Thanks to
WikiLeaks' Disclosure, Classical Diplomacy is Dead
"Now,
with subjects knowing that their comments and opinions can be literally
attributed to the source, and that embassies cannot preserve or protect their
identities, diplomats will find a huge vacuum around them when they want to set
aside their ceremonial and representational roles and get into matters of
substance."
Founder, spokesperson and editor in chief of WikiLeaks Julian Assange: While his organization's latest data dump is more gossip than news, he and WikiLeaks appear to be in much more hot water than they were after releasing Iraq and Afghanistan war logs.
The disclosure by WikiLeaks is
hardly going to change U.S. foreign policy, but it will have a profound impact
on the way diplomats work in embassies. In the past, ambassadors were the best
judges of the countries in which they served, to the point that they were
practically responsible for designing foreign policy toward the state in which
they were stationed. Thus, in the case of the 8,000-word “Long
Telegram” of 1946, U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow George Kennan set
the guidelines for the policy of containment toward the USSR, which would
inspire U.S. foreign policy throughout the second half of the 20th century. But
in an age of mass media where information flows in real time on the Internet and
distances has been shrunk dramatically, the role of embassies and the diplomats
stationed in them was already declining.
Nowadays, embassies don’t usually
make policy, they only manage it. In other words, they carry out the directives
that come from the capital and report their consequences. For this, they are
supported by a network of more-or-less sympathetic contacts to help them both verify
information that appears in the media and understand what really goes on within
the countries.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
Nevertheless, there has been a
unanimous moan from foreign ministries concerning the poor quality of
information coming from embassies: in general, they say, telegrams are too long
and have too little original content. If anything, these telegrams are added to
what generally inspired them in the first place - that which is published in
local media, which covers those issues that are always harder to grasp from the
outside. Delving into the power struggles within a government, knowing who
really commands or has influence, getting a sense of elite opinion, guessing
what their real priorities are and their possibilities of success, all require talking
to lots of people, here and there, to compose a picture that has some value. In
this way, diplomats are like journalists and telegrams are like news items -
only more sensitive. But with the difference that up to now, the rules of the
game didn't exist.
Now, with subjects knowing that
their comments and opinions can be literally attributed to the source, and that
embassies cannot preserve or protect their identities, diplomats will find a
huge vacuum around them when they want to set aside their ceremonial and
representational roles and get into matters of substance. After the disclosure by
WikiLeaks, embassies will have to change the way they work if they want to
survive. Most likely, WikiLeaks has hammered the final nail in the coffin of
classical diplomacy.
