That said, the security of the nation and its people has more profound provenance, and is not dependent upon the application of armed force. There are no military solutions to the problems of poverty, resource scarcity, environmental collapse, pandemic disease or climate change, any of which can give rise to anxiety, resentment and alienation. Broadly based, equitable and sustainable development is the only answer.

With the end of state-centricity and the profusion of non-state actors in international relations, it is the well-being of the human person which matters most. The absence of want, absence of fear and creation of an environment in which individuals can meet their basic needs without hindrance has become central. Governments can demonstrate their dedication to these values through the embrace of science diplomacy and the implementation of enlightened policies, effectively communicated through both conventional and new media.

If the drivers of insecurity and underdevelopment – be they internal or external – are left unaddressed, nation building becomes difficult, if not impossible. It is therefore incumbent upon governments to provide the basic programs and services which engender a sense of inclusion, participation and belonging amongst the populace. Digital and social media (DSM) can play a key role in disseminating information and providing access.

That said, cyberspace has sharp edges, and is prone to manipulation, distortion and hacking. DSM have facilitated the establishment of virtual communities (e.g. jihadis and other groups of political and religious extremists) and the emergence of the dark web. Sophisticated techniques of media monitoring, often using specially designed algorithms, are needed to detect and respond to damaging on-line trends at an early stage. Diplomats and other officials must be empowered to react quickly, with rapid response mechanisms maintained at a high state of readiness.

Statecraft and branding, two well-established techniques for advancing a country’s place in the world, are also highly dependent upon the adept use of the media. Statecraft harnesses the art and science of diplomacy and defense to achieve goals in foreign policy and international relations. As an element of statecraft, and not unlike PD, to which it is closely related, branding involves deliberate efforts at image projection and reputation management, particularly intended to engineer a positive predisposition in target audiences through the implementation of a comprehensive, coherent international communications framework. To succeed in the disruptive circumstances which currently prevail, both branding and statecraft are best integrated into the crafting of a longer term grand strategy – a master plan, backed by concrete analysis, for attaining identified global objectives.

Power brands, like success in statecraft, cannot be bought. They must be earned. Diplomacy of the deed carries much more weight than any expenditure on marketing, advertising or public relations. Paid media will never equal the demonstration effect of documented action, which speaks a thousand times louder even the most carefully chosen words. Commitments without commensurate actions are brand killers which invite entrapment in the perilous say-do gap and undermine credibility and legitimacy.

The source of soft power is performance, not platitudes.

How, then, has the media contributed to these trends?

The contemporary media landscape is characterized by chaos in the infosphere. In both the conventional and new media, hard news and careful analysis have given way to infotainment and sensationalism – if it bleeds, it leads. Majority of the new media consists of social networking websites that have percolated deep in everyone’s life; businesses take advantage of this, and hire companies like Marketing Heaven to usher in more traffic to their brands. As the late American media theorist Neil Postman famously remarked,  “we are amusing ourselves to death.” Fake news, alternative facts, belief, emotion and conviction have triumphed over evidence, data, and rational analysis. Witness the rise of the commentariat, the explosion of satellite TV and internet sites, and the dominance of national or ideological POV (point of view) coverage. Think Russia Today (RT), Fox News, and a host of others. Smart phones have turned everyone with a handset into an instant reporter, producing free feed which has sent the business model for professional journalism, with its commitment to fact checking, objectivity and balance, into a tailspin. Media ownership has become more concentrated, even as the choice sources has become more fragmented and  profuse. This combination has served mainly to produce a galaxy of echo chambers for the like-minded.

What was once just a matter of selling audiences to advertisers has morphed into the bundling and packaging of subscriber information for public and private sector clients. Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, Verizon and other big telecoms all colluded with intelligence agencies, while the likes of Cambridge Analyticia and AggregateIQ pioneered new forms of political data mining and assessment.

Just as Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and “Cablegate” provided a Napster moment for governments – secrets are now near impossible to keep – Ed Snowden’s revelations underlined the end of communications confidentiality and privacy for the public.

Enter the surveillance state, and welcome to the post-truth age.

Diplomats must now confront a staggeringly vast media universe.  Digital literacy and technological savvy have become essential. On the input side, on-line resources can function to provide information, insight, and intelligence. On the output side, social and digital media represent a vital tool in the exercise of persuasion and influence, allowing a supple form of triangulation between envoys, populations and the receiving state.  This is public diplomacy (PD), and it relies upon connecting directly with foreign populations and forging partnerships with civil society in order to convince, rather than coerce host governments to act in accordance with the wishes of the sending state. The internet has emerged as a new political centre and is the flagship of globalization; ever-increasing levels and proliferating platforms of connectivity have effectively de-territorialized national and ideological space. Yet too many foreign ministries remain stuck in the last century, still wed to press releases and photo-ops.

None of that can substitute for wide-ranging and strategic digital engagement,. Although many diplomats now use the new media, those activities are rarely in an integrated, coherent and strategic context, and the results have proven very difficult to measure.

