Abu Aardvark

Why doesn't McCain just end the Jordan controversy?

I didn't expect to post on this again, but the controversy over the comments (almost certainly falsely) attributed to McCain adviser Bob Kagan that Jordan should be the Palestinian state continues to rock Jordanian politics despite his denial and has moved up into the wider Arab media.  Those reports engaged and enraged almost every actor in Jordanian politics, from the Muslim Brotherhood to the Jordanian Parliament to the King himself.   It seems virtually certain that Kagan didn't make the remarks, but the fallout continues to roil public opinion in a crucial American ally.  Why doesn't McCain just issue a strong statement denying the reports and explaining his position on the "Jordan is Palestine" question, and put an end to it? 

Some Jordanian and Arab commenters have begun to focus more on the implications for the credibility of Arab media in the incident.  Why, asks al-Arabiya director Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed, were so many Jordanians inside and outside of the government ready to believe an inflammatory statement posted on a blog?  Why didn't they check with the McCain campaign or the American embassy first, before running their stories?   Batir Wardum wonders why people didn't look at the source,  which he considers hostile to Jordan, or try to find evidence that the alleged talk took place before running with the story.   For those interested in the problems of public diplomacy and strategic communication, this is a pretty rich case study... as different public spheres interact at breakneck speed, rumors spread faster than governments or campaigns can hope to respond, and  political dynamics outrace fact checking. 

But other Jordanian and Arab pundits and politicians still want to know what McCain and his advisers actually think about the substantive issue.  Regardless of what Kagan did or didn't say, does McCain agree or disagree with the argument held by some on the Israeli right that the solution to the Palestinian problem lies across the Jordan river?   If he does, he should say so and explain why.  If he doesn't, his campaign should say so, clearly and publicly, to put an end to the controversy.   I doubt this has much significance to the campaign over here, but such a statement - or the absence of such a statement - could have some real impact over there. 

Whose face to the world?

John Brown just let me know about a nice essay by Steve Barnes in the International Herald Tribune today trying to focus attention on the Presidential candidates and their ideas about public diplomacy.   He references a discussion hosted here on the topic a few months ago.  For those coming here from that article and looking for the relevant links, here they are:

• never been afraid to talk about anything, the original framing post noting that Clinton had virtually nothing to say about public diplomacy, McCain said a lot but has an overly militarized approach, and Obama had some great ideas and seemed to have the best grasp of its importance and potential.
• talk about anything, again, featuring responses by Patricia Kushlis, John Brown, Kenneth Payne, and Donna Marie Oglesby
• keep talking, featuring Steve Corman and Matt Armstrong

Nothing more to add right now, as I'm scrambling to get ready for upcoming trip. 

resource tradeoffs and the war on ideas

I've linked several times to the outstanding work done by RFE/RL analyst Daniel Kimmage on al-Qaeda's internet operations, including his definitive study of Iraqi insurgent media (with Kathleen Ridolfo) and his more recent report on al-Qaeda's internet media production network.  There are very few people inside or outside the government who have worked harder or thought more deeply about how jihadists use online media, drawing on the original Arabic sources rather than from second and third-hand conjecture.  It is clear that everyone working on the issue has learned a tremendous amount from those reports, even when we don't agree on how to interpret his findings. 

The relevance of his work has grown along with the general appreciation of the importance of information operations to al-Qaeda's strategy, and a sense (rightly or wrongly) that the internet is a central front in this battle.  Just a few days ago,  State Department Coordinator of the Office for Counter-terrorism Dell L. Dailey stated that "terrorists consider information operations a principle part of their effort, use the Internet for propaganda, recruiting, fundraising, and increasingly for training. It has made the Internet a virtual safe haven."  So understanding how that works has got to be a top priority, right?  Especially given the widely noted shortage of analysts with Arabic language skills? 

So imagine my surprise to learn yesterday that '"the president of RFE/RL informed the analysts there that because of budgetary shortfalls, he had no choice but to fire them."  I've heard that Kimmage and Ridolfo are two of the analysts who have been given notice.   

That's right:  the US government is cutting loose one of its best analysts of al-Qaeda's use of the internet in order to save money which doesn't even amount to a rounding error in the Pentagons budget. Whether it's because of the fall of the dollar or because of the costs of Iraq, or more narrowly because of the Broadcasting Board of Governors need to pay the bills of the al-Hurra TV white elephant, this speaks volumes about both our real resource constraints and our real priorities.

I don't know how Kimmage himself feels about the situation, but I'm pretty peeved.  Anyone else working on these issues should be too. 

Using Info Operations to Defeat AQ

Thanks to Matt Armstrong for tipping me off to the online proceedings of the 2008 Unrestricted Warfare Symposium at Johns Hopkins, which includes an interesting set of briefing slides by Col. Karen Lloyd of J3, Joint IO Warfare Center.   The interesting part of her presentation was what appears, from the slides, to be some frank discussion of what the US is currently doing in the information operations arena against al-Qaeda, including from Slide 6:

• "AQ is losing" campaign
  • demonstrated success against network
  • demonstrated capability of coalition capability
  • highlighting success of local efforts (Al Anbar Sheiks)
• Exploit friction between AQ and associated movements
  • AQ use of indiscriminate violence; killing Muslims

... and from Slide 10:

• Weaken ideological appeal by exploiting disillusioned jihadis
• fabricate stories and exaggerate real jihadi mistakes
• amplify mainstream Islamic voices countering AQAM ideology
• use information operations to fracture the AQAM

Now, compare this to an April 23 speech at the Washington Institute by deputy national security advisor for combatting terrorism Juan Zarate called "Winning the War on Terror," which offered four examples of the "growing rejection of the al-Qaida program and message":

• the Anbar Awakening, which shows "the heart of al-Qaida's supposed constituency, the Sunni Arab tribes, openly and violently rejecting al-Qaida's presence and ideology"
• critiques written by former jihadists, such as Dr Fadl, Salman al-Awda, and the new Quilliam Foundation
• challenges to al-Qaeda from mainstream religious scholars such as Grand Muftis from Egypt and Saudi Arabia
• opposition in Arab countries to attacks on civilians. 

These examples offered by a senior American official to an American audience in support of the claim that "al-Qaeda is losing"  (persuasive enough to merit a story in the Washington Post) mirror, nearly point for point, the examples presented by Col. Lloyd of successful US information operations aimed at defeating al-Qaeda. 

Look, Col. Lloyd's presentation contains a number of very good suggestions for an information operations campaign against AQ.  I've made similar suggestions over the years.  Unlike many public diplomacy scholars and practitioners, I have no principled objection to strategic communications and agree that they have an important place in national strategy.  And I do think that some of these campaigns have put al-Qaeda on the defensive, particularly on the issue of their killing of innocent Muslims. 

But this only makes it more important to highlight yet again the very real risks of "blowback", conventionally defined as "the consequences that resulted when an intelligence agency participated in foreign media manipulation, which was then reported by domestic news sources in other countries as accepted facts."  In this case, the blowback effect would be Americans coming to believe our own propaganda about al-Qaeda and then formulating policy based on our own disinformation.  It's one thing to "fabricate stories", "exploit disillusioned jihadis", or transmit a narrative that "al-Qaeda is losing" in order to weaken al-Qaeda with Muslim audiences and counter their propaganda. It's another when such information operations then filter back into our domestic policy debates or into the policy-making process (or, worse yet, if shaping the domestic arena is actually the point - but that's a slightly different set of issues). 

As I've said many times before, I honestly do not think it is possible in this era of globalized media for messages directed to foreign audiences to somehow not be heard in the United States.   Any successful information operations abroad are going to filter back into the American debate - and quickly.    It's a problem if Americans are formulating their policy preferences - or American policymakers are formulating policy - based on "un-flagged" American-made propaganda.  It's even more of a problem if the practice breeds rampant skepticism, such that any information which doesn't confirm pre-existing beliefs is reasonably dismissed as a probable information operations campaign.   

I don't have answers to these questions.  But I think that it really does produce some extraordinarly problematic issues.  All the more reason to hope for some serious discussion and debate in the strategic communications crowd will be triggered by Matt Armstrong and John Brown's planned conference on rethinking Smith-Mundt (the cold war era ban on the domestic dissemination of foreign propaganda, if Armstrong will allow me the crude simplification).  I'm looking forward to that discussion.   

UPDATE:  to make a bit more precise what I mean, here's an example:

• do I think that the US should have agents participating on jihadist forums in a misleading or disruptive way?   Yes.
• do I think that the US should have agents reading jihadist forums to extract information about their thinking and attitudes?  Yes.
• what happens when the second group of agents (or regular old analysts like Evan Kohlmann and me) reads the stuff planted by the first group, if it isn't somehow flagged as disinformation?  um...

