John Duncan

Nuclear Matters: What are the Think-Tanks thinking of?

It’s been a busy week for events on Nuclear Disarmament and Non Proliferation starting with Brian Eno and Rory Bremner’s “Visions for a New Century” on Monday, to the “Global Vision” summit in Paris on Tuesday through to the Munich Security Conference running into this weekend.

In all of these civil society has come together with politicians and officials to set out their ambition for the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in New York in 3 months time.
 
As I have commented in earlier blog entries, the NPT is a peculiar beast. While there is a cross party consensus in the United Kingdom that nuclear weapon proliferation represents one of the major security threats to our global society, we will not see politicians (unlike the recent Copenhagen summit) gathering in New York in May at the Review Conference to hammer out a deal. Success or failure will lie in the hands of the diplomats – a daunting prospect.

So the support of civil society and the pressure that has come from the meetings this week to “Do more, Go further” is very important in building the constituency we diplomats need to argue that the time has come to breakout from the “Decade of Deadlock” in taking forward this agenda.

In just under a month the United States will reveal the results of their own Nuclear Posture Review. In the meantime global civil society has been setting out the areas where they are looking for progress, most notably former ministers Gareth Evans and Yoriko Kawaguchi of Australia and Japan’s report on “Eliminating Nuclear Threats”.

For those who would like further information the following links May be useful:

Towards A World Free of Nuclear Weapons

Gordon Corera (BBC) on Global Zero

Leading NGO BASIC website on Getting to Zero and the Brian Eno event

The FCO's own dedicated website on the Road to 2010

Posted at 19:38 07 February 2010 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

If it’s Monday it must be Manila

With only 13 weeks remaining before the start of the Non - Proliferation Treaty Review Conference the pace of consultation and meetings across the world is hotting up. This week I am in Manila with many of my fellow NPT ambassadors for a workshop hosted by the Philippines, who will be chairing the Review Conference in New York in May.

With the NPT debate all too frequently sliding into an acrimonious debate between the nuclear haves and have-nots, we could not wish for a better country to chair the RevCon. A leading member of the Non Aligned Movement, but also a country that has a special historic relationship with the United States and Europe.

Filipinos are also one of the 21st Century’s truly global communities, with one of the largest diaspora working and living across the world. From our meetings with them it was clear that President Macapagal-Arroyo and Foreign Minister Romulo took a keen personal interest in our discussions; reminding the assembled diplomats of the need to make progress after a decade of deadlock.

At this stage it would be unrealistic to imagine that nations will fully reveal their positions. We are still in the mode of “staking out the ground”. But civil society were as in Atlanta (see earlier post) pushing hard for a change in nuclear doctrine, in particular an explanation of the circumstances in which nuclear weapons might be used.

Resources:

Posted at 10:30 02 February 2010 by John Duncan  |  Comments[2]

The highs and lows of a week in disarmament

After the New Year lull the Arms Control and Disarmament community got back to work this week, but the results were decidedly mixed.

Monday Ambassadors in Geneva met informally to discuss changes to to allow Pakistan to join consensus on the decision to launch work on the Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty ( a ban on the production of the raw material for nuclear weapons). Some of the ideas looked promising.

Tuesday: Pakistan announces in the formal meeting of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that it cannot even agree to the Agenda;. This is not just a return to the first base of last year, but a step back of nearly a decade.

Wednesday- Friday: I am in Atlanta Georgia to discuss the forthcoming Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference with members of the Middle Powers  Initiative – a group of leading members of Civil Society and countries who could be described as “the Middle Ground” of the debate. The Workshop takes place in the Carter Centre  and the former US President Jimmy Carter joins the meeting on the second day; a rare privilege and he is a real inspiration; reminding the other NPT Heads of Delegation who are present why we have to get the Nuclear Disarmament agenda back on track.

The off-the-record discussion is wide ranging and as we are behind closed doors, pretty frank. The Nuclear Weapon States are left in no doubt about the damage caused by the decade of deadlock in multilateral disarmament. But it is also an opportunity to clear up misunderstandings about what lies behind policy proposals from both sides of the argument. A very useful exchange which gives a clearer idea of what success in May might look like.

Back to London over this weekend then Geneva, and Manila the following weekend; pausing only to celebrate Burns night, lest we forget!

Latest news on the UK view on Nuclear Disarmament can be found on the dedicated FCO Webpage.

Posted at 16:48 23 January 2010 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

2010 MATCHING AMBITION TO PROGRESS IN ARMS CONTROL & DISARMAMENT

A year ago I speculated  in my blog whether 2009 would be a defining moment in multilateral arms control and disarmament - the brink or the cusp.  12 months on the sign on the door would probably read “Work in Progress”. I have written about the challenge ahead in a recent blog in the Reuters Great Debate series

The political vision contained President Obama’s Prague speech and  the  UN Security Council Summit Resolution underlined that many world leaders endorsed the vision of  “A World Without Nuclear Weapons”. The UK’s political leadership set out our own  ambition in Lifting the Nuclear Shadow and The Road to 2010.

The immediate focus for this vision in the multilateral arena is the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference which will take place in New York in May.

A few weeks ago the chairman of this meeting and some of my fellow ambassadors met with civil society to discuss the way forward. Several of us gave interviews which can be found on YouTube and the Foreign Office website.

The BBC’s programme on the Foreign Office and the media coverage of the Copenhagen summit have helped demystify modern diplomacy for the wider public, but also shown just how difficult it is to get nearly 200 countries to agree to something.

For those who want to follow our efforts to make progress on this issue over coming months, the FCO have set up a campaign page drawing together the key documents and feeds from across the net.

May I end by wishing all my readers a peaceful New Year and my thanks for following the blog.

Posted at 05:58 30 December 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

The people who matter

In my last blog I commented that “as diplomats we should not forget; that beyond the intellectual and political arguments, what really matters is whether what we do affects people on the ground”.

This week’s meeting on the Ottawa Landmine treaty in Cartagena, Colombia has been an opportunity for those who have been directly affected by these terrible weapons to speak directly to the diplomatic community. And it has been an inspiring and moving experience.

Those of you following me on Twitter will have seen the links to my meeting with Song Kosal a young woman from Cambodia who lost her leg as a child and has become a leading campaigner in the effort to rid the world of these dreadful weapons. Her mix of quiet courage and soft spoken advocacy is inspiring.

Also on twitter are mini interviews with CIREC and Diving Planet about pioneering work they are doing to use scuba diving to build up landmine victims and other young disabled people’s confidence. I can imagine that the freedom of movement of swimming under water must be a particularly exhilarating experience for someone who on land has to use a wheel chair.

The summit opening ceremony also showed that the wheel chair does not have to be a limiting factor. We have all admired the athletes of the para-olympics, but I had never seen a dance troupe Concuerpos and Aznad, comprising both able bodied and dancers in wheelchairs. And it was extraordinary, both the contemporary and traditional Columbian dances, the passion and enthusiasm of the dancers shining through.

The Landmines and the Cluster Munitions Convention meetings are moments in our professional diplomatic lives where the people who all too often have borne the cost of modern warfare can speak directly to those with the power to bring about change. Their message is an inspiring one of courage and conviction.

Posted at 22:32 01 December 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

Oslo treaty to ban cluster munitions

This week a bill has been introduced in Parliament to implement the UK’s obligations under the the Oslo treaty to ban cluster munitions. David Miliband, who signed the treaty last year on behalf of the UK, has welcomed this good news.

The negotiations of this ground breaking treaty were concluded in a record time of 18 months.  The Oslo Cluster Munitions treaty, as with the Ottawa landmines treaty before it, stands out as a testament to what can be achieved when Government, civil society and parliamentarians work together.  The debate can be noisy, but the result is well worth it.

