Showing papers on "Diplomacy published in 2022"

Human-level play in the game of Diplomacy by combining language models with strategic reasoning

Abstract: Despite much progress in training artificial intelligence (AI) systems to imitate human language, building agents that use language to communicate intentionally with humans in interactive environments remains a major challenge. We introduce Cicero, the first AI agent to achieve human-level performance in Diplomacy, a strategy game involving both cooperation and competition that emphasizes natural language negotiation and tactical coordination between seven players. Cicero integrates a language model with planning and reinforcement learning algorithms by inferring players’ beliefs and intentions from its conversations and generating dialogue in pursuit of its plans. Across 40 games of an anonymous online Diplomacy league, Cicero achieved more than double the average score of the human players and ranked in the top 10% of participants who played more than one game. Description AI masters Diplomacy The game Diplomacy has been a major challenge for artificial intelligence (AI). Unlike other competitive games that AI has recently mastered, such as chess, Go, and poker, Diplomacy cannot be solved purely through self-play; it requires the development of an agent to understand other players’ motivations and perspectives and to use natural language to negotiate complex shared plans. The Meta Fundamental AI Research Diplomacy Team (FAIR) et al. developed an agent that is able to play the full natural language form of the game and demonstrates performance well above the human average in an online Diplomacy league. The present work has far-reaching implications for the development of cooperative AI and language models for communication with people, even when interactions involve a mixture of aligned and competing interests. —YS Artificial intelligence demonstrates human-level performance in the strategic board game Diplomacy.

OUP accepted manuscript

Abstract: How dangerous could a single U.S. high performance computer in Soviet hands be? In the 1970s, this became a crucial and highly controversial question of U.S. national security export control policy. In the détente years, U.S. companies sold some of the most powerful civilian high performance computers (HPCs) in the world to the Soviet Union. These computers played an outsized role in the U.S.-Soviet relations of the 1970s. There was hardly a summit, or even a plain working meeting between U.S. and Soviet diplomats, which did not touch on HPCs. Indeed, they were a crucial strand in the story of the rise and fall of détente that historical research has so far largely overlooked.1 U.S. presidential administrations from Richard Nixon-Henry Kissinger to Jimmy Carter saw HPCs as highly attractive tools to shape their détente policies. Indeed, they were perfect objects of techno-diplomacy. The Soviets urgently wanted HPCs in order...

Chinese Soft Power

Abstract: China’s modern power is based on traditional sources: territory size, demographics, economy, and army. An important factor of power is soft power, which is based on culture, foreign policy (including economics), and values. Chinese soft power resources have an old tradition and the possibility of using them is large, and most importantly, in the current international environment, they can use them to gain and maintain an advantage over competitors. The article presents the elements of China’s soft power that determine its advantage over other countries and the weaknesses that may limit its influence. It largely determines the research methods used: statistics and system analysis. The latter method makes it possible to determine the scale of China’s influence and the chances of using them in the 21st century.

China's civilian army: the making of Wolf Warrior diplomacy

Abstract: Peter Martin contends that ‘Wolf Warrior diplomacy’—a recently popularized label for belligerent behaviour by Chinese diplomats—is an enduring feature of the People's Republic of China's diplomacy that can be traced back to its formative years. This emphasis on continuity is refreshing, as most observers tend to view Zhao Li-jian's Twitter-enabled polemics or Gui Cong-you's actions as ambassador to Sweden as novel symptoms of an increasingly assertive foreign policy. The book does not, however, complicate prevailing simplistic explanations, as its claim about continuity is premised on a straightforward causal narrative which shares many of their underlying assumptions. Specifically, Martin argues that the enduring presence of the ‘instincts’ (p. 229) in Chinese diplomacy to charm or bully is a product of a political system ‘which rewards unquestioning loyalty and ideological conviction’ (p. 5). Woven together with a journalist's care for evocative prose and squarely aimed at the contemporary relevance of China and...

Political economy of vaccine diplomacy: explaining varying strategies of China, India, and Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy

Abstract: Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic and global responses to this crisis reveal the changing landscape of global health governance. As countries around the world struggle to secure COVID-19 vaccines for their citizens, some non-Western powers have actively distributed vaccines internationally – an act broadly recognized as vaccine diplomacy. While existing literature suggests that geopolitical concerns affect the selection of recipient countries, it has yet to explain other aspects of vaccine diplomacy. Why are some countries focused on vaccine sales while others are more open to donation? Why do some prefer bilateral to multilateral channels in distributing vaccines? Through comparative analysis of China, India, and Russia, this article shows that political economic factors, in addition to geopolitics, shape the ways non-Western powers conduct vaccine diplomacy. We argue that these countries adjust their strategies in line with their relative advantages in development, manufacturing, and delivery of vaccines. Each country has unique strengths and weakness, which gives rise to the varied patterns in vaccine diplomacy. Our findings suggest that their strategies of vaccine diplomacy are enabled as well as constrained by their economic realities, and the rise of these countries in this field does not necessarily mean an outright challenge to the existing international system.