Tonight: David Brubeck and Cultural Diplomacy

Reminder, for those interested:  tonight I'll be appearing on a panel about jazz legend David Brubeck on the 50th anniversary of his pathbreaking jazz diplomacy tours.   The event is from 6:00-7:15 in Room 212 (The Harry Harding Auditorium) of the Elliott School, 1957 E Street.  If all goes well, I'll post at least an outline of my remarks some time soon.

... okay, here are my remarks as prepared for delivery - an odd thing, writing this talk while listening to the Petraeus-Crocker hearings.  I improvised a bit, which is probably appropriate.  It seemed to go over quite well, which was a relief.  If nothing else, I'm possibly the first person to quote Talib Kweli in a formal event at the Elliott School.  And I got to hear Brubeck play, which was just exceptional. 

Cultural Diplomacy and David Brubeck
Remarks prepared for forum at Elliott School of International Relations
April 7, 2008

This panel brings together some of my favorite things:  jazz, public diplomacy and… hip hop. No, really.  It is an honour and a thrill to be able to talk about these topics to this audience, and with a long-time hero, David Brubeck, in the front row.  Hopefully he – and Dean Grier – will approve! 

As I understood my mandate this evening, we are here tonight not only to celebrate the great jazz tours of the 1950s but to think about what lessons might be drawn about today’s cultural diplomacy efforts to the Islamic world and beyond.

Jazz diplomacy tours such as David Brubeck’s marked a high point in the attempt to turn American popular culture into a weapon in the Cold War. In the public diplomacy and “war of ideas” crowd today, these tours are carefully studied as guides to how to approach the problem of anti-Americanism in a more holistic fashion.  That Washington DC looks to the successes of 50 years ago for new ideas is something I leave for another day.       It was Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., I believe, who in 1956 urged the State Department to fund a tour by Dizzy Gillespie with stops in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia, and South America.  Other government tours featured icons such as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and of course David Brubeck.

It is worth recalling that jazz was an unusual and inspired choice on the part of the State Department.   The product of black culture and of youth culture, with an edge of danger and mystery, it cast light upon American racial discrimination at a time when Soviet propaganda often used this as a weapon and when American race relations were deeply divisive.  Its unpredictability was at sharp odds with most diplomats’ preference for control.    This was not a safe choice. 

But it was an inspired one, for exactly that reason. It showed a side of America that some diplomats would perhaps have preferred not be shown – and others, perhaps, wished to present as evidence of a color-blind America.  But it also showed America as an ongoing answer to those problems – not perfect, but a hothouse of creative, restless energy striving for new answers to old qustions.  The musical form itself epitomized this America.  As my friend Nick Cull, a great historian of public diplomacy, once put it:   “in jazz, you are not afraid to improvise. In jazz, you have to listen.  And those are both profoundly central aspects of the American political system. And you could not listen to this music without experiencing those principles and sharing in that freedom."

I would argue that hip hop is the closest thing we have today to the jazz of the 1950s:  the product of black culture embraced by many whites, such as myself.  Like jazz, the best hip hop features rapid improvisation, irresistable beat, rapid responses and a careful ear, a rapier wit expressed through a musical idiom. These are two genuinely American art forms, rooted in the black American experience, which have become genuinely global. 

So can hip hop today take the place of jazz as a tool of cultural diplomacy? What about hip hop today?  Things are very different, of course:   the marketplace, the political problems, the anti-Americanism that public diplomacy needs to address. But I find reason for hope, that hip hop today can help to build bridges and a common language across youth culture.   That will not overcome “anti-Americanism”, or improve America’s favorable ratings in Pew surveys.  But that, I suggest, should not be the point. 

First, there have been tremendous changes in the global information marketplace.  American culture is no longer a tantalizing secret, to be found by huddling over short-wave radios.   Today’s Arabs are saturated with media of all sorts, on the internet and on satellite television. They do not suffer from cultural or informational blackouts, but from overload.  No shortwave radios are needed to find America’s culture.  They are drowning in it – and indeed, resentment of this culture can be easily found among Islamists, among worried secular intellectuals, among angry parents who don’t like their kids listening to Eminem anymore than do American parents. 

Hip hop is a key part of this emerging culture. It is played everywhere in the Middle East – and not just by Americans. I’ll never forget the first time that I was approached in a shaabi café in Cairo by a scruffy, bearded young man – well, actually he was my age.  I was fearing the worst, but the first words out of his mouth were “Eminem?  Dr Dre?”  We bonded.   One of my best students recounts learning Arabic in Damascus from an intense, eager young Syrian intent on decoding the rhymes of 50 Cent – who then took him to underground clubs to hear the local MCs.   I’ve heard and lived countless other examples.

