An Emperor Without Clothes: Wikileaks and the Limits of American Power

Two months into the public disclosure of US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks, what has been their impact? Although at this point only about 10% of over 250,000 leaked cables are available to the public, the widespread reporting on their content in the media, in particular by those outlets with access to the cables in advance, allows spending some thoughts on this question. Specifically, we should like to ask how much remains from the initial claim that these leaks would cause damage to the US.

My (at this stage admittedly cautious) answer is ‘not much’; at least not in the sense suggested by headlines in the days following the release of the documents. Their dominant claim was that the publication of the cables would expose what the US government ‘really’ thinks and how it ‘really’ goes about its business. In the words of the Wikileaks website (migrating through cyberspace) the cables would “show the contradictions between the US’s public persona and what it says behind closed doors”. It was suggested that they would enable us to access that parallel, secret world of great power politics and show the extent of US influence on events and political dynamics across the globe. The cables would give us the emperor without clothes and reveal its not-so benign face. Such expectations were fostered by the desire of media outlets to sell revelations (with Wikileaks setting the tone by providing the label ‘Cablegate’, suggesting an affinity to ‘Watergate’); yet they also fit the recent debate among academics over the nature and reality of an American empire.

There is no doubt that the cables confirm an impressive US presence in the world. Yet the overall picture that emerges offers little food for one-dimensional conspiracy theories. Instead, the picture we get is more complex and more interesting, with rather counterintuitive consequences.

Of course, unless we actually sift through these cables ourselves, most of what we read is filtered by media analysts and editors. And their reporting occurs from a particular place within a particular political context, which affects the selection and evaluation of cables as well as how stories are constructed out of them. Even so, up until now, the leaked documents have not generated many, if any, surprises, at least not to serious observers of US foreign policy and/or the countries the cables deal with. The majority of the documents are unclassified (accessible by millions working in US government institutions) and contain what one might call common knowledge. That is, they contain information and evaluations gained in private conversations, perhaps, but not going beyond what local journalists or taxi drivers know or suspect (after all, locals tend to be the source of information). This makes for interesting reading of how US officials assess individuals, situations, and dynamics within a particular society, which improves our understanding of how they see ‘the world’ or, rather, a fragment thereof. What the documents do not tell us, however, is a tale of US omnipotence.

Because many of the cables are reports back to Washington and deal with the politics of the respective host country, their content it potentially more embarrassing and consequential for the host government than the White House. Again, this is not so much because the cables contain surprising revelations. Yet they can become an authoritative source substantiating suspicions and explicating known yet unspoken facts, in particular in countries which lack transparency and investigative journalism. In such cases, political elites would have reason to be concerned because the leaks reveal activities they would rather hide from their constituency. And rather than unmasking an hitherto invisible American web of control the cables often show the opposite. Whether it concerns the 2008 Georgia-Russia war or the dynamics in Iraq or Afghanistan following Western military intervention, the cables indicate a lack of American control and, instead, highlight agency and, thus, responsibility of local actors. In other words, it makes apparent that others are not merely objects but subjects of history. From the US perspective this is damaging only to the extent that it pokes holes in the notion of an American empire, fostered by Hollywood images and overly self-confident attitudes of American officials, often happily exploited by actors elsewhere looking for a convenient scapegoat. Thus, ‘Cablegate’ may not only render it more difficult for the US to take credit or blame for the order of things, it may also fuel resistance against local rulers by an unhappy people, as appears to have been the case in Tunisia.

Still, it has been noted that Wikileaks would cause damage to the relations America holds with others because it suggests that the US bureaucracy has difficulty with keeping secrets, prompting contacts to be more hesitant about sharing information with US officials. This is a valid concern, as many informants rely on anonymity for fear of retribution, even if many of the documents hardly contain secrets in a meaningful sense. However, the measures now put in place within US government bureaucracies to prevent such leaks in the future will probably alleviate such concerns. And even if we ignore the rather crude remarks by prominent (Republican) politicians of hunting down and executing those responsible for leaking the documents, it is safe to assume that US agencies are involved in the aggressive campaign trying to take Wikileaks offline.