The rise of hybrid diplomacy: from digital adaptation to digital adoption

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced diplomats to embrace virtual platforms and to learn to combine virtual and physical meetings in their work. In this article, we investigate how this process has taken place and with implications for the conduct of diplomacy. Specifically, we ask how diplomats have adapted to the transition to the virtual medium, what lessons have they learned from this, and how these lessons may inform the conduct of diplomacy in the post-pandemic period? We argue that diplomacy is about to enter a new phase, which we call hybrid diplomacy, in which physical and virtual engagements are expected to integrate, complement and empower each other. We begin by distinguishing between digital adaptation, a forced process brought about by external changes, and digital adoption, a strategic decision by diplomats to use specific technologies towards specific goals. Building on the results of a survey disseminated to 105 diplomats during the pandemic, we then examine how diplomats have adapted to the virtual medium and what challenges they see facing as they transition to the post-pandemic phase. While responders largely agree that virtual interactions are not a good substitute for physical diplomacy, we find strong support for the continued mix of virtual and physical meetings. They enable diplomats to maintain working procedures, collaborate with their peers from around the world, and continue negotiations that began offline. We conclude with a discussion of the technological and social factors that may inform the shape of hybrid diplomacy.

China's “Wolf Warrior Diplomacy”: The Interaction of Formal Diplomacy and Cyber-Nationalism

Abstract: For all the popular interest in “wolf warrior diplomacy,” scant attention has been paid to the internal logics and mechanics of representative communications, notably the intersection with grassroots cyber-nationalism. Centring the connections between official and unofficial actors, we situate Chinese diplomatic communications within the domestic nationalist cyberspace cultures that demand and nourish the “dare to fight” orientation of formal Chinese diplomacy on the international stage. We argue that there is a synergistic interaction between officials and popular nationalism that creates bottom-up incentives to adopt a “wolf warrior” posture, distinct from simultaneous top-down pressures from the central leadership under Xi Jinping to appropriately represent China's “confident rise.” We show through case studies involving MoFA spokesperson and archetypal “wolf warrior” Zhao Lijian, that this interaction extends to sharing unofficial content and ideas in a mutually reinforcing cycle that facilitates a harder edge to diplomatic communications.

OUP accepted manuscript

Abstract: Abstract Global access to coronavirus vaccines has been extraordinarily unequal and remains an ongoing source of global health insecurities from the evolution of viral variants in the bodies of the unvaccinated. There have nevertheless been at least 3 significant alternatives developed to this disastrous bioethical failure. These alternatives are reviewed in this article in the terms of “vaccine diplomacy,” “vaccine charity,” and “vaccine liberty.” Vaccine diplomacy includes the diverse bilateral deliveries of vaccines organized by the geopolitical considerations of countries strategically seeking various kinds of global and regional advantages in international relations. Vaccine charity centrally involves the humanitarian work of the global health agencies and donor governments that have organized the COVAX program as an antidote to unequal access. Despite their many promises, however, both vaccine diplomacy and vaccine charity have failed to deliver the doses needed to overcome the global vaccination gap. Instead, they have unfortunately served to immunize the global vaccine supply system from more radical demands for a “people’s vaccine,” technological transfer, and compulsory licensing of vaccine intellectual property (IP). These more radical demands represent the third alternative to vaccine access inequalities. As a mix of nongovernmental organization-led and politician-led social justice demands, they are diverse and multifaceted, but together they have been articulated as calls for vaccine liberty. After first describing the realities of vaccine access inequalities, this article compares and contrasts the effectiveness thus far of the 3 alternatives. In doing so, it also provides a critical bioethical framework for reflecting on how the alternatives have come to compete with one another in the context of the vaccine property norms and market structures entrenched in global IP law. The uneven and limited successes of vaccine diplomacy and vaccine charity in delivering vaccines in underserved countries can be reconsidered in this way as compromised successes that not only compete with one another, but that have also worked together to undermine the promise of universal access through vaccine liberty.

The Olympic Games, nation branding, and public diplomacy in a post-pandemic world: Reflections on Tokyo 2020 and beyond

Abstract: The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games were the first postponed Olympic Games, held in 2021, during an outbreak of a global pandemic, with strict restrictions and regulations and without international and domestic fans. Despite the challenges and the growing resistance, over 200 countries and delegations still saw value in participating in the most global event humanity holds. After covering or researching the Olympic Movement for over a decade including in four summer Olympic Games as an accredited journalist, the author shares ten reflections on nation branding and public diplomacy and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on the following issues: (1) The Olympic Movement is entering a new era, (2) questionable legacy, (3) bypassing democracy, (4) athletes-to-people diplomacy is trending, (5) Brand America still an Olympic Superpower, (6) athletic competitions as nation branding battlefields, (7) manifestations of political conflicts, (8) rethinking cultural diplomacy, (9) global challenges, and (10) inevitable backlash. These reflections expand multidisciplinary literature on the Olympic Games, nation branding, and public diplomacy, and provide insights practitioners and decision-makers should consider when holding international sports competitions or other mega-events in a post-pandemic world.

OUP accepted manuscript

Abstract: Abstract Trust is the condition on which multilateral delegates permit chairs to play a more active and substantive role in mediating a positive outcome, for example, through tabling compromise proposals. What drives this trust? Whereas the development of trust between negotiating states has been subject to considerable analysis, the negotiator–chair dynamic has received remarkably little attention. This article contributes to filling this gap and in so doing brings two new theoretical strands into the literature on trust in international relations and multilateral diplomacy: organizational behavior and the “practice turn.” Data collected from a practitioner survey, twenty-one in-depth interviews, and an extended period of participatory research at multilateral negotiations are used to build upon prior theoretical insights and develop a multidimensional model of trust in chairs that distinguish, first, between trust as a rationalist risk-calculation and trust as an intersubjective relational state and, second, between a static form of trust as a preexisting exogenous resource (reputational trust) and a dynamic form of trust that emerges from the negotiation process through the competent performance of a set of chairing practices (emergent trust). Preliminary results suggest that trust is primarily driven by what chairs do during the negotiation process, as opposed to who they are.

Conceptualisation of heritage diplomacy in scholarship

Abstract: ABSTRACT Heritage diplomacy is a recent concept and a new area of interest in the expanding scope of diplomacy. The concept is explored with various epistemological foci and theoretical frameworks in Western scholarship. It is often used to describe joint international projects or government initiatives abroad for preserving tangible cultural heritage. Several recent studies link heritage diplomacy to attempts to develop reciprocal relations between countries, regions, and/or communities through cultural heritage based on dialogue. This article contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship on heritage diplomacy by clarifying the concept, including its inherent notions of cultural heritage and approaches to power. Our critical close reading of 57 sampled scholarly publications reveals how heritage diplomacy is commonly approached from a conservationist point of view, emphasising the preservation of tangible cultural heritage through knowledge exchange, material aid, and funding. Scholarship lacks studies focusing on the uses of intangible cultural heritage for heritage diplomacy. The study reveals heritage diplomacy scholars’ shared interest in power asymmetry and struggle: the concept can be used to recognise and deconstruct power hierarchies between heritage communities. We do this by understanding cultural heritage as a contact zone of people-to-people connectivity, reciprocal cooperation, mutual trust, and dialogue.

Competing Responses to Global Inequalities in Access to COVID Vaccines: Vaccine Diplomacy and Vaccine Charity Versus Vaccine Liberty

Abstract: Abstract Global access to coronavirus vaccines has been extraordinarily unequal and remains an ongoing source of global health insecurities from the evolution of viral variants in the bodies of the unvaccinated. There have nevertheless been at least 3 significant alternatives developed to this disastrous bioethical failure. These alternatives are reviewed in this article in the terms of “vaccine diplomacy,” “vaccine charity,” and “vaccine liberty.” Vaccine diplomacy includes the diverse bilateral deliveries of vaccines organized by the geopolitical considerations of countries strategically seeking various kinds of global and regional advantages in international relations. Vaccine charity centrally involves the humanitarian work of the global health agencies and donor governments that have organized the COVAX program as an antidote to unequal access. Despite their many promises, however, both vaccine diplomacy and vaccine charity have failed to deliver the doses needed to overcome the global vaccination gap. Instead, they have unfortunately served to immunize the global vaccine supply system from more radical demands for a “people’s vaccine,” technological transfer, and compulsory licensing of vaccine intellectual property (IP). These more radical demands represent the third alternative to vaccine access inequalities. As a mix of nongovernmental organization-led and politician-led social justice demands, they are diverse and multifaceted, but together they have been articulated as calls for vaccine liberty. After first describing the realities of vaccine access inequalities, this article compares and contrasts the effectiveness thus far of the 3 alternatives. In doing so, it also provides a critical bioethical framework for reflecting on how the alternatives have come to compete with one another in the context of the vaccine property norms and market structures entrenched in global IP law. The uneven and limited successes of vaccine diplomacy and vaccine charity in delivering vaccines in underserved countries can be reconsidered in this way as compromised successes that not only compete with one another, but that have also worked together to undermine the promise of universal access through vaccine liberty.

China’s “Weaponized” Vaccine: Intertwining Between International and Domestic Politics

Abstract: Ever since China has formally joined the WHO-backed global COVID-19 vaccine initiative known as COVAX, there is a presumed notion that China's vaccine diplomacy will make a significant contribution to the international public good and thus uplift Beijing's role as the rule-maker of international order. To scrutinize this, the paper asks if China succeeded in proliferating its weaponized vaccine policy to obtain maximum diplomatic gains and soft power projection to intensify its international image, geopolitical power, and domestic politico legitimacy. The authors argue that despite its vaccine diplomacy demonstrated the robust governance capacity and responsibility to be a great power. Yet, Beijing's geopolitical influence and international image are significantly overrated and not enough to play a more prominent role in the global power fulcrum/equilibrium. On the contrary, China enjoys a leading position on the domestic political front. Its successful portrayal of China's vaccine provision in the global market and remarkable configuration to leverage a deep-rooted nationalism has fundamentally provided China with a powerful rationale to divert its public's attention from Beijing's earlier inadequate handling of the outbreak. The evaluation of the paper reveals that China's vaccine diplomacy's influence in promoting international image and geopolitics is limited but has successfully stabilized its domestic political environment and enhanced its domestic legitimacy.

The conceptual dimensions of EU public diplomacy

Abstract: ABSTRACT This conceptual and reviewing article elaborates on the ontological aspects of EU public diplomacy (EU PD). It argues that conceptual clarity is much needed and that a comprehensive definition of EU PD would consider the messages (narrative), institutional design and actors involved in the design and delivery of EU PD. Future researchers should also consider the context of a targeted country or region, meaning its social, political, and economic conditions, as well as its past and contemporary relations with Europe. Hence, the study of EU PD appears to be particularly challenging, requiring a comprehensive and at the same time tailor-made approach.

Negotiation and honesty in artificial intelligence methods for the board game of Diplomacy

Abstract: Abstract The success of human civilization is rooted in our ability to cooperate by communicating and making joint plans. We study how artificial agents may use communication to better cooperate in Diplomacy, a long-standing AI challenge. We propose negotiation algorithms allowing agents to agree on contracts regarding joint plans, and show they outperform agents lacking this ability. For humans, misleading others about our intentions forms a barrier to cooperation. Diplomacy requires reasoning about our opponents’ future plans, enabling us to study broken commitments between agents and the conditions for honest cooperation. We find that artificial agents face a similar problem as humans: communities of communicating agents are susceptible to peers who deviate from agreements. To defend against this, we show that the inclination to sanction peers who break contracts dramatically reduces the advantage of such deviators. Hence, sanctioning helps foster mostly truthful communication, despite conditions that initially favor deviations from agreements.

When does public diplomacy work? Evidence from China's “wolf warrior” diplomats

Abstract: How does public diplomacy shape global public opinion? In this note, we theorize that positive public diplomacy that emphasizes aid and friendship works, while negative messages that criticize international rivals are ineffective. We conduct an experiment, to our knowledge the first of its kind, that randomly exposes Indian citizens to real Twitter messages from Chinese diplomats. We find that positive messages emphasizing aid and friendship improve perceptions of China, even in times of escalating violent conflict. However, messages from so-called “Wolf Warrior” diplomats that harshly criticize the United States are ineffective and can backfire in times of crisis. We argue public diplomacy can be a useful tool for global powers, but that domestic political pressures have pushed some diplomats, like China's Wolf Warriors, toward nationalist messages that do not appeal to foreign audiences.