The Muslim world produces its own hip hop and its own pop music.  From the MTV style starlets singing Arabic-inflected Europop to the hard edged Rai music of North Africa to young Iranian, Saudi, and Palestinian rappers – the inspiration has been offered, the spark taken up. MTM from Egypt won the award for best modern Arab act in the first Arabian Music Awards in 2004.  Israeli and Palestinian rappers have generated great international attention.   DAM’s 2001 song Meen Erhabi was reportedly downloaded more than 1 million times from an Arabic hip hop site.  Saudis, Iraqis, Syrians, Tunisians…  As the rapper Khalifa E rhymed,  “We used to dream of western rap, [but] I’m singing Hip hop Arabi.”

The State Department has begun to tentatively explore these opportunities.  This is not easy. Much of today’s hip hop scene is dominated by crass materialism, roughly hewn gangsta rap, foul language, macho posturing and no small amount of misogyny.  There are great lyricists and social critics like KRS-One, Taleb Kwali, Nas.  But most share a deeply critical political worldview, shaped by a black experience of alienation and marginality.  It would be a brave State Department employee indeed who sent Public Enemy or Eminem out to represent America. 

But they have.  The State Department has sent several hip hop groups on cultural diplomacy tours in the last few years.    Native Deen, a group of Muslim American rappers, went to Jersualem, Dubai and Turkey in fall 2006 with State Dept backing. In 2005 a bright student named Josh Asen won a Fulbright for his project “Eminem in Medina”, and then put together the wonderful project I Love Hip Hop in Morocco with funding from US consulate.  The American Cultural Association invited Muslim hip hop group Remarkable Current to play at American Language Centers in Morocco.  The Opus Akoben Hip-Hop Ensemble toured Bahrain, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in 2006. In November 2007, American Voices sent 15 teenage hip hop dancers to northern Iraq with SD funding.  At the United States Institute for Peace next Friday there will be a panel discussion on hip hop as a force for peace.  Ben Chaviz’s Hip Hop Action Summit has tried to marshall the energies of prominent rappers such as Jay-Z for international, as well as domestic, problems. 

All of this is wonderful, and it looks back to jazz diplomacy as an inspiration.  But 50 Cent does not need the State Department to go to Beirut, Jay-Z does not need USIA to tour Dubai.  They go for the money.  But their messages, such as they are, are delivered all the same.

Finally, the musical form is different. As Toni Blackman, named US Hip Hop Ambassador by the State Department in 2006, put it, “hip hop is different from jazz in that its focus is on the message, on the words, on what is being said. Since its birth it has been about giving voice to the voiceless.”  But this does pose something of a problem.  With jazz one could project a wide variety of meanings on to the rhythms and themes.  With hip hop, the words are front and center.  When the legendary Queens lyricist Nas says “I am an American but I don’t roll with Bush’s crew,” it leaves little to the imagination.

Some might well wonder whether hip hop actually makes America’s image worse, by spreading images of materialism and misogyny… or by spreading ideas and words critical of today’s America.   When I wrote about these ideas last year, many critics pointed out that it is the bling and the posturing of commercialized rap which dominate the airwaves, not the lyricists and the socially conscious politicos.  I remember Jay-Z rapping “if skills sold truth be told I’d probably be lyrically Taleb Kweli”… and, more recently, Nas declaring that hip hop is dead. 

But despite all of this, I find reason for hope, that hip hop today can help to build bridges and a common language across youth culture.  As Jeff Chang, a great social historian of hip hop culture, recently wrote:  “hip hop is a lingua franca that binds young people all around the world, all while giving them the chance to alter it with their own national flavor… But one thing about hip hop has remained consistent across cultures: a vital progressive agenda that challenges the status quo.”  The gurus of American public diplomacy might not want the status quo challenged, but it will be nonetheless.   Let's hear the challenge instead of trying to pretend it does not exist or shouting it down. 

One of the great services which cultural diplomacy could offer is to break us of our unfortunate habit of lecturing instead of listening, of trying to control our image rather than allowing genuine back and forth. Too much of our public diplomacy is about us talking.  We need to listen.    Michael Eric Dyson wrote in his excellent recent book Know What I Mean? that “at its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics.” If young Arabs and Muslims, marginalized and ignored, can speak through hip hop then we should listen to them.   We may not like what they say, but it is precisely the voices which make us uncomfortable that we most need to hear, those who are usually silenced whose voices might help us understand Arab and Muslim hopes and fears, anger and secret delights.

