CPD 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 2009 2009-06-25T15:57:00-08:00 Cultural historians mostly discourage making cross-history comparisons of important events, since they take place in fundamentally different contexts and the parallels that are drawn are rarely meaningful or useful. With that caveat, I will argue how President Obama's administration might best utilize the soft power of cultural diplomacy by recalling a similarly pivotal moment from March 4, 1933. Upon being sworn in as president that day, Franklin D. Roosevelt briefly enunciated his administration's foreign policy goals toward Latin America and the Caribbean. This statement marked the end of a series of military interventions by the U.S. government in the region. At a time when America was faced with an intractable economic depression, this Good Neighbor Policy would favor Pan-Americanism over unpopular military coercion, diplomacy over imperialistic meddling by the "Colossus of the North." The new administration was well aware of our country's negative reputation in Latin America after decades of unilateral police actions favoring the interests of the U.S. The U.S. had long demonstrated an active military and commercial interest in the region (see Federalist Paper No. 11 from 1787, in which Alexander Hamilton expresses the need for American economic expansion in the West Indies). Over the next century, the United States used military force to decide the 1846 Mallarino-Bidlack Treaty that allowed American supervision of the Panama-Colombia region, during the "Watermelon War" of 1856, the Spanish-American War of 1898, and in 1903 when President Theodore Roosevelt promulgated the notion of a permanent U.S. military presence in the region for the next hundred years. The Roosevelt Corollary of 1904 asserted that America had carte blanche to intervene militarily in Latin American affairs if necessary to protect U.S. interests. In his December 1904 address to Congress, Roosevelt stated: If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power. The "Banana Wars," a series of American occupations and police actions from 1898 to 1932, driven principally by significant economic interests in fruit, tobacco, and sugar cane, helped the U.S. maintain their sphere of influence in the northern regions of South America and the Caribbean. Countries where the U.S. displayed both military and economic force include Nicaragua, occupied by the U.S. continually from 1912 through 1933; Cuba, occupied by the U.S. from 1899 to 1902, and controlled through the Platt Amendment until the early 1930s; Haiti, occupied by the U.S. from 1916 through 1934; Honduras, where the United and Standard Fruit Companies controlled banana exports through armed U.S. interventions from 1903 through 1925; and Mexico, where U.S. forces patrolled and secured various sections of the shared border, sparking prolonged unrest between the two nations through World War I. Franklin Roosevelt, in a reversal of Teddy Roosevelt's Big Stick diplomacy, proclaimed on his inaugural day: In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors. In an effort to reverse the ill-fated 1904 Roosevelt Corollary — an outgrowth of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine that declared America wholly intolerant of European intervention in Latin America — Franklin Roosevelt was well aware that devoting a couple of well-wrought sentences to a new diplomatic tact in his inaugural address would not solve the fraught domestic and foreign situations he inherited on that cold March day. Beyond this formal yet vague declaration of fair play and diplomatic openness by the new administration, it was not until a few years later that the U.S. would implement a specific strategic agency dedicated to the soft power side of realpolitik. The Division of Cultural Relations (1938) and later Nelson Rockefeller's Office for Inter-American Affairs (1940) formalized a neighborly, though strategic, plan to continue to present American values and culture to foreign audiences. In a nutshell, the U.S. feared the encroachment of Nazism and fascism in Latin America and used cultural diplomatic resources as a principal weapon to stave off this ideological infiltration. Not unlike FDR, Obama has inherited an Augean stable of economic depression, dangerous international scenarios, and big questions as to how to revamp and refocus the cultural element within public diplomacy. Like FDR at the Montevideo Conference in 1933 and Lima in 1938, the new U.S. president has so far successfully projected a positive image of America to a world grown stubbornly suspicious of the U.S. and its manner of involvement in the War on Terror (or as Newt Gingrich likes to call it, World War III). FDR came to understand, after much persuasion by his foreign policy advisors, that what was needed was a government agency with a special kind of leader. He found that person in Rockefeller. I suggest we also see this position as a wartime cultural consigliere who can function effectively within the Washington political machine and simultaneously initiate cultural programming that can potentially reach the most unreachable of foreign audiences. See my colleague Nick Cull's CPD Blog post on the need for an American "culture tsar." The science of exhibiting U.S. culture has been a challenge since Jefferson displayed a moose carcass from Vermont in his apartment on the Champs-Elysées to prove to Buffon that Americans and their fauna were not degenerate. America continues to battle perceptions of degeneracy against a world public opinion that doubts our motives, strength, and ability to ably handle the War on Terror. The outlook for the future success of U.S. cultural diplomacy appears increasingly positive with two bits of recent news: America will host a pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo in 2010. . This type of soft power intervention has the potential to win over millions of Chinese moderates and intellectuals. Another example of nongovernmental cultural diplomacy is the recent activity of the Fundación Amistad, a nonprofit dedicated to the promotion of U.S.-Cuba relations, and its support of the 10th Havana Bienniel. Showcasing the first exhibition of American artists in Cuba in decades, the curator of contemporary art at Havana's Fine Arts Museum Aberlado Mana stated: "This is the first exhibition we made after Obama rose to power. This is a kind of lighthouse of the next process of the culture and the politics between Cuba and the United States" Wherever the venue, a sophisticated presentation of American arts and culture can continue to make inroads against negative perceptions of us. If foreign audiences can obtain an impression of America free of governmental filters, they can better decide for themselves what our country really is and what it represents to them. President Obama has stated that he will chart a different foreign policy path from the Bush administration. However, he has yet to articulate a substantial cultural diplomacy plan. Our new president must surely know that his administration must do more than find a way to handle the hearts and minds of demographics who view America immoderately. It also wouldn't hurt to win over Americans who supported the McCain-Palin ticket as well — who, in the midst of the current global economic upheaval, need a leader to inspire confidence in the survival of our union. Cultural diplomacy takes time to work, and in the words of USIA veteran Richard Arndt, it provides no quick fixes. While it is conceivable that extremists in corners of the world hostile to America could be won over in time to Obama's "good neighbor" position, the real scary places — Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea — are beyond the reach of our current genteel methods of cultural diplomacy. Civilians in these places, whether they are for or against America, are much more concerned about escaping Taliban-driven violence or securing their next meal from the good graces of their Dear Leader. From the Good Neighbor Policy to the Fundacion Amistad: A Useful Historical Reminder for Obama Andrew_Wulf
Upon being sworn in as president that day, Franklin D. Roosevelt briefly enunciated his administration's foreign policy goals toward Latin America and the Caribbean. This statement marked the end of a series of military interventions by the U.S. government in the region. At a time when America was faced with an intractable economic depression, this Good Neighbor Policy would favor Pan-Americanism over unpopular military coercion, diplomacy over imperialistic meddling by the "Colossus of the North." The new administration was well aware of our country's negative reputation in Latin America after decades of unilateral police actions favoring the interests of the U.S.

The U.S. had long demonstrated an active military and commercial interest in the region (see Federalist Paper No. 11 from 1787, in which Alexander Hamilton expresses the need for American economic expansion in the West Indies). Over the next century, the United States used military force to decide the 1846 Mallarino-Bidlack Treaty that allowed American supervision of the Panama-Colombia region, during the "Watermelon War" of 1856, the Spanish-American War of 1898, and in 1903 when President Theodore Roosevelt promulgated the notion of a permanent U.S. military presence in the region for the next hundred years.

The Roosevelt Corollary of 1904 asserted that America had carte blanche to intervene militarily in Latin American affairs if necessary to protect U.S. interests. In his December 1904 address to Congress, Roosevelt stated:

If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.


The "Banana Wars," a series of American occupations and police actions from 1898 to 1932, driven principally by significant economic interests in fruit, tobacco, and sugar cane, helped the U.S. maintain their sphere of influence in the northern regions of South America and the Caribbean. Countries where the U.S. displayed both military and economic force include Nicaragua, occupied by the U.S. continually from 1912 through 1933; Cuba, occupied by the U.S. from 1899 to 1902, and controlled through the Platt Amendment until the early 1930s; Haiti, occupied by the U.S. from 1916 through 1934; Honduras, where the United and Standard Fruit Companies controlled banana exports through armed U.S. interventions from 1903 through 1925; and Mexico, where U.S. forces patrolled and secured various sections of the shared border, sparking prolonged unrest between the two nations through World War I. Franklin Roosevelt, in a reversal of Teddy Roosevelt's Big Stick diplomacy, proclaimed on his inaugural day:

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.


