The Foreign Service Journal, March 2010

M A R C H 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43 ncredibly heartening is the news that at the close of this decade, the State Department’s top leader- ship is once again taking a serious look at the role of information technology in the mission of diplomacy. But the challenges will be very different than 10 years ago, when making the department a “wired” organization involved the deployment of digital in- frastructure — mostly computer and networking hardware. The new thrust of digitized diplomacy will primarily involve software, which will likely stand at odds with State’s current processes and culture. New applications and structures are now changing the face of IT. Cloud and mobile computing, browser-based applica- tions, weblogs and social media will change the way almost all information workers (including diplomats) do their jobs, and may challenge the method by which the entire department functions. State is now connected, but must take stock and determine the best avenues for building on the digital foundation con- structed nearly a decade ago. The most significant change in diplomacy since the advent of the telegram is at hand. Opening the Net Wiring State was a project given highest priority by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who doggedly pursued the goal of getting Internet computers on the desktop of each em- ployee and deploying OpenNet Plus, not only inside the Harry S Truman Building but also in the hundreds of missions around the globe. Admirably, the project was completed in roughly 18 months and deepened linkages between Main State and overseas posts, as well as digitally connecting the de- partment to the world. Fernando Burbano, State’s first chief information officer, prepared the foundation for what the late USIA-hand Wilson Dizard Jr. had begun to illuminate in his Meganet (Westview Press, 1998) and fleshed out in Digital Diplomacy—U.S. For- eign Policy in the Information Age (Praeger, 2001). As Dizard opined, “Digital diplomacy issues and techniques have had to be shoehorned into a policymaking system run by officials who were initially uninterested in and often suspicious of the sub- ject.” Nonetheless, Sec. Powell recognized that foreign affairs would have to go digital, and ordered that the infrastructure for making that transition be constructed at breakneck speed. Thanks to this executive interest, Burbano got the Internet onto the department’s desktops, and did it quickly. State is now in a position to build novel applications to sup- port the mission of diplomacy. It does so in interesting times. After a few years of post–Internet bubble reflection, the pace of change and development in the IT sector is once again surg- ing. While some technologies will fall into what IT consul- tancy Gartner, Inc., labels “the trough of disillusionment,” many will thrive, becoming de facto standards for organiza- tional communications and productivity. The department will need to make wise bets on what standards it can accept and which ones it should ignore. In doing so, its leadership must stay focused on the infor- mation piece of IT, adopting technologies that more effectively accommodate the complexity of international affairs andman- D IPLOMACY R EBOOTED : M AKING D IGITAL S TATECRAFT A R EALITY T HE S TATE D EPARTMENT IS NOW IN A POSITION TO BUILD NOVEL APPLICATIONS TO SUPPORT THE MISSION OF DIPLOMACY . B Y C HRIS B RONK A Foreign Service officer from 2002 to 2006, Chris Bronk is a fellow at Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Pub- lic Policy. He also teaches in Rice’s computer science depart- ment. He served in the State Department Office of eDiplo- macy, where he participated in the development of Diplopedia. I