Public Diplomacy Blog http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/index.php/newsroom/pdblog_main A blog by public diplomacy professionals, theorists and practitioners, published by the USC Center on Public Diplomacy en USC Center on Public Diplomacy Copyright 2008 2008-11-26T18:40:00-08:00 When USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy embarked on its Virtual Worlds project a few years ago, I admit to being somewhat sceptical. The undertaking seemed, at the time, just too ephemeral, too abstract, too distant from the machinations of realpolitik and the grind of bureaucratic process which I experienced daily as a diplomat. My thinking, not unlike internet applications, has since migrated. Since its popular inception in the early 1990s, the epicentre of the internet has continually moved. In less than a decade it has shifted from Web 1.0 — which can be thought of as read/write/broadcast mode — to Web 2.0, today’s dominant format characterized by interaction and exchange, content sharing, social networking, interactivity, and downloadable audio and visual “podcasts”. We are now in the early stages of Web 3.0, which features a spectrum of new possibilities related to emotion, sensation (through haptic technologies), the simulation of real life experience, and the construction of parallel, virtual worlds. Research and development activity in these areas is ongoing and the application of virtuality will undoubtedly evolve further, and rapidly, in the coming years. The full advent of Web 3.0 will send it into warp speed, and it is time that diplomats and foreign ministries got fully with the program. As an increasingly large proportion of the world’s population looks to the web as its primary source of information and communication, including e-mail, video conferencing, social networking and telephony. As higher transmission speeds and greater bandwidth expand audio and visual streaming choices, communications media are converging on the internet. It is edging out newspapers, TV, radio, and conventional telephones as the primary communications medium. The power and pervasiveness of these media can be striking. To offer just a sampling: campaigns on the web were critical to publicizing and catalyzing the anti-globalization movement; they stopped the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in the late 1990s; they changed the outcome of a Korean presidential election; they have provided unprecedented profile to consular cases. And anyone with a webcam and a digital uplink can become a reporter — think of footage of the first images of 9/11 in 2001, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, the 2007 pro-democracy uprising in Burma, or the anti-Chinese rioting in Llahsa, Tibet in 2008. Almost none of that visual content was provided by journalists. Most of it is unmediated. And almost none of it could be suppressed by local authorities. The immediacy and interactivity that characterize blogs — not quite the equivalent of face-to-face contact, but certainly closer to “live” conditions than documents posted on static Web sites — make them especially effective at breaking down cultural barriers. Blogs from the Iraq war and elsewhere in the Middle East have brought the human toll of those conflicts to desktops around the globe: executions have been streamed live on anti-occupation sites, and the Abu Ghraib prison pictures spread faster than Seymour Hersh’s writing in the New Yorker could ever be distributed. Those images have effectively branded the US occupation. In the wake of developments such as these, it is not entirely surprising that RAND Corporation analysts have recommended that the US military try Internet marketing techniques to win hearts and minds in Iraq and Afghanistan. Diplomats are great generators of information, knowledge, and intelligence about the world and its workings, and foreign ministries represent the institutional repositories for that kind of material. Neither diplomats nor foreign ministries, however, have adapted easily to the challenges of globalization. The militarization of international policy, persistence of conflict, and proliferating numbers of unaddressed global issues — most rooted in science and driven by technology (climate change, pandemic disease, genomics, etc.) — testify convincingly to this end. In part as a result, managers, analysts, and diplomatic studies scholars have been pondering questions and issues surrounding how to adapt and use the new media, especially the Internet, in this context with increasing frequency and intensity. And in both government and the academy some progress has been made. Diplomacy, and especially public diplomacy is adopting the new media and migrating toward the web. In the late nineties, Singapore and Hong Kong were way out in front in establishing web-based identities for their city-states. Since then many more have joined the party. The Swedish and British Foreign Ministers blog, certain US and UK diplomats are encouraged to do so as well. The Republic of the Maldives, Sweden, the Philippines, Estonia, Serbia, Colombia, Macedonia, and Albania have established virtual embassies in the web-based, 3D virtual universe which is Second Life. The US State Department has established an Office of eDiplomacy (responsible for knowledge management, e-collaboration, and IT decision-making), created a network of virtual presence posts, and is hosting a wiki-like intranet application called Diplopedia. Secretary Rice has her own Web page and former Assistant Secretary for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes was the first official at that level to do the same. The FCO runs a highly interactive web site featuring bloggers and links to YouTube, Flickr, and specialized resources such as their new volume on public diplomacy. The UK is also now actively recruiting “digital diplomats.” The theme of diplomacy has attracted the attention of on-line game players. Why should public diplomats and foreign ministries make a priority of virtuality? The business case is compelling: • Effectiveness: in an increasingly network-centric world, foreign ministries must find ways to better connect and communicate with new actors in international society – NGOs, business, think tanks, universities, the media • Efficiency: to pool e-diplomatic resources, foreign ministries can capture scale economies and benefit from the move from bricks to clicks • Leverage: as a key component in any grand strategy to maximize a nation’s comparative advantages in a competitive environment, virtuality can play to the strengths of national image and reputation while minimizing the constraints associated with capacity limitations Public diplomats can use the new media to connect directly with populations; finding better, more creative ways to do this will be one of diplomacy’s new frontiers, in part for the reasons set out above, and in part because the internet can play a crucial role in helping diplomats overcome the increasingly severe constraints on personal contact imposed by security considerations in an increasing number of locales. ITCs (Information Technology and Communication), for instance, can help to overcome such constraints by facilitating the development of virtual desks, organized according to a thematic or geographic association, which would use the new media to create networks of expertise extending far beyond the foreign ministry. The Afghan “desk” at headquarters, by way of example, in addition to its immediate links to South and Central Asian country desks, could include a shared site in cyberspace connected to professors, non-governmental organization representatives, recently posted staff, businesspeople, citizens working in Afghanistan, and anyone with knowledge and expertise which they were prepared to contribute. In addition to advancing knowledge on issues such as the practice of PD in asymmetrical conflict zones and the public diplomat as counterinsurgent, the virtual desk model, which features multi-party, horizontal issue management, would also help to improve performance in functional bureaux across the range of highly distributed S&T challenges: resource shortages, energy supply, and weapons of mass destruction to name a few that have come to dominate the diplomatic agenda. Not all e-diplomats will be young, but many will be born of a generation that has grown up with the new media. For members of this cohort, the full interactive potential of the medium, and the applications related to PD and branding, will seem second nature. In this respect, just as the military needs rules of engagement, e-diplomats need tools of engagement. These e-diplomats with their new tools could become active in virtual worlds, using 3D graphics, haptic technologies (simulated sense experience), and real time voice communication to do things in cyberspace which could not easily be replicated on the ground. Examples using life-like avatars with digital identities might include testing high risk negotiating strategies, running alternative scenarios for conflict resolution, talking to the Taliban, whatever. As the lines between the real and the virtual worlds become less distinct, the momentum already evident in various diplomatic cyber-options is likely to accelerate, with a range of still unclear consequences. Still, the use of the internet for public engagement, let alone the more far-reaching applications of e-diplomacy, remains in many foreign ministries somewhat of an untested, even suspect concept. The blogosphere is exploding with content of interest to diplomats, but it is largely ignored by foreign ministries. Because the norms of the new media favour the immediate and most traffic is unmediated, there can be a cultural clash with the management culture and conventions of traditional diplomacy. Some senior officials are suspicious because the pace is so fast-moving and the public input unpredictable. Others just don’t get the revolutionary significance of the new media per se. Many governments, it should be added, are not yet ready to cede centralized control over communications and policy development. The result is a paradox. For the very reasons that the internet is so popular with youth and the non-governmental organization community, its role and place in the foreign ministry — as a policy instrument? communications vehicle? technical service? PD and branding tool? — remain unsettled. The full potential of the internet has yet to be realized by diplomacy. Redoubled efforts to connect through the new media, and better designed, more user-friendly and interactive websites are an obvious starting point here; the ever-widening possibilities associated with the ICT universe represent one powerful tonic for many of diplomacy’s ailments. Blogging is now over a decade old; responsive foreign ministers and some senior officials are doing it, and so too should more ambassadors, especially those posted to trouble spots. It is time to ventilate fully the structure and content of diplomacy, to democratize the inputs into decision-making and to push accountability upward while devolving responsibility for decision-making downward. Hierarchic, authoritarian structures, like the Cold war era thinking which produced them, have been rendered obsolete by ITCs. With the lines between the real and the virtual worlds becoming increasingly indistinct, the scope for diplomatic experimentation with the new media will continue to grow. The technological hardware and software available for transnational interaction and advocacy have already become so powerful that scepticism — including my own — over the potential for meaningful crossover between the real and virtual domains has diminished in recent years. There is certainly room for attempting to accomplish objectives in cyberspace which would be difficult or impossible to achieve on this side of the screen. Much more analysis will be required on the issue of how public diplomacy can make better use of the possibilities inherent in the digital universe. The scope for experimentation, like the medium, is limitless. Connectivity and Networks Rule: Virtuality, Public Diplomacy and the Foreign Ministry Daryl_Copeland Virtual Worlds project a few years ago, I admit to being somewhat sceptical. The undertaking seemed, at the time, just too ephemeral, too abstract, too distant from the machinations of realpolitik and the grind of bureaucratic process which I experienced daily as a diplomat.

My thinking, not unlike internet applications, has since migrated.

Since its popular inception in the early 1990s, the epicentre of the internet has continually moved. In less than a decade it has shifted from Web 1.0 — which can be thought of as read/write/broadcast mode — to Web 2.0, today’s dominant format characterized by interaction and exchange, content sharing, social networking, interactivity, and downloadable audio and visual “podcasts”. We are now in the early stages of Web 3.0, which features a spectrum of new possibilities related to emotion, sensation (through haptic technologies), the simulation of real life experience, and the construction of parallel, virtual worlds. Research and development activity in these areas is ongoing and the application of virtuality will undoubtedly evolve further, and rapidly, in the coming years. The full advent of Web 3.0 will send it into warp speed, and it is time that diplomats and foreign ministries got fully with the program.

As an increasingly large proportion of the world’s population looks to the web as its primary source of information and communication, including e-mail, video conferencing, social networking and telephony. As higher transmission speeds and greater bandwidth expand audio and visual streaming choices, communications media are converging on the internet. It is edging out newspapers, TV, radio, and conventional telephones as the primary communications medium.

The power and pervasiveness of these media can be striking. To offer just a sampling: campaigns on the web were critical to publicizing and catalyzing the anti-globalization movement; they stopped the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in the late 1990s; they changed the outcome of a Korean presidential election; they have provided unprecedented profile to consular cases. And anyone with a webcam and a digital uplink can become a reporter — think of footage of the first images of 9/11 in 2001, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, the 2007 pro-democracy uprising in Burma, or the anti-Chinese rioting in Llahsa, Tibet in 2008. Almost none of that visual content was provided by journalists. Most of it is unmediated. And almost none of it could be suppressed by local authorities.

