I know that countries governments communicate with each other using embassies, but how would a non-state actor make diplomatic communications with another country?
If an armed paramilitary group was emerging, and had decent enough manpower and support within the country it operated in (say, they were trying to overthrow the government) and needed weapons, how would they make contact with a foreign source willing to supply them, and how would the weapons arrive into the country from whatever foreign source was supplying them?
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It depends on what sort of organization and who is supporting them.
You might have an official government in exile sort of thing going on where a group of people claiming to represent an old overthrown or deposed government officially do business in a foreign country and are treated more or less as if they were actually representing a country even though they don’t.
That is the most official side of things.
On the far end of it it gets a lot more unofficial and there is naturally a lo of room for abuse there, when you have to take someone word that they represent a movement or group.
In some cases the act of picking a contact as a go between a supporter and a movement, legitimizes the contact and the parts of the movement they are in contact with as official.
A lot of it is based on trust and personal connections.
When your agency trained a guy in how to do the whole terrorism/freedom fighting thing or at least used them in some way before, they can be used as a known and trusted contact to whatever movement they either join or build up around themselves.
Looking from the outside it seems this sort of thing worked a lot better during the cold war than in more recent conflicts where in places like Syria, support seemed at times a bit undirected.
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