In the previous post,  I argued that the short-lived era of unipolar American hegemony has given way to  a new international dispensation best characterized as heteropolar rather than multipolar. This metamorphosis may be attributed mainly to a series of colossal strategic misjudgements and the profusion of diverse sources of power and influence globally. The implications for security and diplomacy are profound.

To be sure, and as was the case with the multipolar world dominated by the European Empires from the 15th to 19th centuries, there are once again many poles. But this time the differences between them far outweigh the similarities. These players share little in common.  Unlike in previous eras, the heterogeneous nature of today’s competing actors renders comparison difficult and measurement even more so.

That said, and although this is very much a new order in the making, we can begin to trace the contours and discern the content of heteropolarity, a condition which I believe will increasingly define international relations. New poles are forming, and old poles are evolving. In terms of identifying the major heteropoles in the early years of the 21st century, the following thoughts come immediately to mind.

The USA, even with a slightly leaner (but still growing) defence budget, will for the foreseeable future remain the world’s leading military, or hard power. It will continue as a leading centre of R&D, innovation, private enterprise, and post-secondary education; the notion of broad decline is hotly contested. However, as predicted by President Eisenhower in his farewell address over 50 years ago, an increasing reliance upon military strength is rendering America the praetorian pole. Its fundamental economic and industrial position in relative terms is fading fast, a trend accelerated by the hollowing out of its manufacturing sector, and compounded by the continuing financial crisis and the cost of foreign wars. Within a decade or two the mantle of leadership, and pride of place as the epicentre of the world economy, may well pass to the Asia-Pacific region generally, and to China in particular – with India not that far behind.

Together, these two countries will soon represent over one half of the world’s population. China is already the fastest growing manufacturing and industrial economy and the largest provider of consumer goods. With an increasing reliance upon advanced technologies, China is moving rapidly up the value-added chain. For its part, India is now the world’s back office, call centre and software incubator, offering services in the English language at prices no one can match.  Each of these poles is looking for increased recognition and for ways to advance their growing interests. Unlike the old superpowers, however, their middle classes are burgeoning rather than shrinking, and they are not rattling sabres.

Elsewhere, post-tsunami Japan, though often overlooked, is still the world’s third largest economy and a huge participant in international trade, investment and finance. Overtaken in GDP terms last year by China, the prospect of having to accommodate new rivals throughout the rest of rising Asia is likely to present Japan with significant political and cultural challenges.

Brazil today is closer than ever to the realization of its enormous potential. That country has secured its place as the political and economic dynamo of Latin America, and has become much more assertive in the international arena, and particularly in organizations such as the WTO. Brazil’s newfound heteropolar identity may find expression as a champion of cultural diversity or as the leader of the Global South.

Russia, as a residual empire with still-extant nuclear capability, seems intent upon consolidating its role as Eurasia’s energy and resource pole. These ambitions are abetted by its vast geo-strategic presence, memories of greatness and the perceived need to reassert its influence both in the “near abroad” and beyond. Europeans, especially, are wary of their growing dependence.

And, speaking of Europe… Beset by the current debt and monetary crisis, it is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. While it will take time, and likely another recession, the Euro-zone’s present problems will eventually be worked through. Over the longer term, the continent’s strong suit of peace, prosperity, safe and livable cities, excellent public infrastructure, a rich historical heritage and thriving artistic and cultural life suggests that the EU is destined to lead the world in soft power, the power of attraction. The source of the Europe’s strength and the basis of its comparative advantage will reside not in a common defence and security policy, but in the demonstration effect, in the ability of Europe to project its success by example internationally.

Heteropoles are forming in all shapes and sizes. Certain countries, such as Turkey, Iran, South Africa, Egypt and Mexico, as well as regions, such as Southeast Asia and the Gulf states, will almost certainly figure in this new order.  Yet the emergence of a heteropolar world, one in which the drivers and ends of power and influence are no longer easily meshed, will inevitably cause friction. Among and between poles, edges are sharp, competition fierce, objectives divergent and interests difficult to align. Direct connection on issues of mutual concern, such as trade, the environment, and intellectual property, has already become difficult. Finding the basis for bargaining will be tough, the identification of trade-offs elusive and the act of balancing dizzyingly complex.

As has happened with the global economy, volatility in international relations is likely to become the new normal. Fragile states will fail. Sparks will fly. The trick will be to find ways to prevent fires. In that regard, while deterrence may still have a role, the actual use of armed force is unlikely to be of much utility.

