Missing the mission of public diplomacy
Dec 2nd, 2008 by MESH
From Robert Satloff
There are many sound, intelligent and practical ideas in Kristin Lord’s new Brookings report on reforming U.S. public diplomacy, titled “Voices of America.” These include cross-cutting suggestions for effective public-private partnerships in public diplomacy; bureaucratic improvements, such as appointing deputy assistant secretaries in all regional bureaus at State with specific PD responsiblity; and a review of how our international broadcasting could more effectively be integrated into our global public diplomacy effort. The “big idea” in the report is twofold: don’t create a major new government institution (a rejuvenated USIA or, my own preferred option, a Cabinet-level Department of International Cooperation) but instead establish a new more modest and streamlined public-private entity called USA-World Trust that can nimbly do PD at arm’s length from the federal government. In making this proposal, Brookings joins a list of other think-tanks and other semi-official agencies calling for some form of new quasi-government/quasi-private agency to solve the PD riddle.
All this is interesting and useful… but regrettably unsatisfying. The tactics are there; what is missing is mission, purpose and strategy.
In the post-9/11 era, the purpose of public diplomacy is not some amorphous desire to have America better understood or even the more pointed objective of winning the support of international public opinion for U.S. foreign policy. Yes, that is all part of it but there is so much more. Indeed, there is a unique public diplomacy mission of our age, just as there was a unique public diplomacy mission of the Cold War era. Today, that mission is how to identify, nurture and support mainstream Muslims in the ideological and political contest against radical Islamism and how to win backing for such efforts from nations and peoples in non-Muslim societies around the world. Everything that is new and special about America’s public diplomacy effort should be targeted toward that goal.
Alas, there is none of this in the Brookings report—no discussion of radical Islamism (or any of its terminological variants); no discussion of the ideological contest that undergirds the “war on terror;” no discussion of the role that mainstream Muslims play on the front lines of this battle; and no discussion of the vital role that innovative public diplomacy can play in helping our allies defeat these enemies of peace and freedom.
That is a shame. A lot of brainpower went into this report, and many of its conclusions, if implemented, would improve the machinery of our public diplomacy effort. But this is, at its core, a report whose animating idea is that America’s public diplomacy problem in the world is largely of our own making. It took the Bush Administration seven years before, as enunciated by Undersecretary Jim Glassman, it recognized that public diplomacy is mainly about “them” (empowering mainstream Muslims to compete with and defeat radical Islamists) and not about “us” (harnessing our best researchers, pollsters, and marketeers to improve the American brand). We have suffered too much to go backwards. This report, while avoiding the worst PD excesses of the early Bush years, is at best a lateral step at a time when we need to be moving forward on what is surely one of the most critical issues of our era.
Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.
One Response to “Missing the mission of public diplomacy”
Amidst some praise for the new Brookings report, Voices of America: U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century, Rob Satloff argues that the document is all tactics, no mission—and that the mission should be to counter radical Islamism.
Satloff will not be surprised that I, the report’s author, disagree with him. But he may be surprised about why.
In fact, I concur with Satloff’s core premise: that supporting Muslims who wish to counter radical Islamism, and especially its violent expression, should be a vital part of U.S. foreign policy. This view is consistent with the strategy laid out in the report and the tactics and organization are there to support it. Moreover, like Satloff, I view the spread of radical Islamist ideologies as part of a broader struggle within the Muslim world, a struggle that will be settled largely by Muslims themselves.
That said, I do reject the notion that countering radical ideologies should be the exclusive focus of U.S. public diplomacy or that, as Satloff argues, “Everything that is new and special about America’s public diplomacy effort should be targeted to that goal.” To quote from Voices of America,
In other words, U.S. foreign policy must respond to a wide range of opportunities and a wide range of threats. Public diplomacy, an instrument of statecraft akin to military force or economic influence, should be applied to serve that full range of strategic and tactical ends. As important as it may be, countering radical ideologies is just one of them.
Of course, as Satloff rightly suggests, the goals of public diplomacy should be defined and prioritized in a strategy. Thus, the Brookings report calls for an annual and interagency public diplomacy strategy, per the bipartisan Smith-Thornberry Amendment in the 2009 Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 5658), that is closely aligned with the national security strategy.
To quote the report, that strategy “should include, but should not be limited to, countering terrorism and the extremist ideologies that nourish and sustain terrorist networks.” The report does not lay out a national security strategy for the United States. Instead, it confines itself to analyzing the evolving global conditions in which public diplomacy must operate, the strategic ends it can serve, and the many tactical forms it can take. It recommends a framework for thinking about public diplomacy, how to marry it to a broader foreign policy strategy, how to tap the expertise and dynamism of the private and non-profit sectors, and how to create a national architecture for public diplomacy that is flexible enough to respond to global change. Just as public diplomacy should advance a wide range or objectives, a wide range of instruments should be used to combat radical Islamist extremists. Military force, financial sanctions, restrictions on movement, and many other tools should also be used, in a coordinated and directed fashion, to counter this very real threat.
In short, public diplomacy should not be synonymous with the so-called “war of ideas” (by this or any other name) and the “war of ideas” should not be synonymous with public diplomacy. The concepts intersect, but they are far from identical.
As a final point, Satloff argues that the core premise of the report is that “America’s public diplomacy problem in the world is largely of our own making.” That statement is both an inaccurate reflection of the report’s philosophy and an overstatement of America’s power to shape the world around us.
The true premise of the report is that the world is evolving in ways that will only make public diplomacy more important and that the United States must adapt to this change. America is well equipped to rise to this challenge, with deep wells of resources to draw on. Voices of America recommends concrete steps to tap those resources, inside our government, across our society, and around the world.
Though I respectfully disagree with Dr. Satloff, I welcome his critique. U.S. public diplomacy will improve if more thoughtful people like Satloff engage in the debate. In public diplomacy, such dialogue is still far too uncommon and the link to broader national security debates is still far too weak.
Kristin Lord is a fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution.