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FINAL DRAFT: |
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Completed version available for purchase from CSIS Publications
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Reinventing Diplomacy
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CSIS |
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Project Cochairs Project Director |
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Diplomacy in the Information Age -1- |
Draft: 10-09-98 |
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| Diplomacy in the Information Age www.csis.org/ics/dia/ | |||||
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| Preface | ||||||||
| For three decades CSIS has directed its attention and analysis to the conduct of American diplomacy. We have focused much of our effort on public diplomacy and international broadcasting. The Panel on International Information, Education and Cultural Relations, better known as the Stanton Panel, was hosted by CSIS. Its recommendations led to the consolidation of the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs with the United States Information Agency and still have resonance today. This new study, Reinventing Diplomacy in the Information Age, was initiated by CSIS to advance the conduct of American diplomacy in the next century. It is a study neither of foreign policy nor of institutional structure. Instead, it examines the new international dynamics, identifies performance gaps, and proposes a strategy for change. The study argues that diplomacy must become increasingly public to serve the national interest. A 63-person Advisory Panel, focusing on the information revolution, the widening participation of publics in international relations, and the concurrent revolutions in global business and finance, has put forth a bold agenda. Because so many practices of 20th century diplomacy are threatened with irrelevance, the panel has called for reinvention. With a new culture, new technologies, new media, and new relationships -- the foreign affairs community will be ready for a counterpart to the Pentagon’s “revolution in military affairs.” The recommendations herein constitute the minimal requirements for a “revolution in diplomatic affairs.” The architecture for the revolution will require, as well, a reexamination of policymaking and of organizational relationships. In my 35 years with CSIS, I cannot recall a panel that has worked with such harmony and resolve. Its distinguished members came here from government service, higher education, journalism, and the business and NGO communities to offer advice on how to strengthen America’s diplomacy. Over a period of 15 months they reached the consensus you will find in this study. With the discerning leadership of cochairs Richard Burt and Olin Robison, as well as Hodding Carter who served in that role for the first several months, the panel has produced an extremely useful report. I am proud to endorse it and commend it to the Administration and Congress for their consideration and action. The study concludes with the admonition that American diplomacy “must be guided by coherence, capability, discipline, and agility. It must be characterized by openness and permeability. It must change now.” I trust you will agree. | ||||||||
| David M. Abshire President, CSIS | ||||||||
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| Foreword | |||||||||||
| American diplomacy is today at severe risk because it does not have the modern technology it needs to do its job. As astonishing as it may seem, the Department of State does not have the proper tools for gathering, processing, and disseminating information, nor for communicating effectively with an increasingly democratic world. All this has happened at precisely the historical moment when American technological innovation leads and shapes the globalization process, both at home and abroad. All this has happened during a decade when the international affairs budget has been cut by more than 20 percent. Embassies have been closed, American diplomats have been recalled, and the communications infrastructure has been neglected. From Ireland to Israel, from South Africa to Indonesia--America must continue to provide some measure of stability in a world that remains unpredictable and turbulent. Yet, there is an anomaly in our conduct of diplomacy. Its instruments are left over from another era. While the image of a diplomat in striped pants is nothing but a stereotype from the past, the hierarchical cable culture that defines American diplomacy today has changed little in the last century. Not only must American diplomacy be brought up to date, it must reflect the nation’s position of global leadership. The stakes are too high to do otherwise. We are honored to have chaired an advisory panel of 63 concerned citizens--former diplomats, journalists, academicians, representatives from the NGO and business communities, and others who have been long involved in public life. Over a period of 15 months they have freely given their time to consider, discuss, and propose solutions to the challenges which face American diplomacy in the next century. Without exception, the members of the panel agree that bold steps must be taken to reverse the deterioration of American diplomacy. None will be satisfied if this report simply takes its place alongside other thoughtful reports that have called for change. This is a call for swift and essential action. We hope the Administration and Congress will move quickly to consider and even expand the strategies for change. The United States cannot depend solely on its economic and military preeminence to ensure that it fulfills its responsibilities for global leadership. We cannot afford second-class diplomacy, which will be inevitable without first-class technology and its imaginative use. | |||||||||||
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Richard Burt Project Cochair |
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Olin Robison Project Cochair |
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| Acknowledgments | ||||||
| With talk of consolidation in the air, Leonard Marks and Barry Zorthian proposed to CSIS President David Abshire in 1996 that it was time to reconsider the future of public diplomacy. He greeted the proposal with enthusiasm and expanded it to a study for transforming the conduct of American diplomacy. A 63-person Advisory Panel was invited to oversee the study which would focus on the information revolution, the widening participation of publics in international relations, and the concurrent revolutions in global business and finance. The Advisory Panel was convened by cochairs Richard Burt and Hodding Carter in mid-1997 and met five times to consider and discuss the requirements for American diplomacy in the next century. Midway through the study, when Hodding Carter assumed new duties as a foundation president, he was succeeded as cochair by Olin Robison. Without exception, all members of the panel have remained engaged for more than a year, giving freely of their time and ideas. Attendance at meetings has swelled as the study came to a conclusion. The members of the panel deeply care about restoring diplomacy’s lost luster. Of the many institutions and individuals to be acknowledged, the Annenberg Foundation merits special thanks for funding the study, and USIA for seconding the project director to CSIS. Cochairs Richard Burt and Olin Robison have given generously of their time to shape the study. Walter Roberts, who served as project director of the Stanton panel two decades ago, is recognized for his shrewd insights. Barry Zorthian has unfailingly offered wise advice. Diana Lady Dougan and Bill Garrison are thanked for their personal interest and the generous support of the International Communications Studies Program. Erik Peterson, too, warrants appreciation for his contributions on global economics. Tony Quainton, recently retired from the Department of State, brought enormous breadth and common sense to the study. Chuck Schmitz, skeptical of easy rhetoric and pat solutions, relentlessly pushed to sharpen the study. Larry Grossman provided thoughtful and provocative insights. Kevin Klose contributed his editorial talents to the executive summary. Sandy Ungar gave more time than we had any right to expect in his masterful editing of the report. Milda Hedblom and Kenneth Keller did all of the preparation for the conference in Minneapolis. Likewise, Jonathan Aronson and Geoff Cowan planned the Los Angeles conference. Neither of these events would have been possible without them. Peter Schwartz enlivened the debate with his presentation on future international scenarios. Morley Winograd, who is directing the reinvention of the federal government, inspired the Advisory Panel to direct its attention to the vision and values of diplomacy. Appreciation is extended to Chris Foss for providing computer support and editing transcriptions. Valuable assistance in transcription and administrative support was also given by Jacqueline Hansmann, Ann Stark, and Kevin Hartmann. Student interns Noriko Akashi, Elisabetta Malcontenti, and Jill Rothenbueler also generously assisted with the project. | ||||||
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| The contributions of several other institutions are acknowledged as well, not least of which is the report on A New Diplomacy for the Information Age issued by the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy under the chairmanship of Lewis Manilow. It called for a New Diplomacy based on the information revolution and the growing power of foreign publics. Financing America’s Leadership, sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations, called for an increase in resources, strong leadership, and the reform of America’s foreign affairs agencies. Who Needs Embassies?, published by Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, examined the role of American Embassies in five key countries and documented the consequences of shrinking resources in an increasingly complex world. It called for a national consensus on the U.S. role in the world and on the resources that are devoted to shaping it. A major conference on Virtual Diplomacy organized by the United States Institute of Peace explored the new challenges of international conflict management in the information age. An international conference at Wilton Park, Diplomacy: Profession in Crisis?, also examined the new requirements for conducting relations between states. Concurrent with the CSIS study, the Henry L. Stimson Center initiated its Project on the Advocacy of U.S. Interests Abroad. As the two studies have progressed, we have shared ideas and research. Consequently, both studies have benefited. While we have taken different approaches, we have reached conclusions that are completely complementary. Finally, a personal word of thanks to the many Advisory panel members who inspired a consensus on the strategies leading to the reinvention of diplomacy. At the panel’s first meeting, Rita Hauser asked if the panel was prepared to address how diplomacy must change. “Are we going to tinker around the edges or come to the heart of the matter?” The Advisory Panel wisely decided not to tinker around the edges. | |||||
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Barry Fulton Project Director October 1998 |
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| Executive Summary | |||||||||
| The CSIS Advisory Panel calls for reinventing the conduct of diplomacy in the information age. With a focus on the information revolution, the widening participation of publics in international relations, and the concurrent revolutions in global business and finance, the panel recommends sweeping changes in the Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies. | |||||||||
| International Dynamics | |||||||||
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The world is changing fundamentally. Images and information respect neither time nor borders.
Hierarchy is giving way to networking. Openness is crowding out secrecy and exclusivity. Ideas
and capital move swiftly and unimpeded across a global network of governments, corporations,
and nongovernmental organizations. In this world of instantaneous information, traditional
diplomacy struggles to sustain its relevance.
Fundamental forces that demand change in the practice of American diplomacy include: * Revolution in information technology. * Proliferation of new media. * Globalization of business and finance. * Widening participation of publics in international relations. * Complex issues that transcend national boundaries. The prime mover of change is information technology. When Gutenberg shattered the old order by mechanizing printing five centuries ago, the democratization of literacy and knowledge irresistibly followed. As the millennium ends, the microchip is again revolutionizing information gathering and transmission, and will bring even more profound changes in the next century. The critical elements are the international networks created by computers and electronic connectivity. Exponential growth in computing power and plummeting international telecommunications costs are having profound consequences for finance, business, education, medicine, civil society and government. Nations once connected by foreign ministries and traders are now linked through millions of individuals by fiber optics, satellite, wireless, and cable in a complex network without central control. The Internet, with 100 million users today, will reach one billion people by 2005, and will be available to half the world’s population by 2010. The “network” will become the central nervous system of international relations. |
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| The new media, borne of the Information Age with low entry costs and global distribution, are available to anyone with creativity and a modest investment. Electronic entrepreneurs are challenging the dominance of the old media controlled by states and corporations. A new website is created every four seconds. Newspapers from practically every country in the world are freely available at our desktops. Radio programs and full-motion video are accessible through the Internet. The Internet itself--connected through telephone, cable, wireless, or satellite links--can be accessed on PCs, personal digital assistants, and even home TV sets. The media are converging, combining print, audio, and video to offer a staggering choice of information and entertainment. The gatekeepers are being eliminated as the transition from mass to customized media accelerates. Globalization of finance and business has erased national boundaries from the laws of supply and demand. More than a trillion dollars a day are exchanged in international money markets with little or no state intervention. International commerce is fueling America’s economy. By 2002, electronic commerce, now in its infancy, will exceed $300 billion a year. The constraints of distance are disappearing in the information economy. Markets are becoming more efficient, but also more volatile. Spurred by government research that led to Intelsat and the Internet, American innovation has created a new information economy that could continue its surge for decades. While some argue that most nations will benefit from globalization, fears range from a growing gap between rich and poor to the loss of American jobs to the third world. As the world struggles to come to terms with the economic crises in East Asia and Russia, few doubt that the changes underway are consequential. The public dimension receives less attention, yet it may be the most significant of the changes that affect the conduct of diplomacy. Virtually no major foreign affairs or domestic initiative is taken today without first testing public opinion. The public dimension includes not only public opinion, which has long been recognized as essential, but also public consultation, involvement, and action. From China to Chiapas, ordinary members of the public, are developing new competencies for global engagement. More than 15,000 NGOs are directly involved in international issues. Private initiatives, such as Ted Turner’s creation of the $1 billion United Nations Foundation and George Soros’ pledge of $500 million to Russia, are having profound effects on public policy. The public dimension is becoming the central element of the new diplomacy and a critical influence on foreign policy. The information age poses intense new challenges to our diplomacy, either magnifying international disagreement and discord or distracting people from vital concerns abroad. The consequences can be fast and deadly. The dominant issues of the next decade include democracy and human rights; weapons of mass destruction; terrorism, drugs, and global crime; environmental concerns; population, refugees, and migration; disease and famine. The information age increases the relevance of these issues to the peoples of the world. The penalty to America’s diplomacy for inattention will be severe. | |||||
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| The Performance Gap | ||||||
| Diplomacy is the art of advancing national interests through the sustained exchange of information among nations and peoples. Its purpose is to change attitudes and behavior. It is the practice of state-to-state persuasion. Classic diplomacy assumes that sovereign states control international relations. However, faced with technologies that empower contradictory impulses of fragmentation and integration, and generate instant and often uncontrolled, unmediated problems, diplomacy in the 21st century must overturn its culture of secrecy and its penchant for exclusivity. The conduct of American diplomacy faces unacceptable performance gaps between its outdated practices and the requirements of the new age of information. These gaps include diplomatic priorities, professional standards, leadership, infrastructure, resources, telecommunications, computers, media deployment, and relations with the media, business, and NGO communities. In short, the State Department and allied agencies are encumbered with traditions and tools that inhibit the practice of diplomacy. The gaps in diplomatic performance have consequences. Whether it be the contagion of economic collapse that started in Bangkok or the massacre of civilians in Kosovo, American diplomacy must be given the means to alert the international community and modulate the turbulence that threatens international order. Other elements of the federal government, including the Department of Defense, have embraced reform. It is time for the foreign affairs community to take this path as well, faced as it is with declining resources and the need to refocus after a half-century of the Cold War at the center of American concerns. Effective leadership by the United States in sustaining international stability depends upon the ability of our foreign affairs agencies to change and adapt to the imperatives of the information age. American diplomacy must be empowered with the tools and techniques of the 21st century. Without change, our diplomacy is threatened with irrelevance. To act effectively the United States will require coalitions with other nations, NGOs, and corporations. There are few recent examples of success in foreign policy where the United States acted alone--and none where the United States government acted successfully without the support of the American public. Since the American economy requires global security and prosperity, every citizen has a stake in the conduct of American diplomacy. Genocide in Rwanda, war in Kosovo, financial chaos in Indonesia, nuclear tests in India and Pakistan, the population explosion in Mexico--all are threats to international stability and to the livelihood of American workers. | ||||||
| Diplomacy in the Information Age -10- | Draft: 10-09-98 | |||||
| A Strategy for Change | ||||||
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The culture of diplomacy must be overhauled to make it more accessible and participatory;
obsolete technology must be discarded and replaced to make diplomacy more efficient and
relevant; and a larger community of international and domestic actors must be included in
deliberations and implementation. These changes will require bold and sustained leadership as
well as a better trained, more effective diplomatic service.
A plan of action to reinvent American diplomatic practice must be developed under the direction
of the Secretary of State. Efficiencies, adjustments, and half measures will not suffice. o A senior executive team from State, USAID, USIA, Commerce, Agriculture and other agencies that deal in foreign affairs should undertake the management of change. o A Management Advisory Council of distinguished representatives from the business, academic, government, and NGO communities should be formed to advise the foreign affairs community on implementing change strategies. o New and more rigorous standards for the appointment of political and career ambassadors should be announced to signal a renewal of professionalism and a re-delegation of authority to embassies. o The decade-long decline in resources for the conduct of diplomacy should be reversed. The Advisory Panel recommends six substantive strategies to prepare American diplomacy for the next century. Summarized below, they include key recommendations from the text of the report. Create a more accessible environment. Ending the culture of secrecy and exclusivity is a requirement for developing a collaborative relationship with the public. o Give greater attention to international and domestic public opinion in the formulation and execution of policy. o Augment the static practice of cable reporting with a dynamic network of information exchange among diplomats and other responsible parties. Adopt a disciplined coordination model for the conduct of diplomacy. The hierarchical control model of the past should be replaced by distributed decision-making, delegated authority, and bureaucratic streamlining. o Increase resources devoted to frontline diplomacy by reducing bureaucratic layering and administrative costs. o Develop a new collaborative paradigm of diplomacy with a clear definition of stakeholders and constituents, and an inspired statement of vision and values. |
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Lead a renaissance of professionalism. Replacing outdated practices of workforce
management, creating new professional opportunities, and making a commitment to sustained
professional development are required to change the existing culture. o Reform personnel practices by recruiting regional and management specialists and creating a reserve service to augment the career service with functional expertise. o Create electronically-linked teams to take advantage of the expertise of area and functional specialists serving in far-flung locations. Upgrade information technology to corporate standards. The acquisition of new technologies must be geared to supporting the key priorities of diplomacy. o Develop an information strategy supportive of democratization and transparency in international relations. o Provide state-of-the-art computers and electronic connectivity for the effective acquisition, management and dissemination of information. Move public diplomacy from the sidelines to the core of diplomacy. Diplomacy must be proactive in promoting American policies and values, and interactive in engaging domestic and foreign publics. o Redefine public diplomacy to include education and early public engagement in the conduct of diplomacy, and amend legislation to improve communication with the American public. o Inaugurate a Global Affairs presence on the Internet to strengthen international cooperation and address global issues. Focus greater attention and higher priority on commercial diplomacy. To ensure American competitiveness in the global economy, the U.S. must strengthen its ability to expand global markets and assist American business abroad. o Establish American Business & Information Centers in the ten Big Emerging Markets to be managed by a public-private consortium. o Initiate an officer-exchange program between American business and government to strengthen commercial representation abroad. Despite the many promises of the information age, the world in which diplomacy operates remains a dangerous place. Failure to respond to the imperatives of change threatens America’s security and prosperity as well as its respect for humanity. American diplomacy must be guided by coherence, capability, discipline, and agility. It must be characterized by openness and permeability. It must change now. |
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Prologue |
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| The American century has been defined in large part by its technologies, as the industrial age matured and the information age blossomed. The early hope that electricity, motion pictures, and radio would improve communication across cultural and national boundaries is echoed today by the Internet and the new digital technologies. Unlike the mass media which they are challenging, these new technologies are diffuse, profoundly democratic and highly resistant to central control. Everyone can become a publisher and a broadcaster. Individual expression is flourishing with little restraint Linear, hierarchical, command-and-control systems are being subverted by complex social and economic networks. It is a time for celebration as cherished American values--freedom, individualism, opportunity--are reinforced by the new technologies. It is an opportunity for reassessing America’s international engagement. Never before have so many nations embraced democracy. Never before have borders been as open to the flow of ideas and images. The opportunities for advancing the goals of American foreign policy are unprecedented. Yet, paradoxically, the United States is circumscribed by its failure to forge a new bipartisan foreign policy and by the growing gaps in its conduct of diplomacy--its diplomatic culture, technology, and relations with key constituents. The cable culture will inevitably give way to the evolving digital culture; yet if changes in information processing are not accelerated, American diplomacy risks being rendered irrelevant. In its arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union in the last decade, the United States wisely placed the highest priority on transparency. However, within the foreign affairs community itself, secrecy and exclusivity still take precedence. | |||||||
| The stability of large systems--nations, alliances, international coalitions--depends in large part on efficient and accurate channels of communication among the constituent parts of the system. When the Department of State controlled many of the channels of international communication between nations, it could well afford to be parsimonious in sharing information outside of Foggy Bottom. Today, as the channels available to the federal government constitute an increasingly smaller share of the total, it is imperative that its communications be both trusted and efficient. Otherwise, the role of government in modulating international turbulence will shrink. The United States must not only reflect its national values by insisting on conceptual coherence in its foreign policy, but must also ensure that the conduct of diplomacy is consonant with its purpose. Diplomacy must expand its reach from a closed circle of knowledgeable diplomats to a much broader circle of interested Americans and, as well, to those publics abroad who influence global decision-making. The Westphalian world in which modern diplomacy was born is no longer recognizable. While McLuhan’s Global Village has not replaced the nation-state, the villages are so thoroughly interconnected that capital and ideas increasingly move unimpeded across borders. If “sudden extensions of communication are reflected in cultural disturbances,” as Canadian scholar Harold Innis1 observed a half century ago, there appears to be wide agreement that we are experiencing a cultural disturbance of global proportions. Networking is overtaking hierarchy and bureaucracy as a primary | |||||||
| Diplomacy in the Information Age -13- | Draft: 10-09-98 | ||||||
| mode of organization and communications. Governments which fail to yield control place their nations at risk. For example, Nigeria fell into economic ruin under military control, and North Korea, insistent on maintaining its political hierarchy and command economy, faced mass starvation. The Communist revolution is over. The microchip revolution is changing international relations--as we observe the contradictory trends of global integration and fragmentation. International affairs scholar James Rosenau describes the central characteristic of world politics today as “persistent tensions between tendencies toward integration and those that foster fragmentation.”2 Political scientist Benjamin Barber asserts that “the planet is falling precipitously apart and coming reluctantly together at the very same moment.”3 Diplomatic historian John Lewis Gaddis, too, suggests that the international competition that is emerging “could be just as stark and just as pervasive as was the rivalry between democracy and totalitarianism at the height of the Cold War; it is the contest between the forces of integration and fragmentation in the contemporary international environment.”4 American diplomacy faces a transformative moment the equal of any in its history. The several elements that impel changes in the practice of diplomacy include the revolution in information technology, the proliferation of new media, globalization of business and finance, and increasing participation of publics in international relations. The issues with which diplomacy must deal are more diverse and complex than war and peace. These elements, as the discussion reveals, are interdependent. The United States can neither understand nor respond to any one without reference to the others. Their positive iteration can be characterized as a state of dynamic stability. | |||||||
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Part A International Dynamics |
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| Information Technology. “Does Microsoft have a foreign policy?” Columnist Tom Friedman posed the question in the New York Times a few years ago and concluded that “U.S. foreign policy will be shaped to a significant degree by decisions taken in Washington--Redmond, Washington.”5 Writing in Foreign Affairs on “America’s Information Edge,” Harvard professor Joseph Nye and Admiral William Owens demonstrate that the U.S. information edge can be a “force multiplier of American diplomacy.”6 Few would dispute that technology is changing diplomacy. Absent a consensus on the meaning of the change, however, the challenge is to go beyond the cliches of connectivity and describe the means by which technology may change diplomacy. Is everything just faster, but otherwise the same? Or does “faster” by factors of 100, 1000, or more constitute substantive change? There are two complementary technologies that account for the changes we are witnessing: computers and telecommunications. In 1965, Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, forecast that computing power would double every 18 months. Moore’s Law has held for more than 30 years and will continue to bring the price of computing downward for at least another decade. Today’s personal computers, selling for less than a thousand dollars, operate ten times faster than a 1970 IBM mainframe computer that sold for nearly $5 million.7 By 2010, prices will have plunged to less than $100. The cost of telecommunications has not yet dropped as dramatically, although the decline is accelerating due to fiber-optic cables, satellites, digitization, and deregulation. When first introduced in 1915, a three-minute phone call from New York to San Francisco cost more than $20 or the equivalent of 90 hours of labor for the average wage earner.8Today two minutes of work will pay for the call. When the cell phone was introduced in 1984, Motorola sold a single instrument for more than $4,000.9 Today cell phones are given away as an inducement for signing a service contract. And within a decade, after deregulation, the costs of an international telephone call will be well below the 10-cents-a-minute charge now available to consumers within the United States. The actual cost to providers is already less than one cent. When these two technologies--computers and telecommunications--are integrated to constitute networks of connectivity, opportunities for new applications proliferate. None is more consequential than the Internet, whose users already approach 100 million in number. By 2005, the figure will be a billion, and by 2010 half the world’s anticipated population of seven billion will be connected. It is hard to exaggerate, yet impossible to comprehend, how this will change the world. In addition to the widespread changes in international commerce that constitute globalization, telemedicine is revolutionizing the practice of medicine. Distance learning will dramatically increase access to higher education. The nature of warfare is being transformed by new sensing and targeting technologies. The convergence of television and computer technology is underway with set-top boxes and videostreaming. As broadcasters begin transmitting digital signals, the convergence will | ||||||
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| accelerate. The promise of the new information technologies, as Frances Cairncross writes in The Death of Distance, is “to increase understanding, foster tolerance, and ultimately promote worldwide peace.”10 | ||||||||||||||||||
| What else will technology offer that will shape the conduct of diplomacy? Collaborative software such as Lotus Notes and GroupWise is widely used by corporations to shrink distance between locations. Videoconferencing, as the technology improves and costs shrink, will become an essential tool for decision-making across time zones. Low Earth Orbiting Satellites (LEOS) promise the global equivalent of cellular service, beginning with voice telephony to be offered by Iridium in late 1998 through a network of 66 satellites. US West is beginning to offer variable digital subscriber lines (VDSL) to provide high-speed Internet connections and television programs over traditional copper telephone lines. Search engines such as AltaVista and Lycos are becoming more effective at locating material on the Web. And intelligent agents, sometimes called knowbots, promise to be even better in locating and aggregating customized information. Personal Digital Assistants are substituting for secretaries by complementing cellular phones and pagers for people who must conduct business outside of their offices. Indeed, by abandoning wired offices, knowledge workers are shrinking distance to stay closer to their clients. Computers can recognize not only handwriting but also voice commands. Still imperfect, several programs are nonetheless attracting attention with their ability to take dictation. Computer translation for Roman-character languages can be done with a variety of inexpensive commercial programs. While lacking the sophistication of human translators, they serve as a tool to scan inexpensively reams of materials that might not otherwise be seen. Machine translation for Chinese and Arabic is under development. If diplomacy is concerned in part with geography, the new technologies provide the means for precision. Electronic identification tags are appearing everywhere, from automobiles to sneakers, from the family pet to laptop computers. The Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system can be used to identify the location of people and objects. Spy satellites are said to provide a resolution as detailed as a few inches. Through virtual reality, three-dimensional landscapes can be moved to the conference room as illustrated during the negotiation of the Dayton accords. Backed by 30 international telecommunications providers, Project Oxygen, will provide additional Internet and video access to 175 countries by 2003 through underseas fiber-optic cable. A recent breakthrough by Lucent Technologies will allow all of today’s global Internet traffic to be carried on a single fiber simultaneously.11 LSI Logic announced a new technology that will have 223 million | ||||||||||||||||||
| transistors on a single computer chip. It will allow the integration of several functions in one system, such as a set-top box, a DVD player, and a VCR.12 The industry is on its way to its goal of building chips with a billion transistors by 2010. | ||||||||||||||||||
| More and faster does not mean better. From DARPA to Xerox, from Berkeley to MIT, researchers are examining how information is retrieved and displayed to make it more accessible to decision | ||||||||||||||||||
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| makers. Solutions include graphical displays called “cone trees” and “perspective walls.”13 The | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Clinton administration has funded the development of Internet II at speeds manyfold greater than the current Internet. Neil Stephenson’s virtual world14 may not yet be manifest, although imagination and reality are converging, as institutions like MIT conduct research on integrated electronic devices called bodynets, as gamers and trainers enhance three-dimensional virtual reality, and as electronic noses and microcameras emerge from America’s laboratories.15 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Novelist Mark Helprin describes the world that may emerge from the convergence of the new technologies. As a traveler on your way to Indonesia in the next century, he writes, you will carry with you a “slim leather-bound portfolio [with] an uplink that gives you access to everything ever published -- a dual-language text of Marcus Aurelius or the latest paper in Malay on particle acceleration. Your reading can be interrupted by the appearance of a friend in your portfolio, a look at the actual weather in Jakarta, a film clip of Lyndon Johnson’s inaugural or, for that matter, anything . . . ”16 Many readers will be astonished if he is right. The Nintendo Generation will be | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| disappointed if he is wrong. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Information technology is changing our lives, our society, our institutions, our culture. Yet there
remain many constants, including time and human relations. Traditionalists who insist that diplomacy
need not change are wrong. So, too, are those who insist that it must change completely. Finding
the intersection which honors the past and respects the future is the challenge. New Media. Contemporary diplomatic practices were honed in an era when the American press was perceived as a means to amplify the government’s version of international news. Edward R. Murrow’s reports from London during World War II supported the American conduct of the war. That all changed three decades later, when Walter Cronkite’s reports suggested that American policy was wrong in Vietnam. The American public came to understand that the government and the media had two contradictory versions of the truth, and trust in each institution declined. As more people came to depend on television for their understanding of the world, market forces drove those who sought mass audiences to reduce their international coverage. For example, former Agence France-Presse chairman Claude Moisy reports that international coverage on CBS, NBC, and ABC declined from more than 40 percent of total news time in the 1970s to less than 15 percent by 1995.17 Reflecting the same trend, the proportion of Time magazine covers on foreign affairs dropped from 21 per cent to 6 percent in the past 20 years.18 |
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| Ted Turner’s Cable News Network (CNN) sought to fill the gap as international news coverage by the major American media became more sporadic. Broadcasting from Baghdad during the Gulf War was its defining moment, the time after which the “CNN effect” entered our vocabulary. As some commentators began to assume that the media were making American foreign policy, policymakers felt the impact. Madeleine Albright told the Senate Foreign Relations committee that “television’s ability to bring graphic images of pain and outrage into our living rooms has heightened the pressure both for immediate engagement in areas of international crisis and immediate disengagement when events do not go according to plan.” 19 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Diplomacy in the Information Age -17- | Draft: 10-09-98 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| However, the CNN effect is less powerful than many commentators have assumed. While the media can be a force in decision making, the media’s role is minimal when policy is clearly formed, articulated, and supported. Washington Times White House correspondent Warren Strobel, in Late -Breaking Foreign Policy, noting the tendency for the foreign policy bureaucracy to disregard the news media, concluded that the media do not drive policy decisions even though “televised images of innocents’ suffering can be a factor in moving policy.”20 The media, he argues, take their cue from the government, Congress, and relief organizations.21 USA Today’s Foreign Editor Johanna Neuman, in Lights, Camera, War, found that leadership, not media images, drives policy.22 The BBC’s Nik Gowing, in a study for the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Violence, reports that decision makers, rather than reacting impulsively to media images, “treat what they see or read with considerable caution, if not skepticism.” He states that the media’s role in conflict prevention is “ambiguous, unclear, and often misconstrued.”23 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political scientist Jonathan Mermin, responding to popular sentiment and informed opinion such as George Kennan’s view that American policy is “controlled by popular emotional impulses, and particularly ones provoked by the commercial television industry,”24 found little justification for that | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| conclusion. “If television inspired American intervention in Somalia, it did so under the influence of government actors . . . who made considerable efforts to publicize events in Somalia, interpret them as constituting a crisis, and encourage a U.S. response.”25 Scholars Steven Livingston and Todd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Eachus agree that the U.S. decision to intervene in Somalia “was the result of diplomatic and bureaucratic operations, with news coverage coming in response to those decisions.”26 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The research consensus is clear: the CNN effect has been overstated. Livingston concluded that the several effects of the media are so frequently undifferentiated that clarity has suffered. He cautions us to recognize that “different foreign policy objectives will present different types and levels of sensitivity to different types of media.”27 Policymakers must consider the media, but must not be | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| subservient to their role. The media are not blunt instruments of foreign policy, but interactive elements in a complex process. If it is fair to conclude that the CNN effect has been exaggerated, it is also fair to conclude that its specialized global appeal may well be the model for the future. Globalization will lead to an even greater concentration of media ownership where editorial decisions are influenced by the global market. Examples are plentiful, from Disney’s acquisition of ABC to Rupert Murdoch’s control of media outlets from Hong Kong and Australia to Los Angeles and London. Nonetheless, specialized media can now enter the international arena through the Internet with far fewer resources than at any past time. The price of entrance is dramatically lower than it has been for publishing or broadcasting. With moderate technological savvy, practically anyone can have an Internet presence. While it is reasonable to expect that a handful of international corporations will control the major mass media, the specialized media will continue their rapid proliferation. Except for sporadic coverage of wars and disasters, the world depicted by NBC, ABC, and CBS may bear little resemblance to international news coverage by the emerging media. Technology, including the convergence of television and computers, will hasten media specialization. The websites that provide audio and video on demand will become tomorrow’s primary source of | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Diplomacy in the Information Age -18- | Draft: 10-09-98 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| news and information. MSNBC Online is already averaging 300,000 users each day.28 According to the Pew Research Center, 36 million Americans are reading news on the Internet at least once a week, a threefold increase in two years.29 On the other hand, the audience for cable news is shrinking with CNN claiming daily viewers in only 321,000 households.30 As the costs of bandwidth continue to fall, viewers around the world will choose from hundreds of thousands of websites. As each will be equally accessible within several years, the criteria for choice will be technical excellence, content, and trust. Unlike broadcast television or radio, signal strength will not matter. The consumers of the new media, seeking specialized knowledge, will share less with each other. As their perspectives will be more fragmented, government may find it more difficult to develop a consensus on policy. On the other hand, authoritarian governments will find it more difficult to manipulate publics. Other future technologies include high-altitude balloons, flying antennas, and a digital global radio network. Sky Station International, headed by former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, plans to launch the first of 250 high-tech balloons which would hover 13 miles above the earth to transmit the Internet, video pictures, and phone calls.31 By the year 2000, we may also see High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) electronically-powered platforms flying above cities to transmit signals below.32 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Of more immediate interest is the plan by WorldSpace to launch a satellite into orbit over Africa that will provide access to 75 channels of digital-quality music, news, and information.33 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
What is the future of shortwave radio? Its role today remains essential in communicating with mass
populations in Asia and Africa and with countries in crisis. As new technologies decrease in cost,
however, the next generation will increasingly turn to the new media. Indeed, as the Internet grows
and direct broadcast satellites proliferate, governments will have more channels than ever for
international communication. Consequently, the purposes and audiences of shortwave broadcasting
will have to be redefined within a generation.
In summary, international mass communication--through television, radio, and the Internet--will be
largely determined by the market. As the mass media will thrive only by maintaining their mass
appeal, television journalism will continue recent trends of marginalizing international news. On the
other hand, with the proliferation of channels, international news coverage may well see a resurgence.
Governments will have a narrow but key role, communicating where the market has not penetrated
or on subjects to which the market does not attend. To inform and generate discussion, governments
are obliged to go well beyond the 30-second soundbite which often substitutes for information. An
informed citizenry needs not only headlines, but context. As the cost of international communication
shrinks, the value of imagination and innovation will increase. Globalization. Globalization is the increased integration of the world’s economies through trade, finance, transportation, and information technology. Defined by economic columnist Robert Samuelson as “the worldwide convergence of supply and demand,”34 it is the subject of frequent commentary in the business press. But the consequences, as profound as they may be for the American economy, remain largely unappreciated by the public and shortchanged by traditional diplomacy. |
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| Diplomacy in the Information Age -19- | Draft: 10-09-98 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The flow of goods, capital and people across international borders represents a resumption of trends which developed at the end of the last century. Then, as now, trade, migration, and capital flows were accelerated by technology. Then, as now, governments could facilitate but not control the exchanges. Recognizing the constraints which globalization places on government, CSIS Director of Studies Erik Peterson writes: “The fact is that global economic and financial integration is fundamentally altering the menu of prerogatives and options available to policymakers, and new approaches to managing that altered equation need to be weighed carefully.”35 The role of commercial diplomacy, in addition to trade promotion, is to level the playing field, negotiate international agreements, and monitor compliance. Globalization includes or is influenced by several kinds of exchange between nations: human (labor, migration, tourism); trade (goods, services); finance (banking, investment); and knowledge (information, education, entertainment). While there are many differences between the end of the 19th and 20th centuries, the greatest is the role of information, education, and entertainment in the growth of the global economy. It is estimated that more than 50 percent of GDP in the major OECD economies is knowledge-based.36 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| The primary source of wealth in the United States has been transformed from manufacturing to services. Third-world economies, too, are increasingly driven by the information revolution, whether it be manufacturing disk drives in Southeast Asia or writing computer code in Bangalore. The knowledge worker, identified 40 years ago by management guru Peter Drucker, is the key to continuing global prosperity. America’s economic preeminence in the information age is a function of its great universities, its telecommunications and computer industries, and its media and entertainment sectors. The Commerce Department reports, for example, that information technologies have been responsible for more than a quarter of economic growth in the last five years.37 As American industry has abandoned its rigid command hierarchies and encouraged personal innovation in team-based environments, productivity has soared. Because of the new technologies and liberalized trade regimes, there has been a resurgence of trade and migration, an explosion in capital flows, and an unprecedented exchange of information among countries. While economists do not have adequate measures of information flows and intellectual capital, it is axiomatic that they will increasingly drive the global economy in the next century. The effects of globalization dwarf past economic discontinuities. The volume of foreign exchange exceeds one trillion dollars a day, up from $200 billion in 1986. The three recent banking mega -mergers38 illustrate that American banking is planning internationally. As financial consultant Lowell Bryan said, “This is the end of the national game.”39 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Automobiles, computers, and other manufactured products are assembled from parts manufactured in dozens of countries, constituting what former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has called the global web. By the year 2000 West European companies will control 14 percent of American manufacturing production, and American companies 16 percent of West European production. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Diplomacy in the Information Age -20- | Draft: 10-09-98 | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
Sixty-seven percent of Coca-Cola’s $18 billion in sales already come from 199 other countries. Half
of the $5 billion in box-office revenues generated by American films come from foreign sales. And
foreign students contribute $7 billion annually to America’s economy.
The U.S. economy has added 30 million new jobs in the past 15 years as unemployment has bottomed
out and inflation has plummeted. China’s trading volume with the U.S. has quadrupled since 1988.
The children of those 30 million new job holders are wearing Chinese-manufactured clothes and
playing with Chinese toys.
The Commerce Department predicts that Internet commerce will exceed $300 billion by 2002.40 |
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| Industry estimates range as high as $1 trillion. That electronic commerce will multiply many times in the next few years is undisputed. Scenario planners Peter Schwartz and Peter Leyden write that “we are watching the beginnings of a global economic boom on a scale never experienced before.”41 They argue that the global networked economy, driven by innovations in information technology, will continue its surge for at least another two decades. In his masterful three-volume analysis of the Information Age, Berkeley sociologist Manuel Castells writes: “My starting point, and I am not alone in this assumption, is that, at the end of the twentieth century, we are living through one of those rare intervals in history. An interval characterized by the transformation of our ‘material culture’ by the works of a new technological paradigm organized around information technologies.”42 | |||||||||||||
| The road ahead will not be without bumps, even some major detours. Globalization also contributes to new economic problems. Witness the economic crisis that began in Southeast Asia. South Korea, the world’s eleventh largest economy, saw the won drop in value by 50 percent. The world’s fourth most populous country, Indonesia, experienced an even sharper slide. Japan is facing a second year of contraction in its economy. China recognizes that failure to maintain its exchange rate will lead to further destabilizing consequences. Many economists and policymakers believe that the economic carnage in Asia would have been even worse if the IMF and the U.S. Treasury Department had not acted. And, in hindsight, they wonder why early warning signs were ignored and wish that intervention had been swift enough to prevent, rather than correct, a crisis. Others argue that the corrections, however painful, should have been left to market forces. All agree that better information is required. The consequences outside of East Asia, both positive and negative, are profound. They reach from the European Union to South America’s Mercosur nations, from the Russian Federation to South Africa. The American economy, in danger of overheating, was dampened, but at the loss of exports and a sharp decline in the stock market. Economic reforms were threatened in Russia by hyperinflation, a loss of productivity, and a default in debt interest payments. | |||||||||||||
| Diplomacy in the Information Age -21- | Draft: 10-09-98 | ||||||||||||
|
If the global economic boom has been largely driven by technology, one might conclude that the role
of government is to get out of the way. But the driving technologies -- telecommunications, high
-speed computers, the Internet -- would not have existed if government had played a neutral role.
