Kryachkov 2!indd

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Английский язык для магистратуры
D
iplomacy in the Mirror of Globalization
Instead of chasing nationalist chimeras, why not go “globalization” one better? Many activists 
in the wrongly named “antiglobalization” movement still talk locally, even as they’re acting and 
thinking globally. This might be a good time to junk local self-reliance as an ideal and embrace 
a deeply global perspective. 
READING 2
Read the text in detail to find out how the modern age is influencing the world of 
diplomacy. 
WHAT IF THERE IS A REVOLUTION IN DIPLOMATIC AFFAIRS?
(Based on The Emergency of Noopolitik by David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla) 
The next big revolution of the information age should occur in the realm of diplomacy. The 
United States has been undergoing a revolution in business affairs since the 1960s, and has also 
undertaken a revolution in military affairs since the late 1980s. Now the time is ripe for a counter-
part revolution in diplomatic affairs (RDA). 
There are good reasons why the business and military worlds are in the throes of information-
driven revolutions and the diplomatic world is not. A key reason is that those worlds are driven 
by internal and external competition, in the first case between corporations, in the second be-
tween military services. In addition, the business and military worlds are eager for technological 
enhancements that extend their global reach, even if that means radically altering their traditional 
ways of organizing and strategizing. 
None of this has been the case in the diplomatic world. The U.S. State Department, for example, 
has not been subjected to much organizational competition. It has shown little interest in technol-
ogy, and lags in adopting it. Moreover, it has not suffered a defeat like Vietnam that would prompt 
a search for radical innovation. In short, it has had few impulses to cease being an elite preserve 
for classic diplomacy. 
Diplomacy is in trouble almost everywhere, and its main institutions need reconstruction from 
the ground up. It is currently facing a crisis of relevance and effectiveness. A rising tide of violence, 
inequality, and unaddressed threats provides powerful testament not only to the socialization of 
globalization’s costs and the privatization of its benefits, but to the abject failure of diplomacy to 
engage remedially. 
However, the diplomatic world is now beginning to feel the heat of competition, especially 
from agile non-state actors that are being strengthened by the information revolution. These 
range from those with which foreign services want to cooperate, such as transnational nongov-
ernmental organizations involved in disaster relief and humanitarian efforts, to those that spell 
conflict, such as transnational terrorist and criminal organizations. Another significant change for 
the diplomatic world is that technologists are on the verge of producing new tools that are as rel-
evant for the diplomatic world as they have been for the business and military worlds. 
While the heat of competition and the allure of new technology have so far motivated only 
a few diplomats to want an RDA, most are at least aware that the information revolution is roiling 
their world. Like leaders in the business and military worlds, diplomats remark increasingly, even 
plaintively, that advanced communications and other aspects of the information revolution are 
altering the nature of diplomatic time and space — they are quickening the pace of diplomacy 
and forcing open its once largely closed processes. 
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