The immediacy and interactivity that characterize blogs — not quite the equivalent of face-to-face contact, but certainly closer to “live” conditions than documents posted on static Web sites — make them especially effective at breaking down cultural barriers. Blogs from the Iraq war and elsewhere in the Middle East have brought the human toll of those conflicts to desktops around the globe: executions have been streamed live on anti-occupation sites, and the Abu Ghraib prison pictures spread faster than Seymour Hersh’s writing in the New Yorker could ever be distributed. Those images have effectively branded the US occupation. In the wake of developments such as these, it is not entirely surprising that RAND Corporation analysts have recommended that the US military try Internet marketing techniques to win hearts and minds in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Diplomats are great generators of information, knowledge, and intelligence about the world and its workings, and foreign ministries represent the institutional repositories for that kind of material. Neither diplomats nor foreign ministries, however, have adapted easily to the challenges of globalization. The militarization of international policy, persistence of conflict, and proliferating numbers of unaddressed global issues — most rooted in science and driven by technology (climate change, pandemic disease, genomics, etc.) — testify convincingly to this end. In part as a result, managers, analysts, and diplomatic studies scholars have been pondering questions and issues surrounding how to adapt and use the new media, especially the Internet, in this context with increasing frequency and intensity. And in both government and the academy some progress has been made. Diplomacy, and especially public diplomacy is adopting the new media and migrating toward the web.

In the late nineties, Singapore and Hong Kong were way out in front in establishing web-based identities for their city-states. Since then many more have joined the party. The Swedish and British Foreign Ministers blog, certain US and UK diplomats are encouraged to do so as well. The Republic of the Maldives, Sweden, the Philippines, Estonia, Serbia, Colombia, Macedonia, and Albania have established virtual embassies in the web-based, 3D virtual universe which is Second Life. The US State Department has established an Office of eDiplomacy (responsible for knowledge management, e-collaboration, and IT decision-making), created a network of virtual presence posts, and is hosting a wiki-like intranet application called Diplopedia. Secretary Rice has her own Web page and former Assistant Secretary for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes was the first official at that level to do the same. The FCO runs a highly interactive web site featuring bloggers and links to YouTube, Flickr, and specialized resources such as their new volume on public diplomacy. The UK is also now actively recruiting “digital diplomats.” The theme of diplomacy has attracted the attention of on-line game players.

Why should public diplomats and foreign ministries make a priority of virtuality? The business case is compelling:
• Effectiveness: in an increasingly network-centric world, foreign ministries must find ways to better connect and communicate with new actors in international society – NGOs, business, think tanks, universities, the media

• Efficiency: to pool e-diplomatic resources, foreign ministries can capture scale economies and benefit from the move from bricks to clicks

• Leverage: as a key component in any grand strategy to maximize a nation’s comparative advantages in a competitive environment, virtuality can play to the strengths of national image and reputation while minimizing the constraints associated with capacity limitations

Public diplomats can use the new media to connect directly with populations; finding better, more creative ways to do this will be one of diplomacy’s new frontiers, in part for the reasons set out above, and in part because the internet can play a crucial role in helping diplomats overcome the increasingly severe constraints on personal contact imposed by security considerations in an increasing number of locales.

ITCs (Information Technology and Communication), for instance, can help to overcome such constraints by facilitating the development of virtual desks, organized according to a thematic or geographic association, which would use the new media to create networks of expertise extending far beyond the foreign ministry. The Afghan “desk” at headquarters, by way of example, in addition to its immediate links to South and Central Asian country desks, could include a shared site in cyberspace connected to professors, non-governmental organization representatives, recently posted staff, businesspeople, citizens working in Afghanistan, and anyone with knowledge and expertise which they were prepared to contribute. In addition to advancing knowledge on issues such as the practice of PD in asymmetrical conflict zones and the public diplomat as counterinsurgent, the virtual desk model, which features multi-party, horizontal issue management, would also help to improve performance in functional bureaux across the range of highly distributed S&T challenges: resource shortages, energy supply, and weapons of mass destruction to name a few that have come to dominate the diplomatic agenda.

Not all e-diplomats will be young, but many will be born of a generation that has grown up with the new media. For members of this cohort, the full interactive potential of the medium, and the applications related to PD and branding, will seem second nature. In this respect, just as the military needs rules of engagement, e-diplomats need tools of engagement. These e-diplomats with their new tools could become active in virtual worlds, using 3D graphics, haptic technologies (simulated sense experience), and real time voice communication to do things in cyberspace which could not easily be replicated on the ground. Examples using life-like avatars with digital identities might include testing high risk negotiating strategies, running alternative scenarios for conflict resolution, talking to the Taliban, whatever. As the lines between the real and the virtual worlds become less distinct, the momentum already evident in various diplomatic cyber-options is likely to accelerate, with a range of still unclear consequences.

Still, the use of the internet for public engagement, let alone the more far-reaching applications of e-diplomacy, remains in many foreign ministries somewhat of an untested, even suspect concept. The blogosphere is exploding with content of interest to diplomats, but it is largely ignored by foreign ministries. Because the norms of the new media favour the immediate and most traffic is unmediated, there can be a cultural clash with the management culture and conventions of traditional diplomacy. Some senior officials are suspicious because the pace is so fast-moving and the public input unpredictable. Others just don’t get the revolutionary significance of the new media per se. Many governments, it should be added, are not yet ready to cede centralized control over communications and policy development.

The result is a paradox. For the very reasons that the internet is so popular with youth and the non-governmental organization community, its role and place in the foreign ministry — as a policy instrument? communications vehicle? technical service? PD and branding tool? — remain unsettled. The full potential of the internet has yet to be realized by diplomacy.

Redoubled efforts to connect through the new media, and better designed, more user-friendly and interactive websites are an obvious starting point here; the ever-widening possibilities associated with the ICT universe represent one powerful tonic for many of diplomacy’s ailments. Blogging is now over a decade old; responsive foreign ministers and some senior officials are doing it, and so too should more ambassadors, especially those posted to trouble spots. It is time to ventilate fully the structure and content of diplomacy, to democratize the inputs into decision-making and to push accountability upward while devolving responsibility for decision-making downward. Hierarchic, authoritarian structures, like the Cold war era thinking which produced them, have been rendered obsolete by ITCs.

With the lines between the real and the virtual worlds becoming increasingly indistinct, the scope for diplomatic experimentation with the new media will continue to grow. The technological hardware and software available for transnational interaction and advocacy have already become so powerful that scepticism — including my own — over the potential for meaningful crossover between the real and virtual domains has diminished in recent years. There is certainly room for attempting to accomplish objectives in cyberspace which would be difficult or impossible to achieve on this side of the screen.

Much more analysis will be required on the issue of how public diplomacy can make better use of the possibilities inherent in the digital universe. The scope for experimentation, like the medium, is limitless.
]]> 2008-11-26T17:40:00-08:00 With help from USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy and hundreds of other individuals and groups, I recently authored a Brookings Institution report on public diplomacy and what it should look like in the coming years and decades. That report is available on-line at Voices of America: U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century. This blog won’t retread that ground. Instead, I’d like to share some personal reflections you won’t find in the text. Reflection Number 1: I always knew that Americans were patriotic and cared about America’s image in the world, but I was stunned by the incredible outpouring of goodwill, offers to help with the report, and – most importantly – a widespread willingness to help the United States address its public diplomacy challenges. “If my country calls me,” these individuals said, “I’ll be there. I’ll step up.” This reaction spanned age groups, party boundaries, geographic locations, ranks, and professions. Tapping into this remarkable spirit of generosity could present a huge opportunity for a new president. But it is also an enormous challenge. Exactly how do you translate diffuse good intentions into tangible positive change? How do you sustain and nurture that commitment? Reflection Number 2: Though this goodwill was nearly universal, there were unsurprising but amusing geographic differences. Washingtonians felt that government officials and inside-the-beltway policy analysts had the keenest understanding of America’s foreign policy needs and should keep a steady hand on the helm. New Yorkers felt that Washington is a denizen of inside-the-box bureaucrats dealing with a problem that needs outside-the-box thinking – best found in the private sector in general and the New York private sector in particular. Those in Los Angeles called attention the real center of power in the world: Hollywood. Reflection Number 3: I had to jettison all standard operating procedures to write this report. My inner academic yearned to pore over historic texts, contemplate theories of persuasion, and conduct comparative studies of public diplomacy around the world. I just didn’t have time to do that. Moreover, I doubted that approach would fill the current need. (Note to horrified scholars: Worry not. I’ve done this on other occasions.) Instead, I spent time on Capitol Hill, in executive branch agencies, with military officers, with the educational exchange community, and with executives in private companies. I talked to democracy advocates, foreign policy leaders, scientists, development professionals, regional experts, and scholars. My job, I realized, was not to write an academic journal article but rather to develop, to the best of my ability, a vision of U.S. public diplomacy that would be effective, appealing, politically plausible, flexible enough to adjust to changing circumstances, and enduring – and one that could be supported by a broad coalition of Americans in government, the private sector, universities, and NGOs. I realized that U.S. public diplomacy will only be effective if it mobilizes the talents of Americans, in all their diversity – the many Voices of America. Reflections on U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century Kristin_M_Lord, Americas Center on Public Diplomacy and hundreds of other individuals and groups, I recently authored a Brookings Institution report on public diplomacy and what it should look like in the coming years and decades. That report is available on-line at Voices of America: U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century.

This blog won’t retread that ground. Instead, I’d like to share some personal reflections you won’t find in the text.

Reflection Number 1: I always knew that Americans were patriotic and cared about America’s image in the world, but I was stunned by the incredible outpouring of goodwill, offers to help with the report, and – most importantly – a widespread willingness to help the United States address its public diplomacy challenges. “If my country calls me,” these individuals said, “I’ll be there. I’ll step up.” This reaction spanned age groups, party boundaries, geographic locations, ranks, and professions. Tapping into this remarkable spirit of generosity could present a huge opportunity for a new president. But it is also an enormous challenge. Exactly how do you translate diffuse good intentions into tangible positive change? How do you sustain and nurture that commitment?

Reflection Number 2: Though this goodwill was nearly universal, there were unsurprising but amusing geographic differences. Washingtonians felt that government officials and inside-the-beltway policy analysts had the keenest understanding of America’s foreign policy needs and should keep a steady hand on the helm. New Yorkers felt that Washington is a denizen of inside-the-box bureaucrats dealing with a problem that needs outside-the-box thinking – best found in the private sector in general and the New York private sector in particular. Those in Los Angeles called attention the real center of power in the world: Hollywood.

Reflection Number 3: I had to jettison all standard operating procedures to write this report. My inner academic yearned to pore over historic texts, contemplate theories of persuasion, and conduct comparative studies of public diplomacy around the world. I just didn’t have time to do that. Moreover, I doubted that approach would fill the current need. (Note to horrified scholars: Worry not. I’ve done this on other occasions.) Instead, I spent time on Capitol Hill, in executive branch agencies, with military officers, with the educational exchange community, and with executives in private companies. I talked to democracy advocates, foreign policy leaders, scientists, development professionals, regional experts, and scholars. My job, I realized, was not to write an academic journal article but rather to develop, to the best of my ability, a vision of U.S. public diplomacy that would be effective, appealing, politically plausible, flexible enough to adjust to changing circumstances, and enduring – and one that could be supported by a broad coalition of Americans in government, the private sector, universities, and NGOs.