Yet it is precisely here, in the American reaction to Wikileaks, where we see the potential for great damage to the US. In all fairness, the attempt of the Obama administration to stop the publication of internal documents and prevent further leaks is understandable. Any government in the world facing a similar situation would feel compelled to do the same; indeed most people would object to having strangers read private conversations. The irony is that this attempt to stop the flow of information comes from what is arguably still the most open society on this planet. Despite the secrecies and deceptive manoeuvrings of the Bush administration, as any researcher knows the amount of information about US government business formally available to the public (and not just the American public) is unparalleled. What is more, the Obama administration promised to re-establish transparency and civil liberties curbed by its predecessor, symbolised in the move of declaring the White House ‘the people’s house’. This promise, part of the broader agenda of improving America’s global image, sits uneasily with internet censorship. Thus, the Obama administration faces an interesting dilemma: if it succeeds in shutting down Wikileaks it will damage America’s identity as the ‘land of the free’, and if it fails to stop the leaks it might provide us with further evidence of the limits of American power.

Felix Berenskoetter is a Lecturer in International Relations at SOAS and an Associate of the LSE IDEAS Transatlantic Relations Programme.

National Intelligence Estimate Reaffirms Pakistan’s Role in Defeating Taliban

The latest National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) for Afghanistan and Pakistan report what most analysts of the region and the wars there already know: the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan won’t work unless the Pakistani government and military rounds up its Taliban allies and breaks the back of the various groups that constitute the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.


The New York Times was leaked the documents and, yesterday, Elisabeth Bumiller wrote an intriguing piece announcing the findings of the reports:


“The reports, one on Afghanistan and one on Pakistan, say that although there have been gains for the United States and NATO in the war, the unwillingness of Pakistan to shut down militant sanctuaries in its lawless tribal region remains a serious obstacle. American military commanders say insurgents freely cross from Pakistan into Afghanistan to plant bombs and fight American troops and then return to Pakistan for rest and resupply.”


She further wrote that the NIE offers the “the consensus view of the United States’ 16 intelligence agencies, as opposed to the military, and were provided last week to some members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees.” She reported that military officers are far more open to an optimistic outcome, given the military’s somewhat successful push into Kandahar, the local hotbed of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. The differing views on the likely short to medium outcome in the Af/Pak region might pertain to a widely held view within the intelligence services that there exists a strategic stalemate between the partisan and near boiling civil war there, unless Pakistan makes a move against its own strategic prerogatives. Those strategic prerogatives require that the Pakistan government and military aid and abet the Taliban in order to maintain, so-called, strategic depth in Afghanistan as a countermove to the perceived Indian intervention into Afghanistan’s domestic politics—and by extension, intervention in the very heart of Pakistan. The military fighting in the field might well require that the world be such that victory in Afghanistan and Pakistan is possible and indeed, likely. Otherwise, soldiers might think, why fight?


President Obama will release his December, mid-policy review tomorrow (Thursday December 16th). Along with the spate of news that fares badly for his efforts in the Af/Pak region, the recent death of his Special Envoy, Richard Holbrooke has surely dealt him a blow. Further, that his 30,000-troop spring time surge only worked into the field this past September can’t help the politics of the policy much. Whatever the merits of the surge, there’s simply not been sufficient for the surge to ramp up and show results, so say both intelligence analysts and military officers. And results matter: President Obama’s re-election hinges on a feasible exit strategy that politicos might credibly defend as victory in Afghanistan.


For all this and more, the political scene has been awash with the speculation that President Obama will segue to a narrower counter-terrorism policy directed against the insurgents in the tribal regions on the shared border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the meat of which Vice President Biden has long supported. This policy would demand fewer boots on the ground and would be consistent with both the 2011 draw down and the commitment to stay in Afghanistan and Pakistan until at least 2014.


The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) simply confirms a political fact that most analysts concerned with Afghanistan and Pakistan have known for at least a year. The War in Afghanistan is lost to the U.S and NATO, in every credible form, under every credible definition that applies to “loss”, unless Pakistan digs in and thrashes out the Taliban.


