and dictators. Critics on the radical left depict aid as a sinister instrument of postcolonial domination that oppresses its intended beneficiaries. Ethical concerns dominate, but considerations of national self-interest inevitably come into play. China is facing increasing criticism as well as opposition for exploiting the countries where it is providing its Aid Diplomacy

Aid increases have been justified by the premise that it will generate global poverty reduction through greater selectivity, enhanced ownership, and improved aid management. Yet a substantial share of the aid actually provided by donor countries aims at diplomatic and geopolitical goals, many of which are not developmental and escape measure in existing monitoring and evaluation systems. But whatever may be the opinion, aid will continue to play a major role in our increasingly interconnected world.

Aid inIndian Context

One unheralded Indian success has been last year's establishment of a unified mechanism giving coherence, direction and efficacy to India's foreign aid; that may now amount to well over 0.2 per cent of GDP, if we aggregate all the foreign aid offered through the ministry of external affairs (MEA), and the different agencies that run technical assistance programmes for fellow developing countries.

In 2012, the MEA set up a 'Development Partnership Administration' (DPA), combining the different arms of its foreign assistance programmes that had evolved since 1950, commencing with special programmes for neighbours such as Bhutan and Nepal, plus the Indian Technical Cooperation Programme (ITEC) created in 1964. ITEC has become a major instrument for expertise development, with a global footprint reaching out to the Caribbean, Central America and the Pacific islands. DPA provides sustained vision, and focused policy actions, providing MEA with muscle to navigate the Indian labyrinth, and for effective delivery to fellow developing states.

In 2012, ITEC (and an associated Commonwealth programme called SCAAP) provided training to 9,000 foreign specialists, drawn from 161 countries, conducted by 47 Indian agencies. (In addition, we annually train 1,500 armed force officers, mainly from neighbouring countries.) India also provided 2,300 scholarships for degree courses in different institutions. Second, India is committed to help in setting up 100 institutions across Africa. This is capacity building on the ground for the benefit of foreign partners.

DPA works with Indian NGOs - SEWA, Tillonia, and others - helping them expand overseas, be it for village level solar power applications, or agriculture technology, or grassroot entrepreneurship. Fourth, over 150 lines of credit, totaling $9.6 billion, have been allocated. Fifth, we do not impose aid conditions that challenge the policy of the recipient countries. Foreign Secretary Mathai added: "North-South cooperation is a historic responsibility; South-South cooperation is a voluntary partnership."

India is working on50,000-unit housing project currently under implementation in Sri Lanka, in the Tamil areas of North and East regions.

Energy Diplomacy

Energy is at the conjunction of national security, economic prosperity and the environment. Energy shortages, price volatility or disruptions anywhere can threaten economic growth everywhere. While working in context of international arena, work in national security, bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, commercial advocacy and development are widely affected by energy concerns which provides for both need and relevance for energy diplomacy.

The mains aims of Energy Diplomacy are: to ensure stability and transparency in energy markets, the development of alternative fuels, freedom of navigation and good environmental practices. Individual efforts by nation cannot successfully guarantee global energy security, efficiency and market stability on its own and would required collaborative efforts for same.

As a result, a growing number of countries will have:

• A voice in the global energy dialogue;
• A stake in the security of important global shipping routes;
• An interest in market stability, efficiency and transparency; and
• A role in developing good ways of financing new energy infrastructure and technologies.

To identify opportunities for geostrategic cooperation through energy in interdependent markets, nations need to:

1.    Forge strong diplomatic relationships with major consumers and suppliers, anticipate the impacts of changing energy markets and leverage our role in energy-related international organizations as energy disruptions anywhere can threaten economic growth everywhere.

2.    Promote a stable and secure global energy economy by engaging foreign governments and the private sector to maintain the security of supply and pursue alternative energy options and diversification of energy types.

3.    Respond to major changes in energy markets as they impact current and future energy choices.

Indian Context

In the last decade, ‘energy diplomacy’ has also become one of the main agendas of the country’s foreign and security policy. India is seriously considering its nuclear energy option as well as importing sources beyond the Middle East. Bilateral nuclear agreements with the USA, France, Russia and Canada, as well as consistent engagements with the countries of Eurasia, Africa and Latin America, could be seen from this perspective. The external dimension of energy efforts by India include:

a)    Acquisition of assets abroad through acquiring equity participation in developed fields, and obtaining exploration-production contracts in different parts of the world;

b)    Enteringinto long-term LNG supply contracts;

c)    Pursuing transnational gas pipeline proposals; and d) promoting partnerships with foreign entities in the downstream sector, both in India and abroad.

In an attempt to diversify oil and gas imports, Indian companies are trying hard to get a strong foothold in the Eurasian region. Investment in Russia’s Sakhalin-1 field, and the purchase of Imperial Energy by the Indian public sector company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in 2009 were efforts in this direction. India views Kazakhstan as an important energy player in Central Asia.Today with about 40 oil and gas projects, OVL has a presence in 17 countries. It has production of oil and gas from Sudan, Viet Nam, Syria, Russia and Colombia, with various projects under development in Iran, Brazil, Myanmar, Egypt, Venezuela and Kazakhstan. 

India is also exploring the possibility of importing gas through pipelines from Turkmenistan, Iran, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

On the nuclear front as well India in past few years has made major strides and its agreements with Russia, USA, USSR, and France are noteworthy developments.

Increasing Competition

Competition in this region is very fierce as China is also pursuing the same strategy. At the same time, rapidly growing trade and economic relationships between India and China may also compel them to talk of building partnerships in other areas. Both have declared their intentions of co-operation in oil and gas biddings. India also mooted the idea of Asian regional cooperation in energy, and initiated a dialogue between principal Asian suppliers (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Iran, Qatar and Oman) and principal Asian buyers (India, China, Japan and South Korea). These efforts showed some results when China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and India’s ONGC mounted a successful $573m. Joint bid to acquire Petro-Canada’s 37% stake in the al-furat oil and gas fields in Syria. Earlier, they worked as joint operators in Sudan. India and China may be co-operating in other areas, but when it comes to Central Asian energy, cash-rich China has shown that it can outmaneuver India in energy deals. This was clearly illustrated in late 2005 when China outbid India to acquire PetroKazakhstan, Kazakhstan’s third-largest oil producer.

At this stage of economic modernization, India is adapting to economic globalization and to the emerging Asian and global balance of power. Its accelerated economic performance has impacted upon its foreign policy in general, and on its engagement within Asia and with great powers.