In an effort to reverse the ill-fated 1904 Roosevelt Corollary — an outgrowth of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine that declared America wholly intolerant of European intervention in Latin America — Franklin Roosevelt was well aware that devoting a couple of well-wrought sentences to a new diplomatic tact in his inaugural address would not solve the fraught domestic and foreign situations he inherited on that cold March day. Beyond this formal yet vague declaration of fair play and diplomatic openness by the new administration, it was not until a few years later that the U.S. would implement a specific strategic agency dedicated to the soft power side of realpolitik. The Division of Cultural Relations (1938) and later Nelson Rockefeller's Office for Inter-American Affairs (1940) formalized a neighborly, though strategic, plan to continue to present American values and culture to foreign audiences. In a nutshell, the U.S. feared the encroachment of Nazism and fascism in Latin America and used cultural diplomatic resources as a principal weapon to stave off this ideological infiltration.

Not unlike FDR, Obama has inherited an Augean stable of economic depression, dangerous international scenarios, and big questions as to how to revamp and refocus the cultural element within public diplomacy. Like FDR at the Montevideo Conference in 1933 and Lima in 1938, the new U.S. president has so far successfully projected a positive image of America to a world grown stubbornly suspicious of the U.S. and its manner of involvement in the War on Terror (or as Newt Gingrich likes to call it, World War III). FDR came to understand, after much persuasion by his foreign policy advisors, that what was needed was a government agency with a special kind of leader. He found that person in Rockefeller. I suggest we also see this position as a wartime cultural consigliere who can function effectively within the Washington political machine and simultaneously initiate cultural programming that can potentially reach the most unreachable of foreign audiences. See my colleague Nick Cull's CPD Blog post on the need for an American "culture tsar."

The science of exhibiting U.S. culture has been a challenge since Jefferson displayed a moose carcass from Vermont in his apartment on the Champs-Elysées to prove to Buffon that Americans and their fauna were not degenerate. America continues to battle perceptions of degeneracy against a world public opinion that doubts our motives, strength, and ability to ably handle the War on Terror.

The outlook for the future success of U.S. cultural diplomacy appears increasingly positive with two bits of recent news: America will host a pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo in 2010. . This type of soft power intervention has the potential to win over millions of Chinese moderates and intellectuals.

Another example of nongovernmental cultural diplomacy is the recent activity of the Fundación Amistad, a nonprofit dedicated to the promotion of U.S.-Cuba relations, and its support of the 10th Havana Bienniel. Showcasing the first exhibition of American artists in Cuba in decades, the curator of contemporary art at Havana's Fine Arts Museum Aberlado Mana stated: "This is the first exhibition we made after Obama rose to power. This is a kind of lighthouse of the next process of the culture and the politics between Cuba and the United States"

Wherever the venue, a sophisticated presentation of American arts and culture can continue to make inroads against negative perceptions of us. If foreign audiences can obtain an impression of America free of governmental filters, they can better decide for themselves what our country really is and what it represents to them.

President Obama has stated that he will chart a different foreign policy path from the Bush administration. However, he has yet to articulate a substantial cultural diplomacy plan. Our new president must surely know that his administration must do more than find a way to handle the hearts and minds of demographics who view America immoderately.

It also wouldn't hurt to win over Americans who supported the McCain-Palin ticket as well — who, in the midst of the current global economic upheaval, need a leader to inspire confidence in the survival of our union. Cultural diplomacy takes time to work, and in the words of USIA veteran Richard Arndt, it provides no quick fixes. While it is conceivable that extremists in corners of the world hostile to America could be won over in time to Obama's "good neighbor" position, the real scary places — Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea — are beyond the reach of our current genteel methods of cultural diplomacy.

Civilians in these places, whether they are for or against America, are much more concerned about escaping Taliban-driven violence or securing their next meal from the good graces of their Dear Leader.]]> 2009-06-25T14:57:00-08:00 Each time the Iranian Islamic dictatorship condemns the Voice of America by name for broadcasting news of anti-government demonstrations into that country, it can only mean more dollars for the VOA's Persian News Network — and VOA in general — at budget time on Capitol Hill. The case can be credibly made that the VOA is a healthy return on investment for U.S. taxpayers when Iran's Foreign Ministry rails that such Western TV channels as the BBC and VOA "are the mouthpiece of their government’s public diplomacy." And it's helpful too that the VOA is mentioned in the same breath as the prestigious BBC, which, like the VOA, broadcasts in a language local to Iran. (Also, of course, there is the U.S. government-funded Radio Farda, which broadcasts programs into Iran in Farsi.) To help circumvent the Iranian government's attempt to block Western TV satellite news broadcasts from getting through, the BBC and VOA began using two additional satellites to make jamming more difficult. But, apparently, signals from those satellites are being effectively blocked as well, along with Internet access. Before satellite and Internet jamming, one Persian News Network broadcast received more than 2,000 Internet messages in one hour. And for more budget cake frosting, the White House is undoubtedly aware that the VOA's coverage of President Obama's comments on street demonstrations in Iran have been fully "Twittered" within Iran, so the VOA will have picked up valuable recognition from Pennsylvania Avenue's front office along the way. Because western "public diplomacy" has been labeled a dirty term by Iran's dictators, it's money in the bank as well for the office of the U.S. Under-Secretary for Public Diplomacy when budget hearings on Capitol Hill come around again. Several hope the name-calling continues, with names spelled properly. AUTHOR'S ADDENDUM: Not long after my above blog was posted, Agence France-Presse moved the following newswire from Tehran, reporting that the government of Iran, through its state television, has stepped up its propaganda attack on the VOA and the BBC for helping to instigate the massive protests in Iran (bold emphasis mine): TEHRAN, Iran, June 23, 2009 (AFP) - Iranian state television broadcast footage on Tuesday of what it said were rioters admitting going on the rampage, inspired by Western media outlets which have been targeted by the authorities. "We were under the influence of Voice of America Persia and the BBC," declared one woman, dressed in a black overcoat and headscarf, who said she joined in street violence that erupted during massive opposition protests over the disputed presidential vote. "The entire atmosphere was created by the BBC. My son had a grenade in his bag as he wanted to appear stronger than others," said the woman, whose face was blurred by the television. "I took to the streets and saw it was people like us who were torching public properties. There were no police around. It was only us setting cars on fire." A long-haired young man also acknowledged indulging in violence, and said he had been arrested in a shopping district in the capital known for selling mobile phones. "I took advantage of the situation and me and my brother looted shops and robbed people," he told the state television reporter. Iran's foreign ministry on Monday directly accused the two global broadcasters of working for Israel and seeking to break up the Islamic republic with their coverage of the post-election unrest. Their aim, said foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi, is to weaken the national solidarity, threaten territoral integrity and disintegrate Iran." Another alleged rioter shown by the state television, an elderly man in a light-green shirt, said: "I think I was under the influence of VOA." Another youngster in a red shirt said he was provoked by "mask-wearing" men. "I was provoked by their obscene words. They were telling us 'you are fighting Israelis'," he said. State television has shown brief images of protests, but more footage of what it says is rioting on the streets of Tehran, including the torching of a mosque on Saturday and the beating of a member of the Islamic militia. It has regularly shown interviews of men and women calling for an end to the violence and complaining about how it is affecting their daily lives. May Bad-Mouthing Continue: Iran and the Voice of America Al_Snyder_Worldcasting, Americas, Middle East
The case can be credibly made that the VOA is a healthy return on investment for U.S. taxpayers when Iran's Foreign Ministry rails that such Western TV channels as the BBC and VOA "are the mouthpiece of their government’s public diplomacy." And it's helpful too that the VOA is mentioned in the same breath as the prestigious BBC, which, like the VOA, broadcasts in a language local to Iran. (Also, of course, there is the U.S. government-funded Radio Farda, which broadcasts programs into Iran in Farsi.)

To help circumvent the Iranian government's attempt to block Western TV satellite news broadcasts from getting through, the BBC and VOA began using two additional satellites to make jamming more difficult. But, apparently, signals from those satellites are being effectively blocked as well, along with Internet access. Before satellite and Internet jamming, one Persian News Network broadcast received more than 2,000 Internet messages in one hour.

And for more budget cake frosting, the White House is undoubtedly aware that the VOA's coverage of President Obama's comments on street demonstrations in Iran have been fully "Twittered" within Iran, so the VOA will have picked up valuable recognition from Pennsylvania Avenue's front office along the way.

Because western "public diplomacy" has been labeled a dirty term by Iran's dictators, it's money in the bank as well for the office of the U.S. Under-Secretary for Public Diplomacy when budget hearings on Capitol Hill come around again.

