A couple of observations on the Wikileaks diplomatic info-dump as seen from London. First, European governments have been unanimous in their condemnation of Wikileaks, disgraceful undermining of diplomacy etc etc. But what do they really think? I’m sure they will be philosophical about the content of the US cables. These are the sort of assessments that every diplomat makes, and is supposed to make; I would bet a year’s salary that the sort of things American diplomats said about David Cameron would pale into insignificance beside the sort of things British diplomats said about George W. Bush – indeed I’d bet a month’s salary that they were barely more complimentary about Barack Obama in the early days of his run for the Democratic nomination. There used to be a custom that British Ambassadors when they finally left a posting would write a long, frank valediction – Matthew Parris has just published a collection of these Parting Shots and very amusing (and occasionally xenophobic) they are, and certainly not the kind of text that the locals would have been allowed to see at the time. That’s the nature of diplomacy – as is the allegedly horrifying proposition that diplomats were requested to collect information on their opposite numbers; the State Department added the rider, ‘if possible’ to this general request, and I image US diplomats at the UN and elsewhere will have immediately assessed that e.g. collecting Ban Ki Moon’s credit card numbers wasn’t going to be possible and will have binned the memo.
The Duck of Minerva
Wikileaks and the global public interest
by Chris Brown
29 November 2010, 1745 EST
The point is, foreign governments will understand all this, but what they will find unforgiveable is the fact that the US Government did not protect their own diplomatic correspondence adequately. It simply isn’t good enough that accounts of conversations with the King of Saudi Arabia or assessments of Putin’s involvement with the Russian mafia are simply graded as Secret and potentially made available to anyone remotely connected to the military and/or homeland security. Diplomats may understand the need for frank assessments of friends as well as enemies, but popular opinion, led by tabloid journalists and professional anti-Americans will play these indiscretions for all they are worth and then some. This is a self-inflicted wound, and it is no good blaming Wikileaks – although there are things we can blame them for.
This gets to my second point which is that I find it interesting that critics such as Assange are actually so obsessed with what they imagine to be an evil Empire that they come to possess the faults they attribute to it, in particular an insular inability to understand that not everything is about America, and that local actors aren’t simply reacting to US policy, but have goals and minds of their own. The Middle East leaks are a particularly interesting illustration of this point. Without actually saying so, Wikileaks manage somehow to convey the impression that America is stirring up hostility against Iran in the region, a position gratefully accepted and repeated by the Iranian government – but the leaks make it clear that virtually all of  America’s allies in the region want her to get tougher with the Iranians. What Wikileaks has done by releasing this material has been to make it more difficult for America to keep its friends on the reservation, but they seem completely blind to this, presumably on the principle that an increase in the chances that Israel will attack Iran with Saudi covert assistance is a worthwhile price to pay for the opportunity to lessen US influence in the world. This is a rather peculiar understanding of the global public interest; it makes sense only if you are so obsessed by America that nothing else matters. Â
The general point is, there are times when it would be good to reduce American influence on particular issues, but there are times when it would be very, very bad indeed. Â Wikileaks seem incapable/unwilling to distinguish between these two situations, and that is what makes it a public menace.
Chris Brown is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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I’m wondering.
US law is pretty much limited, once he has the data, to charging him with bribery or extortion if that is in fact how data was obtained.
Most other counties are not so generous. Assange could be open a number of criminal or civil actions from other countries. Some of these countries have legal systems that make Gitmo trials appear the model of protecting the rights of the accused, when they are not simly acting sub rosa. Certainly he should not go to Saudi Arabia or it’s neighbors for a long time.
Possibly this could be almost the last of the “wikileaks” type activates.
https://eclecticmeanderings.blogspot.com/
Hank, I don't think so. Â The next target is big business.
I think the problem with this thesis – apart from the tired notion that the US is an authoritarian/nominally liberal state – is that other similar states manage to conduct their affairs quite effectively without making secret material available to every disaffected squaddie in Iraq. I suspect Assange has a less baroque agenda – as he puts it, to ' expose America's lies' (although, as Dan Drezner points out, he hasn't). You might be right about the next target though – no chance he'll target Russia, China, Iran etc because that wouldn't serve his agenda. Meanwhile, back in the real world, the chances that China will co-operate in the process of managing the consequences of a putative North Korean meltdown have just lessened considerably as a result of this morning's revelations, something which seems not to worry Wikileaks and their hangers-on for whom an increased chance of disaster in the Korean peninsula is a small price to pay for the chance to embarrass the US.Â
Chris, I agree that Assange's thesis about the character of the US regime (not to mention his overall world view) is questionable. However, you are still incorrect to think that this is just about America. Â Government agencies and corporations in Russia and China have been targeted by Wikileaks as have politicians, banks, and government agencies in Kenya, Bermuda, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, East Timor, etc. Â While you point to the importance of secrecy in sustaining stability in the Middle East and Korea, you don't acknowledge the role of state secrets in violating human rights, deceiving populations, hiding evidence of serious threat (see Monju nuclear reactor leak documents) etc.
I am so sick of Assange I could vomit. Â
More substantively, I think this is a measured, well reasoned assessment of the latest document dump and Wikileaks as a whole. Â No doubt there are times when governments use their ability to classify information for nefarious ends, but Wikileaks makes no attempt to discriminate between those instances and instances where indiscriminately releasing information will either lead directly to negative outcomes or make success more difficult. Â
Pure, unadulterated transparency and honesty in communications is NOT optimal in social settings–this goes for interpersonal or interstate relations. Â If we all spoke with truth 100% of time I doubt anyone would be able to get along. Â If Wikileaks is going to expose a significant wrong, fine, I can at least understand that. Â But there's is a shotgun approach. Â They've yet to hit a true target and have likely caused quite a bit of collateral damage.
“Without actually saying so, Wikileaks manage somehow to convey the impression that America is stirring up hostility against Iran in the region”–WHAT IS YOUR BASIS FOR SAYING THIS?
AND WHAT IS YOUR BASIS FOR THIS CLAIM?:Â “What Wikileaks has done by releasing this material has been to make it more difficult for America to keep its friends on the reservation, but they seem completely blind to this, presumably on the principle that an increase in the chances that Israel will attack Iran with Saudi covert assistance is a worthwhile price to pay for the opportunity to lessen US influence in the world.”
UNLESS YOU CAN SHOW THESE THINGS, RATHER THAN SPECULATING ABOUT THEM, WHY SHOULD I ACCEPT YOUR IDEA THAT WIKILEAKS IS A “MENACE?”
As to my first claim, what Assange repeatedly asserts is that the cables show America's hypocrisy and lies, whereas what the Saudi, Egyptian, Yemeni cables actually show is that the US is saying the same thing in private and in public while King Abdullah, Mubarak etc are saying one thing in private and another in public. As to the second, see the excellent post 'Let's Whack Them' which makes the point that the unanimity with which Iran's neighbours desire for its nuclear capacity to be destroyed will strengthen the hand of those supporting stronger measures.Â