*EPF319 03/29/00
Text: Richard Solomon on the Internet and U.S. Foreign Policy-making
(From electronic journal "U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda") (3030)

("One of the most profound ways" the Internet "affects U.S. foreign policy is by accelerating the policy-making process," says Dr. Richard H. Solomon, president of the United States Institute of Peace. Describing the phenomenon of the "diffusion of diplomacy," Solomon explains how the Internet "has thrown open governments' gates to new constituencies who are not limited by traditional geographic or other physical barriers from actively participating" in the creation of policy. The following responses by Solomon to questions posed by the editors are included in the March issue of "U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda," which addresses the topic, "The Making of U.S. Foreign Policy." The Internet address for the journal is: "http://www.usinfo.state.gov/journals/journals.htm".)

THE INTERNET AND THE DIFFUSION OF DIPLOMACY
An assessment by Dr. Richard H. Solomon

QUESTION: How would you assess the impact of the Internet -- as an international force -- on the development of U.S. foreign policy?

SOLOMON: When discussing the role of the Internet in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy, it is important to keep in mind that we are still in the early
stages of the information revolution. Not enough concrete information yet exists to fully comprehend the impact the Internet will have on the practice of diplomacy and, specifically, the development of U.S. foreign policy. That said, however, work and research resulting from the Institute's five-year-old Virtual Diplomacy Initiative points toward a couple of significant ways that the Internet is affecting the foreign policy-making process and thereby U.S. foreign policy.

One of the most profound ways it affects U.S. foreign policy is by accelerating the policy-making process. Information about breaking international crises that once took hours or days for government officials and media to disseminate is now being relayed real-time to the world not only via radio and television, but over the Internet as well. Ironically, though, for policy-makers, instant dissemination of information about events both far and near is proving to be as much a bane as a bounty.

While the Internet has augmented and expedited the information-gathering phase of policy-making, the amount of time available to policy-makers to digest, analyze, and formulate potential courses of action has been proportionally reduced in relation to how much and how fast information is publicly available. In today's wired world, policy-makers now are often called upon to make virtually instantaneous decisions about what are often complicated international crises that require delicate handling. However, as Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering noted at an Institute conference earlier this year, too much data can be as detrimental as too little -- policy-makers must always be on guard for the spin, advocacy, and marketing that often accompany much of the information found on the Internet.

At the same time, and related to the profusion of information and the collapse of absorption, reflection, and response time, is policy-makers' forced adjustment to the Internet's decentralizing effect on the formulation of U.S. foreign policy -- we call this phenomenon the "diffusion of diplomacy." The Internet has thrown open governments' gates to new constituencies who are not limited by traditional geographic or other physical barriers from actively participating in the policy-making process. Increasingly we are seeing individuals and groups who use the Internet to form virtual communities that can mobilize easily and effectively for advocacy and action. They not only use the Internet to gather information but also to broadcast information globally and to advocate specific policy actions on everything from trade to human rights policies. It is safe to say that the challenge of managing what can best be described today as "information chaos" is likely to daunt policy-makers in the United States and around the globe for many years to come.

Q: How is the Internet affecting the way that U.S. foreign policy-makers are conducting business?

SOLOMON: One of the greatest advantages afforded by modern communication technologies such as the Internet is the heightened flexibility they offer their users, whether individuals, organizations, or nation states. Greater flexibility also means that different actors in the foreign policy-making process are affected by the Internet and the information revolution in slightly different ways. For example, last year during the height of the Kosovo conflict, the Institute was able to make the proceedings of a conference
featuring several prominent Balkan policy-makers, including the presidents of Bulgaria and Albania, available to policy-makers across the globe through a
live webcast. In effect, each spoke simultaneously to a regional constituency in the Balkans, NATO allies, and Washington policy-makers.

Policy-makers within the Executive Branch are finding that the Internet aids intra-organizational communication between agencies working on different aspects of the same crisis. E-mail, Intranets, and other such technologies quickly and efficiently circulate critical data and, more importantly, allow for the sharing of information not only between offices just down the hall from each other but also between headquarters and field offices halfway across the globe. Presidential Decision Directive 56, which calls for interagency coordination during complex emergencies, can only succeed in a real-time response environment if agencies rely on electronic communication internally and externally.

Such efficient use and integration of these new technologies by government and non-governmental organizations alike have helped flatten traditionally bureaucratic structures. Hierarchical flattening presents a particular challenge to U.S. diplomats abroad -- especially in the conduct of diplomacy. The diminishing cost of transnational communication prior even to the Internet has increasingly marginalized the in-country traditional diplomatic role. It is easier for a State Department official in Washington to pick up the telephone and resolve issues with his or her counterpart in Paris or Cairo than to wait until the in-country diplomat has taken care of the matter.

Meanwhile in-country diplomats, also operating in the real-time environment,
are increasingly pressured for on-the-spot policy formulation or risk appearing disengaged. Without doubt, the information revolution has effaced the line separating those in the field from Washington-based policy-makers. Not only has the revolution drastically improved the quantity and quality of information available to diplomats in the field but it also has delivered more and more accurate information to senior foreign policy-makers, thereby strengthening their capacity to devise policies that will effectively meet the rapidly changing needs of today's post-Cold War world. Though, as former Secretary of State George Shultz pointed out at an Institute Virtual Diplomacy conference in 1997, we still need both diplomats in the field and policy-makers in Washington. The real added value comes from the strength of the connection between them.

Q: How is the Internet changing the way that governments interact with each other?

SOLOMON: With the end of the Cold War and the threat of global nuclear war more remote, the world faces a less immediately deadly future. The road into that future, nevertheless, may be more difficult to navigate than before. One way that the Internet and the information revolution can assist international actors to travel more safely down this road is by making transparent intra- and international activities. For instance, the new information technologies offer governments a tremendous opportunity to educate and inform new publics and audiences about positions, policies, and activities. The Institute has identified this opportunity and has been on the forefront of examining ways to convene foreign affairs practitioners online -- or as we like to say, "virtually" -- and creating electronic links among global communities that share an interest in international conflict resolution.

Of course total transparency on the part of governmental agents may not always be in the national interest; nevertheless, the explosion of available information is a strong testament to the Internet's effectiveness as a communication tool for both governmental and other international actors. Without doubt, this new capacity can be and is being used to fulfill particular interests and meet various ends -- though not always in each state's interest. Joseph Nye, dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and Admiral William Owen, co-CEO (chief executive officer) of the high tech firm Teledesic, have termed this use of information power "soft power," which is in counter distinction to a state's hard or coercive power represented by its military force. The use of soft power can range from a government making valuable information resources publicly accessible on the Internet to "spinning" a particular take on a specific policy or activity. Soft power allows governments to easily and effectively relay information to
individuals who will never visit their embassies, consulates, or otherwise even set foot in their territory.

Even so, despite the increasingly invaluable role the Internet plays in facilitating interaction and enhancing the quality and quantity of communication between governments and their citizens, as well as among states, it will never replace the unique quality of person-to-person communication between states and other international actors. Astonishing as advances have been during the past 10 years, at the end of the day, the Internet and all of the hardware and software that keep it running are still merely instruments of human action.

Q: Is there any way that you can foresee overcoming Internet restrictions
imposed by countries like China and Burma?

SOLOMON: No one, neither here in the United States nor elsewhere, should underestimate the power of the free flow of information via the Internet. Efforts by countries such as China or Burma to circumscribe the Internet to its will are unlikely to succeed in the long run. The Internet is designed as a dynamic system to share information based on an open architecture, which, by its nature, is nearly impossible to constrain. There are so many ways that citizens are able to connect to the Internet, either directly or indirectly, that most regulatory or technological barriers are unable to keep determined individuals off the Net. Also, not only does the Internet's dynamic nature resist control, its decentralized infrastructure renders its regulation beyond the scope of territorially-based governance. No one person or state owns it, no one person or state runs it. It exists by virtue of agreed protocols that allow anyone with a modem and a PC to join the global community as a "netizen" and, once admitted, membership is hard to revoke.

More importantly, even if the Chinese government could control access to the Internet in China, it is unlikely that it is in its best interest to do so. As I stressed earlier, information in today's wired world has become a valuable resource within the international system. Much in the way that states for centuries leveraged their natural resources (oil springs to mind) to gain a competitive advantage in the international arena, accurate, timely information is today recognized as an equally valuable international commodity.

Governments must rethink how and why to categorize information as either publicly available or classified. For example, the U.S. government has found that releasing previously classified remotely sensed data from earth-orbiting satellite systems has proven to be invaluable to non-governmental and international organizations working in a crisis zone, as well as a potentially lucrative commodity to a wide assortment of companies in the United States.

Countries like China and Burma may find themselves at a distinct economic and political disadvantage by limiting how their own industries and citizens use most effectively new information technologies like the Internet.

Q: To what extent is the Internet having an impact among foreign policy elites in closed societies such as North Korea?

SOLOMON: It is difficult to answer the question of what kind and how much access members of closed societies such as North Korea have. As access to the Internet allows for multiple views to be aired, unfettered access to the Internet in closed societies can quite obviously be
problematic to their rulers. Yet it is highly unlikely that high ranking
government officials and foreign policy elites in countries such as North
Korea or China are either unaware of the power of the Internet or entirely cut off from it. This knowledge surely influences their behavior on the
international scene.

