RICHARD FERNANDEZ ON FOREIGN POLICY: Is the world developing a new adaptive order?

Adaptive order is not simply an ivory tower concept. It describes the process through which the Internet actually emerged and continues to be governed. As a report by Vinton Cerf explains, “we conclude it is folly to try and regulate all these areas through an international treaty, and encourage further development of mechanisms for global debate like the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).”

If the future world order resembles the Internet, it will be built and rebuilt in the background, through a nonstop process of deals and arrangements much more than by traditional diplomatic agreement. If the Trump administration is deliberately (or accidentally under evolutionary pressure) laying the foundations for an adaptive world order the next decades may see an increase, rather a diminution of American influence in the world.

The key conceptual innovation is that prestige is replaced by capability as a unit of negotiating power. . . .

The success of American foreign policy may depend not on how many diplomats it has in overseas stations but how much innovation the US fosters. American power may increasingly be a function of technological space rather than diplomatic maps. In such a world tax codes, regulatory environments, privacy regimes and human capital may count as foreign policy acts.

In that new world American prestige and influence will not depend on the dubious virtue of any individual human institution nor on the soaring eloquence of the media but upon the industry, inventiveness and moral compass of the United States.

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