Smart Power – involves the strategic use of diplomacy, persuasion, capacity building, and the projection of power and influence in ways that are cost-effective and have political and social legitimacy, essentially the engagement of both military force and all forms of diplomacy

—Chester A. Crocker, American Diplomat

It is hard to imagine any real surprises are to be found in the leaked documents on the Afghanistan war effort (taking a note from the Jed Bartlett administration, “all wars are crimes.”) In fact, the issues these leaks should bring about have nothing to do with Afghanistan. The Internet is but a grain of sand in America’s eroded history of secrecy and your-eyes-only documents. But the Internet has made that information, previously assumed unobtainable, the carrot dangling over the hungry public. Information has more value and can do more damage than any amount of infantry and ammunition in modern warfare. And the trend is spreading to American culture as a whole

A commodity-driven economy has both its literal and cerebral definitions. Our economy is most certainly the literal translation of commodity-driven. It is also safe to say that our public psyche, or collective unconscious if we are feeling particularly referential, is commodity-driven as well. Everything we make use of in the workplace and public sector, be it tangible or intangible, is valued like a commodity today and information is the primary example. While Google has made the idea of information a tangible product that can be bought and sold, most forms of information remain out of our materialistic grasp. You cannot measure the talent of CIA and NSC analysts who decipher patterns and make logical predictions that are crucial to counterterrorism efforts. You cannot scientifically compare the temperaments of a trigger-happy president to a diplomacy-focused one and determine which mindset is more cost-effective for the taxpayer. But we seem to constantly try to do just that. As it turns out, the intellect of a counterterrorism analyst or the Zen-like personality of a president will indirectly but dramatically impact the economy, national security, foreign policy, etc. In a world where the smell of fresh air or the blue of the sky have no impact on our daily mood the way the numbers at the close of stock market do, the idea of the mind having more physical impact than the power of combat is frightening to many. So information becomes valued, priced, traded, and leaked as if they were coffee or oil.

What is important to bear in mind for those calling the Wikileak releases necessary or who claim the public is Constitutionally entitled to this information is that the value of a commodity is not static. If every single American wakes up tomorrow with a fifty-pound sack of Arabica beans outside their front door, Starbucks will not be charging three dollars a latte for much longer. The same is true with information. The reason that information is crucial to all facets of—for lack of a better term—governmentally-controlled-life is because so much of it is private and esoteric. In this information age we have an unprecedented ability to use intellect and information far more effectively than combat warfare. We have the ability to fight wars, challenge terrorism, and help administer peace and freedom without feeling backed into a corner with Hiroshima spinning like a broken record in the backs of military officials minds. But if we devalue the commodity we have built information into it becomes weaker and eventually obsolete.

What makes all of this hard to ignore is that the public expressed this very sentiment not one month ago. When General Stanley McChrystal resigned over his public statements about President Obama and his strategies in Afghanistan, the American public, political pundits, and policymakers alike celebrated the value of information. It is hard to believe that prior to the publishing of “The Runaway General” the general public felt that McChrystal, the Commander of the ISAF and USFOR-A and former Director of Joint Staff and Joint Special Operations Command, respected and agreed wholeheartedly with President Obama, a former one-term Senator with zero military experience. The problem was not that the General disagreed with the young president but far more so that a disclosure of information that showed a break in unity weakened America’s strength abroad and at home. The General’s career ended in disgrace for divulging information that damaged the military’s power more than any insurgent bombing could have.

The Wikileak disclosure will end up as a fairly benign point along the timeline of the Information Age. Every method of exposing information will be met with counteracting strategies and tactics to keep information private. What can be taken and acted upon is the way our society views information and other forms of smart power in the coming years. Understanding that most if not all of our physical commodities and priorities are created, affected, changed, and utilized by intangible faculties is the first step in creating action instead of force.