I realized that U.S. public diplomacy will only be effective if it mobilizes the talents of Americans, in all their diversity – the many Voices of America.
]]> 2008-11-25T03:22:01-08:00 Much that is written about public diplomacy focuses on Europe and the Muslim world. National news media in the US, headquartered in New York and Washington, equates foreign opinion with approving editorials in The Guardian and large crowds in Berlin. By those criteria, President-elect Barack Obama is wildly popular. Just elect Obama, the thinking goes, and America's public diplomacy problems are solved. Not quite: The data indicate Obama was never as popular in Asia as in Europe. And it turns out President Bush was never as unpopular in Asia as he was in Europe. This was documented by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, which found Obama's popularity much higher in Europe than in the rest of the world. Surveying publics in 24 countries, Pew researchers asked whether respondents had more confidence in Obama or McCain to serve as the next president of the United States. In Europe, Obama was enormously popular: In France, Obama had a 51-percentage point lead over McCain, in Germany it was 49 percentage points and in Spain it was 53 percentage points. (Obama also had a 20-point advantage in European countries over Hillary Clinton.) But in the Arab world, Obama's advantage was much narrower, leading McCain by just eight points in Egypt, four points in Pakistan and a single percentage point in Jordan. And in Asia, Obama's approval edged McCain by just five percentage points in the two largest countries in the world, China and India. What is going on? And why should Americans care? Taking the second question first, the answer is quite simple: America runs on Asian money. The U.S. deficit is funded by Asia – and especially by China. Almost four years ago in this space, Peter Herford wrote that China was less critical of the U.S. than other countries, and that was not unrelated to its role as America's banker. Today’s economic crisis has only increased America's financial dependency on Asia, so what Herford wrote is even truer now. Remember, European economies are in recession – Europe’s economies are actually shrinking. But in Asia, the financial crisis means China's economy may only grow by eight percent. Does Washington need $700 billion to bail out U.S. banks? Washington is out of money; go to the cash windows in China. Does GM need federal funds to avert bankruptcy? Send loan requests from the Midwest to the Middle Kingdom. Do Democrats want to expand health care benefits? They will have to send the doctors' bills to Beijing. Think of it as China's version of the Marshall Plan. Our historic "special relationship" across the Atlantic with Britain has shifted to a new financial special relationship across the Pacific, to our wealthy partners in China. And in an echo of the Marshall Plan and the 1940s, there is even a similar motive: Just as the U.S. rebuilt bankrupt Europe in part as a bulwark against Stalin and Soviet power, China has an interest in keeping a strong U.S. as a bulwark against Putin and an expansionist Russia. After Russian tanks moved into Georgia last summer, China made it clear it did not approve. Western Europe, reliant on Russian gas exports to heat its homes, was more equivocal. This can be quite explicit: For an American visiting Asia this year, it was common to hear praise, albeit highly qualified, for U.S. perseverance in Iraq. The war was unpopular in Asia as in Europe, but in China, over and over again one could hear variations on the theme that the only thing worse than going to war in Iraq would be to go to war in Iraq – and lose. (This could explain some of McCain's support in the Arab world: Maybe it's better, after all, to have the U.S. surge and to have American help to stop Al Qaeda – certainly while Al Qaeda is on the run.) Look at the "hard power" global calculus. There are only three countries in the world that can project significant military power far beyond their national borders: the U.S., Russia and China. China doesn't want America to go into retreat, leaving Moscow free to expand its sphere of influence into Europe – or Asia. But this does not entirely explain Obama's lack of appeal. Other factors are at work, including one major consideration for China that is little noted in the U.S.: race. David Bachman of the University of Washington discussed this last week in a lecture at the USC US-China Institute. "Obama's election challenges China's racial views," Bachman said. "Obama's election challenges China's propaganda about bourgeois democracy." "Even informed Chinese," he added, may not be able to reconcile Obama's rise from "an outcast social group" to leader of the world's number one power. "Obama will fundamentally challenge China," predicted Bachman, "in a way that makes it very difficult for the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] to respond." Looking in the other direction, the President-elect has had little to say about China, which receded as a campaign issue this year. But an Obama administration will encounter policy differences that will be unavoidable. One of those differences that could surface early in the new administration is human rights. "Violations of human rights are not acceptable" to Obama, said Bachman, who said that could become a flash point for U.S.-Chinese relations. And this friction comes just as China may have less willingness to keep paying America's bills: Beijing's currency reserves are estimated at just under $2 trillion. Last month alone the U.S. needed one tenth of that amount to stay afloat. Meanwhile, Beijing has just announced a huge stimulus package for the Chinese economy, which will also require drawing on those huge reserves. So just as the U.S. demand for more borrowing is increasing, the Beijing government is starting to invest hundreds of billions inside its own borders. Of course, it is not in China's economic interest for the U.S. to suffer financially because Beijing has already invested so much in the U.S. But with Washington running record deficits – and therefore needing more and more money from overseas – President-elect Obama and his administration will need to focus all of the soft power they can to tend to America's new special relationship – across the Pacific. Why Obama Is Less Popular in Asia Adam_Clayton_Powell_III, Asia Pacific
Much that is written about public diplomacy focuses on Europe and the Muslim world. National news media in the US, headquartered in New York and Washington, equates foreign opinion with approving editorials in The Guardian and large crowds in Berlin. By those criteria, President-elect Barack Obama is wildly popular. Just elect Obama, the thinking goes, and America's public diplomacy problems are solved.

Not quite: The data indicate Obama was never as popular in Asia as in Europe. And it turns out President Bush was never as unpopular in Asia as he was in Europe.

This was documented by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, which found Obama's popularity much higher in Europe than in the rest of the world. Surveying publics in 24 countries, Pew researchers asked whether respondents had more confidence in Obama or McCain to serve as the next president of the United States.

In Europe, Obama was enormously popular: In France, Obama had a 51-percentage point lead over McCain, in Germany it was 49 percentage points and in Spain it was 53 percentage points. (Obama also had a 20-point advantage in European countries over Hillary Clinton.)

But in the Arab world, Obama's advantage was much narrower, leading McCain by just eight points in Egypt, four points in Pakistan and a single percentage point in Jordan.

And in Asia, Obama's approval edged McCain by just five percentage points in the two largest countries in the world, China and India.

What is going on?

And why should Americans care?

Taking the second question first, the answer is quite simple: America runs on Asian money. The U.S. deficit is funded by Asia – and especially by China.

Almost four years ago in this space, Peter Herford wrote that China was less critical of the U.S. than other countries, and that was not unrelated to its role as America's banker.

Today’s economic crisis has only increased America's financial dependency on Asia, so what Herford wrote is even truer now. Remember, European economies are in recession – Europe’s economies are actually shrinking. But in Asia, the financial crisis means China's economy may only grow by eight percent.

Does Washington need $700 billion to bail out U.S. banks? Washington is out of money; go to the cash windows in China.

Does GM need federal funds to avert bankruptcy? Send loan requests from the Midwest to the Middle Kingdom.

Do Democrats want to expand health care benefits? They will have to send the doctors' bills to Beijing.

Think of it as China's version of the Marshall Plan. Our historic "special relationship" across the Atlantic with Britain has shifted to a new financial special relationship across the Pacific, to our wealthy partners in China.

And in an echo of the Marshall Plan and the 1940s, there is even a similar motive: Just as the U.S. rebuilt bankrupt Europe in part as a bulwark against Stalin and Soviet power, China has an interest in keeping a strong U.S. as a bulwark against Putin and an expansionist Russia. After Russian tanks moved into Georgia last summer, China made it clear it did not approve. Western Europe, reliant on Russian gas exports to heat its homes, was more equivocal.

This can be quite explicit: For an American visiting Asia this year, it was common to hear praise, albeit highly qualified, for U.S. perseverance in Iraq. The war was unpopular in Asia as in Europe, but in China, over and over again one could hear variations on the theme that the only thing worse than going to war in Iraq would be to go to war in Iraq – and lose.

(This could explain some of McCain's support in the Arab world: Maybe it's better, after all, to have the U.S. surge and to have American help to stop Al Qaeda – certainly while Al Qaeda is on the run.)

Look at the "hard power" global calculus. There are only three countries in the world that can project significant military power far beyond their national borders: the U.S., Russia and China. China doesn't want America to go into retreat, leaving Moscow free to expand its sphere of influence into Europe – or Asia.

But this does not entirely explain Obama's lack of appeal. Other factors are at work, including one major consideration for China that is little noted in the U.S.: race.
David Bachman of the University of Washington discussed this last week in a lecture at the USC US-China Institute.

"Obama's election challenges China's racial views," Bachman said. "Obama's election challenges China's propaganda about bourgeois democracy."

"Even informed Chinese," he added, may not be able to reconcile Obama's rise from "an outcast social group" to leader of the world's number one power.

"Obama will fundamentally challenge China," predicted Bachman, "in a way that makes it very difficult for the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] to respond."

Looking in the other direction, the President-elect has had little to say about China, which receded as a campaign issue this year. But an Obama administration will encounter policy differences that will be unavoidable. One of those differences that could surface early in the new administration is human rights.

"Violations of human rights are not acceptable" to Obama, said Bachman, who said that could become a flash point for U.S.-Chinese relations.

And this friction comes just as China may have less willingness to keep paying America's bills: Beijing's currency reserves are estimated at just under $2 trillion. Last month alone the U.S. needed one tenth of that amount to stay afloat. Meanwhile, Beijing has just announced a huge stimulus package for the Chinese economy, which will also require drawing on those huge reserves. So just as the U.S. demand for more borrowing is increasing, the Beijing government is starting to invest hundreds of billions inside its own borders.

