FORECAST 

The latest massive disclosure of classified US State Department documents by Wikileaks will surely damage US diplomacy for years to come.

Modern diplomacy has been around for a long time, a fact which has allowed for the development of certain rules and conventions that, for the most part, tend to work pretty well. Broadly speaking, the international system’s network of embassies represents a permanent and uninterrupted process of lobbying and negotiation. Importantly, this process usually takes place under a veil of secrecy, for like any other process of negotiation, diplomats are trying to extract the maximum without giving up too much on their end.

This comprehensive leak of classified State Department documents undermines the ebb and flow of diplomatic negotiations by laying to bare not only the content of America’s negotiating position, but also certain internal assessments of foreign leaders. In some cases, the damage done by the leak will be impossible to fully repair until a leadership change in one or both countries. It seems unlikely that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will forgive being publicly labeled a ‘feckless, vain, and ineffective leader’ who is beholden to Russia. Similarly, it doesn’t do German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party any good for her to be branded as someone who ‘avoids risk and is rarely creative.’