The trouble is that Pakistan will likely not turn out the Taliban. Leaders of the government and the military in Pakistan think they need those groups of militants to secure Afghanistan for their own interests after the U.S and its NATO allies leave. Indeed the recent Wikileaks diplomatic cables show that India is worried about the Taliban return to power.


A series of cables have surfaced that bear on conversations between Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony and then-U.S. National Security Advisor James Jones.


One cable reads: “The Indian military is concerned by the situation in Afghanistan, Antony admitted, and stressed that the international community’s operations there must succeed because the India cannot imagine for a moment a Taliban takeover of its “’extended neighbor”. Pakistan’s government is worried that its Indian counterpart intends to push into Afghanistan to create a bulwark against Pakistan’s moves to spur on an ongoing insurrection in Kashmir and to engage in acts of terrorism or Indian soil, in the name of that distant insurrection.
Pakistan’s government may be right to worry. The leaked cables show that among India’s top concerns is that NATO and the U.S. supply and resupply their troops in Afghanistan through Pakistani land-routes. Indian officials worry that given the transport route, Taliban forces, known to bribe and buy off border guards, stand to siphon off a great deal of explosive material for their home made improvised explosive devices (I.E.D’s). Thus, India is worried that NATO and the U.S military indirectly funds the insurgency that they are fighting. Since the funding and supply chains seem near endless, so then is the insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan.


Suppose then that it were possible to pay off the Pakistani military to do the U.S. and NATO’s bidding and maintain strict and incorruptible border controls. Suppose the Pakistani military were offered unlimited caches of weapons and fighter jets and so on, along with financial aid to increase pay rates in the armed forces, for instance. Even then, it is unlikely that the U.S and its NATO allies would be able to buy out the Pakistani military and intelligence officials. (This is perhaps the greatest obstacle to curbing corruption in Pakistan’s government and military institutions.)


For, the Pakistani military’s ambivalence with the U.S and its NATO allies has little to do with money. The military is already awash with foreign aid funds, from major NATO donors. The problem lies in the perceived idea that the NATO is trying to steal away from Pakistan’s its source of credible deterrent from a possible Indian military invasion. Again, the Wikileaks cables show that the U.S and NATO have long been interested in removing a store of highly enriched uranium from Pakistan for fear of it falling into the hands of Taliban insurgents, and worse, Al Qaeda, based in Pakistan.


The strategic game afoot in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the one that the Obama Administration’s Af/Pak policy is meant to draw toward U.S interests, is intractably complicated. And, perhaps, irreparably geared against those U.S interests because, at the end, Pakistan is afraid that it will lose everything that it values-- its arms, its nuclear weapons, its very identity-- to India’s intervention. In this, it may not matter that the fear is nearly as unfounded as the belief that Pakistani government and military leaders will be able to control the Taliban that they have long bred and reared.

Faheem Haider is the Senior Blogger on Asia for the Foreign Policy Association.

The lack of substance behind Brazil's and Argentina's recognition of Palestinian independence

By Guy Burton

Brazilian flags have been highly visible on Ramallah streets over the past few days, almost as much as in June and before the country crashed out of the World Cup. Their presence has much to do with public sentiment in the West Bank this week and following Brazil’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state within the 1967 Green Line. Brasilia’s announcement was followed by Argentina’s decision to do the same, a statement which should bring out many similarly mothballed Argentine flags in the de facto Palestinian capital as well.

This Latin American diplomatic charge is expected to continue, with Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay and Peru all making similar statements in the next few months. Palestinian policymakers may feel some degree of satisfaction, especially those around Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, whose government presented a two-year plan to achieve Palestinian independence in August last year. However, they should not be getting too carried away, since the Brazilian and Argentine positions give little away.

At the same time, Brazil and Argentina have been at the brunt of a predictably critical Israeli reaction. Israel claims that the Brazilian and Argentine decisions were taken outside the accepted mode, by being unilaterally announced rather than as a result of negotiations between themselves and the Palestinians. In its official statement, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs argued that the Oslo Accords require the final status of the West Bank and Gaza to be settled through negotiations while the Road Map laid out a vision of a Palestinian state to be achieved through Israeli and Palestinians negotiations. The appeal to both Oslo and the Road Map are designed to emphasise legitimacy, especially by the latter: the Road Map was endorsed by the Quartet, which includes the UN and is therefore the expression of the international community.

Israel has strong backing for its position. On 7 December, PJ Crowley, a US State Department spokesman, said that “the only way to resolve the core issues within the process is through direct negotiations. That remains our focus. And we do not favor that course of action. As we’ve said many, many times, any unilateral action, we believe, is counterproductive.” Although why exactly the move was counterproductive, he failed to say while also overlooking Americans’ acquiescence of the ‘right’ kind of unilateralism.

While Washington criticizes Brasilia and Buenos Aires for their ‘wrong’ unilateral decisions, American policymakers refuse to say the same of Israel. After nearly three years without direct negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, they restarted in September only to flounder weeks later, when the Israelis’ 10-month settlement freeze – which was partial because it was only limited to new constructions and not those that already had planning permission or which were based in Jerusalem – ran out. For both the Palestinians and Americans, extending the freeze would have been a sign of good faith for talks to continue. But Israel refused and despite American efforts to bribe the Netanyahu government with a $3bn arms package to extend the moratorium for a further three months, Washington appears to have admitted defeat on a future freeze.

This American failure matters far more than any statement by a Latin American government – which will reassure the Israelis while deceiving the Palestinians. Even within the Israeli peace camp, the section of society most inclined to accept international involvement in the process, the Latin Americans’ influence has been largely disregarded. A prominent Israeli activist, Gershon Baskin of the Israel Palestine Centre for Research and Information, effectively overlooked Brazil and Argentina when he said that their decisions highlighted the vacuum in the current stalled negotiations and American absence in bringing the two sides together. For him and others like him, only Washington matters.

At the same time, the Argentine and Brazilian decisions promise more than they deliver by failing to back up support for Palestinian sovereignty. On one hand, their capacity and willingness to construct a Palestinian state within the Green Line is extremely marginal. The amount pledged (as opposed to have been spent) by Brazil to the Palestinians has been $20m since the mid-1990s. By way of comparison, the EU and Washington contribute $600m and $350m respectively per year.

On the other hand, it is not clear what action either country will take to hold Israel to various UN resolutions and legal obligations as an occupying force in the West Bank. It is doubtful that they will apply economic leverage, especially given rising trade across the Atlantic. Israeli-Argentine trade amounts to around $300m per year while Israeli-Brazilian trade was around $1bn in 2009 (down from $1.6bn in 2008). Much of that trade constitutes Israeli exports ($1.2bn), many of them related to the arms industry. Moreover, both Latin American countries’ trade with Israel has been formalized through a free trade agreement between Israel and the regional, trading bloc, Mercosur, which came into effect in April.

Why then have Argentina and Buenos Aires taken the decision to recognize Palestine? With regard to Israel, Israeli policymakers can bluster against the Latin Americans’ diplomatic recognition of Palestine – but its leaders know that politically, when compared to the US, neither Brazil nor Argentina matters. Their involvement in the process to date has been very limited. Moreover, neither country is likely to damage economic ties between themselves and Israel; diplomatic pressure remains disconnected from the business of trade.

As for Palestine, the benefits of offering diplomatic recognition by Argentina and Brazil far outweigh the (verbal) opposition heaped by Israel. Both the Argentine and Brazilian positions present a degree of foreign policy continuity. The two countries – indeed Latin America generally – have become increasingly pro-Arab since 1967. In part this reflected economic pressures from the early 1970s when the then military dictatorships struggled to secure reliable and reasonably priced oil inputs to supply their import substitution industrialization policies at the time. Brazil even signed up to an anti-Zionist resolution at the UN in this period (subsequently reversed at the end of the Cold War).

More recently, links between the Arab world and Latin America have increased. The past decade has coincided with a rise in trade between Latin America and the Middle East on the one hand and greater diplomatic contact on the other. In 2003 Brazil’s President Lula proposed an Arab-South American summit, the first which took place in Brasilia in 2005 and followed by Doha in 2009 (with Peru to follow next year). At both meetings, the issue of Palestinian sovereignty has been given particular airing in the speeches and space in the final declarations. Meanwhile, Brazil has been courting support for it to become a permanent member of the Security Council. To achieve this it has sought to project itself beyond its hemisphere and to present itself as a leader of the developing world.