Several hope the name-calling continues, with names spelled properly.


AUTHOR'S ADDENDUM:
Not long after my above blog was posted, Agence France-Presse moved the following newswire from Tehran, reporting that the government of Iran, through its state television, has stepped up its propaganda attack on the VOA and the BBC for helping to instigate the massive protests in Iran (bold emphasis mine):


TEHRAN, Iran, June 23, 2009 (AFP) - Iranian state television broadcast footage on Tuesday of what it said were rioters admitting going on the rampage, inspired by Western media outlets which have been targeted by the authorities.

"We were under the influence of Voice of America Persia and the BBC," declared one woman, dressed in a black overcoat and headscarf, who said she joined in street violence that erupted during massive opposition protests over the disputed presidential vote.

"The entire atmosphere was created by the BBC. My son had a grenade in his bag as he wanted to appear stronger than others," said the woman, whose face was blurred by the television.

"I took to the streets and saw it was people like us who were torching public properties. There were no police around. It was only us setting cars on fire."

A long-haired young man also acknowledged indulging in violence, and said he had been arrested in a shopping district in the capital known for selling mobile phones.

"I took advantage of the situation and me and my brother looted shops and robbed people," he told the state television reporter.

Iran's foreign ministry on Monday directly accused the two global broadcasters of working for Israel and seeking to break up the Islamic republic with their coverage of the post-election unrest.

Their aim, said foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi, is to weaken the national solidarity, threaten territoral integrity and disintegrate Iran."

Another alleged rioter shown by the state television, an elderly man in a light-green shirt, said: "I think I was under the influence of VOA."

Another youngster in a red shirt said he was provoked by "mask-wearing" men.

"I was provoked by their obscene words. They were telling us 'you are fighting Israelis'," he said.

State television has shown brief images of protests, but more footage of what it says is rioting on the streets of Tehran, including the torching of a mosque on Saturday and the beating of a member of the Islamic militia.

It has regularly shown interviews of men and women calling for an end to the violence and complaining about how it is affecting their daily lives.]]> 2009-06-23T18:13:00-08:00 An unyielding belief in strength over suppleness — constantly deploying the full force of both the sword and the mouth — may lie at the core of that old warrior Sen. John McCain's criticism that President Obama has been too passive in reacting to Iranian protests against that country's controversial elections. Critics of McCain, including a number of conservative commentators, questioned the notion that the United States should engage more aggressively in the Iranian melee — even if just at the rhetorical level. Columnist Peggy Noonan wrote that McCain and other colleagues "went quite crazy insisting President Obama declare whose side America was on, as if the world doesn't know whose side America is on ... . This was Aggressive Political Solipsism at work: Always exploit events to show you love freedom more than the other guy, always make someone else's delicate drama your excuse for a thumping curtain speech." I'm willing to consider that McCain's motives are pure and that he sincerely believes that "America has a moral obligation" as well as a practical opportunity to usher in a better era for Iranians. Yet I will still say that McCain is wrong. If I were a ruthless tyrant clinging to power in Iran right about now, I would be praying to God above that He would intervene by pushing the United States — otherwise known as the Great Satan — into the conflict. It would be the most effective way to get 60 percent of the public to support the regime without having to resort to further vote-rigging. If I were a young leader of the opposition, I would be praying that John McCain gets less airtime. As I've argued elsewhere recently, America has been a scapegoat for despots in that region of the world, thanks to their perceptions of relentless meddling on our part. Take us away as a convenient devil, and those despots will now be judged for their failures, not America's failures. Obama has been hammered by many would-be presidents for his PD, often dismissed as his "global apology tour." Yet such critics seem to forget that there has in fact been much to apologize for recently; that the humility inherent in such apologies generates trust internationally; and that a grasp of our own limited ability to interpret signs is an important speed bump as we move forward. All that comes into play here. As Noonan noted, we have often gotten Iran wrong while wildly flipping levers there — and thus, "modesty and humility seem appropriate stances from which to observe and comment." Let us admit that there is much we do not know yet, as we gain scraps of information from Twitter and cable news coverage. Do we know precisely what short-term and long-term forces are in play in Iran? Are these forces that can usher in long-lasting moderation? Bear in mind that moderates don't like getting shot at, which has kept them from taming passionate impulses across the Middle East and South Asia; so the resilience of the current mob may be something to watch with hope and with great caution. America has a huge stake in the outcome, but PD posturing at this stage would be greatly counterproductive on the part of a nation that has not been a friend of Iran during the lifetimes of most of the protesters. Indeed, a modest and humble silence seems the only way forward at the moment for the U.S. government. When Silence is Golden in PD Rob_Asghar, Americas criticism that President Obama has been too passive in reacting to Iranian protests against that country's controversial elections.

Critics of McCain, including a number of conservative commentators, questioned the notion that the United States should engage more aggressively in the Iranian melee — even if just at the rhetorical level. Columnist Peggy Noonan wrote that McCain and other colleagues "went quite crazy insisting President Obama declare whose side America was on, as if the world doesn't know whose side America is on ... . This was Aggressive Political Solipsism at work: Always exploit events to show you love freedom more than the other guy, always make someone else's delicate drama your excuse for a thumping curtain speech."

I'm willing to consider that McCain's motives are pure and that he sincerely believes that "America has a moral obligation" as well as a practical opportunity to usher in a better era for Iranians. Yet I will still say that McCain is wrong.

If I were a ruthless tyrant clinging to power in Iran right about now, I would be praying to God above that He would intervene by pushing the United States — otherwise known as the Great Satan — into the conflict. It would be the most effective way to get 60 percent of the public to support the regime without having to resort to further vote-rigging. If I were a young leader of the opposition, I would be praying that John McCain gets less airtime.

As I've argued elsewhere recently, America has been a scapegoat for despots in that region of the world, thanks to their perceptions of relentless meddling on our part. Take us away as a convenient devil, and those despots will now be judged for their failures, not America's failures.

Obama has been hammered by many would-be presidents for his PD, often dismissed as his "global apology tour." Yet such critics seem to forget that there has in fact been much to apologize for recently; that the humility inherent in such apologies generates trust internationally; and that a grasp of our own limited ability to interpret signs is an important speed bump as we move forward.

All that comes into play here. As Noonan noted, we have often gotten Iran wrong while wildly flipping levers there — and thus, "modesty and humility seem appropriate stances from which to observe and comment."

Let us admit that there is much we do not know yet, as we gain scraps of information from Twitter and cable news coverage. Do we know precisely what short-term and long-term forces are in play in Iran? Are these forces that can usher in long-lasting moderation? Bear in mind that moderates don't like getting shot at, which has kept them from taming passionate impulses across the Middle East and South Asia; so the resilience of the current mob may be something to watch with hope and with great caution. America has a huge stake in the outcome, but PD posturing at this stage would be greatly counterproductive on the part of a nation that has not been a friend of Iran during the lifetimes of most of the protesters.

Indeed, a modest and humble silence seems the only way forward at the moment for the U.S. government.
]]> 2009-06-22T21:32:00-08:00 Women in public diplomacy have long been confronted with a glass ceiling in Washington. It seems that their male counterparts in PD now see such a ceiling as well. What caught my eye was a comment last weekend by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. At her 50th class reunion at Wellesley College, Dr. Albright remarked to Boston Globe correspondent Ben Terris that women probably make better diplomats than men. "In a lot of ways we do have advantages," she said. "Diplomacy is about being able to put yourself into someone else's shoes, to be able to empathize, figure out their perspective. At the risk of making a gross generalization, women are often much better at that." Maybe that's why, with one exception, all Under-Secretaries of State for Public Diplomacy have been women since the position was created in 1999. President Bill Clinton chose Evelyn Lieberman to be the first State Department chief of public diplomacy. President George W. Bush appointed three women and one man to the job during his two terms in office (Charlotte Beers, Margaret Tutwiler, Karen Hughes and James Glassman), and President Obama selected Judith McHale. Apparently the male presidents who signed off on those presidential appointments could not make up their minds, as that State PD position has been left vacant more than one-third of the time since 1999. It should also be noted that from 1997 to the present, three females have served as Secretary of State (Albright, Condoleezza Rice and now Hillary Clinton), with Colin Powell the lone male. With that new glass ceiling for men at the State Department for the positions of Secretary of State and Under-Secretary for PD, the ceiling for women was shattered at the former U.S. Information Agency, when it was merged into the State Department and the office of the Undersecretary of State for PD was created. It was an all-male director's club at the USIA down through its history, headed by 13 male chiefs during the agency's 46-year existence, 1953-1999 (Streibert, Larson, Allen, Murrow, Rowan, Marks, Shakespeare, Keogh, Reinhardt, Charles Z. Wick, Bruce Gelb, Henry Catto, Duffy). The Voice of America, which was not merged into the State Department, but survived with quasi-independence from public diplomacy and its glass ceiling in tact, has had 27 VOA directors since 1942, all males with two exceptions: Mary Bitterman, 1980-81 and Evelyn Lieberman, 1997-1999. Although a woman's diplomatic skills may not be required for the very top director's position at the VOA — located on the protected side of the public diplomacy firewall — their time to shatter the glass ceiling may yet come. Public Diplomacy’s Glass Ceilings Al_Snyder_Worldcasting
What caught my eye was a comment last weekend by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. At her 50th class reunion at Wellesley College, Dr. Albright remarked to Boston Globe correspondent Ben Terris that women probably make better diplomats than men.

