An awful lot of international diplomacy lately has been downright undiplomatic.
Exhibit A: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) used Twitter to goad Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif late last month. Cotton tweeted at him: “I hear you called me out today. If you’re so confident, let’s debate the Constitution.” Cotton followed up with other tweets describing Zarif as cowardly. The Iranian foreign minister replied that “serious diplomacy, not macho personal smear, is what we need,” a response that Foreign Policy magazine labeled as trolling. This was hardly the only online provocation Zarif faced during his recent New York visit.
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What’s made diplo-trolling more common is that, unlike in previous centuries, it is hard for officials to ignore other politicians baiting them, because online the exchanges happen so quickly. In the past, it would have taken weeks for word of Senate or mayoral speeches to travel overseas, allowing foreign officials the luxury of ignoring them. Today, instant Facebook comments and Twitter replies make it difficult for anyone to pretend to ignore a troll, especially a troll who’s a member of the Senate.
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Does diplo-trolling really matter? Turkey remains a NATO ally. The same week that Cotton trolled Zarif, progress was made in the Iran nuclear negotiations. Isn’t the rest just bread and circuses? A useful distraction for officials trying to conduct actual statecraft?
Not necessarily. In the short term, social media engagement can raise the costs of negotiation. As a general rule, trolling is a weapon of the weak designed to harass the powerful into engaging their arguments; on the Iran negotiations, for example, Cotton is far less important than Zarif. This is not all bad — sometimes trolls, by engaging political leaders or spokesmen, bring transparency to a heretofore hidden set of policies. And to the trolls, this is a form of negotiation.
The problem is that crafting international agreements is hard work on a good day. Coping with online trolls simply adds to the transaction costs of negotiation. This is particularly true because the mainstream media will amplify any act of foreign policy trolling. The media loves to report on Twitter fights and put-downs.
