talk about anything, again

As hoped, my post on the public diplomacy platforms of the Presidential candidates has drawn some interesting and thoughtful responses.   

From public diplomacy expert Patricia Kushlis:

Lynch seems to have it right regarding Clinton’s lack of discussion - or even public recognition - that public diplomacy might play a role, let alone a significant one – in the implementation of US foreign policy in a future administration under her leadership. It's not that she disavows public diplomacy, it just that it has apparently gone missing throughout her foreign policy statements. This void has surprised me too. If I've missed something, please let me know.
....

I, like Marc, fail to understand why Clinton has also not filled in the public diplomacy blanks or crossed the soft power "t"s. She has, after all, a bevy of very experienced foreign policy advisors. Furthermore, there have been over 30 studies since 9/11 including those by the Executive branch, the Congress and various prestigious US think-tanks – left, right and center - that have highlighted the need to overhaul how the US communicates with the Muslim world.

Where Marc and I differ, however, is in his characterization of McCain’s ideas as well developed and his description of Obama’s America’s Voice Initiative as being modeled after the Peace Corps.

Read the rest of her detailed comments at Whirled View.  I have some particular thoughts about her interesting comments on the "America's Voice" initiative, but I'll hold off for now.

Elevated from comments, the veteran diplomat John Brown, of the late and lamented Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review: 

As for the present and future role of PD, allow me to make several rather unoriginal points, based on my twenty-plus years in the Foreign Service.

1. Make PD central in the formulation of policy. Take foreign public opinion into serious consideration at the beginning, not at the end, of the policy-making process. "If they want me in on the crash landings, I better d___ well be in on the take-offs." So said Edward R. Murrow, United States Information Agency (USIA) Director during the Kennedy administration.

2. End the turf wars among Washington bureaucracies on who is in charge of public diplomacy. Take the Pentagon out of the PD business.

3. Get over the nostalgia for the USIA (abolished in 1999) and America’s PD “triumphs” during the Cold War. Instead, give serious thought about how PD should be organized in our new century.

3. Stop the blah-blah-blah about “American values” being “our main message to the world.” Instead, present America in all its complexity with a variety of messages that are relevant to local audiences. Drop the nonsense term “war on terror.”

4. Abandon the Karen Hughes phrase, “diplomacy of deeds,” reminiscent of the anarchists’ “propaganda of the deed.” PD is about dialogue; words, not just action, are important. More on this at http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/09/411/

5. Empower PD diplomats in the field, giving them sufficient resources to make an impact in the countries where they serve. To cite Murrow again: "It has always seemed to me the real art in this business is not so much moving information or guidance or policy five or 10,000 miles. That is an electronic problem. The real art is to move it the last three feet in face to face conversation."

6. Make foreign language instruction a true priority in the training of PD officers. Too few of our diplomats really speak local languages.

PS.  My memo to Karen Hughes at http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0424-20.htm

From media and conflict expert Kenneth Payne (at least I assume it's that KP and not someone else with the same name - if not I abjectly apologize!), in comments:

Marc, it's a frequent contention that PD hasn't worked because it's effectively an effort to lipstick a pig - with foreign policy the pig, of course.

Pew polls certainly bear out the failure of PD under the Bush admin - but is that really a PD failure? Is there analytically any need to separate out PD from policymaking? PD amplifies policy choices, but a bigger, more free media does that anyway - you can't block Al Jaz, or BBC Arabic. And internet usage in the ME is exploding.

I suspect the audiences American PD reached knew all about its ambition for democratization, and they knew all about the contradictions that stopped much traction in achieving that.

Would you agree though that IO - information operations - a broader term; has had some success is in communicating promises that the US can keep - at a local scale in Anbar, for example....?

As for PD marketing American values, liberalism, individualism etc etc - doesn't the soft power of the private sector take care of that? Starbucks plus Hollywood does more for America than Al Hurra...

Finally, commenter dmo (sorry, that's the only ID I've got!):

Clinton's failure to address public diplomacy does not surprise me. Her husband's administration did not value it and indeed downgraded it by eliminating USIA.

The Clintons, it seems to me, ascribe to what Michael Waltzer calls the emancipation model at the level of international society. (Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism) Their concern is with powerless and vulnerable people as individuals. They do not see group (national, ethnic) cultural identity as enduring difference requiring a modus vivendi among ways of life that will always be different.

