Students of diplomatic practice will know the traditional functions of diplomacy by heart, with communication, representation, information-gathering and negotiation having a central place among these. They may well remember them from Hedley Bull’s imposing The Anarchical Society (1977) or any of the more recent introductory books and articles on diplomacy. This Forum on the strategic functions of diplomacy from a European perspective can be seen as a balance sheet on the challenges for diplomatic practice towards the end of the first quarter of this century. The two Forum articles are written by practitioners who are not unfamiliar with writing for a scholarly or think tank readership. Academic researchers tend to read such written work on diplomacy by practitioners both literally and as academic code. Insiders’ commentaries are precious as sources of inspiration for conceptual and theoretical work and with a view to interpreting such accounts for students in the context of diplomatic studies.

Published accounts by diplomats mostly look back on past events, as does in fact most academic research. In this Forum, the reflections of the directors of policy planning of the French and Dutch ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) are distinctly forward-looking. Their narratives reveal the puzzle of their ministries and governments’ responses to changes in world affairs, making it tempting to call the nature and velocity of such change ‘unprecedented’. Like most diplomacy, planning is about keeping up with the speed of events and adapting to all sorts of turbulence. Policy planners look steadily at the outside world as their daily occupation. They make sense of global events as they unfold, in a dialogue with a variety of foreign policy professionals, pundits, think tankers, consultants, journalists and — though often not in the first place — independent-minded academics. In the paradoxical roller coaster of foreign policy planners, there is much more to know about a world where information circulates instantly — whilst coming to terms with the fact that there is less that one in fact knows. Although the knowledge deficit of MFAs is not something usually shouted from the rooftops, it is a known and increasingly painful fact.

In the best traditions of diplomacy, the gaze of planners and forecasters is outwards, directed at potentially centrifugal forces in world events, while they ponder how to tame them. Perhaps more stealthily, the domestic bureaucratic, policy and societal contexts in which foreign policy is prepared, made and implemented impact on their scope for manoeuvre. Quai d’Orsay planning works within the updated parameters of Les États Géneraux de la diplomatie, the 2022-23 foreign policy review that resulted in increased spending on diplomacy. By contrast, Dutch planners face the sobering reality of the incoming government’s extraordinary 22 per cent cut in the budget of their department. Both are facing the progressive challenge of the whole-of-government setting of external relations. Sectoral ministries have become increasingly assertive players and repositories of governmental knowledge in areas of external relations with enhanced standing, and there is, of course, the irrepressible rise of the defence establishment and the concomitant securitisation of diplomacy, which stands for a new reality in diplomatic planning. Something not expressly said in the stimulating articles by Lafont Rapnouil and Uilenreef is that the environment outside the foreign ministries where diplomats do their everyday jobs seems to be changing faster than the apparatus and professional culture of foreign services. The walls of foreign ministries have, however, been shown not to be impermeable to the emotions and polarisation in society. For sizeable numbers of diplomats, the nature and intensity of Israel’s invasion of Gaza tested their obedience, for instance.

The articles by Lafont Rapnouil and Uilenreef show overlapping concerns with what they call the ‘disruption’ of diplomacy and its ‘brutalisation’ in increasingly politicised international exchanges, as well as the need for the better management of separateness in European relations with middle powers from other cultures and in relationships where diplomacy as usual is dysfunctional. The multiple planning conundrums associated with the current securitisation, popularisation and polarisation of global affairs are a principal theme in their articles, including greater tolerance of the degrading of diplomacy itself. How to respond to global turbulence with a smaller European diplomatic footprint? This seems to be these planners’ principal, if not main, overall concern. Non-western powers with rising budgets and corresponding ambitions are of special interest in the grand strategy and planning of European MFAs that are coming to terms with the perceptible political consequences of relative decline.

Reading between the lines of the articles in this Forum, one gets a sense that policy planners are showing greater sensitivity to the small picture: the minutiae of diplomatic work, the professional and personal demeanours of European diplomats in their global encounters, especially in the post-colonial world, and their individual skills. Dominance or superiority are increasingly questioned and the arts of listening and waiting are prized assets. The value of communication in counterparts’ native language, their first language or their preferred one, is then of strategic significance. Language training and diplomatic training, including the work of the Dutch and recently launched French in-house diplomatic academies, have come into the focus of policy planners.

Curiosity is driving research in diplomatic studies. The way in which practitioners’ Forums like this one will inspire research is a task that is up to individual academics. This journal’s editorial team nonetheless feels the responsibility to advance our field and help set the agenda for diplomatic studies in the years ahead. Readers can rest assured that the concerns and themes raised in this Forum will be addressed in original academic work published in future issues of the journal.