Within western governments – and not least in Canada – there is scant sign that this message has resonated, or even registered faintly. Mired in hypocrisy and beset by contradictions, most administrations are thrashing about in a thorny thicket of chronic underperformance and face a crisis of credibility, if not legitimacy.

What, then, to do if we are to avert plunging over a civilizational tipping point beyond which there may be no return? there are at minimum three pre-requisites:

Get to global governance. The Breton Woods institutions represent a bygone era and are foundering. Think disastrous military interventions in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq, disarray in NATO, the serial failure of neoliberal economic prescriptions, paralysis at the UN and the implosion of the ill-starred G-7 Summit in Charleviox. There has been some institutional renewal  (the G-20, Asian Infrastructure and Development Bank, Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and progress  (the African Union and ASEAN), but none of it is nearly enough. Heteropolarity, globalization  and shifting power won’t wait.

Up the diplomatic game. As a non-violent approach to the management of international relations characterized by dialogue, negotiation, compromise, representation and problem solving, diplomacy is part art, part science and part alchemy. At a time when the world’s most serious challenges – climate change, pandemic disease, environmental collapse, to name a few – are immune to the application of armed force, diplomacy is needed more than ever. You can’t send out an expeditionary force to occupy the alternatives to a carbon economy, or garrison against Ebola, or call in an airstrike on a warming planet.  But in North America, and in much of South America, Europe, and Africa, foreign ministries are under-resourced (if not gutted) and in crisis. Diplomacy’s business model and organizational structures are in desperate need of radical reform, rigorous innovation and substantial reinvestment.

Jettison outdated  thinking. The globalization age is volatile, complex and uncertain. Ambiguity and paradox reign. Yet the mind-set of most Western leaders features three hallmarks carried over from the previous historical epoch. These include:

• Subscription to a binary world view: everything is perceived as black/white; good/bad; win/lose. From rigid alignment during the Cold War with the “Free World” or the “Commies” to today’s equivalent of “you’re with us or with the terrorists”, there remains no place for subtle shades of grey.
• Characterization of the overarching threat as universal and undifferentiated: the enemy is everywhere and it’s all the same. The Soviet Union, China, Viet Nam, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and others once constituted the ubiquitous “Red Menace”. Now it is ISIL, Al Qaeda, their affiliates, plus the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah and many more who together are treated as an ever-present source of dread and are reputed to endanger everyone, all of the time.
• Militarization of the international policy response: reach first for the gun, maintain a permanent war footing, and rely on the politics of fear to engineer domestic support. Few will forget the fearful symmetry of containment, deterrence, proxy war and Mutually Assured Destruction; fast forward to the present and find the endless War on Terror – drone assassinations, counterinsurgency, and the proliferation of bases, “stabilization operations” and special forces.

Plus ca change.

Combine the persistence of a simplistic world view with a blunt, but far reaching assessment of the threat, and you have an international policy prescription for permanent defense dominance at the expense of diplomacy and development.

They are diminished as the Leviathan grows.

And there’s the rub.

As a result of continuing globalization (the defining historical process of our times) and heteropolarity (the emerging world order model), power is shifting and the operating environment for diplomacy and foreign policy is undergoing  profound transformation.

Emotion, conviction and ideology, thriving in the echo chamber of the social and digital media, and are now privileged over facts, evidence and rational assessment.

Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing and Robotics constitute new frontiers, but the lasting implications are largely unexplored.

We have entered terra incognita, and the risks are multiplying.

Strange days

Under pressure from a staggering array of vexing, S&T-driven, transnational issues – the new threat set – state-centricity in international relations is waning fast. The lack of an effective institutional response has revealed a global governance gap of striking magnitude.

Donald Trump, abetted by a clutch of retreaded generals and assorted other barbarians inside the gates at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, has accelerated the decline of America’s global prestige and influence. This has created a vacuum; rising Asia, and in particular China and India, has emerged as the primary beneficiary.

Brexit, internal divisions, and the rise of xenophobic, right-wing populism in many parts of Europe have preoccupied the EU. Just when the world most needs the moderating influence of a strong and united Europe, both the organization and its members are looking inwards at precisely the time that they should be looking out.

Shaky institutions, toxic politics, and a wavering commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law have prevented  a number of potentially significant powers from achieving anything close to their promise. Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Egypt, Nigeria, and a host of other countries remain on the sidelines as the status quo crumbles.

All of this has been complicated by the persistent machinations of a cunning, calculating, and increasingly bold Russia intent upon reasserting itself as a great power. The bear is wide awake, and hungry.

Add to that the spectacle of a demented eagle unable to fly, a dragon foraging far and wide, tigers on the prowl … The erstwhile global village is looking more like a zoo – if not the intergalactic bar in Star Wars.

Bottom line?  Analysts and decision-makers today face the daunting challenge of navigating in uncharted spaces, of identifying and managing multiple vulnerabilities, and of responding to the strategic imperative of converting adversity into opportunity.

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