Certainly, during the Clinton administration, the liberal internationalist assumption that formation of a universal civilization was well underway informed their policies and their politics. Why would you need international dialog between the United States and other cultures that are destined to disappear into the evolving cosmopolitan norm? They assumed a convergence of values that in the rapidly globalizing post cold war era appeared fast approaching.

Moving public diplomacy into the State department was their way of downgrading regional and national considerations about policies and increasing attention to “global issues.” An earlier Clinton effort to completely reorganize the State Department around issues – led by Jessica Mathews – had failed. Injecting public diplomacy into State was intended to expand the pie as a way of realigning the institutional focus.

It would appear that Obama is that second kind of liberal. He does not seem to believe that a universal civilization is coming and therefore he is willing to think afresh about coexistence in a pluralistic world. John Grey in his Two Faces of Liberalism calls for this particular variant of the liberal tradition to be strengthened. “…this means shedding the illusion that theories of justice and rights can deliver us from the ironies and tragedies of politics.” Attention to public diplomacy makes complete sense for this kind of liberal. Cultures do differ both in values they have in common and in values they recognize. Dialog can lead to toleration.

McCain appears less interested in public diplomacy than in what we used to call advocacy and is now called strategic communication. His interest is in the “war of ideas” and advancing American objectives in the global information battle-space.

Apologies to anyone I left out - those interested should check out the comment thread, and I'll update any additional comments from other blogs or via email here on this follow up post.   My responses will mostly come later when I finish the piece I'm working up - so now's the time to help out and get your 50 cents in!

UPDATE.... Matt Armstrong offers a very interesting response here.

Comments

[seth edenbaum]

No mention of the Vanity Fair piece yet?
"After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever."

This was American public diplomacy in Action. And it's why I have so much contempt for "Poli Sci and IR junkies" and why it's important to make that contempt explicit. Matt Armstrong "returned to University for a second career of contributing to the national security of the United States." But the basic logic of humanism and democracy says that largely the result not the cause. Treating it as a cause is what gets us into these shit holes. I am not and I will never be a "patriot." There is no moral defense of patriotism. Arguments for a focus on "democracy in one country" are a matter of practical politics not a moral imperative.
I'm beginning to think political science programs like business schools should be denied accreditation in the future. They're trades schools. And nationalist tradecraft is about life on the street. I don't listen to Styles P for lectures on morality. I listen to him when the hypocrisy of everything else gets to me. "My life... Is based on, Lighting blunts, loading guns Telling my lawyers to get the case gone. I need the bills that the Presidents got their face on"
Ah.. Sweet honesty.

[seth edenbaum]

I also listen to him for an honest account of the costs. That's in there too.

[Digger]

Thanks for getting a good discussion going about Public Diplomacy. I have quoted and linked to your post here: http://lifeafterjerusalem.blogspot.com/2008/03/bloggers-discuss-public-diplomacy.html

[Zathras]

John Brown presents some sensible ideas, though his proposal to end Washington turf wars over public diplomacy strikes me as more a wish than a proposal.

His suggestion that the Defense Department be dealt out of the public diplomacy picture is impractical. The American military presence around the world is simply too large for American public diplomacy not to take it into account; you can't do that without the military's cooperation, and you can't have cooperation without the participation of military personnel. Moreover the only national institution in several countries is the military, and their relations with the United States will often feature their relations with our uniformed services. I wouldn't blame a career diplomat for feeling frustrated that the Pentagon's role in foreign policy is so much greater relative to the State Department than once it was, but for now public diplomacy will have to deal with that fact of life.

My larger concern with Brown's ideas is that they appear to reflect a more expansive view of what public diplomacy can do than I believe is realistic. If American foreign policy is unpopular in Arab countries or our support for Taiwan is prompting the state-run Chinese media to attack us, public diplomacy won't help us that much in the short run, even if we do everything right. As part of the foundation of a foreign policy designed for the long haul, though, public diplomacy could be as useful to us now as it was during the Cold War. The question we have to answer is, how?

