Diplomacy has become a performance art for the unimaginative.
Every year, the External Affairs Minister (EAM) of India sends a polite, polished greeting to their Dutch counterpart for King’s Day. The press releases are identical. The sentiment is recycled. The impact is zero. We treat these exchanges like essential gears in the machinery of statecraft, but they are actually the rust.
If you think a congratulatory tweet or a formal note "strengthens bilateral ties," you are part of the problem. You are mistaking activity for achievement. In the high-stakes theater of global trade and geopolitical alignment, these boilerplate pleasantries are the equivalent of sending a "Happy Birthday" LinkedIn message to a rival CEO. It’s low-effort, high-friction, and dangerously deceptive.
The Myth of the Strategic Greeting
The common wisdom suggests that maintaining "cordial relations" through ceremonial gestures creates the "soft power" necessary for "hard power" negotiations. This is a fantasy maintained by career bureaucrats who prefer ribbon-cutting to risk-taking.
True diplomacy is built on shared pain or shared profit. The Netherlands is India’s fourth-largest export destination in Europe. We are talking about billions in semiconductors, green energy, and maritime logistics. Do you honestly believe a King’s Day greeting moves the needle on a Free Trade Agreement (FTA)?
It doesn't. In fact, it provides a convenient smokescreen. It allows officials to check a box labeled "Engagement" without actually engaging on the brutal friction points of intellectual property rights or labor mobility. We are substituting substance with symbolism, and the cost is our competitive edge.
The Dutch Reality Check
The Netherlands is not a "partner" in the way a Hallmark card implies. It is a ruthless, highly efficient commercial hub. The Dutch "Polder Model" of consensus-based policymaking is legendary, but don't let the polite exterior fool you. They are masters of the long game.
When the EAM sends these greetings, they are participating in a 19th-century ritual in a 21st-century digital economy. While we trade pleasantries about the House of Orange-Nassau, other nations are busy securing the supply chains for lithography machines produced by ASML.
- The Illusion of Stability: Rituals create a false sense of security.
- The Opportunity Cost: Every hour spent drafting and vetting a "friendly greeting" is an hour not spent on the actual mechanics of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC).
- The Stagnation Loop: When we celebrate the "long-standing friendship," we stop questioning why that friendship hasn't evolved into a more aggressive, multi-billion dollar tech-sharing pact.
Stop Reading the Script
I’ve sat in rooms where foreign policy is debated by people who actually understand the stakes. The consensus is always the same: "Keep it steady." I'm here to tell you that "steady" is just another word for "stagnant."
We need to stop asking "How do we maintain this relationship?" and start asking "What is the expiration date on this current model?"
The "People Also Ask" sections of the internet are filled with queries like "How does India benefit from Dutch relations?" The answer usually involves a laundry list of historical ties and agricultural cooperation. That is a lazy answer. The real answer should be: "We don't benefit enough because we are too busy being polite."
The Logic of Aggressive Diplomacy
Imagine a scenario where the EAM skipped the King's Day tweet and instead published a roadmap for 500 new Indian tech startups to bypass European regulatory hurdles. That is a greeting the Dutch would actually respect.
In my years watching these cycles, the most effective breakthroughs didn't come from a "cordial atmosphere." They came from tension. They came from a refusal to play the ceremonial game until a specific demand was met.
The Dutch are traders by blood. They respect leverage. They do not respect a minister who follows a template.
The Failure of Professional Civility
We have professionalized civility to the point of irrelevance.
When the EAM "extends greetings," the media picks it up, the influencers retweet it, and the public thinks something has happened. Nothing has happened. No tariff was lowered. No visa process was streamlined. No defense contract was signed.
We are addicted to the optics of cooperation. We crave the image of two leaders smiling in a wood-panneled room. But the world is not won in wood-panneled rooms anymore. It is won in the server rooms of Eindhoven and the shipping lanes of Rotterdam.
If we want to be a global power, we have to act like one. Global powers do not send cards. They send proposals. They send ultimatums. They send experts.
The High Cost of Being Nice
There is a downside to this contrarian view: it’s uncomfortable. It’s much easier to keep the King’s Day greetings flowing. It keeps the diplomats employed and the news cycles boring.
But discomfort is the only precursor to growth. By prioritizing these empty rituals, we signal to the world that we are content with the status quo. We signal that we are a "safe" partner—which is another way of saying we are a partner that can be ignored when the real deals are being cut.
- Status Quo: "Warmest wishes to the people of the Netherlands."
- Disruption: "The current trade imbalance is unacceptable; let’s talk about 2027."
Which one do you think gets a faster response?
Kill the Template
The next time you see a headline about a diplomatic greeting, don’t applaud. Question it.
Ask why we are still using the tools of the telegraph era to manage a relationship defined by AI and quantum computing. Ask why our leaders are still reading from a script written by people who haven't updated their worldview since the Cold War ended.
The "lazy consensus" says that these greetings are the "oil" in the machine of international relations. I’m telling you the machine is electric, and the oil is just gumming up the circuits.
Stop celebrating the birthday of a foreign monarch and start celebrating the death of useless protocol.
Diplomacy isn't about being liked. It's about being indispensable. You don't become indispensable by being polite. You become indispensable by being the only person in the room who refuses to smile until the job is done.
Burn the script. Start the fire.