Of course, it is not in China's economic interest for the U.S. to suffer financially because Beijing has already invested so much in the U.S. But with Washington running record deficits – and therefore needing more and more money from overseas – President-elect Obama and his administration will need to focus all of the soft power they can to tend to America's new special relationship – across the Pacific.
]]> 2008-11-20T17:33:00-08:00 It is a confession for a historian of the Cold War to admit that he had never visited Russia until last week, and that is the case for me. I nearly went in 1975 but the “evil forces of capitalism” contrived to scrap the educational cruise ship on which my family and I were booked. I saw something of the Eastern bloc in Czechoslovakia and East Berlin in the 1980s; I had Russian friends, and even published on Russian subjects, but never having seen Russia for myself was a significant gap in my experience. And quite an experience it turned out to be. I did all the necessary things for any first-timer. I toured the Kremlin. I stood on Red Square. I visited Lenin in his mausoleum. I traveled through the Metro system with its platforms ornate with art from the old ideology. I bought a set of nesting dolls. There were plenty of snapshots of the new Russia, fabulously wealthy men and women sashaying to impossibly expensive Bentleys, past old ladies scrabbling in the street to collect the Kopecs that young Russian tourists had tossed on the bronze plaque by the entrance to Red Square to bring themselves luck. Or was that a return of the old, old Russia? Tolstoy would have understood it for sure. Seeking a Cold War site, I visited the location of KGB headquarters, the Lubyanka, which now houses the successor agency, the FSB. Outside, I found advertisements for the new James Bond movie. Popular culture seemed, in many ways, to be in sync with the west: the same inane Britney Spears song, the same perky ads for High School Musical III, and local knowledge of other cultural products on offer. One young Russian asked if I'd seen the movie called W, as though to confirm that it really had been possible to make a film about a sitting president. No one is holding their breath for an equivalent treatment of Medvedev or Putin. Once I'd played the game of decoding the familiar posters (so that's what “Simon Pegg” looks like in Cyrillic) the unfamiliar drew me in. It became obvious that there was no shortage of locally produced material. The big movie attraction is an epic about Russian naval history called Admiral, which is advertised all over the city with paraphernalia, including enormous Styrofoam reproductions of World War One-vintage sea-mines. The movie theatre near Pushkin Square had been converted into the prow of a battleship with plastic card. While in the 1980s such films regularly made it to western art-house screens, it seems unlikely that Admiral will steam into our cultural waters; it must surely be our loss. The purpose of my trip was to meet people interested in the study of Public Diplomacy in Russia and take part in a couple of classes on public diplomacy at MGIMO, the international relations university, which graduates 80% of Russian diplomats. The sessions had been set up by the British Council office in Moscow, as a side project to an exchange conference they are running this week, and included two British PD scholars: Ali Fisher (who also blogs on this site) of Mappa Mundi Consulting and myself. Our MGIMO sessions were well attended and it was clear that the students had already thought a lot about soft power. Public Diplomacy seemed to be rather more of an unknown territory, but they took to the core concepts swiftly. They were especially interested in on-line techniques. Here we had a surprise. While some sites – principally YouTube – were held in common, most were not. The Russian students spoke of their own equivalents of Facebook for social networking and other purposes. The Russian Facebook – we were told – is called V.Kontakte (meaning roughly "in contact"), it can be found at http://vkontakte.ru. Rather than evolving universal sites, which could become places of meeting between peoples, we had the sense of the web fragmenting into nationally or linguistically specific zones where one would tend to remain in the company of “people like me.“ These students knew nothing of Second Life or many of the other sites that some have touted as the future of on-line engagement for public diplomats. It struck us that for on-line work, as with most other aspects of public diplomacy, local knowledge will be key. The students understood America's Soft Power – the beguiling free-for-all of Hollywood, fashion, and pop – but were hard pressed to consider exactly what Russia might offer to appeal to the world in response. They felt that Russian literature and high culture remained impressive and, moving to more ethical issues, believed that Russia should continue to associate itself with international law. They also felt that the Russian commitment to multi-polarity was attractive and that Russia might usefully encourage Europe to join in a political balancing of the United States. But there was considerable resentment of the way in which “America and its international media” were not merely promoting their way but denigrating Russia. Georgia was a case in point. To these students, the characterization of Russia's clash with Georgia this past summer was proof positive of the reach of American propaganda. One surprise was the differing attitudes around the question of the end of the Cold War. In the course of my talk I mentioned the irony of American public diplomacy in the 1990s: the neglect of public diplomacy by Congress and the Clinton administration at the very moment that many people were giving it credit for helping bring the political change in Eastern Europe. It became obvious that these students had not spent much time thinking about external determinants for the political changes of the late 1980s and early 1990s. For them the Soviet Union collapsed for its own internal reasons, unconnected to its foreign policy, defense, and rearmament decisions. When I pushed the case – mentioned that Americans believe they won the Cold War and merely debate which of their policy decisions provided the “winning blow” – they were surprised. They simply do not see the story in terms of America's victory or Russia's defeat. The model adopted by these students was more that the Soviet Union attempted to create an ideal system, entered into competition with the United States, the system failed, and the Soviet Union stepped back from the competition – rather like a tennis player bowing out with a stomach cramp. Their model clearly left the path open for Russia to return to the competition and resume play, but this was not their intent. They seemed genuinely worried by talk of a return to a Cold War and asked with some anxiety about the likely foreign policy of America's next president. This mutual gap in perception is significant. Americans might do well to ask how victorious they really were if the defeated party does not acknowledge the loss. Both the United States and Russia need to be aware of each other’s dominant narratives if they are to understand the baggage that each brings into the international sphere. An enduring historical account of the end of the Cold War will need to reconcile both perspectives. Whatever the role of Public Diplomacy in the evolution of the Cold War, it seemed plain that there was plenty of scope for continued dialogue, and that both East and West have much of importance to say to each other and much to listen to as well. The wholesale diversion of resources away from the U.S.-Russian engagement to focus disproportionately on the encounter with Islam seems unwise to say the least. These young Russians may not seek a new Cold War, but Cold Wars and hot wars have a habit of creeping up unbidden, and an absence of dialogue and emphasis on comfortable stereotype is one way in which they can begin. Letter from Moscow Nicholas_J_Cull, Europe
It is a confession for a historian of the Cold War to admit that he had never visited Russia until last week, and that is the case for me. I nearly went in 1975 but the “evil forces of capitalism” contrived to scrap the educational cruise ship on which my family and I were booked. I saw something of the Eastern bloc in Czechoslovakia and East Berlin in the 1980s; I had Russian friends, and even published on Russian subjects, but never having seen Russia for myself was a significant gap in my experience. And quite an experience it turned out to be. I did all the necessary things for any first-timer. I toured the Kremlin. I stood on Red Square. I visited Lenin in his mausoleum. I traveled through the Metro system with its platforms ornate with art from the old ideology. I bought a set of nesting dolls.

There were plenty of snapshots of the new Russia, fabulously wealthy men and women sashaying to impossibly expensive Bentleys, past old ladies scrabbling in the street to collect the Kopecs that young Russian tourists had tossed on the bronze plaque by the entrance to Red Square to bring themselves luck. Or was that a return of the old, old Russia? Tolstoy would have understood it for sure.

Seeking a Cold War site, I visited the location of KGB headquarters, the Lubyanka, which now houses the successor agency, the FSB. Outside, I found advertisements for the new James Bond movie. Popular culture seemed, in many ways, to be in sync with the west: the same inane Britney Spears song, the same perky ads for High School Musical III, and local knowledge of other cultural products on offer. One young Russian asked if I'd seen the movie called W, as though to confirm that it really had been possible to make a film about a sitting president. No one is holding their breath for an equivalent treatment of Medvedev or Putin. Once I'd played the game of decoding the familiar posters (so that's what “Simon Pegg” looks like in Cyrillic) the unfamiliar drew me in. It became obvious that there was no shortage of locally produced material. The big movie attraction is an epic about Russian naval history called Admiral, which is advertised all over the city with paraphernalia, including enormous Styrofoam reproductions of World War One-vintage sea-mines. The movie theatre near Pushkin Square had been converted into the prow of a battleship with plastic card. While in the 1980s such films regularly made it to western art-house screens, it seems unlikely that Admiral will steam into our cultural waters; it must surely be our loss.

The purpose of my trip was to meet people interested in the study of Public Diplomacy in Russia and take part in a couple of classes on public diplomacy at MGIMO, the international relations university, which graduates 80% of Russian diplomats. The sessions had been set up by the British Council office in Moscow, as a side project to an exchange conference they are running this week, and included two British PD scholars: Ali Fisher (who also blogs on this site) of Mappa Mundi Consulting and myself. Our MGIMO sessions were well attended and it was clear that the students had already thought a lot about soft power. Public Diplomacy seemed to be rather more of an unknown territory, but they took to the core concepts swiftly. They were especially interested in on-line techniques. Here we had a surprise. While some sites – principally YouTube – were held in common, most were not. The Russian students spoke of their own equivalents of Facebook for social networking and other purposes. The Russian Facebook – we were told – is called V.Kontakte (meaning roughly "in contact"), it can be found at http://vkontakte.ru. Rather than evolving universal sites, which could become places of meeting between peoples, we had the sense of the web fragmenting into nationally or linguistically specific zones where one would tend to remain in the company of “people like me.“ These students knew nothing of Second Life or many of the other sites that some have touted as the future of on-line engagement for public diplomats. It struck us that for on-line work, as with most other aspects of public diplomacy, local knowledge will be key.

The students understood America's Soft Power – the beguiling free-for-all of Hollywood, fashion, and pop – but were hard pressed to consider exactly what Russia might offer to appeal to the world in response. They felt that Russian literature and high culture remained impressive and, moving to more ethical issues, believed that Russia should continue to associate itself with international law. They also felt that the Russian commitment to multi-polarity was attractive and that Russia might usefully encourage Europe to join in a political balancing of the United States. But there was considerable resentment of the way in which “America and its international media” were not merely promoting their way but denigrating Russia. Georgia was a case in point. To these students, the characterization of Russia's clash with Georgia this past summer was proof positive of the reach of American propaganda.

One surprise was the differing attitudes around the question of the end of the Cold War. In the course of my talk I mentioned the irony of American public diplomacy in the 1990s: the neglect of public diplomacy by Congress and the Clinton administration at the very moment that many people were giving it credit for helping bring the political change in Eastern Europe. It became obvious that these students had not spent much time thinking about external determinants for the political changes of the late 1980s and early 1990s. For them the Soviet Union collapsed for its own internal reasons, unconnected to its foreign policy, defense, and rearmament decisions. When I pushed the case – mentioned that Americans believe they won the Cold War and merely debate which of their policy decisions provided the “winning blow” – they were surprised. They simply do not see the story in terms of America's victory or Russia's defeat. The model adopted by these students was more that the Soviet Union attempted to create an ideal system, entered into competition with the United States, the system failed, and the Soviet Union stepped back from the competition – rather like a tennis player bowing out with a stomach cramp. Their model clearly left the path open for Russia to return to the competition and resume play, but this was not their intent. They seemed genuinely worried by talk of a return to a Cold War and asked with some anxiety about the likely foreign policy of America's next president. This mutual gap in perception is significant. Americans might do well to ask how victorious they really were if the defeated party does not acknowledge the loss. Both the United States and Russia need to be aware of each other’s dominant narratives if they are to understand the baggage that each brings into the international sphere. An enduring historical account of the end of the Cold War will need to reconcile both perspectives.

