Anne Applebaum has written a piece for Slate arguing that the WikiLeaks cable-dump isn't the guarantor of government transparency that Julian Assange advertises. I'm inclined to agree.

In fact, the world's real secrets—the secrets of regimes where there is no free speech and tight control on all information—have yet to be revealed. This stuff is awkward and embarrassing, but it doesn't fundamentally change very much. How about a leak of Chinese diplomatic documents? Or Russian military cables? How about some stuff we don't actually know, like Iranian discussion of Iranian nuclear weapons, or North Korean plans for invasion of South Korea Korea? If WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange is serious about his pursuit of "Internet openness"—and if his goal isn't, in fact, embarrassing the United States—that's where he'll look next. Somehow, I won't be surprised if he doesn't.

As I've noted, there are some genuinely interesting items contained in these embassy cables, but Applebaum is correct that Assange is reaping a pretty measly harvest for the price of increased secrecy among those governments that do grant freedom of speech. Her conclusion:

Very soon, only authoritarian leaders will be able to speak frankly with one another. A Russian official can keep a politically incorrect statement out of the newspapers. A Chinese general would never speak to a journalist anyway. Low-level officials in Iran don't leak sensitive information to WikiLeaks because the regime would kill them and torture their families. By contrast, the soldier who apparently leaked these diplomatic cables will probably live to a ripe old age.

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