In a World without Embassies, the Winning Side will Be the One which Best Exploits Open Sources, Moscow Expert Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 3 – After European countries expelled more than 200 Russian embassy employees in the wake of the Bucha horrors and Moscow countered tit-for-tat, some speculated that the international system was about to enter an era with both smaller and fewer embassies and possibly with none at all.

            IMEMO expert Aleksey Kupriyanov says that this exchange of expulsions means that “both sides are losing a multitude of valuable connections and sources of information,” an especially unfortunate development because “the current crisis has shown that the West and Russia do not understand each other well” (profile.ru/columnist/nediplomatichnye-vyrazheniya-1057266/).

            “In other to avoid this,,” he says, “the structure of processing information and taking decisions must be revised in favor of an increase of the weight of analytic centers and a broadening of work with the Internet” – in short, by increasing reliance on Open Source Information (OSINT).

            “The side which more rapidly learns to find “in this vast ocean of information, pearls of valuable information, and strengthens its ability to analyze this source, will win,” Kupriyanov continues.

            Moreover, he suggests, “the great exodus of diplomats is not yet finished and it is still unclear when that will happen If relations between the West and Russia are normalized befoe the closure of embassies, then sooner or later a reverse process will begin.” But “in the worst case,” the world will have to learn to live without embassies.

            Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is alarmed by such a prospect. If the expulsion of embassy personnel continues, he says then “it’s time to put locks on Western embassies” as “it will be cheaper for everyone.” But in that event, the sides will be looking at each other “only through gun sights” (versia.ru/desyatki-gosudarstv-mira-vysylayut-rossijskix-diplomatov).

            The closure of embassies in major capitals seems unlikely, but talk about doing without embassies is leading some to propose eliminating them in the case of smaller countries especially if those countries as in the case of the Baltic states are in conflict with Moscow (rubaltic.ru/editorial/20220405-moment-istiny-rossii-pora-razorvat-diplomaticheskie-otnosheniya-so-stranami-pribaltiki/).