Take North Korea. To me, it was revelatory that the Chinese would countenance a unified Korea under South Korean leadership. If all of the states surrounding North Korea can get to the same page on that, then they can envision and articulate a way forward that is far preferable to unending nuclear confrontation. From the Chinese point of view, Unified Korea might be democratic, but China could have significant economic interests (and influence) by developing the North’s mineral resources. Russia could help develop infrastructure to support its exports from the Far East. The U.S. “wins” the Korean war and could eventually reduce its military footprint (and costs) after the elimination of the nuclear North Korean state. Unified, the Korean people, both North and South, can become even stronger and more prosperous.
Obviously the odd man out here is the Kim dynasty that might wish to rule the people of the North eternally. But the march of time will see Kim Jong Il making his exit, and the succession of his son Kim Jong Eun can be undermined by creating an alternative more attractive to party cadres and military brass. After all, a Unified Korea is an ideological goal of the North as well as an aspiration of the South. The sense of inevitability of Kim rule might be reduced by starting up a “Government of Unified Korea” group in the South which distributed leaflets in the North describing a Unified Korea without the Kims along with the concomitant benefits of economic integration. Use the group as an umbrella to attract top military and party defectors, explaining that they will be the ones tapped to take on a role in military and governmental affairs after unification. The U.S. could agree to bilateral talks about a peace treaty, as President Carter has suggested, in order to calm the situation and distract the Kims. After Kim Jong Il departs, Kim Jong Eun might be induced to accept an early retirement in Switzerland and the whole system can move forward step-by-step toward a peaceful unification on the South’s terms.
North Korea is only a case in point; many of the world’s long standing problems are sourced in the unacknowledged imperative to maintain the interests of one elite or another. When enough of the cards from the diplomatic poker game are visible to all the players and the public, the distinction between public interests and private interests becomes more clear. It then becomes possible to resolve such problems by creatively addressing those private interests while serving the common good and the national interest. Now with the cards on the table, the diplomatic community can set to work to make the common interests of all involved the inevitable future in North Korea as well as elsewhere. Transparency in governmental affairs, despite its drawbacks to a self-serving elite, has the potential to lead to win-win solutions to difficult problems. The more public the process, and the more well-informed the public, the less opportunity there is for hidden interests to disrupt constructive resolution.
And if, in a few years, even one of the world’s intractable problems has been resolved in this way, then we might have Wikileaks to thank, despite the inevitable embarrasments that flow from the candor of diplomats giving the world a dose of the truth.
You make a good case for diplomacy, Hugh, but I don’t find the argument in favor of Wikileaks convincing. The Chinese are much less likely to approve a united Korea now that it is public knowledge that some officials might have been thinking of it. Frankness of discussion depends on confidence in the confidentiality of the conversation.
Yes, diplomacy will go on, but for a time U.S. diplomacy will be handicapped in some situations. For example, the public knwledge (not just a suspicion) that many Arab states are encouraging us to attack the nuclear sites in Iran will make it harder to resist the Israeli demands.
When I was ambassador, some of my most important messages could have produced a successful coup against Gorbachev if they had leaked. Of course, I had sense enough not to put them in a message without severe limitations on distribution, and in those days nobody outside the Ops Center in the State Department could retrieve highly classified messages on their computer.
One should not, of course, assume that everything has leaked. So far, the Wikileaks “dump” contains no highly sensitive “codeword” material. Therefore, the sort of comment that I found Thursday in the New York Times regarding reporting from Embassy Tbilisi is out of place. The author observed that the embassy seemed to have no independent source of information but was wholly dependent on the Georgian government for its information. Maybe so, maybe not-one would have to be sure that one has all the reporting to make a judgment like that.
Of course, the Embassy Tbilisi should have reported what Georgian officials, especially the president and senior officials said. The messages should be classified, but not given extra protection. They know what they are telling us, after all. If the embassy had information that contradicted what government officials were saying, they would have given it a higher classification and probably limited distribution. So we don’t really know whether what one reads in Wikileaks is the whole story or not.
The upshot of all this is likely to be: (1) current diplomats will find that some of their sources will be less frank until they are assured that their interlocutor can protect them; (2) reporting officers will shy away (for a time) from colorful language and sharp characterizations, with the result that their messages will have fewer readers; (3) the most important decisions and most sensitive communications will not be put in writing at all, but handled orally; and (4) agencies will, once again, stop sharing really sensitive information with other agencies. None of this is particularly helpful for successful diplomacy, but the more resourceful diplomats will find ways to protect their sources.
The case for publishing the Pentagon Papers was that the government was deliberately misleading the public about conditions in Vietnam. This time, however, the leaked document demonstrate that the government is doing exactly what it claims to be doing. Making confidential records public prematurely is a bad for diplomacy as invasions of a person’s privacy would be to personal relationships.
I see no upside to Wikileaks, though it does interest me to find out what American diplomats think of other world leaders. I see a serious breech in security at computers in government buildings, and some people who want to embarrass certain officials by making them look bad.
It makes diplomacy more difficult. However, we should realize that the effect will be to restrict distribution of diplomatic reports. Apparently, Wikileaks did not get any of the most sensitive material. But the leaks could be very dangerous to dissidents and other activists who talk to American diplomats.
When I was on duty in the Soviet Union, I would never name a non-official source in a report. I would use a different name and probably change the place and date (making clear I was doing so) to get across a given point. I did not want to risk a leak–or Soviet interception–that would harm my source. Since I protected my contacts, they became more and more trusting and more and more candid.
I have to question the professional competence of diplomats who put in a cable with only a security classification potentially damaging information, such as government approval of U.S. military action against terroists in their country. Such information should be given very restricted circulation, and there are ways to do this. Undoubtedly Wikileaks will make diplomats more cautious, and also I am sure that the State Department won’t be turning over hundreds of thousands of diplomatic messages to the Department of Defense (or any other department) when they have no real need for all this. The relevant information can be conveyed to the right persons, who need to know it, under more restrictive circumstances.
So, the Wikileaks “revelations” so far will hamper our diplomacy in some contries temporarily, but also will serve as a wake-up call to tighten up treatment of really sensitive information. I’ll bet that the most sensitive things we might be telling the Egyptians these days are not being reported in telegrams, but by secure (encrypted) voice.
When I was in the White House, we would share sensitive letters from the president to foreign leaders, usually drafted in the State Department, with the Secretary of Defense, but with the caveat that no copies should be made and only a small number of senior officials with an interest in the issue be allow to see the single copy. We had no leaks.