Whatever the role of Public Diplomacy in the evolution of the Cold War, it seemed plain that there was plenty of scope for continued dialogue, and that both East and West have much of importance to say to each other and much to listen to as well. The wholesale diversion of resources away from the U.S.-Russian engagement to focus disproportionately on the encounter with Islam seems unwise to say the least. These young Russians may not seek a new Cold War, but Cold Wars and hot wars have a habit of creeping up unbidden, and an absence of dialogue and emphasis on comfortable stereotype is one way in which they can begin.
]]> 2008-11-13T19:00:00-08:00 Given that President Bush told journalists this summer that Pakistan will be the next American president's biggest foreign policy challenge, let's take a moment to consider the public-diplomacy issues for both sides now that the U.S. has a new President-elect. Pakistan faces a significant PD challenge of its own: convincing the nations of the West that it is not a treacherous pseudo-ally. Just try the obligatory Google search of "Pakistan" + "double-game" – the 22,000 hits will demonstrate, as Newsweek does here, that much of the West's political leadership believes Pakistan is secretly supporting jihadists while taking Western aid that is supposed to be used to crush those same jihadists. Council of Foreign Relations analyst and former State Department official Daniel Markey has shown rare nuance in explaining the Pakistani dilemma, in which. Pakistani leaders' efforts to ally with the U.S. are thwarted by forces within the powerful Pakistan military, who invest in jihadists due to their own certainty that the U.S. has not been and will not be a reliable ally. As such, improving matters in Pakistan will involve a certain heightened commitment to PD on the part of the U.S. In the latter days of the Bush Administration, one encouraging effort in this area involves the Department of Homeland Security. DHS has begun to hold roundtables with Muslim and Sikh university students and community leaders – including one such meeting this week at USC – to hear from such groups about how to collaborate on crucial areas of common interest. This will certainly help the United States, not just in its relations with its Muslim-American citizens, but with Muslims in Pakistan and other hot spots. For their part, Pakistani leaders should learn about and begin to appreciate the culture of candor that drives Western society. Speaking generally, Americans are a candor-based culture, whereas many non-Western cultures are honor-based cultures. In the U.S., "straight talk" is a supreme virtue. Americans despise "B.S." They will warmly forgive a person's failures or flaws if he confesses to them, and then takes responsibility to redeem them. By contrast, many Arab and South-Asian and Eastern cultures believe that communication is a vehicle by which you assure everyone that things are okay – especially when they're not. The notion of admitting problems is as nutty as the idea of seeing a therapist -- it would be tantamount to admitting that you are a failure who cannot be trusted. "Getting to the truth" isn't an obsession of people or institutions. (That's one reason why my Pakistani-American parents nearly had coronaries when I informed them I wanted to be a journalist; they felt I should let someone else type up the latest propaganda from the government, while I focused on a more honorable profession like medicine or engineering). When rumors go out that the officials within Pakistani army's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) may once again be linked to an act of terrorism, Pakistanis fully expect their leaders to offer up a defense that amounts to, "Oh, things are fine. Nothing to see here." Yet Pakistanis need to begin to understand that they would make more friends in the West – and seem less duplicitous – if they would confess more openly to the media that they have problems – within ISI and elsewhere, – that they are attempting to address. After 9/11, my late father insisted to all who would listen that jihadists represented no more than 0.1% of the Pakistani population. He held to that view till his death this summer. Yet he also built a school in his hometown village that he felt could reduce the grave threat of young children turning to extremism. He never sweated the seeming contradiction; for him, he felt he had to reassure outsiders about his motherland, while trying to fix up that ailing motherland. That's what you do in an honor-based culture: You keep up appearances, while doing what you can. Westerners can certainly appreciate this; after all, the distinction between an honor-based culture and a candor-based culture is just a generalization. John McCain emphasized throughout his presidential campaign that American troops will only come home when the U.S. has achieved "victory with honor," a sentiment that resonates with many Americans. Of course, McCain lost- a sign that honor isn't as big a vote-getter here as in some places. If Pakistani officials can begin to factor this into how they communicate with the Western world, trust can grow. A PD Challenge on the Pakistani Side Rob_Asghar, Middle East
Given that President Bush told journalists this summer that Pakistan will be the next American president's biggest foreign policy challenge, let's take a moment to consider the public-diplomacy issues for both sides now that the U.S. has a new President-elect.

Pakistan faces a significant PD challenge of its own: convincing the nations of the West that it is not a treacherous pseudo-ally. Just try the obligatory Google search of "Pakistan" + "double-game" – the 22,000 hits will demonstrate, as Newsweek does here, that much of the West's political leadership believes Pakistan is secretly supporting jihadists while taking Western aid that is supposed to be used to crush those same jihadists.

Council of Foreign Relations analyst and former State Department official Daniel Markey has shown rare nuance in explaining the Pakistani dilemma, in which. Pakistani leaders' efforts to ally with the U.S. are thwarted by forces within the powerful Pakistan military, who invest in jihadists due to their own certainty that the U.S. has not been and will not be a reliable ally.

As such, improving matters in Pakistan will involve a certain heightened commitment to PD on the part of the U.S. In the latter days of the Bush Administration, one encouraging effort in this area involves the Department of Homeland Security. DHS has begun to hold roundtables with Muslim and Sikh university students and community leaders – including one such meeting this week at USC – to hear from such groups about how to collaborate on crucial areas of common interest. This will certainly help the United States, not just in its relations with its Muslim-American citizens, but with Muslims in Pakistan and other hot spots.

For their part, Pakistani leaders should learn about and begin to appreciate the culture of candor that drives Western society. Speaking generally, Americans are a candor-based culture, whereas many non-Western cultures are honor-based cultures. In the U.S., "straight talk" is a supreme virtue. Americans despise "B.S." They will warmly forgive a person's failures or flaws if he confesses to them, and then takes responsibility to redeem them.

By contrast, many Arab and South-Asian and Eastern cultures believe that communication is a vehicle by which you assure everyone that things are okay – especially when they're not. The notion of admitting problems is as nutty as the idea of seeing a therapist -- it would be tantamount to admitting that you are a failure who cannot be trusted. "Getting to the truth" isn't an obsession of people or institutions. (That's one reason why my Pakistani-American parents nearly had coronaries when I informed them I wanted to be a journalist; they felt I should let someone else type up the latest propaganda from the government, while I focused on a more honorable profession like medicine or engineering).

When rumors go out that the officials within Pakistani army's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) may once again be linked to an act of terrorism, Pakistanis fully expect their leaders to offer up a defense that amounts to, "Oh, things are fine. Nothing to see here."

Yet Pakistanis need to begin to understand that they would make more friends in the West – and seem less duplicitous – if they would confess more openly to the media that they have problems – within ISI and elsewhere, – that they are attempting to address.

After 9/11, my late father insisted to all who would listen that jihadists represented no more than 0.1% of the Pakistani population. He held to that view till his death this summer. Yet he also built a school in his hometown village that he felt could reduce the grave threat of young children turning to extremism. He never sweated the seeming contradiction; for him, he felt he had to reassure outsiders about his motherland, while trying to fix up that ailing motherland. That's what you do in an honor-based culture: You keep up appearances, while doing what you can.

Westerners can certainly appreciate this; after all, the distinction between an honor-based culture and a candor-based culture is just a generalization. John McCain emphasized throughout his presidential campaign that American troops will only come home when the U.S. has achieved "victory with honor," a sentiment that resonates with many Americans. Of course, McCain lost- a sign that honor isn't as big a vote-getter here as in some places. If Pakistani officials can begin to factor this into how they communicate with the Western world, trust can grow.
]]> 2008-11-13T18:49:01-08:00 It may be peculiar to comment on one’s own blog. But, having just provided a post on possible directions for Obama’s international broadcasting and public diplomacy strategy, I realized I had missed the elephant (or donkey) in the room. In thinking about a strategy for the new administration, the obvious question (so obvious that it’s already three-quarters asked) is: what would it mean to harness, for global understanding, the Obama campaign’s approach to “movement” thinking and its brilliant exploitation of the potential of the Internet? International broadcasters have been struggling with the question of how to adjust to new technology. But often, it’s like a gaggle of geezers trying to figure out how to use TiVo. There are important steps, papers, conferences, tests, modifications, and adjustments, but it’s not clear there has been a visionary breakthrough. The Obama team is pretty clearly sitting on some global version of the kind of organization, energy, and understanding of technology that has extraordinary potential. It netted him those hundreds of millions in contributions but-- more important for public diplomacy-- that mother lode of emotive connection. The issue is how to bottle this, how to turn it to constructive mobilization, and use it as a way of changing dramatically the Manichean narratives out there in the world. Billions seem to want to be connected; they are shouting it from the rooftops. I reiterate, I’m not saying this search for innovation as savior is new. James Glassman, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, has vaunted the move to new technology and the Internet. Daniel Kimmage of Radio Free Europe wrote a New York Times op-ed last June, in which he argued (maybe a bit too triumphantly) that the U.S. was already playing with Web 2.0 while Al Qaeda was still in 1.0. This may be, but (without being too adulatory) the Obama campaign has been on the Web on steroids. How can this energy be captured? How can public diplomacy in a web world contribute to building a collaborative community, a mass that sees itself committed to a common theme of repair or restoration rather than a set of efforts “aimed at” particular audiences? This use of technology is far more personal, more engaged, and more persevering. But, it involves a total rethinking, restaffing, and reinvention of public diplomacy and with it a transformation of international broadcasting. This is not captured by “bottom-up” or user generated content; it’s got some quality of what William Rugh (former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen and the U.A.E) calls mobilization, oddly enough. It departs from the paradigms of the past. How it works— how it worked in the campaign— is something that is elusive. A random blog about the Obama campaign (written at a middle stage in the campaigning marathon) captures something of the spirit: E.politics has long preached the virtues of integrated online/offline communications, and it's fascinating to see a major campaign with big resources put the idea into action and really go beyond the basics. I have no special insight into the Obama campaign, just the same public information we all have access to, but the sense I get is that these folks are really using the web rather than just throwing things online. Jamie Metzl, now at the Asia Society, was prescient when writing about this almost a decade ago reflecting experience in the Clinton years: The new vision must see foreign policy less as an interaction between government elites and more as a multifaceted interaction between societies, in which governments, among other actors, play an important role in shaping dialogue and moving towards desired outcomes through diffuse exchanges on a number of levels. Metzl recognized that even in the new world “governments will…have policies, engage with foreign leaders, move armies, (and) negotiate international treaties. But: (E)very one of these traditional government functions… will need to be developed in consideration of international public opinion and a more broadly defined international context, and presented in a form and manner that utilizes whatever media best reaches the target audiences. Policies will have to be carefully and proactively explained to foreign populations through satellite television and radio, the Internet, and other media using techniques that make the information presented interesting and appealing. The Obama campaign has turned this notion of Metzl’s from a useful prediction to a more sweeping and compelling reality. Transformative Mobilization: From Obama’s Campaign Techniques to Public Diplomacy Monroe_E_Price, Americas Obama’s international broadcasting and public diplomacy strategy, I realized I had missed the elephant (or donkey) in the room.

In thinking about a strategy for the new administration, the obvious question (so obvious that it’s already three-quarters asked) is: what would it mean to harness, for global understanding, the Obama campaign’s approach to “movement” thinking and its brilliant exploitation of the potential of the Internet?

