PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: GOOD NEWS AND BAD
There is good news and bad news in the world of public diplomacy. The good news is that respected observers and senior American officials are now paying more attention and trying to develop public diplomacy strategies. The bad news is that they are getting it wrong.
Julia E. Sweig has just published Friendly Fire Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century. An expert on Latin America, Sweig provides an easy and accessible overview of anti-American expressions around the world, and their likely consequences. As far as the book goes, it’s fine. But it misses much that lies at the heart of the matter. First, we are left wondering about the underlying causes that lead Americans (at least this administration) to behave so badly. Despite the half dozen recent reports she cites, and despite evidence that many Americans do care what others think, the behavior in Washington runs against common sense and world opinion, not to mention America’s national interests. The tough question skirted in this book and most others is not just “Why do they hate us”, but “Why don’t we care?”
Furthermore, Sweig avoids defining public diplomacy in any depth. Is it just propaganda re-packaged with a hipper title? Is there a meaningful difference between public and traditional diplomacy? She admits public diplomacy can’t sell bad policies, but needs to go beyond ‘empathy’ and ‘manners’ and ‘rules’ as solutions.
Sweig also gives short shrift to ‘strategic listening’. Listening is discussed here and there in the book, but what should be the central message gets muddled along the way -- Americans need to think anew about the relationship among listening to others; actually hearing what they say; and then taking into account what they said in order to better advance our own positions, even changing behavior when and where appropriate.
We wouldn’t expect the Secretaries of Defense and State to tell us much about the underlying causes of inattention to public diplomacy, though we might hope to hear something about better listening. Alas, we get neither. A while back, Secretary Rumsfeld spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations on the topic. He recognized that telling America’s story effectively is a requirement for a successful national strategy, and that the U.S. wasn’t doing a very good job. For her part, Secretary Rice went to Capitol Hill and appealed for more money to run a new propaganda initiative in Iran, and has taken a few steps to reform the State Department to get more American diplomats out among local people to tell America’s story.
Not surprisingly, missing from Rumsfeld’s remarks was any appreciation that diplomacy is a two-way street that requires listening as well as talking. To the degree he was aware of other voices, he concentrated on the critical din of the ‘hostiles’, both domestic and foreign. The domestic hostiles he portrayed as anti-administration voices of the very liberal, the deeply misinformed, or unpatriotic partisans. To his ears nay-sayers in the American press and think tanks are hyper-critical of the U.S. while giving foreigners a pass. For their part, the overseas hostiles are as sophisticated as they are treacherous. They learned the lessons of the 24/7 news cycle and the new media before State and Defense did, and now manipulate the Internet and satellite broadcasts to try to counter our revealed truths.
Yelling more loudly, more often, to more people seems the Secretary’s favored solution, hardly an innovative approach to diplomacy. It’s old think in a new century.
Forward progress on public diplomacy will be stalled until there is serious discussion of why its activities are repeatedly starved and ignored year after year, administration after administration, especially relative to the military budget (which spends more on public diplomacy in a day than do the civilian agencies in a year!). Finally, we must insist that diplomacy public or private must be based on listening effectively as much as it is on talking loudly.
Comments (14)
Despite the half dozen recent reports she cites, and despite evidence that many Americans do care what others think, the behavior in Washington runs against common sense and world opinion, not to mention America’s national interests. The tough question skirted in this book and most others is not just “Why do they hate us”, but “Why don’t we care?”
You implicitly answered your own question Ernest. People like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld don't care, because they don't really believe public diplomacy is all that important, despite whatever they may say to preempt criticism at Council of Foreign Relations gatherings.
They believe that one doesn't need to be liked as long as one is respected; and the kind of respect they have in mind is the respect of the street. The only words that need be spoken are the kind that come out of the business end of a gun. In their heart of hearts, they surely believe that if you get them by the balls, the hearts and minds will follow. And if others are not yet following, it is only because we have not yet squeezed forcefully enough to compel their submission.