Ready or not, heterpolarity means that it is now diplomacy which must be placed front and centre.

In the last entry, I tried to illustrate how changes in domestic Canadian politics, in combination with the imposition of capacity reductions on the Department of Foreign Affairs, had contributed to a turn away from this country’s internationalist traditions. Today, I continue that line of inquiry with an exploration of the profound shifts in the nature and orientation of media coverage, as well as the impact of Canada’s rapidly changing demography.

As the Euro-zone’s continuing debt and monetary crisis has underscored, growing global economic interdependence means that all nations are vulnerable and exposed to events unfolding beyond their frontiers. At the same time, travel, tourism, immigration and the Internet have contributed to a vast increase in cosmopolitanism. These realities, however, are rarely reflected in the overall news mix, and less so in the content behind the headlines. Even as Canada’s increasingly diverse and multicultural  population charges ahead ever more completely into the culture and ethos of globalization, the coverage of international affairs in the mainstream media – television, radio, newspapers – continues to slide. To the extent that the media informs and conditions the public and political spheres, this paradox will have broader implications.

Why the general pullback from international affairs reporting? Among the explanations: the crisis in journalism associated with the rise of on-line publishing, and the resulting budget and personnel cuts; media multiplication and fragmentation; a loss of institutional memory; the closing or consolidation of foreign bureaux; a preference for shorter and less complex stories; an absence of analysis; a fixation on personalities the visually and emotionally sensational… earthquakes, tidal waves, family tragedies, plane and train wrecks.  Fewer journalists, with increasingly stretched resources, are covering the IR ‘beat’, and those that do tend to prefer writing about the military, especially if they have been embedded. Meanwhile, citizen reporters with hand held digital devices provide an increasing amount of the raw feed – think about the dominant images of  9/11, the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Arab Spring or the storming today of the British Embassy in Tehran. Crowdsourcing rules. For these reasons and more, there appears to be a widespread conviction among media managers that Canadians, for example, just aren’t as interested as they once were in receiving professional reporting on world affairs.  Those who are have little choice but to rely upon specialized sources and the web for anything but the most basic information.

These changes in media structure and reporting priorities have both prefigured and reflected major shifts in the public environment.  From roughly the end of WWII until the late 1980s, the notion of a bi-lingual, bi-cultural, ‘true north strong and free’ was one of the mainstays behind Canadian internationalism. There existed in Canada a broad, comfortable, middle class consensus around the most central aspects of international policy, which included containment and deterrence, but also a commitment to development assistance and peacekeeping. Such was the essence of Cold War comfort. But those old verities no longer fit. In the intervening years, that entente has been riven, and its demise hastened by the emergence and growing popularity of highly particularistic, single interest lobbies. The pre-occupations of these groups range from from Timor to Tibet, from rainforests to reefs, and from alternative energy to “ethical” oil. They include gender, human rights, small arms, and child soldiers, to name a few.  It is difficult just to reach, let alone attempt to draw together such a fragmented constituency.

The crumbling away of a cohesive and supportive domestic  foundation for Canadian internationalism – and Canadian diplomacy – seems also to be associated with the rise of non-state actors. Trends in the domestic polity are now deeply influenced by the activities of all sorts of new players – philanthropic NGOs, transnational businesses and religious extremists come immediately to mind.  All compete for attention. So, too do the international machinations of prominent individuals such as Bono, Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie and George Soros. States and statesmen have had to make room for celebrity diplomats and civil society.

In recent years, and especially since the Great Recession of 2008-10, job insecurity, stagnant or shrinking incomes, and a growing disquiet over matters closer to home have joined with the rise of issue-driven advocacy and generational change to increase levels of discomfort. They have also induced fatigue, apathy, and cynicism.

Today many citizens, perhaps feeling adrift in this turbulent and confusing world, appear to have redrawn the lines of their individual moral engagement in closer proximity to the front door. Beset by lingering doubts about governance at home and facing a range of vexing, if not intractable challenges abroad, many seem to be re-scaling their engagement in the world. In most  OECD countries the majority of people now see their government’s priorities as overwhelmingly domestic – health care, education, the environment and managing the economy dominate, with most issues related to international affairs (defence, aid and foreign policy) barely registering in comparison.

