The Foreign Service Journal, April 2008

ing alliances throughout the region. But as Arash Sigarchi, an Iranian blog- ger who has been jailed for defying government censorship laws, empha- sizes, they are also increasingly under attack from authoritarian governments as well as fundamentalists. Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a blogger on Syria and Lebanon, points out that these re- gimes have been able to use the media and blogs as tools for disinformation. “What the blogosphere has become on a certain level is basically an infor- mation warfare theater,” Badran says. That was an agenda item at the Feb. 19-21 Worldwide Security Con- ference in Brussels, hosted by the EastWest Institute ( www.ewi.info /) and co-sponsored by the World Cus- toms Organization and the Japanese Foreign Ministry in its capacity as the current chair of the Group of Eight. “We will lose the battle for cyber- space with terrorist and violent ex- tremists if owners of large TV, film and Internet companies do not step up soon,” says Greg Austin, director of EWI’s Global Security Program. “Mass media coverage of people who speak out against violent extrem- ism has been significantly less visible than coverage that deliberately or unwittingly promotes it,” states J. Rami Mroz, author of an EWI policy paper on the use and abuse of cyber- space, “Countering Violent Extrem- ism: Videopower and Cyberspace” ( www.ewi.info/pdf/Videopower. pdf ). “Cyberspace and associated video formats are ultimately a neutral vehi- cle for the rapid transfer of ideas, beliefs and agendas. Forces of mod- eration, integration and education can also use these same media to promote peace, security and prosperity — and thereby to counter the extremists pro- moting violence,” notes Mroz. His paper offers a series of recom- mendations on how government and civil society can work together to do so, including the need to distinguish sharply between strategies used to suppress Web-based aspects of actual terrorist operations and those used to counter generalized extremist propa- ganda. The EWI, which calls itself a “think-and-do tank,” is promoting an International Action Platform to counter violent extremism online. Kosovo: A Risky Gambit Kosovo’s Feb. 17 declaration of independence has once again opened the Pandora’s box of ethnic rivalry and animosity in the Balkans. As inevit- able as it appears to have been (see our coverage in the November 2007 edi- tion of Cybernotes), the move is a gam- ble: it could be, as backers such as the U.S. and European Union insist, the last step needed to finally resolve the dissolution of Yugoslavia and settle the region for investment and growth. Or, some fear, it may spur new rounds of ethnic nationalism that fur- ther fragment the tiny new state and rip into neighboring Bosnia and Mace- donia, and perhaps beyond, as well. Serbia has made clear that it will never recognize the independence of Kosovo, which Serbs have historically viewed as their cultural and religious heartland. Although Belgrade has ruled out any new armed intervention, the 120,000-strong Serbian population there rejects independence and may yet insist on joining Serbia. And, in the worst-case scenario, the move could ignite Albanian nationalism and stir ethnic conflict across the region. On Feb. 27, incoming Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that Kosovo’s independence could set Europe “ablaze.” Moscow con- demned the move and its recognition by the U.S. and major European pow- ers, saying it violates international law and threatens to destroy the existing system governing international rela- A P R I L 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 11 C Y B E R N O T E S Site of the Month: www.uscenterforcitizendiplomacy.org Headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy promotes opportunities for all Americans to be “citizen diplomats” and affirms the indispensable value of citizen involvement in international relations. The center, the only organization of its kind in the nation, was launched in 2006 by a coalition of 120 organizations, many involved in international exchange programs. Ambassador John K. Menzies, a retired FSO who is now dean of the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations at Seton Hall University, is the center’s honorary board chairman. At a time when we need to dramatically increase our capacity to reach out to the rest of the world to foster common interests and values, the organization’s Web site declares, the United States spends just one-tenth of 1 percent of its budget on foreign affairs, and only 1 percent of that on the single most impor- tant facet of U.S. foreign policy — citizen diplomacy. The center is dedicated to reversing this “pattern of neglect.” It does this by acting as a clearinghouse for the thousands of programs that offer opportunities for citizen diplomacy and helping citizens of any age locate the program or activ- ity best suited to them. The center’s user-friendly Web site also offers informa- tion on education and training programs, seminars and workshops related to diplomacy, as well as such useful advice as “Ten Things You Can Do To Support Diplomacy.”