“Mastering Diplomatic Competencies for an Ever-changing World” — Wolfgang Ischinger’s speech at the 50th IFDT

Ladies and gentleman, first of all, I would like to thank you for inviting me to the 50th International Forum on Diplomatic Training in Budva. It is a great privilege for me to speak before you today, and a wonderful pleasure to be back in Montenegro.

Mastering diplomatic competencies for an ever-changing world is a fascinating topic for career diplomats. Let me start by saying that, especially in view of the brutal war in Ukraine, the question that always comes up for diplomats is that of hard power versus soft power. What is the relationship between the two, and how can soft power be used as a complement to hard power, and vice versa, if necessary?

I remember where we were 30 years ago, when I was the German representative in the Contact Group, that succeeded in ending the bloody war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. You all remember the Dayton Agreement of 1995 and the other bloody conflict in this neighbourhood – the war in Kosovo, a little less than 30 years ago.

I could speak at length about how diplomacy in a conflict situation requires the application of hard power, of military threats or even of military force. But I'll leave that to others. I will talk about diplomatic competence and the lessons that I believe I've learned over the last 45 years in my diplomatic career. I have to admit that I benefited a lot from a paper that my old American friend Bill Burns, who is currently the director of the CIA, published when he left the Foreign Service. He left ten parting thoughts for American diplomats, which I will not quote, but I would like to use some of his ten points in the list of my ten lessons, that I'm now going to present to you briefly.

The first point is, if you're engaging in diplomacy, you need to know who you are and whom you represent and why. This sounds obvious, but it is not always the case. For instance, it does make a difference if you represent Montenegro on the global stage or if you represent the United States of America, because there are different means and tools at your disposal. So know who you are, and why.

My second lesson is that diplomacy is actually not so much about today, but it's mostly about tomorrow. In other words, think ahead. Think about where you want to be, where you want your country to be, where you want this negotiation to be, going forward. Diplomacy is about the future and not so much about the past. It makes it easier to overcome past controversies and past hate and past inability to talk to each other if one thinks about the future, together.

My third lesson is something which Bill Burns didn't have in his list, but it is something which I thought I have often missed when I dealt with other diplomats: Learn how to listen. When I was attending our diplomatic academy, we were taken through various exercises to learn how to speak publicly, effectively and how to make a point. This is all very relevant to the kind of public diplomacy that we are increasingly being asked to carry out. But I think even more important is the ability to listen. It's the most underrated ability in diplomacy. Understanding and learning how to listen means not only to understand what's being said by your adversary or your opposite number, but also to understand why something is not being said. Are you capable of grasping what is said between the lines?  Of course, this requires some understanding of your opponent and of his case.

This leads me to my fourth lesson which is particularly relevant if you are engaged in active diplomatic negotiations, regardless of whether it's a cultural, economic, military, scientific or other topic: Try to walk in your adversary's shoes. Understand their mission and their red lines. You don't really want to send your adversary back with a total defeat, because if they go back home totally defeated, next time you meet, they will come better prepared, and you will have a harder time dealing with that particular country or that particular negotiating team going forward. With other words: Don't go for the kill. Go for the advantage that you can possibly create and try to understand what they need to bring home as a minimum. That is part of the ability to listen, which is one of my most important points to make here.

My fifth lesson is about dealing with current and future technological advances. Diplomats have no choice but to become experts in hybrid challenges, disinformation and social media, both at the personal level and at the institutional level. The amount and intensity of disinformation of all kinds affecting the stability of our countries and foreign policies has become staggering. It's crucial to understand modern challenges that didn't exist when I joined our German Foreign Service in 1975.

The sixth lesson is a tactical one: Define your mission and shape it to your toolbox. What do I mean by that? You have to think hard about how you connect your leverage to your strategy in order to obtain a result. If you don't have any leverage, don't pursue an ambitious strategy because you are going to fail. If you have a lot of leverage, whether it's economic pressure or incentives, you can define a more ambitious strategy. Make sure that your strategy responds and correlates with the kind of leverage that you can bring with you in your ongoing negotiations.

My seventh lesson is particularly directed at young diplomats. If you are new to the foreign service and want to be noticed as a successful member of the diplomatic corps, capable of identifying an important foreign policy challenge and writing a really exciting paper about it, take my advice: add a little chapter at the end that offers a solution. Many diplomats find it wonderful to identify problems without offering a solution. If you present a problem to your Foreign Minister or to your Prime Minister, make sure you don't ask him or her to come up with the solution. Present your solution – or your solution options. “Don't give me one option, give me two or three or four," Henry Kissinger used to say. That is not a bad recipe for young diplomats to follow. So come up with solutions even if it's hard.

Many believe the most risk-free approach to diplomacy is to do nothing. If you want to ensure that no one can accuse you of making mistakes, just don't ever come up with a risky proposal. I think that is a very bad recipe for the future successful diplomat. Any action carries some degree of risk, just like in any other area of life. Don't be totally risk averse. Accept risk wisely as a matter of life and as a matter of diplomacy. Don't take unnecessary risks but accept risks as part of your profession.

My ninth lesson is more of a character issue: There is no place for pessimism in diplomacy. If you are by nature a pessimist, become a dentist or do something else. If you wish to be a good diplomat, you need to be optimistic that problems can and hopefully will be resolved. That's what the public expects from you and that's exactly what your Minister wants you to be: a problem solver, not someone who cries out about all the ills of our world. The diplomatic service is not a place for pessimism.

My last point, is the most important one in my view: build and maintain trust. Trust is a very precious kind of thing. Losing trust in a marriage or in a personal relationship or between countries is easy, and can happen over night. You take one wrong step and trust is gone. Rebuilding it may take months or years. Rebuilding trust once it has been lost is very hard in personal relationships, but also in international relations. This is why building and maintaining trust is probably the single greatest asset. If you can maintain your relationships and make sure that people know that they can trust you even when it is hard and despite an adversarial relationship with completely opposite views, then you will be successful. Trust is the currency of diplomacy. In the absence of trust, you will not get anyone's signature on any document. If you enjoy trust, then you are in a great position. If you handle it wisely, it will accompany you through your entire career. You will be known and seen as someone who can be trusted, no matter what government you represent, and even if the government has changed over time.

I believe that is the single biggest piece of advice I can offer on the basis of what I've learned over these last four and a half decades.