My guess is that they also think tallking is women's work - that's why they put Condi in charge of it. Real men don't talk, because talking only soothes their manly fury, and saps their will and determination.
We should also recall that Bush is a notably poor communicator, and his mastery of language is quite limited. His talking is usually kept under wraps, but when he does venture out to speak off the cuff, he comes out with gems like "decider", "strategery" and "subliminable" and is ridiculed. Such people often develop an inner rage and resentment attending language use itself.
I suspect linguistic ineptitude also contributes to the elevation of instinct, or "the gut", over intellect in the decision-making process. Because Bush probably only poorly comprehends the words that are spoken to him in a deliberative situation, and because even his own inner monologues are likely to be a linguistic hash, he places more confidence in inarticulate feelings, which he can at least understand.
Cheney is not at all an incompetent in the areas of syntax and usage. But he strikes me as a surly, private and deeply suspicious man, who does not enjoy talking outside of controlled situations, because he fears that the talking reveals things about himself that he would prefer to keep hidden.
What is a bit more puzzling is Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld clearly delights in language and wit, and in his ability to work a room, turn a phrase, charm the press corps, and dazzle the President. But Rumsfeld is also in charge of the Department of Shock and Awe. Perhaps the control over that kind power is even more delightful than verbal power.
April 25, 2006 5:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan:
Nice job of putting them all on the couch.
But alas, too many other Americans seem to be quite comfortable electing and supporting people with those particular psychoses...there's a thin border between collective or sympathetic phsycoses, and a political culture....
April 25, 2006 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan K
I agree with ewilson that your points are very well taken. However, what about the rest of us? Why do so many of the realist right and the realist left wish a disengagement with the world? Why isn't there a greater effort among Americans to insist our goverment engage the world on the basis of openness, and common interests?
Daniel A. Greenbaum
April 25, 2006 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, you wrote: "Why do so many of the realist right and the realist left wish a disengagement with the world?"
Let's leave labels--realist, liberal internationalist, neoconservative (the 3 left in the US, that is), whatever--aside. Again, I ask: who--as in which individuals--do you have in mind as people who "wish a disengagement with the world"?
Pat Buchanan? OK, sure. Who else? I am unaware of anyone at America Abroad who advocates "disengagement with the world". I am not hearing any ostensible contenders for the Democratic party's presidential nomination suggest anything of the sort, nor do I think any of them will be suggesting as much.
Public opinion shows some movement favoring less engagement with the world. How do you interpret that? I interpret it as essentially meaning people are fed up with Iraq and are saying they don't want any part of similar fool's errands now or anytime soon.
However, I don't think there is a chance that our leaders are likely to withdraw from engaging with issues we are engaging with now. If the next Administration is Democratic, if anything I think there may be issues where there will be greater engagement than there has been--for example, having the US rejoin with other nations interested in getting off the dime on global warming, and greater engagement in the Israel-Palestinian territories dispute. Rice is energetic but this Administration's record of diplomatic success is pathetic.
April 25, 2006 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another reason that may help to answer "why don't we care" is the Supreme Court's attitude toward foreign law. Specifically, Justice Scalia's outspoken (and arrogant?) position on looking to International Law as one way of shaping American law.
Some Scalia comments from his Don’t Impose Foreign Law on Americans speech delivered to the American Enterprise Institute:
From Justice Scalia'a dissent in the Lawrence v Texas sodomy case:
At another AEI event called Outsourcing American Law this summary is offered of John Yoo's international position:
Both Justice Scalia and John Yoo are in high standing with this administration, so it would make sense that their attitudes influence our international relationships, I think.
As to the rest of America that doesn't seem to care, I found a Full written transcript of Scalia-Breyer debate on foreign law on the Free Republic site.
"I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy." GWB 9/27/2000
April 25, 2006 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bluebell and Halfbaked come immediately to mind. Sherry B also seems to want greater disengagement. So does Noam Chomsky. Walking through the Columbia University campus there are all sorts of tables advocating Anmerican withdrawal from some place or other.
