American Diplomatic Missions In The Early Years Of The 21st Century Adjustment Research

As institutional foundation of diplomatic activities, diplomatic agencies ensure theimplementation of foreign policy of a certain country. Diplomatic agencies areestablished in accordance with the country’s diplomatic functions; therefore,reorganizations of diplomatic agencies reflect changes in the diplomatic functions.In the first decade of21stcentury, the U.S. faces many challenges regarding its foreignrelations, including non-traditional threat to national security represented by terrorism,changes of the international structure, innovation in communication technology, andlack of efficiency and coordination among diplomatic agencies. To address abovechallenges of the new era and adapt to the changing international situation anddiplomatic pattern, US diplomatic agencies underwent a series of reorganizations in thepast nearly10years, following the path of “anti-terrorism diplomacy–transformationdiplomacy–smart power diplomacy”.Most US diplomatic agencies, like Department of State, National Security Council,Department of Homeland Security, and the intelligence community, have restructuredtheir organization, with special focuses on internet and public diplomacy, nationalsecurity and anti-terrorism, reconstruction and stabilization, global repositioning, etc.These reorganization efforts have assisted the U.S. in tackling the new challengesthrough expending the decision-making circles of US foreign relations, strengtheningcoordination between related foreign agencies, and further extending US diplomaticpresences worldwide. Following and analyzing the trends in reorganization of USdiplomatic agencies, will help us understand function changes of US diplomacy, as wellas provide us precious learning to further perfect organizations of our diplomaticagencies.