The latest tranche of the WikiLeaks disclosures — some quarter million documents extracted from cables sent by US embassies worldwide to headquarters — appears to be causing something of an international sensation. Fundamentally, however, the exposures made by the whistleblower site do not advance anyone’s understanding of processes that go into US policy-making in the world arena. A good deal of the WikiLeaks material splashed around by the media refers to matters that have been a subject of widespread comment or expert analysis over time — for instance the unease in Gulf states over the presumed Iranian endeavour to manufacture a nuclear weapon, or the confidential communication suggesting active assistance by North Korea in assisting Iran with missiles (that might carry a nuclear payload). In the same category is the information that private charities in some Gulf states are the biggest resource-providers for Al-Qaeda-style international jihad. Indeed, the quality of such documents seems not dissimilar to the strain of the 90,000 secret dispatches released by WikiLeaks a few months ago detailing the duplicitous conduct of the Pakistan military in encouraging extremists to attack Nato forces in Afghanistan while absorbing millions of dollars of American aid to fight the jihad-makers. This first round of disclosures — also attended by drama — had one merit, however. They confirmed what New Delhi had been saying for years with apparently no one listening. The new release too confirms what has been known or suspected.
The present edition of the whistleblowers’ output also helps us to grasp limits to US power even in countries that depend heavily on Washington’s largesse. For example, the US has failed in its secret effort to persuade Islamabad to remove enriched uranium from a Pakistani research reactor that American officials fear could be diverted to make an illicit nuclear device. For New Delhi, the lesson is unmistakable. It must rely on its own political, diplomatic and strategic resources to finesse any hostile moves by Pakistan, and not rely in a basic sense on US goodwill or offers of support, especially in a crunch situation. There are said to be about 3,000 secret documents in the present lot of the WikiLeaks release linked to confidential despatches from the US embassy in India. If the trend is no different from the bulk of the material already presented, we might expect no more than a bit of sensation, which is par for the course at the end of the day.
The stuff that has been purveyed is privileged communication. Since no country in the world likes to throw its weight about as much as America, or assumes an attitude that is widely seen as arrogant by ordinary people and governments in most countries, the language of the revealed cables is generally uppity, often derogatory, in talking about top-level people US diplomats interact with in their everyday work in countries where they are posted. In evaluating this, it may be useful to wonder about the language of secret communications to headquarters by diplomats of other countries.
The new WikiLeaks material leaves no one in doubt that US diplomats have now been asked to carry out relatively low-level tasks that lie in the province of spies. This has been officially denied by Washington but the denial appears far from convincing. The inference to be made is that US diplomacy has fallen on inglorious times. When American diplomats now hold meetings with politicians, civil servants, diplomats and society leaders from other countries, the latter are likely to be watchful.
To that extent, informal US leverage or a shared sense of friendship or fellow-feeling that sometimes accompanies American bonhomie is likely to be undercut.