Bits, Bytes, and Diplomacy

An American historian once opined, Peace is the mastery of great forces; it is not the solution of a problem.1 Great new forces are at work in the world, and if we are to master them, the beginning of wisdom is to recognize that the world is changing dramatically and at unprece dented speed. We are in the midst of a revolution. A revolution by defini tion causes old power structures to crumble and new ones to rise. The catalyst?but not the cause?has always been technological change. Now, as in revolutions past, technology is profoundly affecting the sovereignty of governments, the world economy, and military strategy. We are now living in the midst of the third great revolution in his tory. When the principle of the lever was applied to make a plow, the agricultural revolution was born, and the power of nomadic tribal chiefs declined. When centuries later, men substituted the power of water, steam, and electricity for animal muscle, the Industrial Revolu tion was born. Both of these massive changes took centuries to unfold. Each caused a shift in the power structure. Today, the marriage of computers and telecommunications has ushered in the Information Age, which is as different from the Industrial Age as that period was from the Agricultural Age. Information technology has demolished time and distance. Instead of validating Orwell's vision of Big Brother watching the citizen, the third revolution enables the citizen to watch Big Brother. And so the virus of freedom, for which there is no anti dote, is spread by electronic networks to the four corners of the earth.