Solution in search of a problem

In a recent post, I wrote that I liked the policy idea in Secretary Clinton’s speech on internet freedom about using new technologies to hold governments more accountable. The more I talked about it with others, the more I felt like something was missing, not only in the idea, but in the speech more broadly. Evgeny Morzov at Foreign Policy made me realize what it was.

what’s the broader strategy here? I didn’t sense one…they are clinging to the old view “let’s make information available and see what happens,” which I think is a very passive (and often dangerous) way of going about it. I doubt they would be able to topple the Iranian regime with an iPhone app. Voice of America… already tried something similar. It seems like the State Department hopes to solve its political issues via economics: mobile phones will create universal prosperity and that will somehow guarantee democracy and human rights everywhere.  Maybe. Unless, of course, authoritarian governments develop even greater immunity to information, which will make the State Department’s job much harder.

More crudely, Clinton has a solution in search of a problem.