Consequently, for both Brazil and Argentina, extending diplomatic recognition for an independent Palestine is an easy way of building up credibility in the Arab world and with little risk of any action beyond harsh Israeli words. In other words, that the two countries have taken the course they did demonstrates a decision based on weighing the relative costs and benefits. In this instance, both realized that there was little to lose and much to gain, especially in the Arab world where Palestinian sovereignty remains a primary concern (albeit more rhetorical than acted upon these days) and with little risk of losing valuable Israeli markets.

Guy Burton is a researcher at the Centre for Development Studies at Birzeit University and a research associate for the Latin America International Affairs Programme at the LSE Ideas Centre.

The Context Behind the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan Border Dispute

By Guy Burton

The dispute between Nicaragua and Costa Rica stems from an island located at the mouth of the San Juan River, which forms the border between the two countries. The dispute has been simmering for a month as a result of Nicaragua’s decision to send troops to the region. Several reasons have been put forward for the action, including the concern of Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president, with narco-traffickers in the region and the need for a military presence to discourage them.

In response to what Costa Rica’s president, Laura Chinchilla, has called an ‘invasion’, the matter was referred to the Organisation of American States (OAS). Last Friday the OAS passed a resolution by 22 votes to one in support of Costa Rica and that Nicaragua remove its troops – a request that Ortega has refused. Instead he has suggested taking the dispute to The Hague for resolution, claiming that the OAS has no right to rule on international borders.

The one vote in favour of Nicaragua came from Venezuela. That in itself was significant, since the two are allies and members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA). The organisation was set up in response to the US-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), emphasising regional cooperation on the basis of social and political ties rather than markets and economic liberalisation and deregulation. In addition to these two countries, Cuba, Ecuador and Bolivia are also members of ALBA, all of whom are noted for the opposition to US hegemony in the hemisphere.

Venezuela’s support of Nicaragua is a fact that has been noted but not really analysed by the media. At the same time, there does not appear to have been any explanation why Ortega should have carried out his actions now rather than at another time. This is contrast to the media attention surrounding Costa Rica's lack of an army and response in sending police forces to the border region. In addition, media reports have also noted that the US has been presented as willing to act as a mediator, if asked to do so.

Arguably the reason for the current situation, including Nicaragua’s recent decision and Venezuela’s support of it, may well be due to wider regional politics – and especially the growing presence of the US in Central America. First, the ‘war on drugs’ has prompted the US to seek a larger role in the region, either in the search for allies or through direct involvement in the struggle against drug gangs. The most notable of these has been its various agreements with Colombia which have enabled it to increase both the number of American bases and troops there. In addition to tackling the drug trade at source, the US has also expanded its influence in the drug supply route, though Central America. In addition to Panamanian bases, the US also recently signed an agreement with Costa Rica last July to allow 46 warships and 7000 troops into the country.

Second, the rise of American influence in the region has coincided with concern by significant sections of these countries’ political and civil societies. In particular there is concern about what American intentions are beyond the ‘war on drugs’. In part this may be explained by the Left’s general antipathy towards Washington and the legacy of American meddling in the region, especially during the Cold War. More recently, it reflects suspicions that Washington may be working against these leftist governments. Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, was overthrown by a coup in 2002, an action which brought swift recognition from Washington at the time, only for the provisional government to collapse days later. In June 2009, Manuel Zelaya, the Honduran president who brought his country into ALBA, was kicked out of office and forced into exile. Although the Obama administration condemned the action, the US was one of the first countries in the hemisphere to recognise the result of subsequent election that took place later in the year. It also pushed for the reinstatement of Honduras back into the OAS, following its suspension after the coup. And following the aborted coup against Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, at the end of September, left-wingers have been looking to see if there were any American fingerprints left behind.

