Over the past several years much has been written
about how social media has changed the practice of diplomacy. As someone who
was involved in the profession of diplomacy over a 30-year career that
encompassed the pre-social media age and its height, I understand what the
writers are trying to say, but take exception to some of the broad, sweeping
generalizations they employ to describe the impact of technology and social
media on how diplomats practice their profession.
The situation when I joined the U.S. Foreign Service
in 1982 would probably seem stone age to many current diplomats, who were mere
infants at the time – if indeed they’d even been born. We wrote our dispatches
often in long hand at first, on yellow legal pads, using ball point pens or
number 2 pencils. Then, using IBM Selectric typewriters, we transcribed them to
the cable form, which was a multi-layer carbon paper monstrosity. If you made a
mistake, you either had to make the change on each sheet individually, or scrap
the whole page and type it over.
Fast forward to 2012, the year I retired, and
drafting is now often done directly on the computer, and cables never actually
need be on paper at all. You can compose the cable from your notes or memory, polish
it, electronically send it around for comments and clearances, and then hit a
key and it’s instantly on its way around the world.
So, you might say, that is a most significant change in the diplomatic profession. You’d
be only partially right. It changes the mechanical tasks of what we do, but not
the basic, underlying thing that diplomats do, and have done since the time of
the Italian City States.
Diplomats represent their home countries and
governments to the government and country of accreditation. The Vienna Convention uses the terms ‘sending
state’ and ‘receiving state.’ The job of the diplomat is to study and
understand the receiving state so that he or she can explain it to the leadership
of the sending state. There is also the reciprocal duty of explaining the
sending state and its policies to the receiving state. Scraping away all the
high-sounding language, a diplomat is a channel of communication and
understanding between nations.
In the past, because of the limitations of
communications systems, that was done at what today would be considered a snail’s
pace. You spoke with someone, and afterwards hastily scribbled notes of the
conversation into a notebook before you forgot. When you got back to the
office, you began the process of converting your notes into cable format, a
process that could sometimes take several days. Once that green-sheeted cable
was sent over the wire, you sat back and waited for any response. Sometimes,
you might make a phone call to alert people, but connections overseas were
often so bad, one didn’t bother except in an emergency or a really important situation. The cable
would hit Washington, and paper copies would have to be made and sent around to
the various offices and individuals to whom it was addressed. All of this took
time.
Back at post, other than assistance to American citizens
or interviews with visa applicants, most of a diplomat’s contact would be with
officials of the government or with significant people in the economic sector.
This was where communication was controlled, and where the power lay.
The situation today is far different. In the first
place; with better telephone technology (video teleconferencing, etc.) and Email,
communication between Washington and the diplomat in the field is often
immediate and omnipresent. You can be discussing the subject of a report with
someone via Email and that report will pop up on their computer screen. Things
today move fast. That’s both good and
bad. It enables quicker response to developing situations, but also limits the
time to reflect on things before making decisions.
The other significant change is the shift in the
center of power based on access to information. Information technology and
social media have brought about an information revolution so that, now, power
to influence or even initiate events has shifted toward people outside
government. Witness the Arab Spring.
What this means is that diplomats can no longer just
talk to the government or the power brokers of industry, because there are
other power brokers out there that you ignore at your own peril. Diplomats now
find themselves communicating with the population of the receiving state as
much as, if not more, than its officials, if they want to know what is really
going on.
When I was ambassador to Zimbabwe, I used social
media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and blogs (the embassy’s
and my own) to engage in dialogue with the country’s young people. At any given
time of day, in addition to talking to the ministers of government, I would be
engaged in electronic conversation with thousands of young people. This often
gave me access to information that the ministers didn’t have, as they were
still wedded to the traditional model of top down rule rather than top down
response to the people.
So, my thesis is that the new technologies haven’t
so much changed the how and what of diplomacy as they’ve changed the
how fast and with whom. Our basic mission remains the same, but we now have to
do it at light speed, and do it with the student at the local high school or
the news vendor on the corner, not just the foreign minister.
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