21st Century Statecraft

[CG6468]

21st Century Statecraft:
The complementing of traditional foreign policy tools with newly innovated and adapted instruments of statecraft that fully leverage the networks, technologies, and demographics of our interconnected world.

"We're working to leverage the power and potential in what I call 21st century statecraft. Part of our approach is to embrace new tools, like using cell phones for mobile banking or to monitor elections. But we're also reaching to the people behind these tools, the innovators and entrepreneurs themselves."
–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, October 15, 2010

Technology and innovation have changed the conditions for statecraft in the 21st century. Just as the Internet has changed economics, culture, and politics, it is also significantly impacting the practice of foreign policy. It is not simply the fact that more people are using ever more sophisticated technologies; the structural changes that have accompanied these quantum leaps in connection technologies are highly disruptive.

Consider three fundamental networks of international relations – trade, communications, and mass media. The infrastructure that conveys goods around the globe has shifted over the centuries from ships to rail to highways. Our communications networks have gone from post to telegraph to telephone. And our mass media have moved from print to radio to television. Today, all three of these systems operate largely on the Internet. It is a triple paradigm shift converging on a common infrastructure.

Add to this convergence two other major disruptive forces. First are demographics. In the developing world, a growing percentage of the population is under the age of 30. Alongside this “youth bulge”, women and girls are breaking through glass ceilings and pushing back against traditional gender roles. And migration flows have altered the complexion of nearly every society’s culture and economy. Second is pervasive connectivity. In early 2009, there were 4 billion mobile handsets on the planet. Today, there are over 5 billion. This explosive growth rate is led by the developing world where access to information and communications technology are disrupting economies and societies. Recent events in North Africa have put a spotlight on these evolving phenomena.

The United States is responding to these shifts in international relations by extending the reach of our diplomacy beyond government-to-government communications. We are adapting our statecraft by reshaping our development and diplomatic agendas to meet old challenges in new ways and by deploying one of America’s great assets – innovation. This is 21st Century Statecraft – complementing traditional foreign policy tools with newly innovated and adapted instruments of statecraft that fully leverage the networks, technologies, and demographics of our interconnected world.

The hildabeast continues her attempts to destroy the USA.

Some things never change.

State Department officially attempting a change to Statism

[DumbAss Tanker]

21st Century Statecraft:
The complementing of traditional foreign policy tools with newly innovated and adapted instruments of statecraft that fully leverage the networks, technologies, and demographics of our interconnected world.

Sounds like 20th Century Statecraft, now with drone strikes and spy satellites for extra goodness.

    

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

It's the same as it ever was. You should read about the decades-long drift to war (as opposed to the actual war itself) that was the 2nd Pelopennesian War. Cross-out the personal names and geographic locations and its indistinguishable from the modern world. Post WW2 debates are the same as post OIF debates.

OK, so we can transmit more data today than they could with a trireme or a crystal radio set but humans always fill all vacuums and opportunities to the fullest of their capabilities. It's also pretty amazing how much people WEREN'T propagandized in those days despite the absence of industrialized media and the innewebz. Sure they had their liars and manipulators but just as today they had their competitors and alternates.

Stop dreading the future when everything you fear has been confronted thousands of times throughout history. Study what worked and what didn't work and then work towards what has been proven.

We are not new, unique or special. Our lives and the struggles we are observing are very, very, VERY mundane. We are not God's chosen. We have no historical mandate. What we see is so absolutely ordinary it should be almost tedious.

[Erasmus]

Stop dreading the future when everything you fear has been confronted thousands of times throughout history. Study what worked and what didn't work and then work towards what has been proven.

We are not new, unique or special. Our lives and the struggles we are observing are very, very, VERY mundane. We are not God's chosen. We have no historical mandate. What we see is so absolutely ordinary it should be almost tedious.

Systemic immorality and corruption has been the downfall of most every empire in history that crumbled from within.  Those are the foundations of graft, overtaxation, governmental laziness, waste, etc.