Comrades or contenders: A corpus-based study of China's Belt and Road in US diplomatic discourse

Abstract: China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has received both praise and criticism within global settings. American stance, however, has been interesting sounding diplomatically more intricate. BRI’s opponents view it being hampered by impediments rather than facilitated with opportunities, while its advocates see opportunities instead of challenges because of its being in global limelight. While all parties have valid justifications for their express or tacit positions, they emphasize on the legitimacy of the status quo. To investigate these significant researchable inquiries, the study exclusively aims at examining the inherent ideologies and inconsistencies witnessed in the presentation and re-presentation of China's Belt and Road Initiative in US public diplomacy media outlets. Our findings reveal that China's image has been constructed differently at US diplomacy public media outlets hence establishing it as a major dimension worth inquiry. The study also shows that media attention and direct responses to the BRI in the United States view it through a lens of politically engineered problems. However, the diplomatic logic of the United States differs from the entire philosophy behind the BRI project as the BRI image has observed a drastic change from positive in re-presentation to being neutral rather somewhat negatively perceived.

China’s “Weaponized” Vaccine: Intertwining Between International and Domestic Politics

Abstract: Ever since China has formally joined the WHO-backed global COVID-19 vaccine initiative known as COVAX, there is a presumed notion that China's vaccine diplomacy will make a significant contribution to the international public good and thus uplift Beijing's role as the rule-maker of international order. To scrutinize this, the paper asks if China succeeded in proliferating its weaponized vaccine policy to obtain maximum diplomatic gains and soft power projection to intensify its international image, geopolitical power, and domestic politico legitimacy. The authors argue that despite its vaccine diplomacy demonstrated the robust governance capacity and responsibility to be a great power. Yet, Beijing's geopolitical influence and international image are significantly overrated and not enough to play a more prominent role in the global power fulcrum/equilibrium. On the contrary, China enjoys a leading position on the domestic political front. Its successful portrayal of China's vaccine provision in the global market and remarkable configuration to leverage a deep-rooted nationalism has fundamentally provided China with a powerful rationale to divert its public's attention from Beijing's earlier inadequate handling of the outbreak. The evaluation of the paper reveals that China's vaccine diplomacy's influence in promoting international image and geopolitics is limited but has successfully stabilized its domestic political environment and enhanced its domestic legitimacy.

The Ukraine Crisis: Why and What Now?

Abstract: Abstract Having rebuilt its military, Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and has now positioned more than 100,000 troops on its borders, challenging NATO’s supposed encirclement of Russia and its military capabilities in Central Europe. The West has responded with threats of unprecedented sanctions. This crisis stems from the Soviet Union’s collapse and the West’s effort to create a ‘Europe whole and free’ and at peace. The West failed to convince Russia to play a positive role in Europe and to help it do so. NATO declared that Ukraine and Georgia, on Russia’s borders, would someday become Alliance members. Nevertheless, the US and NATO are conducting serious diplomacy with Russia. Confidence-building measures, including on conventional forces, are the best alternative to confrontation. A new cold war will benefit no one, Russia least of all.

Vaccine (public) diplomacy: legitimacy narratives in the pandemic age

Abstract: This paper examines how China, United States, the European Union, and Russia deal with the COVID crisis creating a legitimacy narrative to promote their political projects and values. The counter-pandemic measures include the use of public diplomacy tools and the novelty of the vaccine. The results show that presidential overexposure, tweets, and the language of emotion are strong arguments in building an agenda of international relations. This finding highlights the impact of COVID-19 on political leadership and public governance. Pandemics contributed to the deinstitutionalisation of public diplomacy. The paper offers a comparative view on the use of strategic narratives for foreign policy objectives. Political communication has performative effects on the international order to the extent to which an action has political consequences.

Optimizing City Diplomacy Indonesia for Economic Development Through E-government Implementation

Abstract: This research wants to identify the implementation of e-government conducted by the city government in Indonesia that could synergize and support city diplomacy activity in boosting city economic development. The research method was qualitative methods, with data collection techniques through literature studies. The results showed that the implementation of E-government in several cities in Indonesia are still focused on improving the quality of public services, using the use of information technology through the pattern of Government to Citizen (G2C), Government to Business (G2B), Government to Government (G2G). The orientation of data and information distribution is still focused on the local population. The use of multilingual or foreign language options in accessing information is still less optimal. Various fields that can boost the city’s development, such as investment, trade, and tourism with a focus on overseas audiences, are informed well but the data or information presented is not integrated into one portal. There are several cities that are considered doing city diplomacy very well, by combining the e-government implementation and city diplomacy will greatly improve and accelerate the city’s economic development, and the city could be becoming an important player at the global level.