The Embassy of Italy hosted a Digital Diplomacy Series forum, titled “Foreign Policy in Stereo: Power and Leadership in a World of States and People,” with Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, President of the New America Foundation and professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, as the guest of honor. The forum began with the opening remarks by Mr. Claudio Bisogniero, Ambassador of Italy to the United States, and soon as the microphone was passed to Dr. Slaughter, she engaged with the main theme of the forum: changes in diplomacy in age of the internet.
“Traditional diplomacy is a chessboard,” she said. “I was raised in the Cold War, and it was absolute epitome of chessboard, where there are two principle players.” She furthered explained the application of game theory in the world of traditional diplomacy. “It was a lot easier when the world was smaller, or when there were bigger blocs... John Kerry still plays this diplomacy—this chessboard diplomacy, chessboard strategy, chessboard geopolitics is still alive and well. It hasn't gone away.”
However, she mentioned that this is not the experience with diplomacy younger generations often have today. “If you were born in the 1990s, the normal relations would not be conflict, the normal relations would be connection. You would have grown up in a world of globalization. You would have grown up in the constant interconnectedness, where everybody was networked.” These networks have different fields, such as politics, business, civil society, criminals, and the individuals, but they all exist—from smaller units to gigantic organizations, she explained. “This world is not a chessboard; this world is 'internet.' Not as the actual “internet” but as a metaphor: the network of networks.” She argued that this is the new model of diplomacy today—all of these numerous networks intertwined among different actors—and in this diplomacy, chessboard strategy becomes useless.
She pointed out that “whom to connect with and how?” is the question people should be asking in this hyper-connected society. This should be questioned not only by nation states, but anyone who is involved in the network. “What you are looking at is constituencies—different set of actors in society, such as the private sector, public sector, and civic sector. Or you can think of different constituencies. What Hillary Clinton created was the Ambassador for each constituencies.” She then listed the examples of these ambassadors, like the Ambassador of Global Women's Issues, the Special Representative for Civil Society, Special Representative for Youth, and Special Representative for Public Private Partnerships. “What Hillary Clinton was really doing was doing diplomacy to the networked world.” Dr. Slaughter explained that through these new positions, the State Department established connections with the network communities.
Towards the end of her speech, she stated that the differences of chessboard diplomacy and digital diplomacy exist in the frameworks and sets of analytics. The basic analysis of the chessboard diplomacy is plotting out the strategies, or ways to plot out the next action of an opponent state. “On the other hand, in the internet framework, you need the analytical flows. Flows of people, capitals, and arms... But we don't have the tools to analyze these tools. Diplomats are not trained to analyze these flows, at least not in the State Department. Therefore, what we need is different analytic tools.”
She referred again to former Secretary Clinton's network ambassadors, but digital diplomacy requires much more than that. “If you are framed for the internet world, your tools are going to be digital. You will be creating websites more than you will be creating anything. You are going to be thinking of using big data. You are going to think about how to create technology to allow people to collaborate with each other.” She concluded by stating that today's diplomacy is the combination between the apparatus for the chessboard world and the digital world. She emphasized that to maximize national and global interests in the space between these two diplomatic frameworks, different analyses and new tools are indispensable.
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Video Wednesday: Diplomacy in the Space Between the Cold War and the Internet
March 5, 2014
The Embassy of Italy hosted a Digital Diplomacy Series forum, titled “Foreign Policy in Stereo: Power and Leadership in a World of States and People,” with Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, President of the New America Foundation and professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, as the guest of honor. The forum began with the opening remarks by Mr. Claudio Bisogniero, Ambassador of Italy to the United States, and soon as the microphone was passed to Dr. Slaughter, she engaged with the main theme of the forum: changes in diplomacy in age of the internet.
“Traditional diplomacy is a chessboard,” she said. “I was raised in the Cold War, and it was absolute epitome of chessboard, where there are two principle players.” She furthered explained the application of game theory in the world of traditional diplomacy. “It was a lot easier when the world was smaller, or when there were bigger blocs... John Kerry still plays this diplomacy—this chessboard diplomacy, chessboard strategy, chessboard geopolitics is still alive and well. It hasn't gone away.”
However, she mentioned that this is not the experience with diplomacy younger generations often have today. “If you were born in the 1990s, the normal relations would not be conflict, the normal relations would be connection. You would have grown up in a world of globalization. You would have grown up in the constant interconnectedness, where everybody was networked.” These networks have different fields, such as politics, business, civil society, criminals, and the individuals, but they all exist—from smaller units to gigantic organizations, she explained. “This world is not a chessboard; this world is 'internet.' Not as the actual “internet” but as a metaphor: the network of networks.” She argued that this is the new model of diplomacy today—all of these numerous networks intertwined among different actors—and in this diplomacy, chessboard strategy becomes useless.
She pointed out that “whom to connect with and how?” is the question people should be asking in this hyper-connected society. This should be questioned not only by nation states, but anyone who is involved in the network. “What you are looking at is constituencies—different set of actors in society, such as the private sector, public sector, and civic sector. Or you can think of different constituencies. What Hillary Clinton created was the Ambassador for each constituencies.” She then listed the examples of these ambassadors, like the Ambassador of Global Women's Issues, the Special Representative for Civil Society, Special Representative for Youth, and Special Representative for Public Private Partnerships. “What Hillary Clinton was really doing was doing diplomacy to the networked world.” Dr. Slaughter explained that through these new positions, the State Department established connections with the network communities.
Towards the end of her speech, she stated that the differences of chessboard diplomacy and digital diplomacy exist in the frameworks and sets of analytics. The basic analysis of the chessboard diplomacy is plotting out the strategies, or ways to plot out the next action of an opponent state. “On the other hand, in the internet framework, you need the analytical flows. Flows of people, capitals, and arms... But we don't have the tools to analyze these tools. Diplomats are not trained to analyze these flows, at least not in the State Department. Therefore, what we need is different analytic tools.”
She referred again to former Secretary Clinton's network ambassadors, but digital diplomacy requires much more than that. “If you are framed for the internet world, your tools are going to be digital. You will be creating websites more than you will be creating anything. You are going to be thinking of using big data. You are going to think about how to create technology to allow people to collaborate with each other.” She concluded by stating that today's diplomacy is the combination between the apparatus for the chessboard world and the digital world. She emphasized that to maximize national and global interests in the space between these two diplomatic frameworks, different analyses and new tools are indispensable.
