Last night, Keith Olberman had Richard Fienman on to talk about the Nuclear Security talks happening in Washington DC.  He made the point that Nuclear Security practitioners can learn a lot from Social Networking, of all things.  I thought about it for a while last night and it finally made sense this morning.

Currently, there are nearly 50 international diplomats in Washington discussing the state of nuclear security and a course forward.  These talks signify the largest gathering of international delegates on this issue since the creation on the UN, and quite frankly, its about time.  Before I address these current talks, lets first look to the beginnings of the Nuclear world.

With the close of WWII, the world emerged with a concept of "Nuclear War".  To address this, the international community devised a strategy to combat the use and proliferation of these new weapons.  This strategy lead to the formation of the UN (among other reasons).  Only five nations had nuclear capacity - US, France, Great Britain, China, and Russia - and these countries became the core membership of the UN's Security Council.  The UN Security Council not only was given the mandate to authorize the use of nuclear weapons, but was also charged with the authority to authorize all international force.  Needless to say, there has not been any nuclear war.  However, times are changing; this change has brought a new concept of warfare, network warfare.

Wars are not fought face-to-face on a battle field anymore; instead, modern threats to security are diffuse and bodiless.  Instead of a country with a top-down governance structure, the modern enemy is flat -- central concepts inspire, not central command centers.  Simply put, because the modern enemy is diffuse, diplomatic engagement and negotiations cannot hold.  Furthermore, with nuclear weapons becoming easier to manufacture and easier to transport, modern security must take a new approach.  This approach, as Fienman suggested, can be learned from the lessons of social networking.  

Social Networking allows individuals to communicate beyond their own network, and also into the networks of their friends.  Because of this capacity to connect one degree beyond our own network, information becomes more available and thus, more powerful.  Fundraising has flourished within social networks.  Event promotion has seen growth.  Applied to Nuclear Security, networking will enable each country to share information with their colleagues, but more importantly it will enable all countries to learn from there connections about developing situations long before they become threats.

So, I think it is only natural that we apply the lessons learned from social networking to other, more fundamental concerns like nuclear security.  How it will all play put in Washington has yet to be seen, but by "friend requesting" as many foreign countries as possible things seem off to a great start.