As Gordon Brown and ministers commented at the end of the negotiations, UK leadership helped secure this significant step in banning a whole system of weapons that had been shown to cause quite unacceptable harm to civilians. Something we as diplomats should not forget; that beyond the intellectual and political arguments, it is whether what we do affects people on the ground that really matters.

CM Victims celebarating the  end of negotiations

But after the negotiation comes the hard slog of ratification before a treaty can come into force. 30 countries must ratify the treaty before the it becomes part of international law. Over 90 countries signed in Oslo almost a year ago.  A total of 103 countries have now signed and 24 have ratified. UK Minsters and officials are lobbying behind the scenes in many countries to ensure as many as possible sign up to the new treaty.

So now we pass the ball over to our parliamentarians, many of whom played a very active role in pressing for this new treaty. The first meeting of the State Parties is expected to take place in November next year. The swift passage of this legislation will mean the UK can attend this as a full State Party, and continue to play a leadership role on arms control.

Posted at 16:14 20 November 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

Parting shots: The valedictory despatch vs the blog

I am sure many of us have enjoyed Mathew Paris’s series on the BBC about ambassadors “Valedictory” despatches.  Mathew’s intelligent and thoughtful commentary was only marred by the BBC choice of actors voices to play past ambassadors. If I was going to do a series on the BBC I don’t think I would choose to have everyone speak like Alvar Lidell! To be fair Mathew did try to get many former ambassadors to read their own despatches.

The programme implied that ending the formal valedictory despatch was an attempt to muzzle critics. It can also be argued that this semi private word to “The chaps back home” was inappropriate in the age of email, the internet (even SMS and Twitter).

Today’s Foreign Office has changed enormously from the one I joined in 1980. And the pace of change has accelerated in recent years. The successors to the ambassadors Mathew is quoting, are frequently a decade younger than would have been the case when those despatches were written.

The demise of the despatch does not mean diplomats have suddenly stopped sending frank messages to the centre. Several former colleagues commented the Valedictory was the moment, as we would put it today, “To speak truth to power” others quite rightly pointed out that this was fundamental to what an ambassador is employed to do.

Moreover as Charles Crawford commented in the programme, today’s ambassadors still have the option of  a Valedictory cable, or eGram as they are known, which arguably is more likely to be read and more quickly than the old despatch.  Equally the advent of blogging is helping to demystify the work of modern ambassadors; so you will not have to wait for an FOI request to find out what they thought. 

So thank you Mathew for giving air time to celebrate the old institution of  the Valedictory Despatch. I am sure today’s ambassadors will also find ways to share their thoughts at the end of their posting/careers just as  the BBC foreign correspondents Justin Webb and Mark Mardell did on perhaps the best edition this year of  From Our Own Correspondent.

Posted at 17:30 14 November 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

Decision time at the United Nations

On Wednesday this week the UK and six other nations will seek agreement at the UN General Assembly to launch formal negotiations of a new Arms Trade Treaty after 3 years of discussion.

It will be a defining moment, but the last few weeks debate on the Resolution that contains the decision have shown that the ATT remains a contentious issue that can stir up  strong emotions. Even after 3 years there are still those who argue that its too soon or the conditions are not right to agree to start negotiating a new treaty.

The human and economic cost of armed conflict is calculated as 2000 people killed each day across the world and  $18 billion a year in Africa alone. Conflicts fuelled by weapons that get into the hands of  criminals, terrorists and insurgents because we have still not established effective regulation of the international arms trade. Not for nothing did the last UN Secretary General describe conventional weapons proliferation as “The real Weapons of Mass Destruction”

Hilary Clinton’s announcement 10 days ago that the US would “actively pursue a strong and robust treaty” was a step change in the American attitude and a very welcome one.

Some have argued that the US terms for coming on board are too high; others are concerned about creating new precedents in UN rules and procedures. One can only hope that when we gather to vote everyone will remember those who are outside the room, whose loved ones have been killed or abused, whose livelihood and hopes for the future rest on what the "men in suits" in New York decide one Wednesday afternoon.

Posted at 11:59 25 October 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[2]

Faith, Foreign Policy and Disarmament (Guest Blog)

This article is written by Francis Campbell, UK Ambassador to the Holy See.

Yesterday in the Foreign Office saw the first consultation meeting with faith groups interested in disarmament.  Sixteen delegates attended representing all the major faith groups.  We split the discussion into two parts: the first on the Arms Trade Treaty and the second on the Non Proliferation Treaty.  We wrapped up the meeting with a contribution from FCO Minister Ivan Lewis.

This was the first time we had undertaken such a consultation with faith groups on the subject of disarmament. Why a consultation with faith groups?  We want to replicate the success of working with faith groups on the Cluster Munitions Treaty which was signed last year. 

At the preparatory conferences, in particular at Wellington, the Holy See played a very active role in getting a practical workable agreement and in bridging divides to allow us to get a binding Treaty banning cluster munitions.  We see a similar role for faith groups in working towards an Arms Trade Treaty.  In engaging faith groups in the discussion we see three aspects.  There is the moral dimension that faith groups bring to the work of the Arms Trade Treaty. 

As history shows, faith groups are often at the forefront of righting wrongs and in providing the impetus for change.  Then there are the global grassroots networks which allow faith groups to communicate easily across cultures, languages and nations.  In Catholic terms alone, the Holy See speaks directly to 17.5% of the world’s population.  Finally, as faith groups engage each other in inter-religious dialogue there is scope to concentrate on ethical dialogue where there is a strong shared moral foundation.  Perhaps one of those ethical issues could be the international efforts to bring transparency to the sale and transfer of conventional weapons and to stamp out the illicit sales of such weapons through a binding international Arms Trade Treaty.

 
Yesterday we were simply testing the water to see if there was interest among faith groups in having such a conversation with the FCO on the Arms Trade Treaty and the Non Proliferation Treaty.  There was – and we agreed to continue with the group as we move forward on the ambitious timetable to achieve an Arms Trade Treaty.  But there was also interest from the group in having a wider discussion with the FCO on other foreign policy considerations.  The Minister agreed to look into that request and revert.

But yesterday was also important for reasons beyond what we had on our agenda. It was also symbolic of a new approach in foreign policy.  I have spoken on faith and foreign policy before and why religion was often ignored in foreign policy considerations for much of the post Second World War period. A 2007 report from the Washington based Centre for Strategic and International Studies catalogued the reasons why religion was often ignored in foreign policy and diplomacy and why it deserved to be taken seriously.  A former US Secretary of State – Madeline Albright – made a similar case in her book ‘The Mighty and the Almighty’. 

Much of the marginalisation of religion from foreign policy considerations was based on an assumption that the world was secularising and religion was of decreasing interest across the world (such an assumption was not confined to diplomacy alone). But there was a significant mistake in such a calculation because the secularisation model really only explained the pattern in Europe and some other parts of the Western world.  It did not capture the United States or the rest of the world where societies were as religious as ever or in some cases more so.  There was no proven universally applicable law of modernisation leading to secularisation. This point is more fully expanded in a speech I gave on ‘God in a Secular World’, but the basic point is that religion is an influence in world affairs and as such needs to be taken seriously.

Today, much has changed vis a vis faith and foreign policy.  We can point to strong working relations with faith groups on climate change, international development, conflict resolution and prevention, inter-religious dialogue, migration, human rights, etc.  If we can replicate the success of working with faith groups on the Jubilee Debt Campaign, Make Poverty History and the Cluster Munitions Treaty, by achieving an Arms Trade Treaty – then we can show again that faith matters in foreign policy and that it is a real asset when trying to solve many of the world’s problems.  Yesterday was a good start.