Whether anaesthetized by spin doctors, spoon fed by embedded journalists, or turned off by endless streams of infotainment, people everywhere seem to be paying less attention to either the world or to their place in it. There are occasional spikes -  the invasion of Iraq, the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, echoes from events in Iran or North Korea. But these are at best minor peaks in a valley of indifference. Global issues, including the hardy perennials of peace, development and human rights are rarely rated among the most pre-eminent of popular pre-occupations.

Now the province mainly of specialists and experts, international policy has come to exist in a kind of floating world, a disconnected bubble somehow severed from the everyday and animated more by a sense of visceral values than an appreciation of concrete interests. It has become somewhat of an exotic, far removed from more pressing or immediate concerns. As was demonstrated convincingly during Canada’s spring 2011 election campaign, citizens are looking inwards, just when they should be looking out, and this bodes ill for any kind of a broadly-based internationalist revival.

Today the contributors to a recently released collection of essays assembled under this title and edited by Janice Stein will gather in Toronto to discuss the lifetime contribution to the diplomatic profession of  former Ambassador to the USA Allan Gotlieb.

It is encouraging to see attention of this nature being directed towards the study of diplomacy. Over my 30 years of diplomatic practice and scholarship, I could never understand why so many mainstream educators, senior officials and analysts spent so little time trying to understand or assess the inner workings of the world’s second oldest profession.

Diplomacy is an approach to the management of international relations founded upon the use of non-violent political communications such as dialogue, negotiation and compromise for purposes of conflict resolution and problem-solving. In my experience, many serving diplomats are not entirely sure of that definition, or of how their work is related to the achievement of international peace, security and prosperity. That observation notwithstanding, I would argue that diplomacy has never been more relevant.

I expect that many of the participants in today’s symposium share that perspective.

Three of the new volume’s four subtitles – Diplomacy with the United States in the Era of Wikileaks; The Professional Diplomat on Facebook, and; Personal Diplomacy in the Age of Twitter – make reference to manifestations of the what is widely referred to as the new media, a communications venue has come to occupy a significant place within the operations of several of the world’s more innovative foreign ministries. 

Digital diplomacy is a catchy term, but, like diplomacy itself,  it is not clearly understood.  Also referred to variously as e-, i-, cyber or virtual diplomacy, it has been made possible by the adoption, within diplomatic institutions and government more generally, of digitally-based systems of data creation, transmission and storage using the Internet, social media platforms, computers, and a variety of wireless electronic devices.

The diplomatic means, therefore, are evolving to keep pace with the times, and especially with the need to connect directly with foreign populations, but the ends are largely immutable.

The threat or use of armed force will always have its place in the world, but that place is now dramatically over-represented. Since the end of the Cold War, and in the wake of disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, the limitations associated with the continued militarization of international policy could not be clearer. The reality is that the most profound threats and challenges which imperil the planet – climate change, resource scarcity, diminishing bio-diversity, environmental collapse – are rooted in science and driven by technology.

International cooperation to broach these complex and difficult issues cannot be undertaken using anything other than diplomacy, whether traditional, public, digital,  or guerrilla, which combines elements of all three.

Long-term, sustainable and human-centred development has become the basis for durable security in the digital age, and for that reason diplomacy must displace defence at the centre of international policy. In a globalized precincts of the 21st century, talking rather than fighting is the only way forward.

I hope that conviction finds expression and support at today’s event.  

Over the course of the past few months I have been conducting research for an article on “Digital Diplomacy” and the implications of the “WikiLeaks/Cablegate” revelations for diplomatic practice and international relations. That piece, when finished and peer reviewed, is scheduled to appear in a forthcoming reference text entitled the Oxford Handbook on Modern Diplomacy.

Reflecting on that enterprise, it has occurred to me that much of what is new in contemporary diplomacy may one way or another be attributed to the emergence of the Internet. Over the space of about twenty years it has displaced other venues as the principal medium for global information exchange and interaction. As more and more people look to the Web as a primary source of information and communication, including e-mail, social networking, video conferencing, and telephony, and as higher transmission speeds and greater bandwidth expand audio and visual streaming possibilities, communications media are converging. In recent years the Internet has edged out newspapers, TV, radio, and conventional telephones as the primary communications medium. Current Web 2.0 applications, featuring an emphasis on networks, wikis, interactivity, file sharing and downloadable “podcasts” – in marked contrast to the simple Web 1.0 presentation of static information – promise to further accelerate this trend.

The power and pervasiveness of the new media can be striking. There are believed to be some five billion cell phones registered globally; an increasing number of those are “smart” miniature computers with full on-line functionality. It is estimated that 30.2% of the world’s population now have Internet access, and that figure is growing especially quickly in Asia, Latin America and Africa, regions which still lag significantly behind North America (78.3%) and Europe (58.3%). To offer just a sampling of the implications: beginning in the second half of the nineties, campaigns on the Web played a critical role in publicizing and catalyzing the anti-globalization movement; they stopped the Multilateral Agreement on Investment; they have changed the outcome of elections, and; they have provided unprecedented profile to consular cases. It has been widely reported – if somewhat contested – that cell phones, text messages, Blackberries and social networking sites played significant role in mobilizing the forces behind the “Arab Spring” uprisings earlier this year. Given much higher rates of usage, these technologies almost certainly played an even larger role in facilitating the planning and execution of the summer 2011 riots in cities across the UK.

Today, anyone with a mobile phone or digital camera and uplink can become a reporter – think of footage of the first images of 9/11 in 2001; the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004; the 2007 pro-democracy uprising in Burma; the anti-Chinese rioting in Llahsa, Tibet, in 2008; suicide bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan, or; the unrest throughout the Greater Middle East in 2011. Almost none of that initial visual content was provided by journalists employed by large corporate news organizations such as the BBC, CNN, or  Al Jazeera, Most of it was unmediated. And almost none of it could be effectively suppressed by local authorities.

The elemental qualities of immediacy and interactivity that characterize Internet-based communications are particularly evident in the explosive growth of blogs and blogging. While not quite the equivalent of face-to-face contact, blogs represent something much closer to “live” conditions than the publication of documents posted on static Web sites. These attributes make blogs especially effective at breaking down cultural barriers. Bloggers from Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East have brought the human toll of those conflicts to desktops around the globe: executions have been streamed live on anti-occupation sites, and the Abu Ghraib prison pictures spread faster than Seymour Hersh’s writing in The New Yorker could ever be distributed. Those images effectively branded the US presence in Iraq, and turned Bush-era public diplomacy into something akin to mission impossible. In the wake of developments such as these, it is not entirely surprising that Rand Corporation analysts recommended that the US military try Madison Avenue Internet marketing techniques to win hearts and minds in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The most innovative, technologically sophisticated public diplomacy, however, will never be enough to compensate for failed policy. What a country does will always have more impact than what it says, and when those two dimensions diverge, the resulting “say-do gap” can have a devastating impact on international credibility, reputation and influence. In part as a result, the image and reputation of the USA in much of the Arab and Islamic world is today as bad, or even worse that was the case five years ago.

Diplomats – and journalists – are today only two sources that feed into an increasingly crowded infosphere. Their longstanding advantages over the sourcing and control of information have disappeared. In the age of mass travel and communications and the exponential growth of internet use, more people are able to exchange more data and ideas with increasing speed. A substantial share of all the world’s accumulated knowledge is for the first time available to anyone with an Internet connection. Among other things, this is having the effect of breaking down barriers, of blurring borders of every kind, and of creating a kind of shared consciousness, a form of universal and collective intelligence.  I have referred to this elsewhere as the emergence of a Global Political Economy of Knowledge.

Diplomats and journalists both rely on the new media, often share similar reporting objectives, and frequently base their reporting on the same sources. But ultimately their purposes diverge. Journalists are interested in getting at the most compelling angle on a given story. In contrast, diplomats, by virtue of their connection to national governments, have policies to advocate and interests to advance or defend.

This means that interpretations can differ – sometimes profoundly.

These distinctions – and much more – have been underlined by the publication of over 250,000 US-origin classified diplomatic cables by the WikiLeaks web site. The implications associated with the continuing Cablegate affair, not least as an illustration of the double-edged quality of science and technology in the era of globalization, will endure long after the story has been exhausted.

More on these issues in the next post.

It is perhaps premature to propose potential conclusions and lessons learned in the immediate wake of the rebel victory over the Gadhafi regime. On the surface, it appears that NATO support for the rebellion assisted materially in achieving the objective of ridding Libya of a widely detested dictator.

In terms of success, this would seem to represent more than can be said for Western efforts in backing one side in the Afghan civil war, or intervening under manifestly false pretences in Iraq. Both of those episodes have proven extremely costly. Still, before breaking out any more champagne, there are several issues regarding the Libyan affair which require more sober and sustained reflection than they seem to have received at the international meeting on Libya’s future held September 1st in Paris.

The rule of law. UN Security Council Resolution 1973, passed in response to widely-reported concerns over the possibility of a massacre in Benghazi, provided NATO with the limited authority to establish a no-fly zone and to intervene in order to protect civilians. Participating NATO members, led by the UK and France, in almost no time exceeded the resolution’s provisions by arming rebel groups, inserting special forces and advisors, and mounting a protracted, and at times intense air campaign in service of regime change. This level of engagement has gone well beyond anything provided for in the resolution, and, however much one might admire the goals, amounts essentially to vigilante action.

What is to be made of this kind of example? It certainly lies outside the more limited precepts of humanitarian intervention, and as such does not qualify under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Indeed, it is hard to avoid the thought that oil and opportunity played a defining role in determining the nature of the course taken. These actions also suggest the continued functioning of a world order in which the “rule makers” are free to act as they please, while the “rule takers” have no such option. Anyone with an interest in just global governance cannot be thrilled about this sort of demonstration, which has all of the hallmarks of imperial over-reach.

Talking vs. fighting. In Guerrilla Diplomacy, I spend about 300 pages making the case that if development has become the new security in the age of globalization, then diplomacy must replace defence at the centre of international policy. In that regard, the question must be put: why did western powers once again reach first for the gun? Why did they not consult with their own citizens before acting? Where was the diplomatic offensive? Yes, the foreign holdings of the Gadhafi  family were frozen, an arms embargo was applied, and the International Criminal Court was asked to investigate legal proceedings. But this does not constitute anything like the full-court diplomatic press which was purported to be underway. There were no comprehensive economic or political sanctions, no dispatching of special envoys, no demands that the UN Security Council move to separate the combatants before the onset of full-blown hostilities. Hugo Chavez, and later the government of South Africa under African Union auspices  called for negotiations, offering mediation and good offices. Their entreaties were ignored.

While the full extent of the civilian and combatant casualties remains unknown, these have certainly been greater than might have been expected had pacific alternatives to the use of force been fully explored. It is by no means inconceivable that a similar outcome could have been achieved without recourse to protracted violence. Another opportunity for the vigorous exercise of diplomacy has been forsaken, and that seems to me most unfortunate.

International policy coherence. It can be argued that because of the constantly shifting balance between values and interests, consistency has never been one of the defining features of international policy. That said, what we are witnessing in this case represents an exceptional, if not unprecedented, case of incoherence. Well after the end of the Cold War, close Western allies have included a selection of corrupt, unrepresentative, illiberal, and often very nasty autocrats. Their friendship was often actively courted in the name of geopolitical stability, resource access or commercial gain. Today, some, but by no means all of those same figures have become the subject of scorn, derision, and ridicule. There is no obvious pattern. And in places where government forces actually have been slaughtering their own people – in Syria, Bahrain, Yemen and elsewhere – next to nothing is done.

As unrepresentative despots go, Gadhafi was no worse than many, and his track record in terms of personal corruption and spending on infrastructure, education and social services was actually better than average. It is useful to recall that not long ago, western leaders – keen to expand trade and acquire newly available oil concessions – were lining up to see him. His decisions to dismantle Libya’s nuclear and WMD programs, to stop supporting international terrorism, to turn over suspects and offer a financial settlement for the Lockerbie bombing, and to denounce al-Qaida had the effect of transforming his status from that of a pariah to something akin to a newfound friend. Fast forward a few years and that rapprochement suddenly became history, with Gadhafi  again characterized as a dangerous buffoon, an obstacle to democracy, and an enemy of the people.

Little wonder that those with a preference for religious extremism and political violence find the contradictions inherent in western policy such an easy propaganda target.

Break it and it’s yours. No one seems to know very much about the ruling National Transitional Council or their future intentions for the country. My impression is that the concerns expressed over a possible Islamist tendency in the uprising have been over-drawn. Still, NATO played a significant part in achieving the present outcome, and with that should come an equal measure of responsibility.

The challenges ahead are great, and they go well beyond finding and trying the former president. Long before elections can be contemplated, the remaining pockets of resistance will have to be quelled, reprisals avoided, tribal and clan differences broached, militias disarmed, weapons brought under the state control, services restored and critical infrastructure repaired. That is a daunting list.

NATO countries missed out on providing meaningful political support to the Arab Spring, and in this case chose instead to participate militarily. The consequences of that decision will endure.

I wish the new Libyan government well, but nevertheless wonder if similar results could have been achieved without recourse to violence or foreign intervention.