"In a lot of ways we do have advantages," she said. "Diplomacy is about being able to put yourself into someone else's shoes, to be able to empathize, figure out their perspective. At the risk of making a gross generalization, women are often much better at that."

Maybe that's why, with one exception, all Under-Secretaries of State for Public Diplomacy have been women since the position was created in 1999.

President Bill Clinton chose Evelyn Lieberman to be the first State Department chief of public diplomacy. President George W. Bush appointed three women and one man to the job during his two terms in office (Charlotte Beers, Margaret Tutwiler, Karen Hughes and James Glassman), and President Obama selected Judith McHale. Apparently the male presidents who signed off on those presidential appointments could not make up their minds, as that State PD position has been left vacant more than one-third of the time since 1999.

It should also be noted that from 1997 to the present, three females have served as Secretary of State (Albright, Condoleezza Rice and now Hillary Clinton), with Colin Powell the lone male.

With that new glass ceiling for men at the State Department for the positions of Secretary of State and Under-Secretary for PD, the ceiling for women was shattered at the former U.S. Information Agency, when it was merged into the State Department and the office of the Undersecretary of State for PD was created. It was an all-male director's club at the USIA down through its history, headed by 13 male chiefs during the agency's 46-year existence, 1953-1999 (Streibert, Larson, Allen, Murrow, Rowan, Marks, Shakespeare, Keogh, Reinhardt, Charles Z. Wick, Bruce Gelb, Henry Catto, Duffy).

The Voice of America, which was not merged into the State Department, but survived with quasi-independence from public diplomacy and its glass ceiling in tact, has had 27 VOA directors since 1942, all males with two exceptions: Mary Bitterman, 1980-81 and Evelyn Lieberman, 1997-1999.

Although a woman's diplomatic skills may not be required for the very top director's position at the VOA — located on the protected side of the public diplomacy firewall — their time to shatter the glass ceiling may yet come.]]> 2009-06-17T20:44:00-08:00 Notwithstanding its many virtues, there are all kinds of possible pitfalls associated with public diplomacy. For starters, PD is done mainly, though not exclusively, by diplomats. Diplomats work for states. States have interests. So when your friendly emissary wants to enjoin you in conversation, it is more likely to be directed rather than free-form. It is almost certain that he or she will be looking for something — a pearl of insight, a gem of intelligence, support for a policy or politician ... something. And that is just one of the many paradoxes which separate the theory of public diplomacy, characterized by openness and meaningful two-way exchange, from its practice, which has a tendency to be predicated on the need to transmit rather more often than the need to receive. Among many possible hazards, however, a demonstrated loss of national credibility is perhaps the most deadly. With the record of the Bush administration fresh in mind, I have been watching the first six months of the Obama administration's PD performance with a mixture of admiration and trepidation. In Cairo, Ankara, Jakarta and elsewhere, the substantial signals have typically been less important than the carefully choreographed style. I am not particularly alarmed, as are some, that the term "public diplomacy" is so little used by the current administration, or that alternatives, such as "engagement" seem to be preferred. I don't think that it matters much what you call PD, as long as you are doing it. I am slightly more worried that it took so long to propose a new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy — Judith McHale, former president of Discovery Communications — to replace James Glassman, who had been out of office for months. McHale's confirmation came through on May 26. It does not appear to have been a high priority, and there may be something in that. I have greater reservations, however, about "Smart Power" and recently tried to set some of these concerns out. My concern here is that whenever PD is removed from the realm of political communications and placed or framed in the context of any kind of power — soft, hard, smart, whatever — it immediately becomes instrumental, a tool used to have your way with others. McHale's opening statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not attract a lot of attention, but I think it deserves a closer look. She set out six core PD principles, which might be paraphrased as follows: 1. Integration into the policy process 2. Strategic planning and execution 3. Adequate resources 4. Risk tolerance 5. Emphasis on new media 6. Public-private partnerships This list is fine as far as it goes. But that, I believe, is not far enough. PD, I think, should be about more than the perfection of bureaucratic process. In McHale's remarks I was looking for a vision for the restoration of America's image and reputation in the world. That, in my view, is job No. 1. It was not there. But the articulation of a vision is also only one job among many for American public diplomacy. In a book to be released at the end of this month, and under the rubric of guerrilla diplomacy, I have tried to rethink international relations, with a focus on security and development in the globalization age. In that regard, I propose an approach to diplomacy which George Washington University's Bruce Gregory has described as "PD on steroids." I hope that some of the ideas resonate. What might be said of these guerrilla diplomats? They are: • Resilient, directed, self-starters who tend to leave a light representational footprint • Inclined toward abstract thinking, innovation and rapid-adaptive cognition • Naturally curious, with highly developed personal and situational awareness • Adept with the new media, and expert at cross cultural communications • Pro-active intelligence generators who place a premium on local knowledge Vested with the triple-A qualities of agility, acuity and autonomy, Guerrilla diplomats (GDs) are able to bore deep into the interstices of influence and navigate pathways inaccessible to others. They work the global political economy of knowledge with something I have termed souplesse, a technique for solving real-world problems by using technology-facilitated access to bridge the digital divide. With their eyes wide open and an ear to the ground, GDs can begin to address, through concrete action, the roots of resentment, humiliation, anger and alienation. These sentiments give rise, among other things, to religious extremism and political violence, to jihad and suicide bombing. Over the longer term, guerrilla diplomacy can be used to address a host of longer term problems, many of which are rooted in science and driven by technology — environmental collapse, resource shortages and weapons of mass destruction, to name a few. All of this to say that in terms of McHale's references to technique, I would have applauded a stated commitment to genuine dialogue, which is to say effective two-way communications. PD needs to get well beyond the identification of partners with whom to make common cause in the pursuit of shared values and mutual interests. There is, or in any case should be, much more to PD than garden-variety branding, relationship management, networking, lobbying and advocacy. If what is being heard is routinely ignored, or, worse yet, undermined by policy or behaviour, a credibility chasm can quickly develop. Once created, such chasms are very difficult to bridge. We have seen, for example, that promoting the ideal of democracy, while ignoring the results of certifiably free and fair elections when they fail to produce agreeable results, just doesn't work. Shaping, spinning and shining can only take you so far. The ultimate success of the new administration's public diplomacy will turn on its ability to receive, process and act on incoming messages, reflecting them identifiably in modified international policy and behaviour. Absent the critical dimension of feedback, variously styled "listening tours" will inevitably end in fiasco, and costly investments in broadcast media will fail to produce the returns anticipated. It seems to me imperative to recognize the perils of the "say-do gap" sooner rather than later. Only then will it be possible to craft a grand strategy for threat reduction. Achieving these objectives will be a tough trick to turn, and I wish Secretary Clinton, Under Secretary McHale, and all serving U.S. diplomats every success in meeting the challenge. Much is riding on their ability to demonstrate not only that talking is more cost-effective than fighting, but that PD can deliver real change. PD’s Most Formidable Adversary: The Say-Do Gap Daryl_Copeland, Americas
For starters, PD is done mainly, though not exclusively, by diplomats. Diplomats work for states. States have interests. So when your friendly emissary wants to enjoin you in conversation, it is more likely to be directed rather than free-form. It is almost certain that he or she will be looking for something — a pearl of insight, a gem of intelligence, support for a policy or politician ... something. And that is just one of the many paradoxes which separate the theory of public diplomacy, characterized by openness and meaningful two-way exchange, from its practice, which has a tendency to be predicated on the need to transmit rather more often than the need to receive.

Among many possible hazards, however, a demonstrated loss of national credibility is perhaps the most deadly.