Posted at 15:08 22 October 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

BLOG ACTION DAY 2009: THE NUCLEAR EQUATION

Climate change, perhaps the biggest issue for the world community. Twenty years ago I experienced this at first hand in Sudan. To see the inexorable spread of the the Sahara southwards engulfing villages and fields that only a few years before had been fertile land was a real personal wake up call.

Today I am very conscious of the environmental aspect of our work in Arms Control & Disarmament. How to ensure that development of civil nuclear power is not diverted into nuclear weapon programmes is at the heart of what we are about. But on the conventional side too the environmental damage caused by landmines and cluster munitions is not only the fact that explosives, including heavy metals leach into the soil, but as agricultural land becomes too dangerous too use, people are often  forced to clear new land, increasing deforestation. 

It will be a major challenge to meet the  demand for energy across the world from renewable energy sources. Nuclear energy will be part of the solution. Gordon Brown set out our vision on this issue in his speech at Lancaster House conference earlier this year.

In my statement today at the UN I referred to David Miliband's comment that “Get it right, and we will increase global security, pave the way for a world without nuclear weapons, and improve access to affordable, safe and dependable energy. Get it wrong, and we face a new and dangerous era of new state nuclear weapon holders and the chilling prospect of nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists.” 

Posted at 10:41 15 October 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

FIRST DAY AT FIRST COMMITTEE

I am not going to bombard my readership with a blow by blow account of of discussions in New York, but the opening day is always interesting to judge the mood music for what follows and today was no exception.

My day started with an EU meeting to discuss  “last minute” changes to our general statement. After 30 hours often difficult discussion in Geneva one would have thought everything had been agreed. But it is one of the minor irritations of multilateral diplomacy that some capitals don’t pay attention until the text is close to or has been finalised and then someone has a "bright idea" and sends new instructions. It is the bane of those who have to reopen the discussion and there were quite a few barbed comments around the table. Fortunately it doesn’t happen too often to UK ambassadors any more. The new ways of working based around the idea of our missions and London colleagues forming a “Virtual Team” in an ongoing dialogue means we usually manage to avoid these last minute surprises.

Today’s plenary debate was mostly taken up by such statements by regional and other groups such as the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) from which it was clear that the EU is not alone in wrestling to produce a common view.  Much staking out of old ground on which the unwritten text was  “The Security Council may have delivered a new vision, but don’t forget my project from the early 90’s (or even earlier)”

Once we moved into national statements the pace started to hot up.  Mexico delivered a passionate, wide ranging and articulate vision of what they saw as the priorities. While we might not agree on all of the points, one cannot but welcome the change of tone their intervention introduced to the debate.

The US address the plenary tomorrow. It will be a keynote in both senses of the word.

Tomorrow also sees the first open discussion on our new resolution to launch negotiations on the Arms Trade Treaty. Still a contentious issue after 3 years discussion it will consume a lot of my teams time and energy over the next 4 weeks.

The other element of particular note was the measured tone of the Iranian “right of response” to some quite firm comments by the EU about the recent revelations about the uranium enrichment site near Qom. After the generally productive outcome from last week’s talks in Geneva, perhaps we are at last moving beyond the “shouting across the table” that has often characterised the wider arms control and disarmament community's discussion of the Iranian nuclear issue.

One can but hope.  As they say “Optimism is to the diplomat what courage is to the soldier”

Posted at 00:05 06 October 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

RECOVERING THE RELEVANCE OF MULTILATERAL ARMS CONTROL

The last two weeks have seen some good progress in the world community’s efforts to break out from the “Decade of Deadlock” in multilateral Arms Control in Disarmament with the US Inspired UN Security Council Summit and this week in Geneva a more positive resumption of the talks between Iran and the E3 +3.

Over the next 4 weeks in New York the UN General Assembly First Committee will meet for it’s annual overview of the Arms Control & Disarmament agenda. Some 50 plus resolutions will be tabled, voted on and submitted to the main UNGA.

Often described as the “litmus test” of world opinion (do people still use litmus paper!) this year's meeting will certainly be a test of whether the Arms Control community can respond to the new energy that Pres. Obama has injected into the debate since his Prague speech last April.

