The Foreign Service Journal, March 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2017 81 macy was dead accompanied such innova- tions. These predictions tend to be proven wrong or at least grossly exaggerated. Recent advances have certainly increased the scope of international relations and brought new actors and influences into the realm of diplomacy. But governments still largely continue to conduct foreign policy in traditional ways that limit broader participation. In this context, statements like the author’s assertion that “The new diplo- macy must include a commitment to provide the public with as much informa- tion as possible as soon as possible” seem, at best, optimistic. Governments will continue to provide the information they want to provide when they want to provide it, and only if it reflects well on the government, even as they try to exploit new technologies. They have to use such technologies, if for no other reason than to contest the arguments of terrorist groups like al-Qaida and ISIS. Though one should not assume new technologies have more power than they do, Seib on occasion does that. He states, for instance, that “finding a way to offset the predisposition to rely on hard power may be the most significant challenge to public diplomacy in the years ahead.” Public diplomacy is more likely to be used as a tool to sell the idea of military action than as an alternative to it. That is what the Bush administration did in 2003, when it was justifying the invasion of Iraq. Those efforts were, of course, directed mainly at American public opinion and not at convincing the Iraqi people they needed to be invaded. It would be nice to think that turning the tide of public opin- ion in another country could avoid war, but it is not realistic to think that is going to be an easy or feasible alternative. In another part of the book, Seib recommends that all USAID assistance programs be under the under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs. This seems to assume that the PD benefits of development assistance are so great that all such aid should be run as if that were its main purpose. Such a move would generate more suspicion than acceptance, and there is no more reason to put the PD under secretary in charge than there is for letting that person run consular affairs or military training programs. The author also talks in terms that indi- cate a lack of understanding of govern- ment operations. He refers to the 250,000 State Department cables made public by WikiLeaks as “emails.” He notes that President Barack Obama’s use of political-appointee ambassadors, as of December 2014, was 35 percent: much higher than either of his two predecessors at the same stage in their presidencies. That was true at that moment—but it was also meaningless, because political appointees are always front-loaded in any presidential term. The percentage for Obama’s entire second termwas 28.5 percent. Seib is also off the mark when it comes to some of his comments about how other countries use public diplomacy. He offers the following description of Ethio- pia: “Today it is no longer a supplicant nation. It is ratcheting up its international involvement, reaching a new level of diplomatic self-sufficiency. Ethiopia’s economy and civil society are still under construction, but its diplomatic efforts create balance between its domestic tasks and its broader ambitions.” This rosy thumbnail characterization contrasts with the one offered by Freedom House, whose reports describe how auto- cratic that country’s government is. Ethio- pia’s public diplomacy abroad is simply a smokescreen behind which it ratchets up its repression at home. Seib is also too charitable in his description of the impact of Washington politics. “Partisanship can impair effective diplomacy, but it can also provide essen- tial democratic balance to the mandate under which diplomats work,” he states. The reality is that the toxic, hyperpartisan politics within the Beltway today is much more effective at impairing diplomacy than it is at creating any balance. Despite these reservations, Seib’s book is an interesting and useful read. He clari- fies the differences among digital diplo- macy, e-diplomacy and public diplomacy. And he covers a wide range of topics in an extremely well-written book. It won’t be the last word on the question of how diplomacy will be affected by technology; no book on such an elusive and ever- evolving phenomenon could ever claim to be that. n Dennis Jett is a professor of international affairs at Pennsylvania State University. A retired FSO, he served as ambassador to Peru and Mozambique, on the National Security Council and on assignments in Argentina, Israel, Malawi and Liberia. He is the author of three books: Why Peacekeeping Fails, Why American Foreign Policy Fails and American Ambassadors: The Past, Present and Future of America’s Diplomats (all published by Palgrave Macmillan). He is an occasional contributor to the Journal . Philip Seib sees a future where public diplomacy, conducted through digital platforms, will profoundly affect how foreign affairs are conducted.