On August 25th, 2021, the Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Multilateral Affairs (CfMA) was invited as one of the experts to the 2021 social media conference organized by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) Uganda and South Sudan. The conference was held under the theme “Digital democracy in a Post Pandemic Era”. The event is an annual flagship of KAS that aims at bringing together key stakeholders from government, civil society, academia, and the media for a constructive exchange on the impact of social media on state and society to highlight both, opportunities, and challenges. The conference provides a unique platform for theorizing, dialoguing, and engaging on how the growing relevance of social media shapes our social and political interactions and changes the way we access and process information.
The first plenary topic of discussion was: Digital diplomacy: The rise of algorithms and implications for big tech in African institutions, government, and individuals. Key arguments advanced were that whereas diplomacy has been facilitated by use of innovative Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) – internet and social media, traditional diplomacy still retains its relevance. The principles underlying traditional diplomacy remain effective in the digital era. However, diplomats need to carefully understand the complex nature of the internet space as many advanced nation states develops offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, but smaller states can also buy commercially available cyber tools that may threaten security of others. These were argued, has potential to catalyze conflicts – hence the need for diplomats to skillfully navigate the terrain of the changing technology context while maintaining their diplomatic tact and ensuring mutual interests and cooperation.
On the other hand, the power of big techs was argued to be legally unrestrained hence in some way, hampering freedom of speech through their actions such as deplatforming and or brutal ‘content moderation’. Nation states were urged to follow internationally recognized data protection approaches such as instituting a data protection authority that is not part of state agency but autonomous independent bodies. This insulates such bodies from external influence of the executives and agents of security amidst concerns of data protection, privacy, and human rights violation.
Defining what diplomacy means, our Chief Executive Officer argued that states seek security and power as they construct relationships to defend their national interests. Because of fear of dominion, vulnerability, desire for power and trade motivations, states are driven to diplomacy. Diplomats are required to represent their country’s interests, determine areas of common interests, and learn interests of their host governments as well as promote political social and cultural ties in their host countries. Traditional diplomacy relied largely on person to person communication.
Digital diplomacy in view represents the methods in which diplomatic goals are achieved with information and communication technologies (ICTs) including social media such as Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. Because social media are powerful tools for political mobilization to communicate to national and foreign publics, diplomats, heads of governments and government bureaucrats use social media to achieve their political interests but also communicate to foreign publics.
Digital tools enhance the work of diplomats by making communication easier, disrupting the traditional barriers of physical meetings; the so-called diplomatic handshakes to more advanced ways of diplomatic communication supported by innovative use of ICTs including social media such as twitter – one of the dominant social media platforms used today by diplomats and world leaders.
The future of diplomacy is likely to be challenging; notwithstanding the numerous benefits that advancements in technologies have offered. This is because, insecurities in the cyberspace are likely to catalyze conflicts for which diplomats must be ready to negotiate and address. Currently the global cyberspace operates without any common normative consensus on how states behave in the cyberspace. Neither is there any legally binding international agreement on state behavior in the cyberspace. The actions and in-actions of states in the cyberspace has generated conflicts between nation states and this trend is likely to increase. The current United Nations (UN) discussions on how ICTs apply in the context of international security and how international law apply in the cyberspace are just a few examples of the current points of contention that the UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) and the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) are grappling with as they engage member states and other regional bodies and institutions.
The attacks by both states and non-state actors alike that threaten securities of other states including cyber espionage have made many states especially advanced economies to develop cyber offensive and defensive capabilities to protect and defend themselves. Moreover, states are currently part of the major drivers of cyber attacks against each other. For example, the WannaCry computer malware that devastated the NHS – one of the UK’s foremost health care service provider was finally traced and attributed by the US, Netherlands, UK, and Israel to North Korea and so was Stuxnet attack at the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz attributed to US and Israel.
The cyber capabilities that nation states have built have the potential to degrade both integrated air defense systems as well as ground based air defense systems which can have significant negative implications on the public core of internet infrastructures and the population. For instance, ten Israeli Airforce on 5th September 2007 took off from Ramat David Air base on what was thought to be a routine exercise, they were given the coordinates of al-Kibar; an alleged facility that was developing nuclear plants with assistance of North Korea. And 18 minutes later the facility was struck and destroyed. The Israeli Airforce were able to penetrate the Syrian air defense system undetected in an operation code named ‘the operation orchard’. The cyber-attack to the Syrian air defense system was central to the success of the mission.
As time and advances in technology continue, the cyber defense and offensive systems of many nation states especially developed nations gets more sophisticated. Diplomats are likely to encounter many challenges as developments in the field of information and communications technology keeps evolving. The principles underlying diplomacy including diplomatic etiquette is essential in pursuit of diplomatic goals. Normative frameworks that are binding and consensus on use and application of ICTs in the cyberspace is essential to maintenance of international peace and security.