In my last post I contrasted the debate in the UNSC Summit with that of the General Assembly. We may well see the same thing again with those who do not buy-in to the new agenda of a collective endeavour to get the world back on track towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons "The Road to 2010",   or just trot out the tired old mantras; rather like Cato the elder in the Roman Senate exhorting that “Carthage must be destroyed” long after it had been.

For the UK this meeting will be a pivotal one as it will be the moment when the General Assembly decides whether to launch formal negotiation of a new Arms Trade Treaty. After 3 years discussion we and the 6 original co-authors of this initiative (Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan, Kenya) are proposing that a negotiating Conference is established to draft and agree the treaty.

So on both the nuclear and conventional side  the next 4 weeks will be a test of whether the UNGA can step up and respond effectively to the challenges we face in today’s world.

I will be blogging and also posting on Twitter from New York for those who want to follow the debate.

Posted at 07:24 03 October 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

A MOMENTOUS WEEK IN ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT

Gordon Brown described this week’s unanimous endorsement of UNSCR 1877 on Non Proliferation  and Disarmament  as a “Watershed Moment” . Yesterday events took a more ominous turn with the further revelations about Iran’s nuclear programme.

The week did in many ways provided a snapshot for the wider public of the damage done by the “Decade of Deadlock” in Multilateral Arms Control and Disarmament and the challenges we face over the next  8 months on the road to the Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.

It was certainly inspiring to see world leaders speak directly, often without notes to these important issues in The Security Council. The current fifteen members of the Security Council represent a broad span of world opinion. Their individual views on nuclear weapons are quite divergent and yet they were able to agree on an historic resolution setting out the action that needs to take place for us all to move along the path towards a world where the threat of nuclear attack is removed and where nuclear power can be used safely as part of the solution to the challenges of climate change. The sort of Coalition of Consent that David Miliband has talked about.

What a contrast with the UN General Assembly the day before where some speakers simply trotted out the tired old mantras about where the blame lay for the worlds ills and sought to reject the vision of an interconnected and interdependent world and the need for collective endeavour.

Col Gaddafi’s public views do a disservice to the leading role that other Arab countries are playing in this field, for example it was Algeria that led the way to an agreement to unblock the Conference in Disarmament earlier this year.

But more worrying than the misplaced rhetoric, is that at time when the five established Nuclear Weapons States publicly reaffirmed in the UN Security Council Resolution their commitment to progressively dismantle their nuclear armouries, others (not Libya it has to be said) seem determined to disrupt, if not overtly block, progress towards a world free of nuclear weapons and the safe development of civil nuclear power. Nor can it escape anyone’s notice, that the two countries who are at the centre stage in blocking progress, are themselves armed with nuclear weapons, or suspected of seeking to acquire them.

Extreme views, be they in the domestic or international environment, are rarely defeated by posturing from the moral high ground. The mainstream have to speak up, engage and work together as they did this week in the Security Council.

The coming weeks will show whether we are able to do so, as the international community grapples with how to respond to the latest Iranian revelations and as the UN General Assembly’s First Committee (meeting from 5 Oct-4 Nov) considers the broad spectrum of the Arms Control and Disarmament agenda.

Further links on the UK position and to follow the debate are below.

FCO Webpage on the Road to 2010 Nuclear Disarmament  & Non Proliferation

Posted at 11:13 26 September 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[0]

What Does Government 2.0 Mean To You?

In my blog I recently argued that communication was one of the core tasks of a professional diplomat. With the next major summit of Gov20 taking place in Washington in a few weeks, I have also posted in the Reuters “Great Debate” blog series some personal thoughts on how and why diplomacy is responding to the challenge and opportunities of web-based communication. Below is the text of that blog.

I came to this as someone who worked on mainframes in the 1970s, whose first PC was a AMSTRAD PCW with 512 KB memory. With that background and living in Switzerland, just down the road from where the world wide web was invented (CERN) it is perhaps not surprising that I view this technology largely as a range of new tools.

