Virtual intelligence
Information Strategy as the Enabler of Virtual Diplomacy
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| Information Strategy as the Enabler of Virtual Diplomacy. There are four elements to a national information strategy, which can empower those who would seek to practice virtual diplomacy and avoid or resolve conflicts: Connectivity. Lest we become too complacent about connectivity as "virtual" strategy, let us paraphrase the earlier observation of the (then) Commandant of the Marine Corps: "Connectivity without content is noise; content without connectivity is irrelevant." The National Information Infrastructure (NII) and Global Information Infrastructure (GII) are brilliant initiatives worthy of a great nation, but they are seriously flawed in that they do not address issues of content and especially of how the policymaker can use the NII and GII to nurture distributed centers of expertise and fully integrate, in real time, the classified intelligence available from selected elements of the government, unclassified government information, and the often more accurate, comprehensive, and lower-cost information available from the private sector. Content. The private sector will not open itself to control or regulation by the intelligence community, nor will it cooperate with any initiative, which seeks to impose government oversight upon private sector expertise and data. It will, however, welcome government subsidization of the marginal cost of providing increased public access to its expertise, in the same fashion that the National Science Foundation (NSF) nurtures selected scientific & technical initiatives. A National Knowledge Foundation (NKF), funded with just $1 billion a year by which to nurture distributed centers of subject-matter expertise which permit increased public access to their knowledge, could yield enormous productivity gains in both the private and public sectors. International agreements to implement a Global Information Management (GIM) burden-sharing agreement could radically reduce the cost of information for Third World and other policymakers, and begin the process of creating an "information commons" which can support virtual diplomacy. Coordination. There is an urgent need for voluntary coordination in the arena of standards, of content acquisition and development, and of resource management. Billions of dollars a year are being wasted in the United States alone, simply for lack of coordination across industrial sectors and organizations. Download 384.47 Kb. Share with your friends:
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