Was listening to a podcast recently that discussed some of the world-wide reactions to the Skripal poisoning in the UK, and one of the responses was that many countries (including the US) expelled Russian diplomats. I can sort of understand the PR/diplomatic effects of this. It is also my understanding that expelled diplomats are often known intelligence operatives, and so presumably their expulsion disrupts, at least temporarily, intelligence-gathering on the part of the offending government.
Aside from these, what are the practical impacts on the government whose diplomats have to go home? What functions are hampered or interrupted by this process? If I am Vladimir Putin, aside from the potential slow-down of intelligence operations mentioned above, why do I care if some bureaucrats have to come back to Russia?
Trying to understand why this is seen as such a significant response to an offense. Thanks in advance.
To answer the question about the effects of expelling diplomats, it might be useful to ask a related question: What do the resident diplomats actually do anyway?
I remember reading an interview with Henry Kissinger, way back in the 1970’s.
Kissinger said that the whole concept of having embassies is basically an unnecessary holdover from the previous century. In this age of modern communications (1970’s!), there is no need for diplomats to be physically present in foreign countries.
So he was saying that embassies exist for symbolic reasons only.
In which case, expelling one of the embassy residents is also nothing more than a symbolic move.
(sorry about a weak answer for GQ–I tried googling for a cite to Kissinger’s comments, but failed.)
*(And also I presume,as a useful base for espionage )
Do people in the US, either Russian nationals or US citizens who need to do something in Russia, and can’t go through regular channels, need the diplomat to help them? I’m asking because that seems to happen in fiction all the time, but I’m not really sure. If so, then when the diplomat is expelled, and before a new one comes in, those tasks, just don’t happen. Need to bring a relative over, a fiance, help a family member with a legal problem? Sucks to be you, says the US, and you can thank Putin for that. Maybe if that happens a lot, people begin to ask, just what, is my government doing for ME?
I guess the US and North Korea, and the US and Iran don’t have diplomatic ties, so helpful things can never happen between the US and those countries. But … so what? Was anyone expecting it to? Does anyone really need it? Do people walk around thinking, if only our leaders were more level headed, we’d be able to … do what with North Korea and Iran, exactly? Is this an issue that really alienates the population of any of those nations?
While the US may not have an embassy in North Korea or Iran that doesn’t mean they can’t talk to each other. There are plenty of back-channel communications between these countries because it’s in both of their interests to talk to each other once in a while. Let’s say an American gets arrested in North Korea. You can bet there are communications happening either directly or indirectly. As an example, the US is currently having direct discussions with the Taliban, and they aren’t even a rouge country.
As far are quasi-official communications go the US often uses a neutral intermediary country, such as Sweden or Switzerland, to act as a go-between when it needs to directly communicate with the leadership of a country it doesn’t have official ties to.
As far as embassies go, they do serve the purpose of providing a safe haven for someone if they need help in a foreign country. If I ever got arrested in a foreign country one of my first calls would be to the American Embassy. So films may exaggerate their importance, but they still serve a purpose besides spying.
Embassies consist of more than just the Ambassador, of course. There are political officers and economic officers who deal with their respective areas. There is often a CIA station, which is self-explanatory and overt, and often there are operatives in places like the political or economic sections who are actually covert agents. Along with CIA, there may be DIA military attaches who interact with a country’s military. Then you have the consular staff, which issues visas and helps Americans who may be stranded.
In some countries there is a large USAID contingent and/or a Peace Corps group, both of which are independent of the Department of State, but who may rely heavily on the embassy for administration or travel issues.
At the bottom of the pecking order is that nameless rabble who are support personnel (like my wife and I were). This includes people who manage money, property, assets, housing, maintenance, security, etc.
The notion that diplomatic presence in some countries is somewhat superfluous may be valid (Toronto? Really?), but most of these folks in the non-support areas provide critical interaction with other governments.
Diplomats assess current developments in the country’s politics and build contacts who are willing to talk to them, officially or off the record, about what is going on and what is likely to happen. Little of this can be done sitting in Washington, and reading the country’s newspapers will only tell you what the paper’s publisher wants you to hear.
Resident ambassadors were much more important in the old days when it took months to even send a message via ship to a foreign government. Expelling one meant truly cutting yourself off from another country and was often a prelude to war. With modern communications being what they are, however, expelling a diplomat is little more than a grandiose political gesture.
Immigration issues very often do require the assistance of embassy personnel, yes (although it is rare that ALL of the embassy staff are expelled, so routine consular work continues even if the ambassador is out). For example, most people who needs a visa to travel to the United States must be interviewed at a US embassy/consulate. Meanwhile, Americans who get arrested abroad are entitled to a certain level of consular assistance (mostly, help finding a local attorney and notifying friends/family back home), and there’s always the “my passport got lost/stolen” problem to deal with, or providing passports and citizenship paperwork for US citizens born overseas.
In cases where the US does not have diplomatic representation, some other country will provide limited services. For example, the Swedish Embassy in North Korea (itself housed inside the German Embassy) is the “protecting power” for US, Australian, and Canadian citizens in Pyongyang; Poland operated the US Interests Section in Baghdad in the lead-up to the first Gulf War. Citizens of an EU country can request consular assistance from any other EU country if their own country does not maintain local diplomatic facilities.
A lot of the low level people at an embassy are actually intelligence agents. Kicking out diplomats is a means of weakening another country’s spy network in your country.
But it can have mixed results. These diplomatic officials are known. So your country’s counter-intelligence agencies can monitor them. Kick them out and they may be replaced by unofficial agents you don’t know about.
They’re part of the regular channels. Consular officers for example are usually diplomats, at least those in full consulates (honorary consulates have lesser powers and lesser protections). And they provide services such as renewing passports, registering abroad births or providing legal assistance to citizens of their country who are detained.
The immediate practical effect is that the expelled diplomat’s country will expel one of yours. They don’t even try to come up with a justification. And yes, we do it, too (for whatever value of “we” applies to you).
Western, and especially US diplomats are often holed up in big fortified compounds due to perceived security reasons, so being physically “in country”.
The embassy building may be a bit fortress-like (or, in some cases, very fortress-like) but you can be reasonably sure that unless it’s a near war-zone the embassy staff are still out and about, meeting people, attending events, networking, etc.
Thé US Embassy in Ottawa is just that: a fortress. It stands there in the Market, gloomy and foreboding. It’s entire architecture sends out the message: «There will likely be a bomb blast here someday.»
Expelling an ambassador is a symbolic move. It was a way of saying “you really crossed the line this time…” in a very public way. Notice that all these “People’s Republics” and other dictatorships spend a lot of time constructing pretexts to justify actions, instead of acting like thugs publicly. Calling them out in public, pointing out the hypocrisy of their actions vs. words, is embarrassing to them.
Should also point out that typically, if a country does not have an embassy in another country, very often some middle country will be the go-between. IIRC it was Sweden or Switzerland that was the informal conduit for diplomatic conversations from Washington to Havana when the cold war was in full swing. Ditto, I think, for the USA and Iran. And of course, no matter what the USA thinks of them, any other country can have diplomats to the UN in New York.
Same for the Barcelona consulate. It’s in a relatively-isolated area (Reina Elisenda); a white house sitting in a garden, surrounded by a thick wall, barbed wire, more cameras than a TV studio and some very-grim-looking Marines. I’d never thought a whitewashed wall could look threatening before seeing that one. All the other consulates in town are in the same, easily-accessible area (Eixample, the checkerboard part of the map) and look like a lawer’s office except for the large seal on the balcony.
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