Month: September 2009

Guerrilla Diplomacy and Grand Strategy

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This fall I have begun to tour in support of the release of Guerrilla Diplomacy. Last week I addressed undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Toronto, and participated in a forum before a mixed group at Dalhousie University in Halifax. That institution’s Centre for Foreign Policy Studies has a special place in the overall scheme of the book project, and as such I was particularly delighted to appear there at this early juncture.

Next week I speak in Montreal and Ottawa.

I tend to open these events with a few prefatory remarks about guerrilla diplomacy as both an approach to diplomatic practice and a framework for the understanding and management of international relations and global issues. Following that introduction I usually set out a statement of the book’s main argument, to the effect that if development is the new security in the era of globalization, then diplomacy must displace defence at the centre of international policy. I then outline several the essential building blocks of the analysis, such as the ACTE world order model, and suggest some of the implications for public administration and international policy.

Over the course of the these, and the previous discussions which have followed my presentations, the question often comes up: how can your program be implemented?

How do we get from where we are to where you are advocating that we should be?

I reply that there are at least three prerequisites:

  • The rehabilitation and popularization of diplomacy per se, bringing it in from the far reaches of esoterica and closer to the mainstream of public and political discourse by making it relevant and real
  • The radical reform of, and reinvestment in, the foreign ministry and foreign service
  • The formulation and articulation of a grand strategy in which guerrilla diplomacy can be situated

With the publication of the book and related articles, increasingly frequent forays into journalism, and now with an extended road show, I hope to be able to contribute in some way to the realization of the first and second goals.  It is the third element, however, which I would like to elaborate somewhat at this point.

The notion of grand strategy comes up at various points in the volume, and I consider it a core element of statecraft. Few other analysts, however, seem to share that view. As a term, it is largely unknown outside of specialist circles, and is rarely mentioned in the media. Even in academia it is rarely taught, particularly at North American universities. Canada does not have one; the last effort to cobble together such a document collapsed in a smouldering heap following  a change in government, and nothing has been offered since. A grand strategy may be under construction south of the border, but the Obama administration has yet to set out anything comprehensive.

All of this, I think, is unfortunate, because grand strategy is an extremely useful concept.

In the absence of grand strategy,  international policy tends to be ad hoc, incoherent and splattered. Perhaps the only thing worse than no grand strategy is one which is flawed or failed,   such as the notorious Bush Doctrine of the Global War on Terror, pre-emptive defence and unilateral intervention. If bad or non-existant, poor decisions are made, lives are squandered, finance is wasted, and insecurity – often in concert with underdevelopment – is advanced.

In the particularly memorable words of Oxford University historian and theoretician Hew Strachan, without grand strategy, policy can become an instrument of war, rather than the other way around.

In the next posting or two, we are going to drill down into the concept of grand strategy, identifying the critical elements and assessing their significance vis-a vis guerrilla diplomacy in the age of globalization.

In the interim, a provisional definition might read something like this:

Grand strategy is a unifying, long-term vision of a country’s global values and interests; an expression of where that country is, and wants to go in the world, and; an analysis of its potential and capacity to achieve the objectives, and to reach the destination set forth.

Well worthy of some sustained reflection, wouldn’t you say?

Science, Technology and Diplomacy

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In his typically excellent September 1 – 2 press and blog review of the burgeoning discourse on public diplomacy (PD), John Brown cites a quotation by Manuel Castells, author of the magisterial Information Age trilogy:

Public Diplomacy is the…projection in the international arena of the values and ideas of the public… The aim of the practice of public diplomacy is not to convince but to communicate, not to declare but to listen. Public diplomacy seeks to build a sphere in which diverse voices can be heard in spite of their various origins, distinct values, and often contradictory interests.

Among the almost infinite variety of subjects which might form the basis for that kind of conversation, science (because of its universality, inclusivity and relevance to almost everything) and technology (because of its power and ubiquity) represent one area which is is particularly well-suited to international ventilation.

For those reasons, among others, scientific exchanges, alongside similarly popular educational and cultural programs, were prolific during the Cold War. Although not necessarily considered an element of public diplomacy at the time, international S&T programming nonetheless played a prominent role in both the American and Soviet camps.  In those days, wide-ranging ideological, strategic and geopolitical competition provided the framing and context, both directly and through third parties whose allegiance was being sought. One of the sources of continuing Russian influence in places such as India, Syria and Iran, for instance, stems from the scientific training received in the Soviet Union by at least a generation of  students.

In the globalization era, however, world order has become more hetero– than bi- or even multi-polar, and the institutional memory of those Cold War activities is fading fast. Now, markets rule, and much of the scientific research and technological development has  been either moved out of government and privatized, or has remained focussed on defence-related objectives.

None of that, of course, makes S&T writ large any less relevant. But it does make it harder to understand why so little is said about it outside of a few specialized, and somewhat isloated and obscure circles.

Although many of the most pressing issues facing humanity are based in science and propelled by technology, with critical downstream implications for development and security, most governments have not made significant efforts to ramp up the level of scientific and technological interchange globally. Were this to become a priority, foreign ministries, as the primary points of contact between the national and international interests of states, would almost certainly have to become involved.

All of which brings me to offer an account of a session I attended recently on “The Foreign Ministry of the Future”. Senior officials spoke at some length about matters related to to the creation of an international platform for the efficient delivery of common services abroad to other federal government departments, about the need to transform various aspects of the bureaucratic process, and about a number of human resource initiatives.

S&T?

It never came up.

In fact, the entire episode was suffused with a somewhat surreal air, not least because of the complete absence of any references to either diplomacy or foreign policy, which one might otherwise think would have to be germane to such a discussion. Nor did the acute shortage of resources, which is at present wreaking havoc upon operations at home and abroad, attract any commentary. All of which is quite surprising.

One dimension of S&T which might have come up regards the issue of virtuality and foreign ministries, by which I mean the application of information and communications technology (ICTs) and the use of the new media. Especially in OECD countries, and particularly in the USA and UK,  diplomatic methods and practices after a slow start have in fact have in fact adapted quite well to the possibilities inherent in the new media and ICTs. Ambassadors and foreign ministers are blogging, the web is being used interactively for the conduct of outreach and public diplomacy, foreign service officers in the field are being enabled through the issue of mobile communications devices such as Blackberries, and personnel departments are experimenting with telework and distance learning.

Among the many factors subversive of  the lingering elements of hierarchy, secrecy, cultural conservativism and top-down control still prominent in contemporary diplomatic institutions, these sorts of developments, and the revolution in S&T more generally, are likely to figure centrally.

In my view, that can’t happen too soon.

I began with a quotation from communications theorist Manuel Castells; let me conclude with a passage from Canada’s own Marshall McLuhan:

The vested interests of acquired knowledge and conventional wisdom have always been bypassed and engulfed by new media.

Enough said.