Page "Diplomat" Paragraph 6

Diplomats in posts collect and report information that could affect national interests, often with advice about how the home country government should respond.

Then, once any policy response has been decided in the home country's capital, posts bear major responsibility for implementing it.

Diplomats have the job of conveying, in the most persuasive way possible, the views of the home government to the governments to which they are accredited and, in doing so, to try to convince those governments to act in ways that suit home country interests.

In this way, diplomats are part of the beginning and the end of each loop in the continuous process through which foreign policy is made.