The end of bipolarity

In 1989, when the Cold War sputtered to a close, there were more than 7,000 diplomatic missions worldwide, most of which were embassies and thus headed by ambassadors. Between World War I and World War II, a few lesser states had been allowed to accredit embassies, but when the United States elevated Latin American missions in the 1940s, a trickle became a flood. Soon legations were the exception, and, by the last quarter of the 20th century, they had disappeared. In addition, numerous often highly specialized international organizations and an array of regional entities, some of them supranational, also now received and sent envoys of ambassadorial rank. For example, some states accredited three ambassadors to Brussels: to the Belgian government, to the EU, and to NATO.

Meanwhile, the already bewildering variety of tasks assigned to overburdened diplomatic missions continued to grow. The emergence of transnational legal issues such as terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, international smuggling of immigrants and refugees, and human rights increasingly involved embassies in close liaison with local police and prosecutors. As the 20th century came to an end, however, the number of diplomatic missions maintained by independent states began to decline under the influence of various factors, including budgetary constraints, the growing European practice of joint diplomatic representation by two or more members of the EU in the capitals of foreign states of relatively little interest to Europe, greater willingness to accredit ambassadors simultaneously to several regional states, and diminishing domestic interest in foreign affairs.

Even as the number of embassies and diplomats devoted to the conduct of bilateral relations contracted, international organizations and conferences attempting to regulate transnational affairs continued to proliferate. Indeed, the number of nongovernmental entities attempting to influence the work of such organizations and conferences grew even more rapidly: churches, the International Red Cross and similar service and relief organizations, multinational corporations, trade unions, and a host of special interest groups and professional organizations all developed lobbying efforts aimed at advancing specific transnational agendas. By the beginning of the 21st century, there were thousands of nongovernmental organizations accredited as observers to specialized agencies of the UN and other international organizations in Geneva. Negotiations over tariffs, debts, and issues of market access meanwhile assumed steadily greater importance. Efforts to liberalize the terms of private commerce came to involve foreign ministries, ministries of trade, and specialized ambassadors-at-large as well as resident ambassadors and consular officers.

The end of the Cold War left the foreign relations of many countries without a clear direction. Russia struggled to come to terms with its diminished power and influence, brought about by the political and economic collapse of the former Soviet Union. Deprived of its Soviet enemy and unchallenged as a global power, the United States clung to its alliances but deferred less to its allies and found itself increasingly isolated in international forums. Europe progressed toward greater unity without developing a clear vision of its preferred place in the world, including its relationship with its long-standing American ally. Japan more openly aspired to becoming a “normal nation,” casting off the restrictions on its international role that its defeat in World War II had imposed, but it did little to define or realize this ambition. China and India, which had seen themselves first as victims of European aggression and then as part of a “Third World” between the American and Russian-led blocs, began uneasily to emerge as great powers in their own right, in the process reviving elements of their long-forgotten ancient diplomatic doctrines and traditions.

The world map itself changed constantly. As the Soviet Union broke up, the Baltic states resumed their independence, and another wave of new states emerged from the retreat of Russian imperialism from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Meanwhile, various multiethnic states (e.g., Yugoslavia) were torn asunder by rampant nationalism. Ethnic minorities, such as Eritreans, achieved self-determination, and civil strife in countries such as Afghanistan, Rwanda, and Somalia resulted in great suffering and huge refugee flows. The need for international intervention to assist the peoples of failed states seemed to increase constantly. In the course of efforts to assign culpability for large-scale human suffering, the walls of sovereign immunity began to be breached. Even current and former heads of state were no longer exempt from the legal process in international and national courts. At the beginning of the 21st century, there was a consensus that a transition in the diplomatic order was occurring, though there was disagreement about what kind of new order would emerge.

Sally Marks
Chas. W. Freeman, Jr.