We know that some information from the Internet is reaching people in such closed societies as Burma, China, and North Korea. An Institute report recently published and posted on our website described the famine in North Korea. We later learned that it was downloaded and circulated among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in North Korea. Another Institute report on the dire situation in Serbia was downloaded and reprinted for general distribution by Serbian independent media in Belgrade. In fact, two journalists from two different major magazines in Belgrade called to tell the Institute how heartened they were to learn from the report that Americans were able to recognize that not all of the Serbian people agreed with the policies of the Milosevic regime.

Q: How are governments and groups around the world using the Internet to
coalesce and mobilize resources for shared foreign policy objectives?

SOLOMON: One of the goals of the Institute's Virtual Diplomacy Initiative is to help governmental and non-governmental foreign affairs practitioners understand
how best to use today's information and communication technologies to cope with challenges of a post-Cold War world. In particular, one of the most exciting Virtual Diplomacy projects that the Institute is currently working on is an examination of how governments and non-governmental actors can work together to share information as they address complex humanitarian crises. The project is looking at how governmental and non-governmental actors who may never have worked together relate to each other operationally as they try to tackle the daunting situation before them. By investigating a series of case studies, we are attempting to identify and dismantle obstacles that prevent these various entities from effectively sharing and pooling information as they mobilize their collective resources. We are working in partnership with those who have operational experience in crisis management to develop information-sharing mechanisms that will allow actors to pool their resources while meeting their own individual organization objectives and constraints as they address a complex international emergency.

It is a particularly daunting challenge when military and non-governmental
organizations, many even internationally based, all attempt to work together in a conflict zone. This was a major lesson from our 1994 conference, "Managing Chaos," which brought together for the first time members of the NGO community, U.S. and international policy-makers, and members of the military to talk about the challenges of working together in the field on complex humanitarian emergencies. Ironically, we found that the greatest obstacle prohibiting these actors from easily distributing and pooling information resources was not technical at all; rather it was their own respective internal organizational differences, protocols, and constraints.

Q: How long do you think it will be before international grassroots
organizations seeking to impact U.S. foreign policy will be able to utilize the Internet to a maximum extent?

SOLOMON: The ability for these virtual communities of "netizens" to bring pressure to bear on governments and other international actors through e-mail and Internet campaigns has already proven effective in a number of cases. By far the most famous is the successful Internet campaign to ban landmines --
winning the international community's endorsement as well as the Nobel Peace
Prize. Another example -- the topic of a study that the Institute funded in its early stages -- is the successful campaign by cyber activists, comprised of college students and members of the Burmese Diaspora, to persuade the commonwealth of Massachusetts to sanction U.S. corporations doing business in both Massachusetts and Burma. Their objective was, and is, to support the
pro-democracy movement in Burma. Massachusetts's sanctions, however, were in
direct opposition to U.S foreign policy toward Burma at the time.

Although the question of whether the legislation enacted by Massachusetts
overstepped the U.S. Constitution is now before the federal court, there is little doubt that the Internet played a role in raising the profile of this issue in the eyes of many in Washington. As noted in a recent Foreign Affairs article, the enactment of the law in Massachusetts and subsequent Internet-generated attention to U.S.-Burmese relations caused U.S. policy-makers to adjust their earlier positions vis-a-vis mounting international public opinion. The case demonstrates that the Internet has forever altered the power of netizens to influence the development of U.S. foreign policy without ever setting foot inside the nation's capital.

Q: How is USIP's agenda focusing on issues related to the Internet and the making of foreign policy?

SOLOMON: The U.S. Institute of Peace practices what it preaches. In other words, the Institute actively uses new information and communication technologies to educate and make available to individuals worldwide the research and other information resources that the Institute produces that address local,
regional, and international conflicts. For example, the Institute's Peace
Agreements Digital Collection, available on our website, www.usip.org, seeks
to enhance comparative studies about approaches to peacemaking with special
regard to such issues as refugees and displaced populations, amnesty,
military reform, and the demobilization of military forces. This online
collection allows negotiators and other interested individuals to compare
different experiences involving different conflicts and to reflect on and apply
the lessons to their own situations.

We are also using new multimedia technologies to expand the audience for Institute events and guest speakers beyond those within Washington, D.C. In February 2000, during the Institute's first completely self-produced live webcast, global audiences were invited to virtually attend the event and were encouraged to submit questions to the panel. One of the questions we received during the webcast was from a viewer in Mongolia -- an excellent illustration of how organizations can use the Internet to reach new audiences and provide educational resources that go far beyond the physical walls of their respective institutions. This represents a trend that ultimately will prove of great utility for individuals in the private, public, and non-profit sectors, irrespective of what language they may speak or what region they might call home.

(For more information on the Institute's Virtual Diplomacy Initiative please contact Virtual Diplomacy Directors Sheryl Brown or Margarita Studemeister at
{[email protected]}. Virtual Diplomacy papers and conference
proceedings mentioned in the preceding transcript can be found online at:
"http://www.usip.org/oc/virtual_dipl.html".)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: www.usinfo.state.gov.)
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