Can cyber diplomacy replace
traditional diplomats and help us get a handle on the world’s most complicated
problems?
Social media has become
diplomacy’s second self, “a significant other”, according to a recent report by
Burson-Marsteller, a global PR company. Social media, Twitter in particular,
has become a diplomatic weathervane as well as a research kit to analyse global
trends.
Today social media, according
to the report, has become the first and foremost thought of world leaders,
governments, diplomats, and civil society groups. Savvy diplomats feel that
social media provides them with a platform for unrestricted communication with
targeted groups.
Can cyber diplomacy replace
the role of traditional diplomats? What do diplomats do? They do public
diplomacy, of which cyber diplomacy is a newer version, to create goodwill and
shape the international political and social environment. They do network
building for information gathering and create country specific knowledge to
advance trade and economic interests.
Most of all they confront and
try to solve what is called “wicked problems”. The wicked problem concept comes
from management science and was first systematically developed by C West
Churchman, Horst Rittel, Melvin Webber and others in the late 70s and early
80s. Since then the concept has been applied in many fields including
diplomacy.
A wicked problem is difficult
to solve or unsolvable because of its complexities, because of its
co-dependence on other problems, because of unknown factors impacting it, so
that when you try to solve it, other problems emerge and the problem becomes
more complicated. Some wicked problems are unsolvable, but what is unsolvable
today might find a solution in the future.
Consider this: On the night of
April 14-15, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from a government secondary
school in Nigeria. The #BringBackOurGirls campaign launched on Twitter and
Facebook afterwards went viral. It compelled world leaders to confront the
problem. But as of today it has not gotten most of the schoolgirls back.
It’s a wicked problem because
Boko Haram does not care for social media. It’s networked with other Islamic
militant organisations such as al-Qaida and ISIS that have been relentlessly
carrying out terrorist attacks including San Bernadino, Orlando, Paris,
Brussels, Istanbul, Bangladesh and a most sacred mosque in Saudi Arabia. And
there’ll be more to come.
Vietnam War was a wicked
problem because so many stakeholders, the Soviet Union, Mao’s China and the US,
apart from blood-soaked Vietnam itself, were involved. Television brought the
war to our living rooms and made it more complicated. Vietnamese diplomat Le
Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger conducted tough diplomatic negotiations to end one
of the most tragic and unwinnable wars in history.
Diplomacy is hard work. But
today US-Vietnam public diplomacy is very effective. You can see its effect in
trade relations, and Vietnam’s proposed membership in Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP).
Iran was a most wicked
problem. Behind the diplomatic faces of John Kerry and Iran’s Javed Zarif,
there were hosts of nuclear experts, who worked day and night to break the
logjam. Has the problem been solved? Israel and Arab countries as well as many
Americans are not so sure.
Cyber diplomacy might have
played some role in persuading doubting Americans that the nuclear deal is
worth a try and if Iran backed out, sanctions will be re-imposed. Recently it
was announced that Iran would buy 100 planes from Boeing. Price tag: $25
billion or so. Perhaps this is the time for Boeing corporate diplomats to take
over.
Climate change is an extremely
wicked problem. The Paris Agreement, which was adopted last December and signed
by 177 nations and will begin in 2020, is not a solution. It is only an
intervention. Cyber diplomacy by governments and civil society organisations
could certainly keep alive awareness of the problem; but the problem is so
wicked that it will require a transformative, technology based, sustainability
revolution to make Beijing and New Delhi breathable again.
Cyber diplomacy can be used
effectively to build up Asian public opinion to keep China from asserting
exclusive control over the South China Sea in the light of the Hague
International tribunal ruling rejecting China’s claim. But cyber diplomacy will
not be enough. Whatever US and Asian governments, civil society organisations
and global corporations do, their actions must be wedded to clear strategic
objectives of keeping the South China Sea free and open as is the Indian Ocean.
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