International broadcasters have been struggling with the question of how to adjust to new technology. But often, it’s like a gaggle of geezers trying to figure out how to use TiVo. There are important steps, papers, conferences, tests, modifications, and adjustments, but it’s not clear there has been a visionary breakthrough.

The Obama team is pretty clearly sitting on some global version of the kind of organization, energy, and understanding of technology that has extraordinary potential. It netted him those hundreds of millions in contributions but-- more important for public diplomacy-- that mother lode of emotive connection.

The issue is how to bottle this, how to turn it to constructive mobilization, and use it as a way of changing dramatically the Manichean narratives out there in the world. Billions seem to want to be connected; they are shouting it from the rooftops.

I reiterate, I’m not saying this search for innovation as savior is new. James Glassman, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, has vaunted the move to new technology and the Internet. Daniel Kimmage of Radio Free Europe wrote a New York Times op-ed last June, in which he argued (maybe a bit too triumphantly) that the U.S. was already playing with Web 2.0 while Al Qaeda was still in 1.0. This may be, but (without being too adulatory) the Obama campaign has been on the Web on steroids.

How can this energy be captured? How can public diplomacy in a web world contribute to building a collaborative community, a mass that sees itself committed to a common theme of repair or restoration rather than a set of efforts “aimed at” particular audiences?

This use of technology is far more personal, more engaged, and more persevering. But, it involves a total rethinking, restaffing, and reinvention of public diplomacy and with it a transformation of international broadcasting.

This is not captured by “bottom-up” or user generated content; it’s got some quality of what William Rugh (former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen and the U.A.E) calls mobilization, oddly enough. It departs from the paradigms of the past. How it works— how it worked in the campaign— is something that is elusive.

A random blog about the Obama campaign (written at a middle stage in the campaigning marathon) captures something of the spirit:

E.politics has long preached the virtues of integrated online/offline communications, and it's fascinating to see a major campaign with big resources put the idea into action and really go beyond the basics. I have no special insight into the Obama campaign, just the same public information we all have access to, but the sense I get is that these folks are really using the web rather than just throwing things online.

Jamie Metzl, now at the Asia Society, was prescient when writing about this almost a decade ago reflecting experience in the Clinton years:
The new vision must see foreign policy less as an interaction between government elites and more as a multifaceted interaction between societies, in which governments, among other actors, play an important role in shaping dialogue and moving towards desired outcomes through diffuse exchanges on a number of levels.

Metzl recognized that even in the new world “governments will…have policies, engage with foreign leaders, move armies, (and) negotiate international treaties. But:
(E)very one of these traditional government functions… will need to be developed in consideration of international public opinion and a more broadly defined international context, and presented in a form and manner that utilizes whatever media best reaches the target audiences. Policies will have to be carefully and proactively explained to foreign populations through satellite television and radio, the Internet, and other media using techniques that make the information presented interesting and appealing.

The Obama campaign has turned this notion of Metzl’s from a useful prediction to a more sweeping and compelling reality.

]]> 2008-11-10T01:33:00-08:00 Can two late thinkers, a French philosopher and British media scholar, point the way to a new American public diplomacy— or at least an American international broadcasting strategy— for the Obama era? Let’s start with two unarguable points. The very election of Barack Obama shifts the world of public diplomacy and automatically alters the dynamic of U.S. messaging abroad. As Timothy Garton Ash put it in the Guardian, “Obama is himself a weapon of mass attraction.” Second, as commission after commission and report after report found this decade, without addressing underlying foreign policy initiatives, attention to the form and technique of the message was a somewhat losing operation. Now, policies and public diplomacy goals may be brought into greater harmony. A new international broadcasting strategy should be sufficiently ambitious to take into account sea changes in the media and cultural environment. What are dimensions of a rethinking? In the mid 1990s, Jaques Derrida delivered a series of lectures later compiled into a short book called Of Hospitality. Derrida didn’t specifically address international broadcasting (far from it), but the discussion can be adapted to reconsider the art form. International broadcasting could move from primarily a means of projecting perceptions of the U.S. and reflecting (even if indirectly) U.S. policies to one which would be a platform for cooperation, mediation, and reception— a mode of being informed as well as informing. The focus— as I am wildly rereading Derrida— would be on creating an international broadcasting environment built on receiving and hearing as well as sending. It would be a platform that would demonstrate more pervasively the idea of recognizing messages from all sides. Public diplomacy and international broadcasting might be constructed on principles of deeper reciprocity as well as rearticulated targeting. There could be even more collaboration among international broadcasters to achieve this goal. I want to make clear that this refiguring would go far beyond the recent preoccupation with “listening,” as outlined in many public diplomacy proclamations, or the frequent efforts at increasing interactivity such as in “My BBC”. This refiguring would affect not only the international broadcaster— increasing its sensitivity to the views of its international audience— but affecting the American audience as well. Actually, Roger Silverstone, the chair of Media@LSE came very close to this connection in his last book, Media and Morality. He described, longingly, a Mediapolis that would serve as a site in which “communication is multiple and multiply inflected… open to the circulation of images and narratives.” For Silverstone, unless the media (in some form) did the work of bringing home a wide variety of opinions, virtually unedited and unfiltered (especially those of the “other” ), then the society would not be well informed. The opportunity of the media to make its rich contribution to its own society would be lost. What, actually, would a different international broadcasting and public diplomacy be like? One point would be to rethink what would become the mainstays of U.S. international broadcasting; country or region-specific services (i.e. Radio Farda in Iran, Radio Free Asia, or Radio Sawa in the Middle East) designed, as Ambassador Edward Djerejian put it in a noted report, “to move the needle” in target societies. These services, while having their uses, are the most inconsistent with the ideas of “hospitality,” of listening and receiving as a hallmark of a moral mediasphere. They perform important functions. Yet, unadjusted, they may be increasingly out of tune with Obama-like directions in international affairs.. Reciprocity would involve taking steps to advance popular domestic American understanding of international events as well as penetrating consciousness in regions such as the Middle East or the Caucasus. It would mean a possible repeal of the Smith-Mundt Act, which bars transmission of U.S. financed international broadcasting within the United States, a somewhat pointless prohibition in the Internet era. Reciprocity would, of course, broaden cultural exchange, including expanding cultural exchanges, but it would have consequences for the broadcasting sphere as well. Undoubtedly there will be nostalgic discussions of restoration of the USIA. In the Silverstone-Derrida model, the very process of filtering could be said to interfere with the basic goals and objectives of hospitality. For me a wholesale evisceration of editing is a step too far. Unconditionality of receipt may involve its own betrayal of morality. Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights and its Article 19 equivalent recognizes limitations on the right to receive and impart. International broadcasting should be sensitive to certain high-level norms that are properly enacted and consistent with constitutional standards. There’s another point: for Derrida and Silverstone, the Mediapolis of unbounded hospitality should be achieved for moral grounds; such a platform is the marker of a society that has the capacity for just citizenship. But I think there is another basis for such a refashioned approach to international broadcasting, one that would more clearly resonate with present needs. The national security and well-being of the United States is weakened if its populace has too limited knowledge and understanding of global events. One final point: another citizen related challenge related to the future of international broadcasting is the dramatically changed political economy of U.S. news organizations and the continued decline of foreign coverage. Knowledge of the world is a public good. If the market cannot provide it in a way that is essential for citizenship, then other means to finance it must be found. International broadcasting (originating from other states and American as well) already emerges as a partial filling of that gap. The Voice of America and RFE/RL have had that role internationally for decades. The BBC World Service has begun to play that role impressively within the United States. It is daunting, indeed frightening, to think of a U.S. government entity performing such a role within the United States. Cooperation with and among international broadcasters as well as basic adjustments that assure greater independence from government might dampen, though not eliminate the need for, these fears. The point— whether to consider the implications at home or on the streets of the Middle East and elsewhere— is to reconceptualize international broadcasting for a new time, a time in which the problems facing the world shift and the administration at home shifts its foreign policy strategy as well. Changing International Broadcasting in the Obama Era? Monroe_E_Price, Americas
Let’s start with two unarguable points. The very election of Barack Obama shifts the world of public diplomacy and automatically alters the dynamic of U.S. messaging abroad. As Timothy Garton Ash put it in the Guardian, “Obama is himself a weapon of mass attraction.”

Second, as commission after commission and report after report found this decade, without addressing underlying foreign policy initiatives, attention to the form and technique of the message was a somewhat losing operation. Now, policies and public diplomacy goals may be brought into greater harmony.

A new international broadcasting strategy should be sufficiently ambitious to take into account sea changes in the media and cultural environment. What are dimensions of a rethinking? In the mid 1990s, Jaques Derrida delivered a series of lectures later compiled into a short book called Of Hospitality. Derrida didn’t specifically address international broadcasting (far from it), but the discussion can be adapted to reconsider the art form. International broadcasting could move from primarily a means of projecting perceptions of the U.S. and reflecting (even if indirectly) U.S. policies to one which would be a platform for cooperation, mediation, and reception— a mode of being informed as well as informing.

The focus— as I am wildly rereading Derrida— would be on creating an international broadcasting environment built on receiving and hearing as well as sending. It would be a platform that would demonstrate more pervasively the idea of recognizing messages from all sides. Public diplomacy and international broadcasting might be constructed on principles of deeper reciprocity as well as rearticulated targeting. There could be even more collaboration among international broadcasters to achieve this goal.

I want to make clear that this refiguring would go far beyond the recent preoccupation with “listening,” as outlined in many public diplomacy proclamations, or the frequent efforts at increasing interactivity such as in “My BBC”. This refiguring would affect not only the international broadcaster— increasing its sensitivity to the views of its international audience— but affecting the American audience as well.

Actually, Roger Silverstone, the chair of Media@LSE came very close to this connection in his last book, Media and Morality. He described, longingly, a Mediapolis that would serve as a site in which “communication is multiple and multiply inflected… open to the circulation of images and narratives.” For Silverstone, unless the media (in some form) did the work of bringing home a wide variety of opinions, virtually unedited and unfiltered (especially those of the “other” ), then the society would not be well informed. The opportunity of the media to make its rich contribution to its own society would be lost.

What, actually, would a different international broadcasting and public diplomacy be like? One point would be to rethink what would become the mainstays of U.S. international broadcasting; country or region-specific services (i.e. Radio Farda in Iran, Radio Free Asia, or Radio Sawa in the Middle East) designed, as Ambassador Edward Djerejian put it in a noted report, “to move the needle” in target societies. These services, while having their uses, are the most inconsistent with the ideas of “hospitality,” of listening and receiving as a hallmark of a moral mediasphere. They perform important functions. Yet, unadjusted, they may be increasingly out of tune with Obama-like directions in international affairs..

Reciprocity would involve taking steps to advance popular domestic American understanding of international events as well as penetrating consciousness in regions such as the Middle East or the Caucasus. It would mean a possible repeal of the Smith-Mundt Act, which bars transmission of U.S. financed international broadcasting within the United States, a somewhat pointless prohibition in the Internet era. Reciprocity would, of course, broaden cultural exchange, including expanding cultural exchanges, but it would have consequences for the broadcasting sphere as well. Undoubtedly there will be nostalgic discussions of restoration of the USIA.