With the record of the Bush administration fresh in mind, I have been watching the first six months of the Obama administration's PD performance with a mixture of admiration and trepidation. In Cairo, Ankara, Jakarta and elsewhere, the substantial signals have typically been less important than the carefully choreographed style.

I am not particularly alarmed, as are some, that the term "public diplomacy" is so little used by the current administration, or that alternatives, such as "engagement" seem to be preferred. I don't think that it matters much what you call PD, as long as you are doing it. I am slightly more worried that it took so long to propose a new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy — Judith McHale, former president of Discovery Communications — to replace James Glassman, who had been out of office for months.

McHale's confirmation came through on May 26. It does not appear to have been a high priority, and there may be something in that.

I have greater reservations, however, about "Smart Power" and recently tried to set some of these concerns out. My concern here is that whenever PD is removed from the realm of political communications and placed or framed in the context of any kind of power — soft, hard, smart, whatever — it immediately becomes instrumental, a tool used to have your way with others.

McHale's opening statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not attract a lot of attention, but I think it deserves a closer look. She set out six core PD principles, which might be paraphrased as follows:

1. Integration into the policy process
2. Strategic planning and execution
3. Adequate resources
4. Risk tolerance
5. Emphasis on new media
6. Public-private partnerships

This list is fine as far as it goes. But that, I believe, is not far enough. PD, I think, should be about more than the perfection of bureaucratic process. In McHale's remarks I was looking for a vision for the restoration of America's image and reputation in the world. That, in my view, is job No. 1.

It was not there.

But the articulation of a vision is also only one job among many for American public diplomacy.

In a book to be released at the end of this month, and under the rubric of guerrilla diplomacy, I have tried to rethink international relations, with a focus on security and development in the globalization age. In that regard, I propose an approach to diplomacy which George Washington University's Bruce Gregory has described as "PD on steroids." I hope that some of the ideas resonate.

What might be said of these guerrilla diplomats?

They are:

• Resilient, directed, self-starters who tend to leave a light representational footprint
• Inclined toward abstract thinking, innovation and rapid-adaptive cognition
• Naturally curious, with highly developed personal and situational awareness
• Adept with the new media, and expert at cross cultural communications
• Pro-active intelligence generators who place a premium on local knowledge

Vested with the triple-A qualities of agility, acuity and autonomy, Guerrilla diplomats (GDs) are able to bore deep into the interstices of influence and navigate pathways inaccessible to others. They work the global political economy of knowledge with something I have termed souplesse, a technique for solving real-world problems by using technology-facilitated access to bridge the digital divide. With their eyes wide open and an ear to the ground, GDs can begin to address, through concrete action, the roots of resentment, humiliation, anger and alienation. These sentiments give rise, among other things, to religious extremism and political violence, to jihad and suicide bombing.

Over the longer term, guerrilla diplomacy can be used to address a host of longer term problems, many of which are rooted in science and driven by technology — environmental collapse, resource shortages and weapons of mass destruction, to name a few.

All of this to say that in terms of McHale's references to technique, I would have applauded a stated commitment to genuine dialogue, which is to say effective two-way communications. PD needs to get well beyond the identification of partners with whom to make common cause in the pursuit of shared values and mutual interests. There is, or in any case should be, much more to PD than garden-variety branding, relationship management, networking, lobbying and advocacy. If what is being heard is routinely ignored, or, worse yet, undermined by policy or behaviour, a credibility chasm can quickly develop.

Once created, such chasms are very difficult to bridge.

We have seen, for example, that promoting the ideal of democracy, while ignoring the results of certifiably free and fair elections when they fail to produce agreeable results, just doesn't work.

Shaping, spinning and shining can only take you so far. The ultimate success of the new administration's public diplomacy will turn on its ability to receive, process and act on incoming messages, reflecting them identifiably in modified international policy and behaviour. Absent the critical dimension of feedback, variously styled "listening tours" will inevitably end in fiasco, and costly investments in broadcast media will fail to produce the returns anticipated.

It seems to me imperative to recognize the perils of the "say-do gap" sooner rather than later. Only then will it be possible to craft a grand strategy for threat reduction.

Achieving these objectives will be a tough trick to turn, and I wish Secretary Clinton, Under Secretary McHale, and all serving U.S. diplomats every success in meeting the challenge. Much is riding on their ability to demonstrate not only that talking is more cost-effective than fighting, but that PD can deliver real change. ]]> 2009-06-16T16:08:00-08:00 As the slots get filled for new U.S. ambassadors, I have to modify my earlier praise: too many sensitive overseas posts are being given to Obama fundraisers. For every Carlos Pascual (veteran envoy now assigned to Mexico), there now appear to be several David Jacobsons (Illinois lawyer and Obama-Biden fundraiser set to go to Canada). South Africa, for example, falls into the latter category: an important country in which the next U.S. Ambassador will be known first as a contributor/fundraiser (ambassador-designate Donald Gips reportedly raised $500,000 for Obama's campaign). Ditto for Belgium and Switzerland. Paris (Charles Rivkin) and London (Louis Susman) nominees, announced earlier, fell into a kind of gray area — fundraisers, yes, but with a lot of international expertise. Politico's Ted Johnson notes that "even the most unlikely of appointees can make their mark." However, the patronage game of appointments as reward for campaign contributions makes the odds of this happening rather long. Wealthy campaign contributors seldom have input into policy issues during the campaign — their expertise lies elsewhere. Patronage turns out to be the likely course, one followed by every administration, Republican and Democratic, and the transparent reason for many otherwise inexplicable choices. Johnson quotes Bruce Gelb, George H.W. Bush's chief fundraiser, as pleading that fundraisers deserve more respect — they are "committed, dedicated, usually bright, successful people." But Gelb's own tenure as 41's director of USIA was so lackluster that it undercuts his argument. The more that appointments are influenced by the amount of money that one has raised, the more that appointee’s credibility suffers. Published in Foreign Policy Association's Blog: "Public Diplomacy: The World Affairs Blog Network", co-hosted by the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Pay to Play Mark_Dillen, Americas David Jacobsons (Illinois lawyer and Obama-Biden fundraiser set to go to Canada). South Africa, for example, falls into the latter category: an important country in which the next U.S. Ambassador will be known first as a contributor/fundraiser (ambassador-designate Donald Gips reportedly raised $500,000 for Obama's campaign). Ditto for Belgium and Switzerland. Paris (Charles Rivkin) and London (Louis Susman) nominees, announced earlier, fell into a kind of gray area — fundraisers, yes, but with a lot of international expertise.

Politico's Ted Johnson notes that "even the most unlikely of appointees can make their mark." However, the patronage game of appointments as reward for campaign contributions makes the odds of this happening rather long. Wealthy campaign contributors seldom have input into policy issues during the campaign — their expertise lies elsewhere. Patronage turns out to be the likely course, one followed by every administration, Republican and Democratic, and the transparent reason for many otherwise inexplicable choices.

Johnson quotes Bruce Gelb, George H.W. Bush's chief fundraiser, as pleading that fundraisers deserve more respect — they are "committed, dedicated, usually bright, successful people." But Gelb's own tenure as 41's director of USIA was so lackluster that it undercuts his argument. The more that appointments are influenced by the amount of money that one has raised, the more that appointee’s credibility suffers.

Published in Foreign Policy Association's Blog: "Public Diplomacy: The World Affairs Blog Network", co-hosted by the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.]]> 2009-06-15T22:33:00-08:00 Like many great orators President Obama knows how to quote scripture to maximum impact. His Cairo speech included passages from the Holy Koran, which his audience applauded. His conclusion also mustered words from the Talmud and a final quote from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount – "Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the Children of God" which received no less applause. But some of his scriptures are those of America’s Civic Religion, as with his allusion to Tom Paine’s first issue of The Crisis in his inaugural address: "Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]." The Cairo speech also included a quote from a hero of America’s past: Thomas Jefferson. It went like this: Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible. Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be." Jefferson had already been introduced in the speech as the ‘founding father’ who kept a Koran in his library, the volume upon which Muslim-American Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) took his oath of office. The quote gave the weight of history to Obama’s profession of the now familiar ‘smart power’ approach. It all made for one more effective moment in a remarkable speech. But the president’s deft quotation belies its relative obscurity. He may be able to recall those words, but that quote has not been a part of the discourse around soft power or smart power. Even the father of the term, Joseph Nye, confirmed -- when I asked -- that the quote was new to him. Curious, I set off to track it down. I began with the digitized version of the Thomas Jefferson papers available through that great Jeffersonian institution, the Library of Congress. Was it the inaugural address? The farewell? Thirty second later I had my answer. The quote came from one of the minor epistles of American holy writ: a letter from Jefferson’s correspondence with the largely forgotten Scottish-born Pennsylvanian Thomas Leiper (1845-1825), whose distinctions include his building the first American railway. The two men wrote to each other on political issues for thirty four years. Jefferson penned the quoted letter on 12 June 1815. The context of Jefferson’s remark was the astonishing news that Napoleon Bonaparte had escaped from his exile on the island of Elba, landed in France and marched on Paris, raising a new army as he went. The Bourbon King, Louis XVIII had fled and Napoleon was Emperor once more. In a letter in April 1815, Leiper, ever the Scott, had rather enjoyed the impending discomfort to the tyrannical English government. Replying in June, Jefferson cautioned him that Bonaparte was no friend of America either and: ‘Our form of government is odious him…’ Rather than endorsing either England or France, Jefferson expressed his hope: ...that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may be maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce and friendship, may be sought and cultivated by all. Jefferson then, as though catching a glimpse of a world of stealth bombers and multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers, looked to a future of American ascendancy: "Not in our day, but at no distant one, we make shake the rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble." Then comes the now familiar Cairo quote: "But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be." Eight days after Jefferson wrote those words Napoleon’s imperial dream came to a dramatic end at the Battle of Waterloo. But how did the President come by the quote? Armed with the fact that the sentence in question came from a letter to Leiper, I had a sufficiently unusual name to make immediate progress with a digital search. Nothing showed up on Lexis-Nexis but a Google search for "Leiper soft power" soon gave me a likely source. I found that it had been posted twice in recent years by Harper’s magazine’s on-line edition, first on 27 May 2007 as "Jefferson on Soft Power" and then on 11 March 2008 as "Jefferson on the Utility of Soft Power" -- sufficient to either be clipped by an aide or perhaps even noted or filed away by the president himself, but more likely sufficient to show up in a White House online search. Better to say "we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson’ than ‘we can Google for a great quote on soft power and find Jefferson saying…" But quoting a past master can be a risky business. Merely taking Jefferson’s views on Napoleon Bonaparte we find, for example his insistence that the United States should respect the right of the French people to be ruled by a dictator. They even had, as he wrote in a letter to George Ticknor on 4 July that year, "the right to be eaten if they chuse [sic] it." [1] The Iraq War suggests that the United States no longer admits such a right. But the real problem is whether President Obama’s actions will conform to the Jeffersonian rhetoric. The president may be speaking about wisdom in the use of power, but are his deeds conforming to his words? One logical index is the number of Predator missions over Pakistan. Jefferson’s successor is shaking that particular rod rather freely and with an alarming number of civilian casualties. How does he expect having a robot bomb kill one’s family plays to the public on the Northwest Frontier? Could there be a mixed message coming from Washington? The Secretaries of State and Defence have both endorsed a Smart Power approach, but what of the National Security Advisor, ex-General Jim Jones? Could it be he who is backing the hard power on the Pakistani borderlands? Perhaps the toughest hearts and minds for Obama to win are not in Cairo but rather closer to hand. The result of that battle will likely determine whether President Obama is remembered as a Jefferson or someone of lesser stature, perhaps headed for his own Waterloo. [1] For a wider discussion of Jefferson’s attitude to Napoleon see Joseph I. Shulim, "Thomas Jefferson Views Napoleon," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Apr., 1952), pp. 288-304, available via Jstor. Jefferson on Soft Power: Behind Obama’s Cairo Quote Nicholas_J_Cull, Americas Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the Children of God" which received no less applause. But some of his scriptures are those of America’s Civic Religion, as with his allusion to Tom Paine’s first issue of The Crisis in his inaugural address: "Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]." The Cairo speech also included a quote from a hero of America’s past: Thomas Jefferson. It went like this:

Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible. Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be."

Jefferson had already been introduced in the speech as the ‘founding father’ who kept a Koran in his library, the volume upon which Muslim-American Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) took his oath of office. The quote gave the weight of history to Obama’s profession of the now familiar ‘smart power’ approach. It all made for one more effective moment in a remarkable speech.

But the president’s deft quotation belies its relative obscurity. He may be able to recall those words, but that quote has not been a part of the discourse around soft power or smart power. Even the father of the term, Joseph Nye, confirmed -- when I asked -- that the quote was new to him. Curious, I set off to track it down. I began with the digitized version of the Thomas Jefferson papers available through that great Jeffersonian institution, the Library of Congress. Was it the inaugural address? The farewell? Thirty second later I had my answer. The quote came from one of the minor epistles of American holy writ: a letter from Jefferson’s correspondence with the largely forgotten Scottish-born Pennsylvanian Thomas Leiper (1845-1825), whose distinctions include his building the first American railway. The two men wrote to each other on political issues for thirty four years. Jefferson penned the quoted letter on 12 June 1815.

The context of Jefferson’s remark was the astonishing news that Napoleon Bonaparte had escaped from his exile on the island of Elba, landed in France and marched on Paris, raising a new army as he went. The Bourbon King, Louis XVIII had fled and Napoleon was Emperor once more. In a letter in April 1815, Leiper, ever the Scott, had rather enjoyed the impending discomfort to the tyrannical English government. Replying in June, Jefferson cautioned him that Bonaparte was no friend of America either and: ‘Our form of government is odious him…’ Rather than endorsing either England or France, Jefferson expressed his hope:

...that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may be maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce and friendship, may be sought and cultivated by all.

Jefferson then, as though catching a glimpse of a world of stealth bombers and multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers, looked to a future of American ascendancy: "Not in our day, but at no distant one, we make shake the rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble." Then comes the now familiar Cairo quote: "But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be."

Eight days after Jefferson wrote those words Napoleon’s imperial dream came to a dramatic end at the Battle of Waterloo.

But how did the President come by the quote? Armed with the fact that the sentence in question came from a letter to Leiper, I had a sufficiently unusual name to make immediate progress with a digital search. Nothing showed up on Lexis-Nexis but a Google search for "Leiper soft power" soon gave me a likely source. I found that it had been posted twice in recent years by Harper’s magazine’s on-line edition, first on 27 May 2007 as "Jefferson on Soft Power" and then on 11 March 2008 as "Jefferson on the Utility of Soft Power" -- sufficient to either be clipped by an aide or perhaps even noted or filed away by the president himself, but more likely sufficient to show up in a White House online search. Better to say "we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson’ than ‘we can Google for a great quote on soft power and find Jefferson saying…"

But quoting a past master can be a risky business. Merely taking Jefferson’s views on Napoleon Bonaparte we find, for example his insistence that the United States should respect the right of the French people to be ruled by a dictator. They even had, as he wrote in a letter to George Ticknor on 4 July that year, "the right to be eaten if they chuse [sic] it." [1] The Iraq War suggests that the United States no longer admits such a right. But the real problem is whether President Obama’s actions will conform to the Jeffersonian rhetoric. The president may be speaking about wisdom in the use of power, but are his deeds conforming to his words? One logical index is the number of Predator missions over Pakistan. Jefferson’s successor is shaking that particular rod rather freely and with an alarming number of civilian casualties. How does he expect having a robot bomb kill one’s family plays to the public on the Northwest Frontier? Could there be a mixed message coming from Washington? The Secretaries of State and Defence have both endorsed a Smart Power approach, but what of the National Security Advisor, ex-General Jim Jones? Could it be he who is backing the hard power on the Pakistani borderlands? Perhaps the toughest hearts and minds for Obama to win are not in Cairo but rather closer to hand. The result of that battle will likely determine whether President Obama is remembered as a Jefferson or someone of lesser stature, perhaps headed for his own Waterloo.


[1] For a wider discussion of Jefferson’s attitude to Napoleon see Joseph I. Shulim, "Thomas Jefferson Views Napoleon," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Apr., 1952), pp. 288-304, available via Jstor.
]]> 2009-06-12T22:18:00-08:00 What do the following have in common? Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and North Korea’s sentencing of the two American female journalists to hard labor. Answer: Each is relevant to Current TV, a U.S. satellite TV channel and Web site. The two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, convicted of illegally entering North Korea from China, are reporters for Current TV. Al Gore, who narrowly missed becoming a U.S. President in the 2000 election, is co-founder of Current TV. Well-behaved Guantanamo Bay prisoners, who are being supplied with laptop computers and provided access to satellite TV programs while the U.S. decides what to do with them, could possibly come across Current TV and its Internet website. While the U.S. military says it is limiting satellite program access to sports channels, talk shows and Middle East programming, including Al Jazeera, one can never be certain if a Guantanamo detainee isn't taking a peek at Current’s television channel or Web site, while being instructed on how to use one's laptop computer, or tuning across satellite TV channels himself. What would detainees observe? (Or, what are they now watching?) Program content on Current TV is tailored to those ages 18-34, the age group of many Guantanamo prisoners, and even more if you count their ages when first incarcerated. Much of Current's satellite and Internet content is provided by its audience, including on-line gaming (Help Our Guy Get The Girl), Internet puzzles, comedy (Teen Hugging Panic), music, (Bret Michaels Gets Knocked Out When He Runs Into A Wall While Performing At The Tony Awards), Entertainment (Kim Jong II Stages An Opera) and news (Texas Cop Tasers 72-Year-Old Great-Grandmother), or "hot" videos including Europe’s Secret Sex Trade. Current TV's Web site also notes that "A Guantanamo Bay Videogame [is Coming] Soon" ... created with the assistance of former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg (who was released under the Bush administration). MP3s and user-generated video from across the Web are featured on the Daily Fix program, and detainees also have permission to read such newspapers as USA Today. It's been suggested that Al Gore go to North Korea to negotiate the release of the two American journalists who work for Current TV. If so, he will need to explain Current’s parody of Kim Jong II, but if the North Korean dictator has a sense of humor (which is doubtful), it might help. Passing the Day at Guantanamo Bay: A Video Game is on the Way Al_Snyder_Worldcasting, Americas
Answer: Each is relevant to Current TV, a U.S. satellite TV channel and Web site.

The two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, convicted of illegally entering North Korea from China, are reporters for Current TV.

Al Gore, who narrowly missed becoming a U.S. President in the 2000 election, is co-founder of Current TV. Well-behaved Guantanamo Bay prisoners, who are being supplied with laptop computers and provided access to satellite TV programs while the U.S. decides what to do with them, could possibly come across Current TV and its Internet website.

While the U.S. military says it is limiting satellite program access to sports channels, talk shows and Middle East programming, including Al Jazeera, one can never be certain if a Guantanamo detainee isn't taking a peek at Current’s television channel or Web site, while being instructed on how to use one's laptop computer, or tuning across satellite TV channels himself.

What would detainees observe? (Or, what are they now watching?)

Program content on Current TV is tailored to those ages 18-34, the age group of many Guantanamo prisoners, and even more if you count their ages when first incarcerated. Much of Current's satellite and Internet content is provided by its audience, including on-line gaming (Help Our Guy Get The Girl), Internet puzzles, comedy (Teen Hugging Panic), music, (Bret Michaels Gets Knocked Out When He Runs Into A Wall While Performing At The Tony Awards), Entertainment (Kim Jong II Stages An Opera) and news (Texas Cop Tasers 72-Year-Old Great-Grandmother), or "hot" videos including Europe’s Secret Sex Trade.

Current TV's Web site also notes that "A Guantanamo Bay Videogame [is Coming] Soon" ... created with the assistance of former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg (who was released under the Bush administration).

MP3s and user-generated video from across the Web are featured on the Daily Fix program, and detainees also have permission to read such newspapers as USA Today.

It's been suggested that Al Gore go to North Korea to negotiate the release of the two American journalists who work for Current TV. If so, he will need to explain Current’s parody of Kim Jong II, but if the North Korean dictator has a sense of humor (which is doubtful), it might help.]]> 2009-06-09T21:14:00-08:00 On June 7, North Korea's highest court sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor, a sentence more severe than most had predicted. According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea's Central Court convicted the two Americans, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, of "committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the charges as "baseless," and stated that their trial was conducted in absolute secrecy. Sources speculate that Ling and Lee, reporters for progressive-leaning Current TV were filming a report about North Koreans attempting to cross the narrow Tumen River into China. As reported in The New York Times, "The court’s decision came as the United States displays increasing impatience with what President Obama has called Pyongyang's 'extraordinarily provocative' behavior in recent weeks. For its part, the North Korean leadership has shown no sign of backing away from its taunts and challenges directed at the United States and its regional allies." According to Lee Woo-young, a North Korea specialist at the University of North Korea Studies in Seoul, "It means that North Korea doesn't want to release them without Washington paying a price. It sends a signal to Washington to become more active in negotiations." In a similar situation last month, Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi was released after an appeals court reviewed her initial conviction and sentence of eight years in prison. Her arrest and release were likely to be due to political rather than legal factors, related both to the upcoming elections in Iran as well as to relations with the United States. Yet, unlike Saberi's case, Ling and Lee's future in fact lies in political negotiations, as there is no higher court to appeal to after North Korea's Central Court has made a ruling. Since the news of the conviction, the Obama administration has issued a flurry of communiqués expressing "deep concern" for both Ling and Lee. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly has called for the "immediate release of the two American citizen journalists." I'm outraged, as are many, by the arrest and anti-humane treatment of Ling and Lee. A journalist's right to report the news is a critical one, as is a journalist's right to a fair and open trial. Yet, it is important to put the treatment of Ling and Lee in context: the United States jails journalists in Iraq with relative frequency and rarely affords them the rights to a fair and transparent trial. Reuters cameraman Ibrahim Jassam has been held in Iraq since September 2008. No evidence has been presented to justify Jassam's continued incarceration. Last November, to no avail, an Iraqi court ordered that he be released on lack of evidence. In a more high-profile case, the U.S. military held Sami al-Hajj, a Sudanese journalist for Al Jazeera, from December 2001 to May 2008 at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Al-Hajj never received a fair or open trial, was abused and tortured during his imprisonment, and was released without ever being charged. Moreover, the U.S. military bombed Al-Jazeera's news bureaus in Kabul and Baghdad, in one case killing Al-Jazeera's reporter? camera man?Tareq Ayoub. As Robert Fisk writes, "This was no errant attack. 'The plane was so low, we thought it was going to land on the roof,' Tareq’s colleague Taiseer Alouni told me afterwards." And the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that the U.S. military has shown "alarming disregard" for the protection of journalists in Iraq, failing to "fully investigate the killing of journalists by its forces in Iraq." Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, who as a congressman helped negotiate the release of American citizens held in North Korea in the 1990s, told NBC's Today Show that "diplomacy and negotiation for the humanitarian release can start now that the legal process has ended." I can’t help but think that al-Hajj's testimony from his six years at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp makes these negotiations a bit more difficult than when Richardson negotiated the secure release of an American that had drunkenly swum into North Korean waters. Given that the U.S. continues to jail reporters in Iraq without trial, and in some cases simply kills them, doesn't North Korea have a compelling argument that they at least gave Ling and Lee a trial? Oddly enough, Iran's treatment of journalists may seem the most humane of all; after all, they not only gave Saberi a trial, but she was also afforded the right to appeal (where she successfully made her case for freedom). While I hope the Obama administration does everything in its power to secure the release of Ling and Lee, its work can't stop there. The United States must protect the rights of journalists everywhere, and especially in Iraq and Afghanistan where reporting the conflict is a terrifying and life-threatening task. Until then, we can only assume that American journalists abroad won't be afforded the legal protections that they depend on to do their jobs. From Guantanamo Bay to Pyongyang: The Diplomacy of Deeds Shawn_Powers, Americas, Middle East
According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea's Central Court convicted the two Americans, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, of "committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the charges as "baseless," and stated that their trial was conducted in absolute secrecy. Sources speculate that Ling and Lee, reporters for progressive-leaning Current TV were filming a report about North Koreans attempting to cross the narrow Tumen River into China.

As reported in The New York Times, "The court’s decision came as the United States displays increasing impatience with what President Obama has called Pyongyang's 'extraordinarily provocative' behavior in recent weeks. For its part, the North Korean leadership has shown no sign of backing away from its taunts and challenges directed at the United States and its regional allies." According to Lee Woo-young, a North Korea specialist at the University of North Korea Studies in Seoul, "It means that North Korea doesn't want to release them without Washington paying a price. It sends a signal to Washington to become more active in negotiations."

In a similar situation last month, Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi was released after an appeals court reviewed her initial conviction and sentence of eight years in prison. Her arrest and release were likely to be due to political rather than legal factors, related both to the upcoming elections in Iran as well as to relations with the United States. Yet, unlike Saberi's case, Ling and Lee's future in fact lies in political negotiations, as there is no higher court to appeal to after North Korea's Central Court has made a ruling.

Since the news of the conviction, the Obama administration has issued a flurry of communiqués expressing "deep concern" for both Ling and Lee. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly has called for the "immediate release of the two American citizen journalists."

I'm outraged, as are many, by the arrest and anti-humane treatment of Ling and Lee. A journalist's right to report the news is a critical one, as is a journalist's right to a fair and open trial. Yet, it is important to put the treatment of Ling and Lee in context: the United States jails journalists in Iraq with relative frequency and rarely affords them the rights to a fair and transparent trial.

Reuters cameraman Ibrahim Jassam has been held in Iraq since September 2008. No evidence has been presented to justify Jassam's continued incarceration. Last November, to no avail, an Iraqi court ordered that he be released on lack of evidence. In a more high-profile case, the U.S. military held Sami al-Hajj, a Sudanese journalist for Al Jazeera, from December 2001 to May 2008 at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Al-Hajj never received a fair or open trial, was abused and tortured during his imprisonment, and was released without ever being charged. Moreover, the U.S. military bombed Al-Jazeera's news bureaus in Kabul and Baghdad, in one case killing Al-Jazeera's reporter? camera man?Tareq Ayoub. As Robert Fisk writes, "This was no errant attack. 'The plane was so low, we thought it was going to land on the roof,' Tareq’s colleague Taiseer Alouni told me afterwards." And the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that the U.S. military has shown "alarming disregard" for the protection of journalists in Iraq, failing to "fully investigate the killing of journalists by its forces in Iraq."

Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, who as a congressman helped negotiate the release of American citizens held in North Korea in the 1990s, told NBC's Today Show that "diplomacy and negotiation for the humanitarian release can start now that the legal process has ended." I can’t help but think that al-Hajj's testimony from his six years at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp makes these negotiations a bit more difficult than when Richardson negotiated the secure release of an American that had drunkenly swum into North Korean waters. Given that the U.S. continues to jail reporters in Iraq without trial, and in some cases simply kills them, doesn't North Korea have a compelling argument that they at least gave Ling and Lee a trial?

Oddly enough, Iran's treatment of journalists may seem the most humane of all; after all, they not only gave Saberi a trial, but she was also afforded the right to appeal (where she successfully made her case for freedom).

While I hope the Obama administration does everything in its power to secure the release of Ling and Lee, its work can't stop there. The United States must protect the rights of journalists everywhere, and especially in Iraq and Afghanistan where reporting the conflict is a terrifying and life-threatening task. Until then, we can only assume that American journalists abroad won't be afforded the legal protections that they depend on to do their jobs.
]]> 2009-06-08T22:27:00-08:00 President Barack Obama inherited two major public diplomacy problems. The first was the obvious crisis in America's communication with the world and the attendant decline in America's global standing. The second was the identification of the process of public diplomacy with the administration of George W. Bush. It was a paradox. The administration could not summon the cure without reminding people of one of the causes of the disease. The linking of Bush with Public Diplomacy was not wholly fair. The term was brought into its modern use in the U.S. in 1965, and moved into global currency during the 1990s. It was the Clinton administration that created an Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy at the Department of State in 1998 and initially the Bush administration paid little attention to that dimension of international relations. 9/11 came before Colin Powell's choice of Under Secretary had taken up her post. The aftermath of 9/11 is well known. The official emphasis on reaching out to the world; the plaintive asking: 'why do they hate us?' The names of the appointees charged with selling the Bush approach to the world: Charlotte Beers, Margaret Tutwiler, Karen Hughes and finally James K. Glassman. It now seems that while the Obama White House is applying itself to the business of public diplomacy, it is leaving that terminology behind. The preferred term seems to be 'engagement'. Thus the Cairo speech has been presented as 'engaging the Muslim world,' and on 26 May the White House announced the creation of a Global Engagement Directive, to coordinate elements of American outreach including aid, communication and diplomacy. Public diplomacy per se was not mentioned but the blogosphere had no doubts that that was meant. The term engagement has much to commend it. It is not the term public diplomacy. It is already used in slightly different ways in the worlds of marketing and the military and can therefore be assumed to fall reassuringly on the ears of both those constituencies. It has already gained currency among NGOs and other practitioners of international communication. 2007 saw the launch of a new Washington think-tank on the public diplomacy/smart power beat called the Center for U.S. Global Engagement. In the summer of 2008 the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office published an anthology called Engagement: Public Diplomacy for a Globalised World. In May 2009 NAFSA (the Association of International Educators) held its annual conference under the strap-line 'fostering global engagement through international education.' Engagement is the word of the moment. Engagement is in the air. But we have been here before. Public diplomacy was originally adopted as a euphemism for propaganda. The Washington of 1965 needed an open phrase which they could fill with benign meanings, so that they could tell the world: 'Those wicked communists do propaganda. We democratic Americans do public diplomacy.' Previous generations had experimented with terms like 'information' and 'publicity.' When, in 1953, President Eisenhower named an official with responsibilities not dissimilar to those of the Global Engagement Directive he called him his 'Special Adviser for Psychological Warfare.' These name changes are not without material significance. Every shift in terminology provides an opportunity for reform. The word Engagement has the advantage of not being owned by any one player. It certainly doesn't lean one way in the same way as the rather militarized term Strategic Communication. More than this, it is being used to describe a larger field than just diplomacy. It provides a logic for coordinating the management of international aid and development and the whole range of activities that go to make up a nation's 'soft power.' But there is a word of warning. Opportunities are easily missed and old institutional habits and rivalries die hard. Eisenhower's three successive special advisers in this area – C. D. Jackson, William Jackson and Nelson Rockefeller – were all broken on a wheel of State Department resistance. Moreover, the career of public diplomacy as a term suggests that whatever word is used to refer to the meeting point of an international actor and a foreign public will earn a bad name sooner or later. Of course, it is no bad thing to get out ahead of the pack and indicate a willingness to break with the past. The danger – as with any re-branding or re-labeling – is that the product or behavior behind the label does not change. For Obama-era Global Engagement to mean more than Bush-era Public Diplomacy it needs to be more than Bush-era Public Diplomacy. As ever, we travel in hope. Engagement is the New Public Diplomacy or the Adventures of a Euphemism of a Euphemism Nicholas_J_Cull, Americas Global Engagement Directive, to coordinate elements of American outreach including aid, communication and diplomacy. Public diplomacy per se was not mentioned but the blogosphere had no doubts that that was meant.

The term engagement has much to commend it. It is not the term public diplomacy. It is already used in slightly different ways in the worlds of marketing and the military and can therefore be assumed to fall reassuringly on the ears of both those constituencies. It has already gained currency among NGOs and other practitioners of international communication. 2007 saw the launch of a new Washington think-tank on the public diplomacy/smart power beat called the Center for U.S. Global Engagement. In the summer of 2008 the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office published an anthology called Engagement: Public Diplomacy for a Globalised World. In May 2009 NAFSA (the Association of International Educators) held its annual conference under the strap-line 'fostering global engagement through international education.' Engagement is the word of the moment. Engagement is in the air.

But we have been here before. Public diplomacy was originally adopted as a euphemism for propaganda. The Washington of 1965 needed an open phrase which they could fill with benign meanings, so that they could tell the world: 'Those wicked communists do propaganda. We democratic Americans do public diplomacy.' Previous generations had experimented with terms like 'information' and 'publicity.' When, in 1953, President Eisenhower named an official with responsibilities not dissimilar to those of the Global Engagement Directive he called him his 'Special Adviser for Psychological Warfare.'

These name changes are not without material significance. Every shift in terminology provides an opportunity for reform. The word Engagement has the advantage of not being owned by any one player. It certainly doesn't lean one way in the same way as the rather militarized term Strategic Communication. More than this, it is being used to describe a larger field than just diplomacy. It provides a logic for coordinating the management of international aid and development and the whole range of activities that go to make up a nation's 'soft power.'

But there is a word of warning. Opportunities are easily missed and old institutional habits and rivalries die hard. Eisenhower's three successive special advisers in this area – C. D. Jackson, William Jackson and Nelson Rockefeller – were all broken on a wheel of State Department resistance. Moreover, the career of public diplomacy as a term suggests that whatever word is used to refer to the meeting point of an international actor and a foreign public will earn a bad name sooner or later. Of course, it is no bad thing to get out ahead of the pack and indicate a willingness to break with the past. The danger – as with any re-branding or re-labeling – is that the product or behavior behind the label does not change. For Obama-era Global Engagement to mean more than Bush-era Public Diplomacy it needs to be more than Bush-era Public Diplomacy. As ever, we travel in hope.]]> 2009-06-05T22:33:00-08:00