Listen to Arab rapper Wlad el-Hara:  “why do they talk smack about Arabic rap… we’re always gonna be grateful to rap cuz it gave us the voice to be the advocates of freedom, to put an end to hatred, and to represent the voices of the marginalized minority, rap allowed us to express our pains to voice our criticism it’s from the heart and that’s why there’s a lot of people who criticize the legitimacy of Arabic rap and dismiss it as noisy – we find truth and reality in rap, the truth and reality that you are trying to avoid and escape from.”

Or listen to the great New York lyricist Talib Kweli, on his recent album:  “They got us thinking that Muslims like to make bombs/ But real Muslims believe in paradise and in resisting the Shaitan / So it all sound the same to me / That's why when they say one is right and the other is wrong/ it just sound like game to me.” 

That’s not a bad starting point for a dialogue of civilizations.

As a theorist of public diplomacy, I always tend to be skeptical about its immediate, “moving the needle” prospects – have we gone up three points in our favorable ratings in the new Pew survey?   Jazz musicians and rappers are not going to make up for an Administration’s unpopular foreign policy or for the reality of clashing interests.   What it can do is to build linkages and connections below the surface, far from politics, where youth around the world find a common language and a common idiom.   Perhaps it can allow youth to talk to each other about their own identities, their own issues, in their own way.  Perhaps it can build a wider, broader, deeper understanding across cultural divides.    And perhaps that’s enough. 

Thank you.

(Notes:  among the many sources I found useful in preparing these remarks, I would particularly point out Jeff Chang's book Can't Stop Won't Stop and his recent article in Foreign Policy "It's a Hip Hop World";  Michael Eric Dyson's book Know What I Mean>;  Suad Abdul Khabeer, "Rep That Islam: The Rhyme and Reason of American Islamic Hip Hop" The Muslim World 2007;   Hisham Aidi, "Jihadis in the Hood", MERIP, and "Verily There is Only One Hip-Hop Umma" Socialism and Democracy 2004;  Usama Kahf, "Arabic Hip Hop", Journal of Popular Music Studies  19, no.4;  and comments made by Nicholas Cull of USC during last year's celebrations of Dizzy Gillespie's jazz diplomacy tours.)

that talking thing... smith-mundt edition

I thought that two interesting points which came out of the last week's discussion of Presidential candidates and public diplomacy deserve more discussion. 

First, a number of commenters argued that I gave too much credit to McCain's public diplomacy initiatives.  For one example, Donna Marie Oglesby, counseler for USIA in the Clinton Administration, argued that "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." That's probably true, though I thought that my point about his overly-militarized understanding of the problem captured many of the points raised.  But whether or not his ideas are any good, it's undeniable that his Foreign Affairs essay (if not his more recent campaign speeches) had a fairly lengthy discussion of the problem - which Clinton's did not.   I think it's fair to expect that I'll be giving more scrutiny to McCain's ideas come summer, should I still have a stake in the outcome.

Second, and much more substantive, Matt Armstrong has offered a powerful and pointed case for the abolition of the Smith-Mundt ban on the domestic dissemination of propaganda designed for foreign audiences.  Here's a taste of his critique:

First and foremost, we must revisit and discuss the purpose and intent of the prohibitions of Smith-Mundt Act of 1948. Debated and enacted to improve the quality of our responses to adversarial propaganda during the communications revolution of the 1940s, it was based on the communications market of the time.  It is now invoked to prevent any potential communication that might possibly be heard or seen by Americans.  This fear of being overheard in America has done more to neuter U.S. responses and to encourage the creation of new information functions than anything else.  We have created an information architecture that cares more about how a broadcast, flyer, or message will play in Iowa than in the primary center of gravity of the fight: the minds of the support base of our adversary.  The result is timid responses and artificial self-containment out of touch with the virtual geography of today’s psychological landscape.
...

Sixty years ago, the elements of America’s national power – diplomacy, information, military, and economics, or DIME – were retooled to meet an emerging threat with the National Security Act of 1947 and the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948.  Then as it is today, the U.S. was engaged in a war of ideas and perceptions both globally and domestically, however the importance and impact of Smith-Mundt is ignored despite its influence, often negative, on every aspect of America’s informational arsenal.

This year the Defense Department will look into how the National Security Act of 1947 should be modified to adapt to 21st Century conflict.  The candidates should be bold and argue for a more holistic self-analysis.   

Our information systems suffer from inflexibility and internal resistance rooted in a misunderstanding of Smith-Mundt that requires updating to conform to a reality that makes separating audiences by geography both impractical and undesirable.  This will not be a conflict over hearts and passions, but a psychological struggle over minds and wills.  We must stop telling foreign publics what we want our own people to hear. Unless we get our information house in order, the United States will remain virtually unarmed in the battles that shape our future.

I have mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, Armstrong's enthusiasm to improve the quality of American international information operations somewhat clouds his recognition of the basic point that the ban on domestic dissemination is there for a reason.   I admit to finding it somewhat alarming when a leading public diplomacy guy in the current administration tried at some length to convince me that Smith-Mundt didn't legally apply to DoD efforts at all.  I'm no lawyer, nor a bureaucrat, so I have no idea if he's right - but the principles behind Smith-Mundt, of protecting the American democratic system from manipulation by the military or intelligence agencies, seem to me to be far more important.

The temptation to manipulate American public opinion has always been there, and has only grown more potent in an age where counter-insurgency practitioners and "Long War" planners openly view the American domestic arena as a vital strategic arena.  I'd go so far as to suggest that a not-insignificant portion of General Petraeus's information operations efforts have been directed towards shaping American public discourse.  It isn't an accident that he has been so available to so many journalists, or that the flow of "good news" about the Anbar Awakening and the surge into the American media has expanded so dramatically.  And why wouldn't he, when at the heart of the new counter-insurgency doctrine lies the recognition that maintaining domestic public support for a long, drawn-out military presence is one of the most important single factors? 

Recognizing this reality could draw one of two responses.  The first is to recoil in horror and attempt to strengthen, broaden and enforce Smith-Mundt's principles.   This position would focus on the dangers to American democracy posed by the military or intelligence agencies manipulating information and disseminating propaganda.  The impulse to get this under control is exceptionally strong, and well-justified.  This is particularly the case with propaganda which falls clearly into the realm of the political, conventionally defined:  selective release of information intended to make the current President look good (or bad).   It's less obvious, but in some ways more important when the propaganda is conceived of as part of the war effort itself, and building domestic public support is incorporated into the military's mission.  This should worry everyone, liberals and conservatives alike, since it erodes some fairly core commitments and assumptions underpinning our democracy.

At the same time, I've become somewhat fatalistic about the ability to actually control this or to enforce Smith-Mundt's principles in any serious fashion.  Preventing the domestic reception of propaganda released abroad is simply impossible given the globalization of the media and the incredibly fast movement of information from one public to another, from one language to another, from one media form to another.  Suppose, in a purely hypothetical example, that the US military does some PsyOp work in the field in Iraq to persuade Iraqis of the brutality of al-Qaeda and the nobility of the Awakenings rising up against it:  say, that AQI used a pregnant woman as a suicide bomber.   Even if the intention was purely local, meant only for Iraqi consumption, and that the US forces did everything in their power to prevent its dissemination in the US (both unlikely assumptions),  the odds that this story would filter through a local stringer into the American media are overwhelming.   It would be discussed in one of the forums or picked up in an Iraqi newspaper or Iraqi government outlets, and almost immediately translated and disseminated through the English-language distribution chain - and if the mainstream media didn't immediately bite, blogs would quickly fill the gap.

I honestly don't know what to do about all of this.  Smith-Mundt's principles are important, but both current practice and the realities of the information age make it nearly impossible to realize them.  Once again, constructive commentary - on either my thoughts or Armstrong's - very much encouraged!

keep talking

I'm just back from Boston and feeling awful.  But fortunately, there's some excellent analysis and commentary on the question of the public diplomacy proposals of the Presidential candidates continues to appear in response to last week's post.  Recent highlights of the second round include:

Steve Corman, a leading scholar of public diplomacy and strategic communications at Arizona State:

Earlier this week Marc Lynch did a nice post (that had been on my impossibly long to-do list for some time) critiquing the presidential candidates’ positions on post-Bush public diplomacy. As Lynch points out, Clinton avoids the subject except for a vague assertion that we have to restore our moral authority, a position that comes with no attached plan of action. His assessment is that McCain has got a well-developed set of ideas on the subject, albeit ones that are over-militarized and more oriented toward information operations than diplomacy. Lynch saw a lot to like in Obama’s statements, and I agree it comes close to the right thinking. Obama sees our public diplomacy efforts as disastrously ineffective and notes the need to “speak to that broader Muslim world in a way that says we will consistently support human rights, women’s rights.”