Ortega’s decision to send troops to the border may therefore be read against these developments. On the one hand it demonstrates a determination to exert his power over the armed forces, crucial if any coup attempt is to be avoided. At the same time, it may be seen as sending a signal, both to Costa Rica and the US that Ortega is no pushover, whether in the struggle against the drug trade or as a leader that can be removed at any time. As a result, while others in the region (e.g. Panama) have taken offence at Ortega’s rhetoric that other countries have not acted strongly enough against narco-traffickers, it may well be a signal to ensure that Washington backs off – whether in pressuring Ortega to carry out action against the drug trade himself, or to push disaffected elements of Nicaraguan society that would like to see him removed.

Guy Burton is a research associate for the Latin America International Affairs Programme at the LSE Ideas Centre.

No Longer Special?

A recently released report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has received more than its fair share of analysis by the commentariat who rarely, if ever, look at the committee’s reports with much care. The reason for such attention is clear. The headline news coming out of the committee was that the ‘special relationship’ between the United States and the UK was either no more (if you read some newspapers) or (if you read others) was a term that should rapidly be expunged from public discourse. Nor was this all. The UK, it continued, should increasingly stand up for itself and not be as deferential to the United States as it had traditionally been in the past. It should even, sometimes, say no.

Of course, headlines are not designed to capture complexity or nuance; and so it would seem to be with this report. Indeed, its collective authors readily concede that the relationship still remained strong – stronger now than ever perhaps now that the popular Obama was in the White House. Moreover, they did not call for any new alignment with any other particularly special country, like say France or Germany. God forbid. Still, there was no doubting what the report was seeking to do: namely, set off a debate about why Britain’s relationship with the United States might be in flux and should therefore be re-examined.

Such a rethink after Bush and now in the era of Obama – who has other, rather more important things on his mind than to worry about the sensibilities of the Brits – is to be welcomed. That said, the report suffers from one basic flaw: a disjuncture between the evidence presented and the conclusions apparently arrived at.

Thus while we are told that the relationship should not officially be referred to as being ‘special’, largely because the term is ‘misleading’ and might offend others if used too frequently, most of the evidence presented would appear to suggest that it is precisely that, most obviously in the area of intelligence (see p. 5). Nor does the special quality of the relationship end there. In the areas of trade, culture and finance for example, according to the report the two countries look like having an especially dense relationship – one of the ‘densest’ no less. Furthermore, on many big issues, the UK and the US look like they agree about most things. We even like to visit each other’s countries in our millions. We also seem to like each other quite a lot. And we exchange our pop stars and movie actors and actresses with ease.

Finally, as Douglas Hurd pointed out in his written evidence, there is no chance at all of the UK waging a major war - and waging it successfully - without the complete backing of the United States. In short, it all sounds pretty “special” whether or not you like to use the term.

But this is not the main problem or the real issue. Basically, it is not so much what is in the report that is significant, as much as what remains unstated or understated. Put another way: what is really going on here?

Three things I would speculate. First, in spite of all the nice words about Obama in the report, there is an uneasy sense ‘over here’ that ‘over there’ they really don’t give a damn any more. So, we had better get used to the fact; and what better way of getting ready for rejection at worst (indifference at best) than by acting a little bit coy?

Second, British power is on the wane – as Stryker Mcguire of the LSE pointed out in a much quoted essay published in Newsweek last year (‘Forget the Great in Britain’, 1 August 2009). Decline does all sorts of strange things to people and states, but one thing more than anything else is for those so afflicted to speculate at length about who they are, what they are, who loves them and who doesn’t. In this sense, I read this report as symptomatic of a crisis in the making about Britain’s position in the world.

Finally, there is no doubt that whatever the UK might have gained from the relationship – and it has not been inconsiderable - it has fed British illusions about its role in the world. This was fine during the Cold War perhaps, and even during the 1990s before the rise of China, the uneasy emergence of the European Union, and 9/11. Now the relationship is proving more of a liability – however special it might remain. And this is what the report is really trying to say without, however, saying it too bluntly (that might after all damage the ‘special relationship’).

But where does this all leave the UK? In a most uncomfortable position I would suggest. Uneasy and uncertain about a relationship from which it cannot escape in a world that is now more dangerous than ever – and dangerous in large part because of the way Blair joined forces with Bush – the UK is caught between a very hard rock and equally hard place: between an affair she cannot abandon and a future she cannot contemplate without having her powerful, muscular lover by her side holding her hand and reassuring her that she still remains attractive.