[john brown]

1. I certainly agree with Zathras' comment that the Pentagon cannot be "wished away" as regards public diplomacy. It is also true that the military can play an important PD role (I recall, in my Foreign Service career, having an excellent rapport with military attaches, who were often willing to take part in PD events and were always sensitive to local public opinion). My main point, however, is not about the military's participation in certain PD activities, but about who decides what the focus and programs of PD should be. This crucial matter, I believe, should be handled not by Pentagon, but by the civilian PD element in the "foreign affairs community," if only because its perspective about the world centers not on waging war (which, as history teaches us, regrettably cannot be avoided in certain situations) but on bilateral communications and mutual understanding.

2. I fully agree with Zathras' other point (as I understand it), that "it's the policy, stupid," and that no amount of PD will "sell" a bad policy. Indeed, I've written quite extensively about the topic at, for example,
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/06/05/americas_fading_glow.php
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/03/10/of_propaganda_and_policy.php
I also believe that, even when policies are adequate and well thought out, it cannot be assumed that PD will magically turn the world into a pro-American paradise. There is only so much PD can do, and being aware of its limitations is, I believe, a sine qua non of practicing it effectively.

[Zathras]

Good clarification on the first point. I don't know that the military can be excluded from all PD decision making, but it can't be left to go make its own or usurp the role of civilian agencies either.

The idea that public diplomacy cannot compensate for bad policy is a common one, and is not wrong as far as it goes. The idea I was trying to communicate was somewhat different. Individual policy decisions will come and go, and some enduring American policies that serve our interests perfectly well are going to be unpopular with various foreign audiences. I regard public diplomacy less as a tool to make us liked than as a means to ensure that we are not misunderstood.

Obviously this begs several important questions -- how should PD play this role, what activities should we count as PD, how can PD reinforce (or, given our experience in the last several years, recreate) the American government's reputation around the world as a source of reliable information, and to what extent can such a reputation be made consistent with policy advocacy, among others. These questions must all be answered in some way, but the larger question I have after reading what the Obama campaign has to say about PD is whether Obama agrees with what I think has to be PD's primary function.

It rather looks to me as if he sees an urgent need to demonstrate to people in Middle Eastern, primarily Muslim countries -- ignoring the rest of the world, which is the fashion nowadays -- that we approach them with great goodwill (and a different approach from the current administration), and so they should like us. In the first place I am less anxious about being liked; but more relevant to this discussion is that I don't think this is an attainable mission for public diplomacy.

[jonst]

Zathras wrote:

"The American military presence around the world is simply too large for American public diplomacy not to take it into account.....". I,for one, anyway, don't see why this has to be, other than inertia, and vested interests. So cut the damn military presence around the world and tell the American people you are going to spend the money saved (don't over hype the savings)on their health care costs and their kid's schools. See how they will respond to that. It is time, if not to dismantle the Empire, to at least begin talking about dismantling it. It is not as if the "presence" is some immutable law of nature.

[Ken 2]

Hi Marc - yes that's me - thanks for posting. This is a thought provoking discussion, and Matt Armstrong's piece is top stuff. good luck with your article.

[Bob Madden]

Please excuse me for butting into your extremely nuanced conversation with a simple question.

In a day, and age where people in the middle east are imprisoned, beaten, tortured, killed, etc for having/holding ideas different from the jihadists, how does this focus on some kind of meaningful discourse help?

Just as a matter of simple logic this discourse can only fall upon ears in one of 2 categories:

Those that can be convinced, and those that can't.

If those that can be convinced are they end up either in prison, or dead. It is another argument as to which of those is more lucky.

And for those that cannot be convinced their discussions with us are merely a tactic that serve no purpose other than to give them time to regroup, retool, etc. To this later group we are nothing more than Kafirs, and not entitled to anything in the way of honesty. As a matter of record the Koran gives them specific authority to lie to us as we are not deserving of anything more.

Just what do we hope to accomplish with this heavy reliance on public diplomacy?

I will freely admit to being quite conservative in my viewpoints, though not at all Christian.

I think I raise a valid question, and quite worthy of discussion, but I fully expect some to completely dismiss the question as having come from a conservative.

I like the old carrot, and stick approach myself, but without the stick you just end up with lots of stolen carrots...

I give fair warning though:

Debating an issue with me is like getting into a mud-wrestling contest with a pig. After a while you realize that the pig enjoys it...

Take Care