In the Silverstone-Derrida model, the very process of filtering could be said to interfere with the basic goals and objectives of hospitality. For me a wholesale evisceration of editing is a step too far. Unconditionality of receipt may involve its own betrayal of morality. Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights and its Article 19 equivalent recognizes limitations on the right to receive and impart. International broadcasting should be sensitive to certain high-level norms that are properly enacted and consistent with constitutional standards.

There’s another point: for Derrida and Silverstone, the Mediapolis of unbounded hospitality should be achieved for moral grounds; such a platform is the marker of a society that has the capacity for just citizenship. But I think there is another basis for such a refashioned approach to international broadcasting, one that would more clearly resonate with present needs. The national security and well-being of the United States is weakened if its populace has too limited knowledge and understanding of global events.

One final point: another citizen related challenge related to the future of international broadcasting is the dramatically changed political economy of U.S. news organizations and the continued decline of foreign coverage. Knowledge of the world is a public good. If the market cannot provide it in a way that is essential for citizenship, then other means to finance it must be found. International broadcasting (originating from other states and American as well) already emerges as a partial filling of that gap. The Voice of America and RFE/RL have had that role internationally for decades. The BBC World Service has begun to play that role impressively within the United States.

It is daunting, indeed frightening, to think of a U.S. government entity performing such a role within the United States. Cooperation with and among international broadcasters as well as basic adjustments that assure greater independence from government might dampen, though not eliminate the need for, these fears.

The point— whether to consider the implications at home or on the streets of the Middle East and elsewhere— is to reconceptualize international broadcasting for a new time, a time in which the problems facing the world shift and the administration at home shifts its foreign policy strategy as well.

]]> 2008-11-06T23:44:00-08:00 I had heard many good things about Wilton Park's conferences, and was finally able to participate in one entitled "Public Diplomacy: Meeting New Challenges" on October 7, 2008. The conference consisted of several sessions, including one on Afghanistan that generated much discussion by a number of publicly renowned diplomacy experts and practitioners from some of the countries with forces in Afghanistan. We discussed challenges and opportunities for public diplomacy in my country in the context of international stabilization and reconstruction efforts. In my remarks, I pointed out three key opportunities for international engagement in Afghanistan that have been underutilized. I stated that no recent post-conflict intervention had enjoyed as much international goodwill and consensus as Afghanistan. Today, some 70 countries are providing assistance to rebuild Afghanistan, while forces from 40 nations participate in the NATO/ISAF to stabilize the country. Secondly, our international partners understand that no peace operation is successful without popular support. Unlike other post-conflict situations, the international community hardly needed to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people upon re-engagement in the country seven years ago. In fact, the Afghan people played a key role in helping the Coalition forces overthrow the Taliban in less than two months. In the two years following the defeat of the Taliban, millions of Afghan refugees optimistically returned home in a show of support for international peace-building efforts and the new regime they helped establish in Afghanistan. Finally, I pointed out that significant progress had been made with less international investment in the stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan over the past seven years. We have established the key institutions of a permanent government, and we have made considerable progress in rebuilding infrastructure, in expanding access to basic healthcare, and in providing education to an increasing number of Afghan girls and boys across the country. I noted, however, that our international partners had been either unwilling or slow to capitalize on the above three strategic opportunities. Afghanistan's international partners have so far faltered on three key accounts to help secure the future of Afghanistan, and thereby serve their own national security interests. First, they have been reluctant to provide the necessary level of aid resources to meet Afghanistan's basic reconstruction needs. Second, they have failed to coordinate their aid efforts with one another and with the Afghan state to ensure aid effectiveness. Finally, they have lacked an effective public diplomacy strategy to listen to the Afghan people and deliver on their very basic expectations. At the same time, our partners have not done enough to educate their own publics on how their involvement in Afghanistan ensures their own citizens' security and prosperity in a dangerous world where security is globalized as much as prosperity. Unfortunately, a lack of progress in each of the above key areas over the past seven years has allowed peace spoilers—particularly the Taliban—to fill the gap and destabilize Afghanistan. As far as engaging the Afghan people is concerned, I argued that the international community had so far lacked a unified and effective public diplomacy strategy that was well connected to sound policy and policy delivery, thus helping ensure continued popular support for international peace-building efforts in Afghanistan. For example, the Afghan government has been unable to keep its promises to provide poor Afghan farmers with alternative livelihood assistance. In 2005, poppy cultivation declined 21% as a direct result of an effective public information campaign spearheaded by President Karzai, who persuaded poppy farmers to give up cultivation in return for alternative livelihood assistance. However, the farmers went back to poppy cultivation the following year when they did not receive the necessary level of aid resources from the international community. We are again seeing a decline in poppy cultivation – 19% over the past year, but this success could be reversed if we do not deliver an effective combination of carrots and sticks to aid poor farmers and to enforce law against high value drug traffickers. I also discussed the rebuilding priorities of the Afghan government, stressing the importance of engaging the Afghan people and maintaining their support for realizing long-term peace and democracy in Afghanistan. In fact, we cannot afford to lose popular support in Afghanistan. Our partners must seize the opportunity to regain the lost ground by involving and empowering Afghans to take control over our country's reconstruction process. Our partners can and must use their influence and resources to reward competence and moderation while weakening potential peace spoilers. Such actions will ensure that Afghanistan will stand firmly on its own feet once our partners have left. I proposed to the Wilton Park gathering that they consider hosting a follow-up conference, specifically focusing on the practice of public diplomacy by some 40 countries in Afghanistan. The key purpose of the conference would be to share best practices and lessons learned by our multinational partners, and to work towards a unified international public diplomacy strategy to engage the Afghan people constructively in helping them rebuild our country. Public Diplomacy: Challenges and Opportunities for International Engagement in Afghanistan M_Ashraf_Haidari, Middle East Wilton Park's conferences, and was finally able to participate in one entitled "Public Diplomacy: Meeting New Challenges" on October 7, 2008. The conference consisted of several sessions, including one on Afghanistan that generated much discussion by a number of publicly renowned diplomacy experts and practitioners from some of the countries with forces in Afghanistan. We discussed challenges and opportunities for public diplomacy in my country in the context of international stabilization and reconstruction efforts.

In my remarks, I pointed out three key opportunities for international engagement in Afghanistan that have been underutilized. I stated that no recent post-conflict intervention had enjoyed as much international goodwill and consensus as Afghanistan. Today, some 70 countries are providing assistance to rebuild Afghanistan, while forces from 40 nations participate in the NATO/ISAF to stabilize the country.

Secondly, our international partners understand that no peace operation is successful without popular support. Unlike other post-conflict situations, the international community hardly needed to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people upon re-engagement in the country seven years ago. In fact, the Afghan people played a key role in helping the Coalition forces overthrow the Taliban in less than two months. In the two years following the defeat of the Taliban, millions of Afghan refugees optimistically returned home in a show of support for international peace-building efforts and the new regime they helped establish in Afghanistan.

Finally, I pointed out that significant progress had been made with less international investment in the stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan over the past seven years. We have established the key institutions of a permanent government, and we have made considerable progress in rebuilding infrastructure, in expanding access to basic healthcare, and in providing education to an increasing number of Afghan girls and boys across the country.

I noted, however, that our international partners had been either unwilling or slow to capitalize on the above three strategic opportunities. Afghanistan's international partners have so far faltered on three key accounts to help secure the future of Afghanistan, and thereby serve their own national security interests.

First, they have been reluctant to provide the necessary level of aid resources to meet Afghanistan's basic reconstruction needs. Second, they have failed to coordinate their aid efforts with one another and with the Afghan state to ensure aid effectiveness. Finally, they have lacked an effective public diplomacy strategy to listen to the Afghan people and deliver on their very basic expectations. At the same time, our partners have not done enough to educate their own publics on how their involvement in Afghanistan ensures their own citizens' security and prosperity in a dangerous world where security is globalized as much as prosperity.

Unfortunately, a lack of progress in each of the above key areas over the past seven years has allowed peace spoilers—particularly the Taliban—to fill the gap and destabilize Afghanistan. As far as engaging the Afghan people is concerned, I argued that the international community had so far lacked a unified and effective public diplomacy strategy that was well connected to sound policy and policy delivery, thus helping ensure continued popular support for international peace-building efforts in Afghanistan.

For example, the Afghan government has been unable to keep its promises to provide poor Afghan farmers with alternative livelihood assistance. In 2005, poppy cultivation declined 21% as a direct result of an effective public information campaign spearheaded by President Karzai, who persuaded poppy farmers to give up cultivation in return for alternative livelihood assistance. However, the farmers went back to poppy cultivation the following year when they did not receive the necessary level of aid resources from the international community. We are again seeing a decline in poppy cultivation – 19% over the past year, but this success could be reversed if we do not deliver an effective combination of carrots and sticks to aid poor farmers and to enforce law against high value drug traffickers.

I also discussed the rebuilding priorities of the Afghan government, stressing the importance of engaging the Afghan people and maintaining their support for realizing long-term peace and democracy in Afghanistan. In fact, we cannot afford to lose popular support in Afghanistan. Our partners must seize the opportunity to regain the lost ground by involving and empowering Afghans to take control over our country's reconstruction process. Our partners can and must use their influence and resources to reward competence and moderation while weakening potential peace spoilers. Such actions will ensure that Afghanistan will stand firmly on its own feet once our partners have left.

