Proprietorship of information is an integral part of any nation’s foreign policy and national security. Ultimately, through collecting, maintaining, and exploiting secrets, governments can accrue advantages over both adversaries and partners, whether political, military, or even economic.
Conversely, loss of such an advantage can have unforeseen and particularly damning consequences. One such consequence, as appears to be the case in the recent WikiLeaks affair, is the erosion of trust by foreign governments with regards to America’s ability to protect their positions on bilateral issues. Accordingly, with the exception of rare cases involving high-visibility summitry, diplomacy has always been an affair conducted behind closed doors.
On another level, however, the leaking of such information can directly affect national power. While one may be tempted to write off the WikiLeaks incident as merely an embarrassing political scandal for the U.S., it is effectively American influence that is being put into question. With leaks appearing to intentionally target America’s image abroad, what is therefore at stake is America’s ability to obtain objectives through co-option and attraction as opposed to coercion, otherwise known as “soft power”. As such, an erosion of America’s capacity to project goodwill raises the costs to apply other forms of national power, ultimately enfeebling American statecraft.
A recent article by Joseph Nye on “The Future of American Power” notes that, given the context of the information age, nations destined to dominate world politics in the 21st Century are those which posses the most compelling narratives. Given the recent WikiLeaks affair and resultant fallout of mistrust in American global leadership, it would appear that the immediate future does not bode well for American power.
