Public diplomacy: definitions, strategies, and international impact

¶ … Congress of Vienna, amidst the height of the turbulent end to the Napoleonic era, Metternich was informed of the death of the Russian ambassador and exclaimed, "Ah, is that true? What can have been his motive?" (10:1067) Metternich, a diplomat by profession and persona, was not alone witnessing the gradual degeneration of public diplomacy; the overall esteem of the diplomat in modern society is one of nebulous antipathy. The diplomat is frequently accused of substandard intelligence, inadequate competency, and lagging moral qualities that were, almost certainly, hidden under the cloak of employed responsibility. Facing inevitable scrutiny and public distrust, the diplomat performs a necessary function in the greater political world.

The Wilsonian conception of foreign affairs embraced by the League of Nations and perpetuated by its modern heir supports a basic pretense that diplomatic function is, while traditional, near obsolete.

10:1067) While this theoretical premise is embraced by both leaders and their critics, all cope with a natural necessity for diplomacy; their approach is splintered into two paradigms on foreign affairs. The first proffers the belief that foreign policy is a political relic from a pre-scientific past that will fall short of use in a coming age of reason and good; it is perfectionist in contradistinction to its mate and grown of the liberal ideology of the nineteenth century. Diplomacy had, at that point, still been a source of aristocratic recreation, and was assumed to eventually disappear with the actualization of liberal principles in the international spectrum.

Cobden, in his analysis of diplomacy, explained, "At some point in future election, we may probably see the test of 'no foreign politics' applied to those who become the representatives of free constituencies." (1: 268) the idea of conscious planning supported an age in which politics would be a natural, un-biased, un-spun offspring of the purely political state in which administrative conferences would supercede the role of diplomatic conversations. Among those embracing this philosophy was political historian Paul Reinsch, who outlined very clearly the beliefs of his regime.

The idea of conscious planning, or striving to subject national and economic facts and all historic development to conscious political will - that conception of diplomacy will synonymous with the essence of politics and will stand and fall with the continuance of the purely political state... When Portugal became a republic, the proposal was made to abolish all diplomatic posts and have the international business of Portugal administered by consuls. That would eliminate the politics of foreign relations." (16:13)

While the ascendancy of liberal principles over the feudal state is expected to result in laissez-faire harmony, its certain lack of achievement prevents the actualization of this approach. (10:1068)

The second school approaches foreign policy as an outcropping of hackneyed politics based on a state-to-state basis. This paradigm argues for a shift away from the "old" diplomacy and refocuses it on a "new" one, in which the power play of individual states would be substituted by international law. (10:1068) Twentieth-century opponents of foreign policy and diplomacy promote the United Nations as a bastion for this future unity, and members of the American Bar publicly embraced its significance. "The United Nations," they declared in 1946, "cannot be saved by the process of shunting all the major controversies between its members back for solution by diplomacy. It can only be saved... By transforming the present league structure into a general government to regulate and promote the common interests of the people of the States. The American Bar can dedicate itself to no greater responsibility nor higher aim than that of world government to make world laws for the control of world assures so as to assure world peace." (20:270)

Members of this school triumphantly proclaim the international viability of the United Nations, a place where traditional foreign policy can be disregarded in the interest of international affairs. Presumably, the essence of these groups would foster worldwide respect for international law and the responsibilities, needs, and affairs of the contributing states. In its esteemed devotion, the American Bar implicitly forewarned of the use of the international governing body as a place to capitalize on the great American ideals of liberty and peace that might, if these compatriots were to ever be at odds, splinter beyond functionality. Historically, America has come at odds with the U.N., and while U.S. leadership first aimed to use the New York guidepost to further its own international missions, it would disregard the honored devotion to the international governing body in order to pursue its own goals.

During the Iran-contra ordeal, the White House manipulated the public and international perception of their mission under the guise of foreign policy and national security. This covert domestic operation was aligned with a greater international campaign; using the press, informed electorate, and international will, the White House, at the behest of the CIA, overturned the basis of a functioning democracy in order to achieve their will elsewhere. According to Kornbluh and Parry, recipients of the George Polk Award for Iran-contra, the late CIA director William Casey detailed an explicit guide to this manipulation in a 1982 National Security Council "public diplomacy" program. (13:4) the "political action" memorandums passed throughout the NSC's halls deployed secretly funded private-sector surrogates to attack anti-contra lawmakers and, combined with the CIA's side-stepping of anti-spy regulations, the Central American operation was, in retrospect, a direct attempt of the United States government to insert its power elsewhere, deceiving both the international bodies and its own voting populace as need along the way.

Then Secretary of State Dean Acheson spoke of the ability of an administration to "spin a story clearer than the truth," a dangerous power when added to the pressure placed upon news executives and journalists covering White House scandal by the public diplomacy office. (12:4) While this blatant use of propaganda goes strictly against the grain of the public scrutiny, it is sometimes so successful that the American public is deceived by its leadership before the rest of the world. Public diplomacy, as executed by the State Department, must be examined as "spun" will of the American leadership, a sort of biased news-tool created by the government and disseminated by the media. It proffers opinion as fact and, while if successful instills a sense of national security in the American people, directly contradicts the international rules to which the United States expects its enemies to apply but, on occasion, subverts.

Chapter 2

Background

The international peace of liberal nineteenth-century ideology has yet to take form and has, over the past few years, revealed itself to not only be a broken dream but also a shadow of ideas over the struggling tensions in the international community. The United Nations, though highly respected by citizens throughout the world, is seemingly unable to mend these fractures once military force has been used between the disjointed states. As a result, conflict prevention has become its key focus. (15: 7) the U.N. Office of Public Affairs attempts to work its political magic to restore peace to tense situations the world over, but, in doing so, puts its legal and legislative actions into check. (15:23) the United States, too often present in the United Nations historically to garner much respect their today, has lost its footing in the international context in the same way; its history of bad, western-centric policies, frequently tainted with subterfuge and outright politicking, has undermined its reputation under the flag of public diplomacy.

Ramcharan centers his conversation of recent public diplomacy in the sea of the changing character of international law; in an oblique variation on the age-old adage that external conflict has internal roots, he says that there is "convergence between national and international security challenges. (15:4) as a direct result, contemporary international law exists to converge the legitimacy of governments and internal arguments with the nebulous concept of the international well-being. From any state's perspective, he puts forth, early warning and preventive diplomacy is the only key to success in "political emergencies." (15:68)

For the United States' foreign affairs office, the purpose of public diplomacy is to preclude any "political emergencies" that might endanger the ideals, people, or financial lucidity of the American state. As a result, foreign policy is directly linked to considerations for national security and drawn with the markers of morality, legality, territorial expansion, and commercial empire. (9:143) Since the end of the Gulf War, American public diplomacy has shifted to a national security approach, encompassing the decisions and actions deemed imperative to protecting domestic core values from external threats. (2:122) national security approach acknowledges as well that power plays a key role in the behavior of nations and the functioning of the international system, and that a nation's approach to that external governing body is entirely dependent on its internal political stability, social cohesion, and economic productivity. (19:143) Yet, basing public diplomacy on international security is ambiguous; half a century ago, Arnold Wolfer wrote that since "security" is used to encompass so many goals, it lacks any universal understanding; while it involves more than national survival, clearly, what remains is often "vague and indeterminate." (19:481) in order to wield the power of the opaque concept of 'national security' in foreign policy, the executers must use a careful construct of realities and perceptions that hang between an actual danger and a perceived threat. (9:144)

Taking into account the internal roots of an external problem, to have heft in the weight of international opinion, alliances are key to public diplomacy. The first Golf War reflected a profound gap between the national mood, Congress, and President that revealed itself most directly in the "stress test" with the United States' alliances, according to Michael Brenner. (19:665) While the end of the Cold War brought rise to a transformation in mutual security structures worldwide, their reform and renovation incited an introverted tactic of externally exerted power for the United States. As the West continued its reliance on the United States' directive leadership, the Gulf crisis revealed an tenuous and unstable association between widely-held expectations and actual policy. (19:665) Brenner attributes this U.S. gallantry to the blinding euphoria of victory that hung over the American political sphere after the fall of the Berlin wall, the "reproachful domestic debate" over the commercially-based Gulf War launched American soldiers into the Middle East without a stable public diplomacy underneath. (19:667)

While Brenner, still reeling with his own political motivations, attributes the hybrid loss of the Gulf crisis to an alliance failing because of mismatched responsibilities, at the heart of that struggle is the foreign policy that not only established but exacerbated the situation. Brenner cites the poor leadership of other countries as they fell back to American reliance when trouble struck the Gulf War missions, a symbol of a hackneyed past. "Otherwise," he explained, without their understanding of their own stakes in the world, "the alliance will be capable only of 'disparate, ill-prepared, and insufficiently reasoned action' - in other words, falling back on the tradition of directive American leadership." (3:677) Ultimately, this is exactly what happened, the fault lying on both sides, but particularly with the United States, which propagated ideas of a strong and cohesive American unit capable of leading a coalition.

