The consequences of the State Department cables were similarly complex and gradual. They are an archive of unimpeachable value to contemporary historians and probably had some influence in triggering the start of the Arab revolutions in Tunisia. Reverberations have been felt in Ireland, India and Ethiopia. Several American ambassadors have had humiliating apologies to make; one resigned. But the relation between information and governance stands where it did before. Assange needed allies and expertise. But his inexperience and autocratic impatience drove them away. If the WikiLeaks revelations had been directed by a cohesive group of skilled operators who cooperated to minimize the distractions of an information-saturated world and to make the very strongest moral impact with the powerful data at their disposal, it is likely the world would have taken a different kind of notice. The evidence, not the man, would have been the story.
more from George Brock at the TLS here.