I agree with you about our leaders. One of the things that is apparent from reading many posts here is that there is a disconnect between actual Democratic officeholders and Democratic Party or progressive activists here. One of the problems that I see is that those who do not hold office often living in an unreal world and thus have little or no real world influence on those who hold office.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
April 25, 2006 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
What role do you want foreign law to play? It can influence Congress and the American people in shaping new laws. It really should have no role, except perhaps to inform the thinking of judges, in judicial decisions. Judges and especially Justices of the Supreme Court are not elected and have enormous freedom but not absolute freedom to do as they please.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
April 25, 2006 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure I understand the point about realists, Daniel. Realists typically argue that the United States should pursue its interests in the world, and they have fairly practical and conventional views about what those interests comprise. Surely pursuing one's interests in the modern world requires engagement with other countries. I wasn't aware that realists per se were any more or less disposed toward foreign engagement than their opponents.
You speak below about groups at Columbia advocating US withdrawal from other countries. But when you say "withdrawal", do you mean that they think that Americans who live in those countries, or visit them for pleasure or to do business there, or to get an education there, or to participate in artistic life there, or to volunteer for relief efforts there should all come home? I suspect not. Typically what they advocate is the the United States should decrease or eliminate its military presence in those countries. So it sounds to me like they are not recommending disengagement with the world, but a different kind of engagement. Think of all the foreign countries that do not possess a military presence here in the US - in other words, all other foreign countries. Are they all disengaged from the US? Hardly. Many have a very strong presence here, with healthy economic and cultural intercourse and abundant interests.
April 25, 2006 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
People with a masterful command of language are not necessarily better at dialogue. Those with a touch o' the blarney often enjoy hearing themselves speak more than they enjoy hearing anyone else. And the correlation between clear language and clear thinking is not necessarily as one-to-one as you present it, either. Robert Mcnamara was also an extremely clear speaker and thinker whose decisions as Secretary of Defense proved woefully misguided. What he missed was precisely a sense of how mushy the world can be, or how reality can escape the neat categories we try to encapsulate it in.
Similarly, George Bush Sr. shared his son's verbal confusion; but for all his faults (and there were many), he seems to have been a better listener who was more comfortable working in a broad team and accepting disparate and critical views.
Happy talk is not the way to gain the confidence of the people. - Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador to Iraq
April 25, 2006 8:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
While there's nothing wrong with putting a few dollars into "public diplomacy," it's really of little interest or importance when it comes to securing American interests.
The countries whose policies are likely to affect us over the forseeable future -- the Stans, the Persian Gulf oil states, and certain resource rich African countries not to mention Russia and China -- are not particularly sensitive to their public's opinions even were we able to influence them.
Traditional power politics must, in the foreseeable future, be the basis of our international relations.
April 26, 2006 8:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Pat Buchanan's realism leads him to basically oppose virtually all American interventions except occaissionally for a Catholic country. It obviously depends on how one defines interests. It is true that how one defines America's interests will determine what realism means.
What the tables at Columbia tables tend to advocate is that the problems in the world are the result of the United States and that America should cease intervening.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
April 26, 2006 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
My guess is that over the long haul the terms of debate are less whether this or that section of the current political class is more or less isolationist, but rather how to reverse the slow slide toward disengagement and ignorence of foreign affairs by the broad expanse of the American people. We all know the polls - a substantial share of American school kids can't find the Pacific Ocean on a map. As a people we have grown uncurious about the world beyond our borders; we seem to remain sympathetic in many ways, but also quite ignorant.
Our growing economic engagement with the world, and growing ignorance of the world, gives too much space to the executive branch and the Washington experts to say and do foolish things. One result is pressure by some Americans for greater disengagement from the world. If you look at what's happened recently, you can hardly blame them - "If this is foreign engagement, then get me away from it."