The Clinton era saw a marked change in the Cold War strategies that colored the Reagan and Bush years. The 1999 Kosovo war perpetuated anti-American sentiment abroad, where populations witnessed the American soldiers ride in to bloody battle and ride out while it became bloodier. (12:87) Wanting to counter negative media, America hosted the NATO 50th Anniversary celebrations in Washington, where the Clinton administration sought to approval through the media in the international sphere. On April 30th, however, while NATP was still bombing the Serbians, Clinton issued the top-secret Presidential Decision Directive/National Security Council 68, titled: U.S. International Information Policy. (12:87) the so-called IPI, which was leaked in part to the Washington Times and printed on July 31 of that same year, called for an intelligence community that would better identify:

Hostile foreign propaganda and deception that targets the U.S. To enhance U.S. security, bolster America's economic prosperity and to promote democracy abroad... (while controlling) international military information to influence the emotions, motives, objective reasoning and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups and individuals." (12:89)

On October 1, 199, Clinton abolished the USIA and appointed the first-ever Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, whose job would be to "broaden dialogue between American citizens, institutions, and their counterparts abroad." (12:90) Critics condemned the mood for Madeline Albright's courting of educators, while supporters praised Undersecretary Lieberman's remarks for their historic consistency with earlier approaches to public diplomacy. (12:90) in the wake of the dubiously justified and increasingly violent American intervention in Kosovo, Albright declared, "diplomacy is our first line of defense in preventing war." (12:90)

Years later, George W. Bush inherited his father's cause for a troubled region and a failing international alliance, and he too saw the power of public diplomacy, although with an exactly different lens. A tool for influencing the views of foreign diplomats, populations, and international governing bodies, the United States government recognized the strategic importance of foreign policy in its "war on terrorism" [in the Middle East] and, in a move to garner support from the international community for the 'wounded' American nation, Bush announced that "as a symbol of our commitment to human dignity, the United States will return to UNESCO." (5:NP) This verbal-political palm branch came at the same time as an advanced declaration of war on Iraq. (12:65) Within one week, the United States issued its new National Security Strategy, documenting a national faith in the military force, its preemptive use, and its role as the source for assured long-term security. (11:NP)

The years of Bill Casey's covert public diplomacy apparatus has been changed by the Department of Defense to a call for "perception management." The new tactic, publicly geared to "foreign audiences" but with striking resonance at home in America, supports conveying (and denying) information to "influence their emotions motives, and objective reasoning." (18:NP) the defense employed by proactive public foreign policy and media relations is one in which the Department of Defense sums candidly by saying, "Perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations."

Among the powers manipulating perceptions in Washington under the guise of public diplomacy were a rouse of media correspondents whose actual employ was to do the bidding of the White House. (17:2) When Operation Iraqi Freedom became bogged down in media concern and public scrutiny, the well-engineered Jessica Lynch story circulated through the rank and file of the press, who had already been warned by Ari Fleisher to "watch what you say" about the war in Iraq. (17:2) According to Frank Rich, White House correspondent and editorialist at the New York Times, the Bush Whiate house has "moved from Spiro Agnew-style press baiting to outright assault."

For much of its first term, the Bush administration ran a powerful campaign that not only led to a full war in Iraq, but also reelection. At the same time, it faced growing media concern about governmental control, both inherently and literally unconstitutional in the free press-supported American democracy, as it manipulated the power of the 24-hour news networks, blogosphere, and on-demand access of the up-to-the-minute American voter. The marketer who ran the office of public diplomacy quit in 2003 among growing concerns, and while the liberal democrats publicly lambasted Bush for his clear oversights in exertion of power, they too were draw into the politicking that surrounded the election campaign. Public Diplomacy was no longer facing the external problem that it once had, it was now, under the scope of the Bush administration, fighting the battle at the internal roots, neighbor to neighbor during the six o'clock news.

Chapter 3

Evaluation

Despite a checkered past with foreign affairs stratagems, the Bush White House has offered a hard-line approach to exercising its own public diplomacy. In a war of defense, its main weapon has been information, be it "balanced" or "truthful," garnering policy respect from foreign diplomats with a history of anti-American sentiment. (12:71) the lack of concern for "facts," while showing great determination from a policy standpoint with goal execution, leaves little room for admiration in the marketplace of American ideals.

The battle of ideals that sits at the foundation of the partisan chasm in America holds little weight in the Oval Office, where advocates of varied policy options tender their plans each day to win the war both in Iraq and at home. Above the introspective war of ideals, though, lays the ever-pressing War of Ideas the leadership quips about in any manner. Richard Holbrook, who called for a new expanded institutional mechanism by which to skewer Bush for hiring Beers, the advertising executive with no foreign policy experience but well-honed marketing skills, promotes the war of ideas as the brass ring to the ever-evolving struggle:

Call it public diplomacy, or public affairs, or psychological warfare, or - if you really want to be blunt - propaganda. But whatever it is called, defining what this war is really about in the minds of the 1 billion Muslims in the world will be of decisive and historic importance. Bin Laden could well spawn a new generation of dedicated, fanatical terrorists if his message takes root. The battle of ideas therefore is as important as any other aspect of the struggle we are now engaged in. It must be won." (8:NP)

The new struggle requires new weapons, according to Washington, and the requisite "new thinking and additional instruments" the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy said will be defined within the instrument of information. (12:81)

To execute this, Washington powerfully exacted its public diplomacy policy through the mainstream media networks. Because of the temporal proclivity of the election season to further polarize news outlets, the job of delineating spokespeople for the White House and DOD was made easier in the already segregated press community. CBS and the New York Times faced public degradation from the so-called Leader of the Free World, and while no one ever disproved their work, the reporting that brought FBI investigation to Daniel Schorr's doorstep was more than compensated by the Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting groups. (17:1) While the Muslim world grew stronger in anti-American sentiment, the overseas arguments against American leadership gained ground.

If Americans, so hated the Muslim world over, have Nightline pulled from their T.V. sets for being "unpatriotic" when Ted Koppel discusses seven hundred needless Iraqi deaths, they are unable to hold sway in the international sphere for being urbane. Ideas that are steadily unpopular like the War on Iraq, which failed to earn support from the U.N., gain no further foundation on which to stand if those who support the policies internally are not even availed of all the facts. Ultimately, the new turn in policy towards public diplomacy is costing the United States its free press.

Public diplomacy in the United States is comparable to the American view of Al-Jazeera; while Americans see the Arab press group as biased proliferators of terrorist videotaping, ideology, and violent action, the American press groups are locked in a system of permissive oversight, corporate monopoly, and pervasive negligence to fact as it is spawned out of the press room of the white house directly through the office public diplomacy. The cost is not financial, although with great skill the DOD has secured a flexible budgeting schedule for the office of public diplomacy, which has more than 17 budget earmarks plus separate appropriations for broadcasting, including the taped press releases running the fine line between fact and spin. (14:4)

While spending has increased exorbitantly, it has done so without reaping the benefit of either public approval at home or an ingratiated image abroad. The expenses have wagered more pressure on the American press corps, depleting the reputation of traditional newspapers and journalists from American soil throughout the world. The White House has put an iron fist on the media, focusing on dictated spin that would lead even the most adept reader to a fallacious conclusion. Last January, USA Today ran a headline that said, "Attacks Down 22% Since Saddam's Capture." (7:2) in fairness to USA Today, these statistics were distributed by the Department of Defense; the same 'responsible journalism' that would have precluded Dan Rather for running the Alabama Guard story, though, should have precluded USA Today from scripting the headline. In all actuality, the number of troops killed went up 40% - the military reported, in response, that they preferred to focus on the number of incidents instead. (7:2)

Combined with the "Axis of Evil" terminology, the surreptitious public diplomacy efforts have centered on a pro-American philosophy of being either "with us or against us" that not only prevents full support of Americans but certainly denies the concept of international cooperation proliferated by diplomatic interactions. (4:1) the United Nations, so constructed on the ideals of internal conversation and worthwhile examination, was disregarded in the American philosophy for public diplomacy when it failed to support the President; extrapolating from Bush's own statement to the press, the United States with the U.N. so long as the U.N. was with the United States. (4:1) When "public diplomacy" left the realm of international conversation and became the marketing campaign of the Bush administration, not only did the American reputation die overseas, but an already-splintered America began to lose that which supports the basis of any democracy: an honest, educated, and vocal presscorps.