I proposed to the Wilton Park gathering that they consider hosting a follow-up conference, specifically focusing on the practice of public diplomacy by some 40 countries in Afghanistan. The key purpose of the conference would be to share best practices and lessons learned by our multinational partners, and to work towards a unified international public diplomacy strategy to engage the Afghan people constructively in helping them rebuild our country.
]]> 2008-11-01T01:07:00-08:00 When awake with jet lag in a hotel far from home, the traveler naturally turns to the TV remote. So it was for me in Moscow this week, when a few absent minded clicks brought me face to face with Russia Today (RT)– the English language news channel and flagship for contemporary Russian public diplomacy. The channel did not come highly recommended. It had raised eyebrows with recent magazine advertisements adorned with a portrait of Stalin holding a quill and that caption: “Stalin wrote romantic poetry” and the tag line “Proud to be different”. (Type Russia Today Stalin into Google Images and the picture pops up; for German comment on this story and the idea of the equivalent figure in German history being so used see http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,518259,00.html) This was not promising but I found myself watching with mounting fascination. Visually the channel is very impressive. It has top notch production values and sports the best looking presenters of any international news channel, if only because its relative youth as a channel means young presenters and an attractive sense of energy. Its content was similarly striking. It was watch-able and engaging albeit with the unmistakable tone of advocacy for the state position rather than the balanced journalism typical of Deutsche Welle, CNN International, or the BBC World Service. Two days into my watching, it seemed to me that one would be more likely to see a story exploring a domestic problem on China's CCTV 9 than on RT. There were frequent mentions of bias in the western media and their distorted coverage of the Georgia story, but that was to be expected. I was rather drawn to fascinating coverage of the U.S. election, which consisted of a roving reporter collecting gripes from voters in New York and Miami about the inevitability of voter fraud, malign influence of campaign contributions, lack of attention to the concerns of ordinary people, and general failure of elections to change anything. Neither the almost-religious optimism of the Obama campaign nor dogged patriotism of the McCain camp were anywhere to be seen. It was a radically different view than that of the American channels, though it undoubtedly reflected a certain element of opinion. Some of the stories were perhaps not dissimilar to election “color” stories on any European channel: a feature of election themed pet chews and Halloween masks, and on the coffee shops whose sale of partisan coffee cups has accurately predicted the last three elections, which showed a clear lead for Obama. A massive turnout on 4 November will challenge the RT version of the American election; a string of lawsuits will not. My last day in Moscow brought a surprise. RT led with news that a BBC investigation had revealed that there were indeed Georgian atrocities in South Ossetia- a tank had fired directly into a block of flats. Suddenly the wicked foreign media was a valued purveyor of truth whose word was bearing out what Russia had argued all along. The story ended with “revelations” from Russian intelligence that Georgia had also intended to invade Abkhazia. An animated map showed arrows moving around the Black Sea like an American training film from World War Two. I suspect it will be a while before that part of the story is independently confirmed. As if to thank the British for their investigative effort, there was a positive story of impending British naval action in Somalia to deal with the threat of piracy and allow the free flow of the consumer goods necessary to prevent the pirates from “stealing Christmas.“ The same newscast spoke honestly about one of the problems of contemporary Russia – corruption, and cited statistics from an international NGO source, Transparency International, to illustrate the scale of the problem. The context was President Medvedev's initiative to combat the problem, but it was presented as a problem nonetheless. Russia Today was certainly more interesting than I had expected and promises to be a fascinating window on Russia's view of the world and on Russia itself. I'll certainly look in again from time to time. Russia Today: Views from My Hotel Room Nicholas_J_Cull, Europe Russia Today (RT)– the English language news channel and flagship for contemporary Russian public diplomacy. The channel did not come highly recommended. It had raised eyebrows with recent magazine advertisements adorned with a portrait of Stalin holding a quill and that caption: “Stalin wrote romantic poetry” and the tag line “Proud to be different”. (Type Russia Today Stalin into Google Images and the picture pops up; for German comment on this story and the idea of the equivalent figure in German history being so used see http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,518259,00.html) This was not promising but I found myself watching with mounting fascination.

Visually the channel is very impressive. It has top notch production values and sports the best looking presenters of any international news channel, if only because its relative youth as a channel means young presenters and an attractive sense of energy. Its content was similarly striking. It was watch-able and engaging albeit with the unmistakable tone of advocacy for the state position rather than the balanced journalism typical of Deutsche Welle, CNN International, or the BBC World Service. Two days into my watching, it seemed to me that one would be more likely to see a story exploring a domestic problem on China's CCTV 9 than on RT.

There were frequent mentions of bias in the western media and their distorted coverage of the Georgia story, but that was to be expected. I was rather drawn to fascinating coverage of the U.S. election, which consisted of a roving reporter collecting gripes from voters in New York and Miami about the inevitability of voter fraud, malign influence of campaign contributions, lack of attention to the concerns of ordinary people, and general failure of elections to change anything. Neither the almost-religious optimism of the Obama campaign nor dogged patriotism of the McCain camp were anywhere to be seen. It was a radically different view than that of the American channels, though it undoubtedly reflected a certain element of opinion. Some of the stories were perhaps not dissimilar to election “color” stories on any European channel: a feature of election themed pet chews and Halloween masks, and on the coffee shops whose sale of partisan coffee cups has accurately predicted the last three elections, which showed a clear lead for Obama. A massive turnout on 4 November will challenge the RT version of the American election; a string of lawsuits will not.

My last day in Moscow brought a surprise. RT led with news that a BBC investigation had revealed that there were indeed Georgian atrocities in South Ossetia- a tank had fired directly into a block of flats. Suddenly the wicked foreign media was a valued purveyor of truth whose word was bearing out what Russia had argued all along. The story ended with “revelations” from Russian intelligence that Georgia had also intended to invade Abkhazia. An animated map showed arrows moving around the Black Sea like an American training film from World War Two. I suspect it will be a while before that part of the story is independently confirmed. As if to thank the British for their investigative effort, there was a positive story of impending British naval action in Somalia to deal with the threat of piracy and allow the free flow of the consumer goods necessary to prevent the pirates from “stealing Christmas.“ The same newscast spoke honestly about one of the problems of contemporary Russia – corruption, and cited statistics from an international NGO source, Transparency International, to illustrate the scale of the problem. The context was President Medvedev's initiative to combat the problem, but it was presented as a problem nonetheless.

Russia Today was certainly more interesting than I had expected and promises to be a fascinating window on Russia's view of the world and on Russia itself. I'll certainly look in again from time to time.
]]> 2008-10-30T21:33:00-08:00 When it comes to entertainment, leisure and play, people generally exercise more freedom of choice than in any other realm of modern life. They choose to watch a movie, play chess, go to a concert, or go shopping because they find it amusing. In short, look at the way people entertain themselves and you’ll discover what people wish to do for one's own sake. If you’re looking for a window into the global village, to assess its condition and its attitudes toward every imaginable aspect of contemporary life, there can be no better portal than global entertainment. Last month, the Norman Lear Center, a research institute located at the USC Annenberg School, released findings from the second in a series of surveys we’re conducting with Zogby International. The goal of the surveys has been to ascertain whether there is a connection between an individual’s political beliefs and their entertainment and leisure preferences. The stakes for cultural diplomacy are quite high: it has been notoriously difficult to prove that cultural diplomacy is an effective method to communicate a communal set of values across international borders. The Zogby/Lear Center surveys – which have been conducted exclusively in the United States so far, though we plan to take them global – reveal a strong connection between the way people amuse themselves and their political convictions. In addition, we found a remarkable willingness among respondents to admit to the impact that fictional entertainment has on their behavior in the real world. The Zogby/Lear Center survey is unique in a few fundamental ways. Instead of asking respondents to describe their own political ideology, we created a political typology based on how respondents evaluated 42 statements about political values. Using statistical clustering analysis, the typology revealed three significant clusters of respondents: "reds," as we decided to call them, make up 41% of the national sample, while "blues" comprise 34% and "purples" 24%. The same respondents were asked about their preferred leisure-time activities and their favorite radio and TV shows, Web sites, movies, games and sports. The online survey was conducted August 19–28, 2008, including 3,167 adults nationwide and carrying a margin of error of +/– 1.8 percentage points. A previous survey, using the same political typology, was administered in June 2007. Each of the three groups has distinctly different demographic characteristics, political beliefs and entertainment preferences (profiles of each group are available here). In fact, in the 2007 survey, we found that if the ideological group on the conservative end of the spectrum (Reds) demonstrated a preference for a certain TV or film genre, then it was very likely that the group on the liberal end of the spectrum (Blues) would demonstrate a distaste for that genre, and vice versa. Even the group in the middle of the spectrum (Purples) tended to gravitate toward genres that the other groups disliked, except for dramatic and educational programming. Entertainment, Politics & Cultural Diplomacy Johanna_Blakley, Americas for one's own sake. If you’re looking for a window into the global village, to assess its condition and its attitudes toward every imaginable aspect of contemporary life, there can be no better portal than global entertainment.

Last month, the Norman Lear Center, a research institute located at the USC Annenberg School, released findings from the second in a series of surveys we’re conducting with Zogby International. The goal of the surveys has been to ascertain whether there is a connection between an individual’s political beliefs and their entertainment and leisure preferences.

The stakes for cultural diplomacy are quite high: it has been notoriously difficult to prove that cultural diplomacy is an effective method to communicate a communal set of values across international borders. The Zogby/Lear Center surveys – which have been conducted exclusively in the United States so far, though we plan to take them global – reveal a strong connection between the way people amuse themselves and their political convictions. In addition, we found a remarkable willingness among respondents to admit to the impact that fictional entertainment has on their behavior in the real world.

The Zogby/Lear Center survey is unique in a few fundamental ways. Instead of asking respondents to describe their own political ideology, we created a political typology based on how respondents evaluated 42 statements about political values. Using statistical clustering analysis, the typology revealed three significant clusters of respondents: "reds," as we decided to call them, make up 41% of the national sample, while "blues" comprise 34% and "purples" 24%. The same respondents were asked about their preferred leisure-time activities and their favorite radio and TV shows, Web sites, movies, games and sports. The online survey was conducted August 19–28, 2008, including 3,167 adults nationwide and carrying a margin of error of +/– 1.8 percentage points. A previous survey, using the same political typology, was administered in June 2007.

Each of the three groups has distinctly different demographic characteristics, political beliefs and entertainment preferences (profiles of each group are available here). In fact, in the 2007 survey, we found that if the ideological group on the conservative end of the spectrum (Reds) demonstrated a preference for a certain TV or film genre, then it was very likely that the group on the liberal end of the spectrum (Blues) would demonstrate a distaste for that genre, and vice versa. Even the group in the middle of the spectrum (Purples) tended to gravitate toward genres that the other groups disliked, except for dramatic and educational programming.


In the 2008 survey, we found that each group preferred different games (Reds selected Monopoly, Purples Scrabble, and Blues Trivial Pursuit) as well as different TV shows (the top pick for Reds was Sunday Night Football, while Purples chose Law & Order: SVU and Blues picked 60 Minutes).

What respondents did tend to agree about, however, was that entertainment media –whether it intends to or not – contains political messages:


Eighty-four percent of all respondents confirmed that fictional TV shows and movies cannot avoid being political. That helps to explain why a majority of respondents (65%) admitted that they learn about political issues when they watch fictional TV shows or movies. We went on to ask whether they had ever taken action based on something they learned in a fictional TV show or movie and – as we have found repeatedly in our studies on TV and its impact on health behavior – we found that a large majority admit that they had:


Only 21% of respondents claimed they had not taken action, with another 5% saying they were not sure. It’s important to note that we asked respondents to set aside news, documentaries and talk shows – programming that audiences expect to accurately depict the “real world.” Most people attend to the news, and news-related media, to gather information about the world and make informed decisions in their own lives. But our survey suggests that fictional programming also plays a key role in people’s real lives, igniting curiosity and inciting conversations that may not have taken place otherwise.

The issue for cultural diplomacy is not necessarily whether the import and export of cultural products has an effect on people – I think there’s no doubt that it does, and this survey demonstrates that audiences are aware of the impact that it has on them personally. More at issue for the United States is finding a way to accurately represent a populace that is deeply divided in terms of its ideological beliefs and its consumption of “popular” culture. Many have argued that blockbuster films tell more about the U.S. to foreign audiences than any governmental campaign ever could. However, U.S. blockbusters tend to tell a very limited set of stories about American life, mainly because they are designed, from incept