The challenge to those of us who think about foreign policy is to stop thinking (just) about 'foreign' policy. We can have the most astute, thoughtful, engaged and positive policy proposals but unless we can enter ino a greater dialogue domestically with teachers and teamsters and shop mechanics, listening as well as talking, then we will continue to get bad policies from our fearless leaders. A Democratic foreign policy needs to be less foreign and more democratic in its concerns. As I wrote earlier, not only 'why do they hate us', but 'why do so few of us care'?
April 26, 2006 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a refreshing set of comments! Language and listening are the core of communication anywhere, but especially diplomacy. I can quibble with use of some of the terms such as realism, but I agree completely with Mr. Wilson's larger point.
What prevails now is PD by talking points. It's a campaign mentality that operates with the basic principle of repetition and everybody saying the same thing all the time. Clearly the prez follows this nostrum, and the order is for all cabinet officials, Ambassadors and PAOs to do likewise.
Thanks for the insights.
May 30, 2006 1:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ernie,
You are certainly right: they are getting public diplomacy wrong. There has been a serious shift in governmental organizational responsibility which you are missing. While we weren't looking public diplomacy essentially died in the State Department and was born again in DOD. [For evidence of the military committment see: http://www.seniorconference.usma.edu/] The shift in the gravity of the program from State to DOD itself has serious implications for how we are viewed abroad. It also speaks volumes about the Bush administration's concept of PD.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's CFR speech -- to which you refer -- followed the Quadrennial Defense Review which concluded that "victory in the long war ultimately depends on strategic communication." It called for closing gaps in U.S. capabilities in what the Pentagon describes as "information operations," a specialty being reorganized in the Pentagon and at Centcom in Tampa. These “information operations” have reportedly given multi-million dollar contracts to private sector companies “to improve foreign public opinion about the United States” and construct websites to bring news and information to foreign countries.
"Our enemies have skillfully adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we, our country, our government, have not," Rumsfeld said. He argued that while the al Qaeda terrorist network and other "extremist" movements "have successfully . . . poisoned the Muslim public's view of the West, we in the government have barely even begun to compete in reaching their audiences."
To remedy this, Rumsfeld called for increased communications training for military public affairs officials by drawing on private-sector expertise. He also called for creating 24-hour media operations centers and "multifaceted media campaigns" using the Internet, blogs and satellite television that "will result in much less reliance on the traditional print press." A press he finds inimical to his purposes.
This language about the need to fight “terrorist tyranny” and “militant Islamic radicalism” is echoed in the National Security Strategy where we are told to prepare for a “long struggle, a work of generations, against a new totalitarian ideology grounded in the perversion of a proud religion.” Apparently, by default and given its resources the Defense Department will lead us into ideological battle to win the hearts and minds of the world. What this adds up to is the militarization of a political function.
This inverts the general understanding that countering terrorism involves the use of security forces within the context of a political strategy. By failing to anchor our use of force in a broader political process and instead directing our political advocacy (public diplomacy) from the defense department we open ourselves up to the delegitimization strategies of others and erode any influence we might have among democratic nations because we compound our loss of credibility or trust.
Surely if the concern of the United States government is now the 1.2 billion Muslims whose minds have been "poisoned by extremist views," the target populations for the strategic communication strategy are civilian and they are in Europe as well as in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. This is not a discreet battlefield, it is the world.
Moral authority in this world community is measured by shared standards of human rights, democracy and rule of law. To hoist the flag of freedom and ask that others follow our lead is to invite deliberation – serious discussion of the ideas and policies we choose to advance. Free men and women do not simply salute and fall in line. Free people ask by what authority, on what evidence, by what right do you ask me to hear and heed your policy prescription for our world’s ills.
Our response to those fair questions cannot be military sponsored blogs. Effective public diplomacy requires respectful dialog and vigorous engagement at the level of ideas, not images. A precondition for effective public diplomacy is the willingness to engage in global politics even when, or especially when our foreign public opinion map shows abnormally stormy weather. That willingness to engage in global politics should be the foundation for any
Democratic foreign policy. And, that foundation cannot be based in DOD.
June 1, 2006 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink