With Wikileak’s next document dump generating fear in Washington and glee in Russia, Christopher Schwartz at RFL/RE points out, correctly I think, that the upstart Web site is changing the nature of the international order by exposing a central truth:  the Americans have dirt on everyone.

Assange and company’s logic is as elegant as it’s unsettling: by revealing the secrets of the world’s leading superpower, the secrets of the world — namely, the all-too-often dirty web of interconnections between governments, corporations, intelligence and media agencies, and key personalities — are also revealed.

There are potential lessons here, some likely old, some hopefully new, and all doubtlessly very unhappy, about the nature of power and what it really means to be an “international community.”

One lesson is that the secrecy essential to U.S. diplomacy faces unprecedented pressure from the network.