Where all of these positions, including Obama’s, fall short is in their failure to accurately assess our shortcomings. They all seem to assume that the problem is in the way we have been designing, organizing and/or deploying messages, and that if we just correct that we will start winning the “war of ideas.” But the problem goes much deeper than that: As study after study has shown, the international credibility of the U.S. is in the basement, if not underground.

Without credibility, we simply have no hope of persuading anyone of anything. When Obama says that we need to speak to Muslims and tell them that we will work for the good, he assumes that when we say that we will be believed. When McCain says we need to help moderate Muslims against the extremists, he assumes that they will believe we are there to help. But because of a consistent failure to align words with actions they will not believe us.

To talk about alternative messaging strategies in these circumstances is to miss the point. The real challenge is getting the U.S. back into a position where our public diplomacy efforts have a chance of working.

Corman then offers a series of specific recommendations.

Meanwhile, Matt Armstrong has written a series of posts offering a strategic perspective.

Our information systems suffer from inflexibility and internal resistance rooted in a misunderstanding of Smith-Mundt that requires updating to conform to a reality that makes separating audiences by geography both impractical and undesirable.  This will not be a conflict over hearts and passions, but a psychological struggle over minds and wills.  We must stop telling foreign publics what we want our own people to hear.  Unless we get our information house in order, the United States will remain virtually unarmed in the battles that shape our future.

And much, much more - not a fan of Smith-Mundt (neither am I, really)...

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.

never been afraid to talk about anything

I came across something interesting while doing some research on public diplomacy for an unrelated project.  Since at least the 9/11 Commission Report, almost every foreign policy blueprint or platform has for better or for worse mentioned the need to fix American public diplomacy and to engage with the "war of ideas" in the Islamic world.   I expected all three remaining Presidential candidates to offer at least some boilerplate rhetoric on the theme.  What I found was different. 

Barack Obama's counterterrorism plan, as I already knew, prominently features the need for better public diplomacy and engagement with the "crucial debate.. taking place within Islam". He has advanced some bold ideas such as convening a summit with the leaders of the Islamic world early in his administration and the "America's Voice Initiative" modeled after the Peace Corps (an idea which I love for all kinds of reasons).   He's making rebuilding America's relations with the Muslim world a real priority, while putting forward a sophisticated reading of the politics of the Islamic world.  Indeed, his discourse about this the other day during a potentially difficult meeting with Ohio Jewish leaders is possibly the best I've ever heard from an American politician:

The question, then, is what do we do with the 1.3 billion Muslims, who are along a spectrum of belief. Some extraordinarily moderate, some very pious but not violent. How do we reach out to them? And it is my strong belief that that is the battlefield that we have to worry about, and that is where we have been losing badly over the last seven years. That is where Iraq has been a disaster. That is where the lack of effective public diplomacy has been a disaster. That is where our failure to challenge seriously human rights violations by countries like Saudi Arabia that are our allies has been a disaster. And so what we have to do is to speak to that broader Muslim world in a way that says we will consistently support human rights, women's rights.... Those all contribute to people at least being open to our values and our ideas and a recognition that we are not the enemy and that the clash of civilizations is not inevitable.

Now, as I said, we enter into those conversations with the Muslim world being mindful that we also have to defend ourselves against those who will not accept the West, no matter how appropriately we engage. And that is the realism that has to leaven our hopefulness. But, we abandon the possibility of conversation with that broader Muslim world at our own peril. I think all we do then is further isolate it and feed the kinds of jihadist fanaticism....

To me, that's great stuff.  It exemplifies the reasons why I've supported Obama, and to the extent that it incites the radical fringe against him, all the better!

John McCain, for his part, talks about creating a "single, independent public diplomacy agency" to reverse our "unilateral disarmament in the war of ideas" (a phrase I seem to recall from the Kerry campaign). He calls understanding foreign cultures a "strategic necessity", and advocates helping moderate Muslims against extremists.  While I think that his vision of public diplomacy is overly militarized, really more about strategic information operations than about dialogue or public diplomacy, at least he's got well-developed ideas about the subject.  We disagree, but there's something there to have an argument about. 

But Hillary Clinton.... nothing.   Her Foreign Affairs essay says not a single word about public diplomacy or the war of ideas, or even hints at the notion that there might be a vast, complicated Muslim world out there beyond al-Qaeda impatient for real dialogue with a post-Bush America.  When she talks about engagement, she seems to mean either talking to friendly leaders or working within institutions.  I searched her campaign web site in vain for her ideas on the subject:  the term "public diplomacy" turns up only one, unrelated hit on her campaign site, "war of ideas" none, "dialogue and Islam" none.   Even her big foreign policy address last week at GWU - right across the street from where I was teaching at the time - began by proposing to restore America's moral authority but never offered a single word about public diplomacy or international dialogue or the internal debates in the Muslim world. Even when the address closed by reciting all the "tools" which she would use, public diplomacy didn't make the laundry list.  In a foreign policy community saturated with recommendations on public diplomacy and the war of ideas, this absence has to be intentional.  Combine the silence on public diplomacy with her decision to highlight at every opportunity her Bush-like refusal to talk to problematic foreign leaders as her main point of disagreement with Obama, and you get something which looks... well, all too familiar (no wonder those bastions of liberal foreign policy Powerline and Commentary have got her back). 

The contrast is striking, and I think important for reasons that transcend the immediate Presidential campaign.  Any new American President is going to get a window of opportunity to reach out to the Muslim world, a reprieve after the Bush administration.  What they will do with it should be a major question for each of them.  Obama's call for a summit meeting with the Muslim world in the first hundred days of his administration  would take advantage of that window.  Even McCain seems keen to dramatically increase engagement across the Islamic world, though I don't think he's as likely to be successful given his other commitments (particularly Iraq).  But Clinton seems determined not to offer any ideas about engagement with the Islamic world or public diplomacy, for reasons which I don't entirely understand. I invite informed observers - John Brown? Patricia Kushlis?  Matt Armstrong?  I'm looking at you! - to offer their analysis. 

UPDATE:  for responses and discussion, see this thread. 

 

The exoneration of Serbia

The ICJ's ruling that Serbia was not responsible for genocide in Bosnia (even if it "could have and should have prevented it") has absolutely infuriated Muslims across the world.  Faisal al-Qassem's extremely popular talk show The Opposite Direction covered it last Tuesday.  I've seen a slew of op-eds and stories in the Arab newspapers and considerable coverage on Arab TV stations, across the political spectrum.  Ayman al-Zawahiri led with it in his tape the other day - before he got into the Palestine stuff - showing that al-Qaeda thinks the issue will resonate.

AFP picture, as presented on alArabiya.net

Outrage is the order of the day.  The overwhelming theme is that it demonstrates the hypocrisy and lack of credibility of international tribunals.  It has insistently been compared to the Darfur tribunal:  Why so much attention to Darfur, they ask, while the Serbs get off and Palestinians are ignored (you can get a whiff of this from Mahmood Mamdani's controversial LRB essay)?  Because the Sudan is Muslim and the Serbs are Christian, they respond.  Why are Muslims brought before these tribunals while Bush, Blair, Sharon, et al have nothing to fear?  Asked and answered.  And how can the United States ask the ICC to judge Darfur, they ask, when it doesn't even accept the Court's jurisdiction over itself? 

Expect this to become another oft-cited point in the narrative of Muslim grievances against the West, and to fuel al-Qaeda's 'clash of civilizations' frame.  Bosnia has always been an area where American and Muslim perceptions have been almost 100% at odds.   Most Americans seem to see Bosnia as an example of the United States coming to the aid of Muslims against Christians, and hold it against Muslims that they don't appreciate this.  Most Muslims seem to see Bosnia as an example of the United States taking three years to do anything, allowing hundreds of thousands of Muslims to be butchered while not even allowing Bosnia to import weapons to defend themselves and the intervention coming far too late.  That's the context for Muslim anger over this international ruling.   

That many, many Americans and Westerners will also be outraged by the ruling won't matter much... though making it clear might help a bit.  Lead war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has complained that Europe has been disappointingly "muted" in its response, though, slamming Javier Solana and Germany (current EU President).  And the US has been far worse - another massive public diplomacy failure unfolding before our eyes.     The State Department spokesman's response -  "we would hope that the people of the region use this as an opportunity to reconcile themselves to the past and also to take advantage of this time to continue efforts at that reconciliation" - is downright insulting and seems calculated to be inflammatory in Muslim ears.  "Get over it" is hardly what those who consider themselves to have suffered a genocide and have just received an international ruling that those they consider guilty have been exonerated want to hear.   This isn't just a moral failing or a miscommunication... it's a serious policy failure at a time when the US wants an international court to deal with Darfur and to improve its image in the Muslim world.