Professor Michael Cox is co-Director of LSE IDEAS

“The Connection Was Reset”: Google goes to War for the West

Internet users in China last night discovered that the domain Google.cn redirected to Google.com.hk, as the world’s largest search engine shut down its Chinese servers and redirected traffic to Hong Kong, where – crucially – the search engine results would be uncensored by Google themselves.  Of course, users with IP addresses in mainland China attempting to search for material deemed ‘sensitive’ by the Chinese authorities would still be prevented from accessing information by the ‘Great Firewall’, with its tell-tale error message: ‘the connection was reset’.

Yet Google’s decision is of limited significance to Chinese surfers.  Experienced activists in China have ways and means of getting round the authorities’ controls, for example by using IP blocking, VPNs and proxy severs.  Indeed, within China Google accounts for only around 20% of searches, with the home-grown search engine Baidu holding the kind of dominance Google is used to enjoying, with 75% of all searches.  Having said that, China’s technology for blocking and filtering web results is less sophisticated and effective than the rules Google voluntarily applied to its Chinese ‘spiders’ four years ago, so the move does represent a very small, but nonetheless welcome, boost fro freedom of information in China.

Nor is Google’s decision of particular significance for the finances of the company itself in the short term, even if the decision has been taken – as was the case in 2006 when Google decided to filter its results in China – very much from a business perspective.  China accounts for less than 1% of Google’s total income: whilst companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have been eager to gain access to a rapidly-growing market with up to a billion new customers, the fact is that currently revenues from China are insignificant.  Indeed the business decision that Google appears to have taken is that their stance on China has begun to erode their position in other markets.  Google’s idealistic founders may have based the company around the slogan ‘don’t be evil’, but that clever piece of marketing disguised the essential truth behind the search engine’s success: yes Google was fast; yes it returned different, and ultimately better, results; but the key to Google’s dominance was that their users had trust in it.  And user trust is all the more important as firms compete to control user data as more and more computing takes place ‘in the cloud’.  So whilst Google’s decision is based on a long-term business argument that has brought it great success to date, it risks little in the short term in the Chinese market.  Google also clearly believes that Chinese censorship is unsustainable, and that once controls are removed it will be able to return to that market victorious, able to generate user trust quickly on the basis that it – unlike Microsoft or Yahoo – has a genuine commitment to open information, that it had not been evil.

And here is the rub: by revealing the Chinese government’s widespread hacking regime – a fairly open secret in the IT world – and by withdrawing from China, Google has raised the stakes in the ideological conflict surrounding the rights of people versus the rights of governments; it has essentially gone to war for liberalism.  Whilst China may have embraced the economic tenets of liberal capitalism fairly convincingly over the last two decades, its attitudes to political liberalism lag far behind.  Ultimately – as Google rightly believes – sociologically the two cannot be separated: free consumption requires political freedom and vice-versa, and the progress of Chinese economic growth, particularly as it seeks to develop its economy past the core manufacturing stage to focus on R&D and information services, cannot hope to proceed smoothly without political liberalisation.  Google’s actions, however, are a spur to that process, which will both embolden activists, weak though they remain in the face of the Chinese state, and more importantly detract from China’s ability to continue to progress its economy into more advanced sectors.

It is, as well, inconceivable that Google would have taken this move without consultation with the United States government.  Whilst the administration is truly a ‘team of rivals’ with regards to policy on China, with Hilary Clinton significantly more hawkish than the President and Vice-President, the government’s enlisting of Twitter as a policy adjunct during the Green protests in Iran demonstrates that the administration understands the power of open information in driving social and political change conducive to US interests.  So while China is able to defy the diplomatic demands of the US on the level of the Yuan, on sanctions for Iran, or on human rights, in Google it may encounter an irresistible force for the spread of political liberalism.

Dr Nicholas Kitchen  is a Fellow of LSE IDEAS and Programme Coordinator of the LSE IDEAS Transatlantic Relations Programme.