[Issue Briefing] Diplomacy in the Age of Information and Intelligence

Editor's Note

To diagnose the changing international landscape and key issues and to suggest desirable directions for South Korean foreign policy in 2017, EAI convened a roundtable discussion with experts from various fields. This paper was principally authored based on the discussions held during the roundtable.

Humanity is experiencing unprecedentedly rapid scientific and technological advancements. These advancements are not limited to specific domains but are impacting all aspects of life and driving future megatrends. While the changes in the foreign policy and security sectors may not yet be visible, a strategy is needed to respond to the profound changes that will emerge in the future. The development of the internet and information technology, the spread of social media and the emergence of a hyper-connected society, cybersecurity, big data and artificial intelligence, international technological competition and the transnational spread of information, the emergence of new weapons systems, and digital public diplomacy will all be policy challenges of the digital age. Consequently, the South Korean government must also develop a new foreign policy and security strategy to respond to the emergence of a digital hyper-connected society, which should begin with integrated and convergent organizational management.

From the Main Text

“The changes in the foreign policy and security domains brought about by scientific and technological advancements are relatively less visible. Nevertheless, the groundbreaking progress in science and technology, summarized as informatization (the process by which individuals, organizations, and states become complexly interconnected through innovative digital communication media such as the internet and social media) and intelligence (the process by which machines automatically collect, interpret, and execute information), and the subsequent innovations are acting as 'independent variables' causing material and intellectual transformations in foreign policy, security, and global politics.”

“In an increasingly hyper-connected and complexly changing world, we are facing a situation where distinguishing between national and global levels to respond becomes meaningless. Issues such as environmental problems, terrorism, the spread of diseases, and refugees cannot be effectively addressed by distinguishing between domestic and international contexts. One of the significant reasons these problems have not been properly resolved is that we have attempted to respond to these externally uncontrollable issues through the bureaucratic mechanisms of international organizations, another layer of global governance. In a digital hyper-connected society, the possibilities and risks brought about by connectivity are amplified simultaneously and to a far greater extent than in the previous information age, both in cyberspace and the real world; therefore, governments must create more flexible forms of governance.”

“The transnational flow of information through big data environments and cloud computing will continue to increase, and the digital hyper-connected society will undoubtedly build an open global civil society by connecting individuals, groups, and communities beyond governments and institutions. Therefore, governments must implement more detailed and flexible cooperative governance based on the hyper-connectivity of various actors. Foreign policy governance, as faced by governments, cannot resist this trend.”

“As people communicate, understand, and form opinions through cyberspace, in the future, 'virtual diplomats' will emerge who collect and analyze relevant information circulating globally to produce diplomatic knowledge or policies. These virtual diplomats may be human, or they could be robots or artificial intelligence.”

“Beyond creating new dedicated departments or increasing personnel, digitizing foreign policy operations is more crucial and is the core of digital diplomacy...... Even if channels for direct communication (social networks) are established, they will not be activated if high-quality information or diplomatic content is lacking. To enrich content, integrated and convergent organizational management is necessary, moving beyond inter-agency silos and risk-averse practices. Information must be broadly collected across all foreign policy-related departments, professionally analyzed, and then supplemented with diplomatic knowledge and policy ideas. Only then can we secure a place in the platform competition within the international community.”

Principal Author

Lee, Suk-Jong_ Director of EAI, Professor at Sungkyunkwan University. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University and has served as a Research Fellow at the Sejong Institute, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. Her recent publications include Transforming Global Governance with Middle Power Diplomacy: South Korea’s Role in the 21st Century (ed.), Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia (co-ed.), and Global Development Cooperation Governance and Korea (ed.).

EAI Issue Briefings provide diagnosis and analysis of major domestic and international issues to foster correct understanding, and offer recommendations for desirable policy development. EAI strives to provide balanced perspectives and create a platform for constructive policy discussions to generate ideas necessary for our society.