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CIAO DATE: 05/02
The Babe That Roared
by Charles Weiss
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The information revolution is still in its infancy–but what an infant. Already, it has set new limits on traditional notions of sovereignty, given rise to new forms of warfare, forced businesses to rethink their basic function and strategy, spawned new firms that dwarf older industrial giants, and created a whole new agenda of international policy issues. And that’s for openers.
More specifically, as pointed out by contributors to this Forum, the World Wide Web has accelerated and intensified the globalization of markets. It has robbed governments of their monopoly on information; empowered consumers, voters, and political activists; provided rebels and terrorists with new weapons and means of communication; and forced market intermediaries all over the world to add value to their services on pain of disintermediation. The last has been a particular blow to many businesses and professionals who may not have realized that they were intermediaries: retailers, editors, publishers, recording studios, universities, and even professors.
Some of the effects of the new technology on traditional concepts of international relations are already obvious. The concept of sovereignty, no doubt, is alive and well. But surely its meaning has changed in an age in which sums of money totaling nations’ entire foreign exchange reserves cross international boundaries every few minutes; when thorough restructuring of basic communications infrastructure is required for national survival; and when governments can hardly regulate the trans–border flow of personal information, pirated music and literature, bomb designs, pornography, and subversive propaganda of all kinds.
What experience could more appropriately illustrate the empowering function of the Internet–and the change in traditional power–balancing–than Ken Rutherford’s account of how a handful of people, many of them based in rural Vermont, used e–mail to coordinate a worldwide network of activists? These individuals succeeded in promoting a proposal to ban a military weapon that forms a key part of standard military strategy and tactics, and in backing the most powerful nations in the world into a diplomatic corner over this issue.
As Richard Moose points out, the information revolution has focused attention on the effectiveness of the U.S. State Department as an agency for the rapid gathering, analysis, and distribution of information. A number of studies have faulted the Department for dysfunctional management structure, cumbersome communication procedures, antiquated infrastructure, an issues agenda, and a culture of risk–avoidance formed by the Cold War. All of these effects are exacerbated by the 50 percent decline in the real value of the foreign affairs budget over the past decade.
And as the interview with Carlos Braga of the World Bank clearly shows, the impact of the information revolution falls unevenly on different parts of the world. To reap full commercial benefits from the Net, nations must not only have equipment, expensive infrastructure, and computer–literate people, but also an array of ancillary habits and institutions not normally associated with “informatics”: credit cards, the habit of buying from catalogs, and even a reliable post office.
Even so, new technology is opening up a world of readily available information from business and politics to people and countries formerly isolated by politics or geography. Best expressed in the words of a famous Economist cover: “Suddenly distance doesn’t matter any more.” When an official from the World Bank speaks proudly of the Bank’s efforts to promote a subversive technology, we are indeed glimpsing into a brave new world.
This is not the first time in recent history that basic changes in political and economic geography have been traceable to changes in technology. Arguably, the fall of the Soviet Union was largely due to the fact that its rigid economic and political structure was ill–suited to the needs of information– and communication– intensive technology that was essential to both economic growth and military competitiveness. By contrast, the rise of Japan and the Pacific Rim was due greatly to these countries’ ability to respond to market opportunities by mastering imported technology and–especially in the case of Japan–improving it.
The United States is fortunate that the current wave of technological change is uniquely suited to its peculiar strengths: an entrepreneurial business climate, a tradition of individual innovation, a well–funded, decentralized, and meritocratic research structure, and a consumer culture that welcomes novelty and tolerates failure. In addition, a free and flexible labor market, strong links between universities and industry, a free and highly diversified capital market, and a tradition of welcoming immigrants are all factors that contribute to the United States’ ability to adapt well to the emerging new technologies. On the other hand, it would be a mistake for the United States to take for granted its present dominance as a permanent one. Who knows what national characteristics will be key to the next wave of technological innovation?
It will be some years before the implications of the revolution in “informatics” and communications are fully absorbed by the international affairs community. This is in part due to the intellectual and social distance–or technophobia–that has traditionally separated the scholars of international affairs from their colleagues in the scientific and technological community. Perhaps the current issue of the Journal will begin to bridge this anachronistic divide. Certainly it will provide the reader with an instructive and insightful glimpse of the pervasive influence of information technology on a wide range of international issues.
Endnotes
Note *: Dr. Charles Weiss is Distinguished Professor and Director of Science, Technology, and International Affairs at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Back.