The Foreign Service Journal, October 2009

28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 9 ship of Web sites in foreign lan- guages, public opinion and media research and other “activities of in- terest to public diplomacy,” as one State Department expert calls it, tend to dwarf State’s level of effort. That trend may have peaked, how- ever. Faced with growing questions about its role, Defense closed the Office of the Deputy Assistant Sec- retary of Defense for Support to Public Diplomacy in early 2009. Both houses of Congress have call- ed for review and clarification of DOD’s resources and policies on in- ternational information programs. Meanwhile, the U.S. Agency for International Devel- opment has hired media relations staff members at its posts around the world. USAID and other agencies spon- sor exchange programs that look a lot like State’s in many cases. Last year, State’s Interagency Working Group on U.S. Government-Sponsored International Exchanges and Training tallied 249 international exchange training pro- grams, involving about 1.4 million participants and repre- senting a federal investment of more than $1.5 billion. Fourteen federal departments and 48 independent agen- cies reported activities for the IAWG’s FY 2008 Annual Report. Many of these programs are duplicative, but enjoy dedicated staff support. Previous administrations have done little to regulate and coordinate all these activities. In this administration, Denis McDonough seems set to exercise strong intera- gency leadership as the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, with McHale as the lead agency representative. Coordination is at least off to a faster start than before. Brand Obama Last June, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Crow- ley pointed to two “bookend” events since last year’s presi- dential election. “On one end, there’s President GeorgeW. Bush’s final press conference in Iraq, where he has to dodge shoes thrown at him,” says Crowley. “On the other end, there’s President Barack Obama’s speech about U.S.-Mus- lim relations in Cairo.” Since that time, Sec. Clinton has also incorporated pub- lic outreach into her travels more than any other Secretary of State. However, these new offi- cial faces won’t turn around our for- eign policy by themselves. The president’s June speech in Cairo drew generally enthusiastic reviews in the region and captured mass- media attention; by all accounts, he broke through Muslim stereotypes about Americans with his call for frank dialogue. Within a few days, however, the media focus returned to traditional points of dispute: the question of Palestine, American military action in Iraq and Afghani- stan, and other intractable issues. As more time passes, more and more issues of contention dissipate the glow of a new administration in Washing- ton. In a way, public diplomacy makes more of a difference today than it did when the U.S. image was in decline. Ironically, when pundits worried about our “failed public diplomacy,” there was no way it could address the root problem: genuinely unpopular policies espoused by top leaders who disregarded world opinion. Now that dia- logue and negotiation are active again, advocacy can make a difference on concrete issues from climate change to nu- clear proliferation. You Can’t Go Back The collapse of the Soviet Union and ensuing changes in power relations, the disaggregation of news and infor- mation media and the rise of the Internet, and the chal- lenge of Islamic extremism did more to reshape public diplomacy than the late Senator Jesse Helms and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the major authors of the consolidation of USIA and State. Looking back, it is clear that a new landscape has emerged over the past decade to reshape diplomacy itself. In 1999, the State Department approached USIA as an add-on, indicated by the shorthand “public diplomacy.” Now terms like “engagement” and “three-D diplomacy” may begin to replace the old paradigm and recast press and cultural affairs as a truly integral part of diplomacy. But whatever the buzzwords used a decade from now, the disciplines of communication strategy, media relations and cultural diplomacy will remain indispensable to the State Department’s mission. ■ F O C U S New words like “engagement” and “three-D diplomacy” may begin to replace the old paradigm and re-cast press and cultural affairs as a truly integral part of diplomacy.