Both in funding basic research and in creating a competitive regulatory environment, the government
has been essential in fueling the information age. With and through international institutions such as
the World Bank and the IMF, it can correct systemic excesses. Government must reduce the friction
in the international economic system -- and wisely and selectively apply it when local excesses
threaten international stability.
In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in September 1998, President Clinton described the
faltering world economy as “the biggest financial challenge facing the world in a half-century.”43 |
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| Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, testifying before the Senate Budget Committee, urged policymakers “to be especially sensitive to the deepening signs of global distress.” He said “it is just not credible that the United States, or for that matter Europe, can remain an oasis of prosperity unaffected by a world that is experiencing greatly increased stress.”44 | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
A key insight into the emerging global economy is offered by Castells who, emphasizing that the
reach of the global economy is uneven, stresses that “states must become engaged in fostering
development strategies on behalf of their economic constituencies.”45 “What becomes crucial, in the
information economy,” he writes, “is the complex interaction between historically rooted political
institutions and increasingly globalized economic agents.”46 These forces are at play in the resistance
of Congress to grant Fast Track trade negotiating authority to the President. Political institutions that
ignore international economic trends will restrict the development of new global markets and impede
the growth of business.
Diplomacy -- as practiced by the Department of State, the Department of Treasury, the Department
of Commerce, USTR, and a host of other federal agencies -- has a critical stabilizing role in this
dynamic global environment. When other nations deny market access or compete unfairly, diplomacy
must ensure that the international agreements are honored. And when financial instability threatens,
the United States must take the lead to restore order. Public Dimension. George Soros has pledged $500 million for democracy building in Russia, and Ted Turner has promised $1 billion for UN projects. Jody Williams has received the Nobel Peace Prize for her role in a treaty banning landmines. The conduct of international relations has expanded well beyond the control of the Department of State. It is a common perception that Americans have lost interest in foreign affairs. As Hillary Clinton observed last year during her five-nation tour of the former Soviet Union, “public opinion surveys show Americans at all levels of society just don’t pay attention anymore.”47 Rep. Lee Hamilton, Democrat of Indiana and ranking minority member of the House International Relations Committee, attributes the change to the passing of the World War II generation of politicians who “believed things were better when the U.S. led.”48 |
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| Diplomacy in the Information Age -22- | Draft: 10-09-98 | |||||||||||||||||||
|
Despite the perception of an uninvolved public, poll data from the past several years demonstrate that
public opinion is very fluid, sometimes leading, sometimes lagging elite opinion. Furthermore, there
is compelling evidence that elite perceptions of public attitudes are seriously misinformed. Elites tend
to underestimate the public’s support for American engagement abroad, exaggerating the differences
that separate them and confusing ignorance for apathy. There appears to be a public willingness to
respond positively to leadership on international issues.
Every four years the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations compares elite and public opinions on
foreign policy issues. The last study, based on data collected in October 1994, found public attitudes
to be remarkably stable. “Neither old-fashioned isolationism nor activist interventionism has captured
public interest.”49 What changed from prior polls was the absence of foreign policy concerns from
the public’s top-ten list of problems facing the country. Foreign policy priorities largely reflected
local issues among the public: stopping the flow of illegal drugs, protecting American jobs, and
reducing illegal immigration. The one exception was preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.
Compared to earlier years, there was a substantial decline in public support for protecting weaker
nations against foreign aggression, for promoting and defending human rights in other countries, and
for helping to improve the standard of living in less developed nations. On these issues, elites tended
to be even less positive than the public.
In contrast to the Chicago data, the most recent study by the Pew Research Center for the People and
the Press shows a divergence of public and elite views.50 Elite opinion was more upbeat than the
general public (based on a sample of 2000 Americans polled in September 1997). Whereas four years
earlier, the Pew Center found the public and elites in lockstep on their sour evaluation of world
conditions, elites found more reason for optimism. The views of those members of the general public
who were college educated and well informed on foreign affairs, however, approached that of the
elites. Mirroring the findings of the Chicago poll, in the Pew study the public gives highest priority
to protecting American jobs, followed by preventing nuclear proliferation and stopping drug
trafficking. Protecting U.S. energy supplies and safeguarding the global environment were also high
on the list.
In the landmark study by the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of
Maryland, The Foreign Policy Gap, opinion analysts Kull, Destler, and Ramsay reported a growing
gap between public opinion and elite perceptions of public opinion. That is, it found that elites
systematically perceived the public as losing interest in world affairs, despite numerous surveys to the
contrary. “The key finding of this study is that this perception of the public as wanting to disengage
is indeed widespread in the policy community, but that it is not sustained by empirical research, even
when skeptical policy practitioners are given the opportunity to propose the poll questions.”51 |
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|
Members of Congress and their staffs were particularly strong in misinterpreting the public mood,
asserting that most Americans want the United States to disengage from its global responsibilities.
The study suggests that the perception gap exists because polling data are discounted, because vocal
minorities have promoted isolationism, and because the press has reinforced Congressional views.52 |
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| Elite perceptions of public attitudes would appear to be reflective of the shrill views of a vocal minority rather than majority sentiment. | |||||||||||||||||
| Diplomacy in the Information Age -23- | Draft: 10-09-98 | ||||||||||||||||