Australia found that Iran had masterminded arson attacks against the Jewish community in Sydney and Melbourne. In response, Australia has cut diplomatic ties with Iran and expelled all Iranian diplomats.
In international relations, cutting diplomatic ties is seen as an extraordinary and severe step. But should it be used more often?
For instance, what if – in response to hybrid warfare – Western countries actually broke relations with Belarus? Or Russia? Or China?
What practical purpose does cutting ties accomplish other than making a public statement of dissatisfaction by making it that much harder to make a private one?
Agree.
In the modern era it’s a performative flouncing out of the room. Functionally useless.
Very similar to economic sanctions. I think there are few if any cases where those have actually achieved any useful result. Again, just a show of ‘doing something’.
Cuba hurt the US’s feelings when it went commie, and we’ll never hear the end of it.
Not entirely useless. For sure, it is a statement that the offending nation (or, at least the regime in control) is a pariah state and sometimes inspiring others to follow. On the practical side, embassies and consulates are often used to provide diplomatic cover for espionage operations (generally in conjunction with ‘illegal’ operatives without official cover, or to house electronic surveillance equipment and send ‘work product’ by to intelligence departments via the diplomatic pouch). Eliminating diplomatic presence makes that much more difficult, although typically reciprocity goes both ways. This does make life difficult for nationals residing or working in the host country as the lack of consular presence means all ordinary bureaucratic interactions have to go through formal channels, so something as simple as verifying marital status becomes an entire diplomatic operation instead of a phone call to the local consulate. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been known to sponsor insurgencies and attacks against opponents and use embassies to support domestic terrorist operations, so that they would do so in Australia isn’t really surprising.
Stranger
It’s not exactly uncommon. My sister got married in Serbia just after the Kosovo conflict (then still Yugoslavia, on paper at least) which didn’t have diplomatic relations with the UK at the time. We had to get our visas for the trip from the “Yugoslavian special interest section” of the Cypriot embassy.
Though that kind makes the point how it is really just a purely ceremonial for the governments involved, it only has any effect on the ordinary citizens and their families abroad who need to get paperwork. Nowadays it makes no difference to the diplomats involved. It’s not the 1800s if the US needs to talk to the Iranians to deescalate a conflict, the secretary of states can call each other on their cell phones.
It can bring political power to those that seek it.
This isn’t really true. While it doesn’t really affect high level diplomatic interactions at the Secretary of State or equivalent level, there is a lot of interaction that typically goes on at the ‘working’ level which helps to convey intentions and smooth over issues prior to any kind of formal interaction or negotiations. Secretaries of State aren’t generally going to develop personal relationships with the counterparts unless they are close allies, and even diplomats will generally only interact with counterparts at their level and support staff but the civil service ‘functionaries’ at the working level are often the glue that makes negotiations possible by working through issues and cultural misunderstandings.
Stranger
Like some said, it’s mainly a hissy fit that hurts only ordinary citizens of the regime and not the regime itself.
I’m not sure how much ordinary citizens are affected by their country not having diplomatic relations with a particular other country. Now, if economic sanctions are imposed by another country, that’d be something that would, IMO, be more likely to worsen things for the citizens of that country.
FWIW, the U.S. currently does not have formal diplomatic relations with four countries:
In the case of the first two, it’s likely a matter of a regime which has had an antagonistic relationship with the U.S., or the West in general, for decades. And, for all of the first three, citizens of those countries probably have bigger issues to worry about than their country’s relationship with the U.S.
Bhutan is an interesting one; AFAICT, the U.S. has a cordial relationship with them, and maintains informal diplomatic ties, especially through India. It appears that it’s by choice of Bhutan, which has an isolationist policy, and only has formal diplomatic relations with a limited number of other countries.
Care to expand this sphynx-like statement into a complete thought?
Who are the people who are seeking political power on which side and what mechanism causes a break in diplomatic recognition to achieve the results you claim?
You might be right, you might be wrong. I just have no idea what you’re trying to assert.
Short of bombing someone’s presidential residences, darn near anything any country does to apply pressure to some other country has far more adverse effect on the citizens than on the elites.
That’s why they’re called the elites.
There are also “Interest Sections” in various third party Embassies. Iran has one in the Pakistan Embassy in DC. The USA has one in the Swiss embassy in Iran.
Taiwan is not recognized by the USA. But they have TECO, a de facto embassy in DC and de facto consulates in various cities. The US has the American Institute in Taiwan.