It is true that the improvements over the subsequent 30 years are extraordinary. My daughter’s iPod shuffle has more storage capacity than our home PC of only a decade ago. But, having once jammed an IBM mainframe in a perpetual loop, I am also conscious of the “Rubbish in–Rubbish out” principle. The tools are only as good as the use one makes of them.

The speed of communication and the geographical reach is equally extraordinary; developing the reality of an interconnected and interdependent world and new virtual communities. The arrival of these new means of communication is perhaps even more important and encouraging given the parallel development in the more traditional media, particularly television, of news as entertainment.

If net-based communication is changing the way we all access information and opinion, the impact on diplomacy and government affairs may well be equally profound; perhaps most significantly in terms of transparency and democratic accountability.

Both multilateral and bilateral ambassadors spend much of our time communicating the view of governments, both those of our own and those to whom we are accredited. So it can be said that we are often “marketing” ideas — what does the world we want look like and how to get there. It is noticeable that the diplomatic community reacts just as badly to spin as does the general public.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick commented in his address to the International Institute for Strategic Studies last year in Geneva, that: “ The interconnections of globalisation require our generation to recognise anew the nexus among economics, governance, and security”. So the 21st century diplomatic agenda is also a more complex one.

Traditionally diplomatic interlocutors can be divided into decision makers and opinion formers. Governments are not bureaucratic monoliths. Rarely are more than six people key to a decision. Our task as diplomats is to find those key players and convince them.

Opinion formers act as the multipliers. Having a well argued case is seldom enough by itself. Human beings still retain their tribal instincts, in sport as in politics and foreign affairs. We seem hardwired to view things all too often in terms of “us and them”, and diplomacy is no exception. Diplomats need the opinion formers as the people who give the “third-party endorsement” that reinforces our message; a classic marketing technique to respond to a trust deficit.

The internet allows the creation of a new world-wide “us” of shared interests and values. Social media networks and the blogoshpere provide new tools to speak directly to that wider community of actors that Zoellick refers to; going beyond the confines of traditional state-to-state interface, to test and be challenged on our ideas in a dialogue and sometimes in a partnership with civil society.

The figures speak for themselves. At an average international meeting one is talking to between perhaps 27-200 diplomatic colleagues. A post on the perhaps unfortunately named Twitter may get up to 800 or more, with a blog post several thousand.

And the numbers alone are not really the point. The net, Facebook and Twitter have more than their fair share of the minutiae of celebrity lives and get rich quick promoters, but the “political” virtual communities are self selecting and can filter out this background noise.They comprise a wide range of people from think tanks to journalists, students, to members of the public who care about the issues and are often willing to become involved with other decision makers. They offer direct access to the community that may provide third-party endorsement and at its best the creation of a constituency for change.

There are some who claim that these communities are essentially English speaking, if not Anglo-Saxon. The evidence suggests otherwise. It is clear that a number of those who regularly follow me on Twitter do not have English as a mother tongue. Some of the most successful FCO blogging ambassadors, such as Mark Kent in Vietnam and Alan Charlton in Brazil write in the language of the countries they are accredited to.  The Foreign Office uses close to 40 languages in its net-based communication.

For government officials, engagement with this new virtual community is a challenge. It is unfamiliar and fraught with the risk of making mistakes. But there are also opportunities to multiply the effect of what we are already trying to do.

However one of the important lessons from the last two decades it is that we should be careful to avoid allowing our enthusiasm for new ideas and a new world order to cause us to underestimate the opposition to change.  The international arena has given us some sharp reminders on that score. In the end we still have to persuade the decision makers. The Internet simply offers new and powerful ways to do so. Officials and governments should, and many are, seizing the opportunity

Posted at 16:59 04 September 2009 by John Duncan  |  Comments[1]

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Posted at 19:38 01 September 2009 by e-Media Global  |  Comments[0]