The consequences can be fast and deadly. The Information Age increases the relevance of these issues to the peoples of the world. The penalty to America's diplomacy for inattention will be severe. The Performance Gap Diplomacy is the art of advancing national interests through the sustained exchange of information among nations and peoples. Its purpose is to change attitudes and behavior.
Classic diplomacy assumes that sovereign states control international relations.
However, faced with technologies that empower contradictory impulses of fragmentation and integration and generate instant and often uncontrolled, unmediated problems, diplomacy in the twenty-first century must overturn its culture of secrecy and its penchant for exclusivity. The conduct of U.S. diplomacy faces unacceptable performance gaps between its outdated practices and the requirements of the new age of information. These gaps include diplomatic priorities, professional standards, leadership, infrastructure, resources, telecommunications, computers, media deployment, and relations with the media, business, and NGO communities. In short, the State Department and allied agencies are encumbered with traditions and tools that inhibit the practice of diplomacy. The gaps in diplomatic performance have consequences.