The Law of Unintended Consequences

The law of unintended consequences was brilliantly demonstrated this week by the tornado-like escalation of the diplomatic twitter battle between Canada and Saudi Arabia.

What started as a well-intended but badly thought out, criticism of an internal Saudi Arabian issue has escalated into a full-blown diplomatic disaster.

One of the causes, is the use of social media-twitter- to criticise a sovereign nation.

Many years ago, an American Secretary of State (I think) was quoted as saying:

 

 

The art of diplomacy is to speak softly and carry a big stick. Share on X

I cannot find the origin of that quotation, but here is a similar, but equally harsh one from Will Rogers:

There are severe repercussions for Canada, thousands of jobs at risk, millions of dollars of lost business for manufacturing and educational institutions. The forced departure of hundreds of students causing huge disruption to their lives and future graduation. 

What seems to have escaped our wise Canadian leaders is that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has instituted major (in Saudi context) reforms. Allowing women to drive being one of the most recent.

As a reformer, he is under constant threat from the old guard.

Criticising his government, then adding insult to injury by broadcasting it in the twittersphere is something even a junior diplomat should have known was going to invite unintended consequences.

The Canadian government’s action is playing into the hands of the Saudi Arabian government’s opposition. This could derail any further reforms in that country with massive repercussions for women.

The law of unintended consequences and hypocrisy

There is an element of hypocrisy about this incident. Considering that Saudi Arabia is a major trading partner, as is Israel, it is odd that these two countries should be singled out for rebuke.

While economically and strategically, unimportant countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe and the two Palestinian controlled territories are not criticised for:

• genocide against whites in the first
• destruction of the economy for racially based policies in the second
• the stated aim of destroying a nation and its people in the third

and gross human rights violations in all three.

It’s a strange world indeed.

It is going to be very interesting to see how the law of unintended consequences plays out as this diplomatic fiasco unravels over the next few weeks.

What next?

I expect that the Canadian government will back down from both external and internal pressure while putting on a brave face by tweeting excuses. I am sure that Saudi Arabia will extract concessions in the form of lower prices or higher specifications for our armoured vehicles. Higher prices for the oil we buy would be another effect. The expelled students may well be compensated.

All that at the Canadian taxpayer’s expense.

My only surprise is that the President of the USA has not resorted to twitter to bring some sanity to the issue – or aggravate it.

Beware the law of unintended consequences. It is as real and effective as the law of gravity.

I wrote about more examples of unintended consequences in this post.

A short post today, but you might enjoy the longer one about the three big fears of moving to a smaller house and my experience of dealing with them I posted on TinyHomesGeniuses 

Leave a comment with your story of how the law of unintended consequences has affected you.

twitter graphic by RonnyK / pixabay