Last Sunday WikiLeaks, a non-profit organization that seeks to enable anonymous sources to leak confidential information to the world, began to release over 250,000 confidential American diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks and its supporters claim that they are doing the world a service by releasing these documents. However, the reality is that this is a reckless, shotgun approach to whistle-blowing, with no clear aim apart from disrupting US and international diplomacy. It is irresponsible at best. The release has the potential to unravel years of hard work and complex negotiations, has put lives at risk, and is likely to cast a shadow over future diplomacy that will end up making international relations more insular, not more open and transparent.
Julian Assange, the organization’s charismatic leader, has a long history of distrust of government. His goal, as he describes it in his 2006 manifesto “Conspiracy as Governance,” is to “[prevent] or [reduce] important communication between authoritarian conspirators, foment strong resistance to authoritarian planning, and create powerful incentives for more humane forms of governance.” In his mind, the US government which he describes as an “authoritarian conspiracy,” is “a system of interacting organs, a beast with arteries and veins whose blood may be thickened and slowed until it falls.”
Thus WikiLeaks’ release shouldn’t be seen as an act of journalism (as Assange has tried to frame it), but an act of calculated sabotage against the American government and the international system to which it belongs. These leaks aren’t designed to unveil any specific wrongs, but instead to “reduce total conspiratorial power via unstructured attacks on links.”
Unfortunately for Assange, these releases don’t seem to be having their desired effect. By shining light on these private American diplomatic wires, WikiLeaks has revealed that American policies were overwhelmingly responsible and nuanced — perhaps more so than many believed — and the absence of a smoking gun to justify this scattershot attack on American diplomacy is telling.
The American government has spent years (many during the Bush administration) pushing back against Arab states’ pleas to attack Iran, and has remained quiet while the leaders of said countries publicly denounced American policy, took credit for American military operations, and funded terrorists. It has been balancing knowledge of clearly irresponsible and hostile Chinese policies — such as their hacking of foreign government computers and refusal to denounce North Korean aggression — with the need to maintain a healthy relationship with China’s growing power. The wires demonstrate frustration over Russia’s lack of true democracy, its rampant corruption, and its sale of weapons to countries supplying terrorist organizations, but an understanding that open confrontation would do more harm than good. The “New Start” arms control treaty, which was negotiated earlier this year and is now being met with Republican consternation in the US House of Representatives, is an example of the good that comes from this kind of moderation in foreign policy.
It’s assuring to know that despite American political discourse becoming more and more ridiculous, there is still good, well-informed, evidence-based work being done behind the scenes. Unfortunately, a lot of this good work is being damaged by this reckless leak. Diplomacy is a constant balancing act in which trust is a key component and the secrecy of internal communication is vital. A world in which all negotiations could take place in public and stated policies could match what takes place behind the scenes is an understandable ideal, but an untenable one in today’s world. This leak is going to strain vital American relationships in the world’s most unstable regions, where governments often seek to distance themselves from the Americans publicly while working with them privately. Disengagement isn’t in anybody’s interest, and WikiLeaks would do well to learn that complicated problems almost never have simple solutions.
Furthermore, there is no defence for releasing the names and locations of the brave confidential informants whose work has no doubt saved American and Afghan lives. It’s easy for those who aren’t putting their lives on the line to claim that the risk has been exaggerated — and maybe they’re right — but it’s hard to imagine that the risk of being outed without warning isn’t on the mind of current and prospective informants.
This release isn’t going to make the world a better place, and that shouldn’t be surprising to anyone — Assange’s goal isn’t to expose any particular wrong-doing, but to destroy the very institutions that make the United States a great, if at times flawed, nation. Those who believe in liberal democracy and think that the way to improve the world is to work within the system and expose specific wrongdoing when appropriate — rather than attempting to upend the table — should be calling this what it is: an act of sedition, not journalism or civil disobedience.
