Category: Public Diplomacy

U.S. Public Diplomacy in the News: Jazz Edition

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

image Archibald MacLeish, a major proponent for cultural diplomacy sixty-five years ago, once proclaimed “the world is wired for sound.”  In this spirit, a decade and a bit later Willis Conover, the most famous American American’s have never heard of, went on the air at the Voice of America with his jazz show.  This was followed by the State Department asking several musicians to travel abroad as part of a counter-propaganda campaign based in cultural diplomacy. 

A New York Times article, When Ambassadors Had Rhythm, looks at a photo exhibition about one such U.S. effort.  Worth a read, the article describes how Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., father of Mountain Runner friend ACP III, suggested “real Americana” instead of elitist orchestras (my words not his). 

Noteworthy paragraphs in the article:

Armstrong canceled a 1957 trip to Moscow after President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to send federal troops to Little Rock, Ark., to enforce school-integration laws. “The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell,” he said. “It’s getting so bad, a colored man hasn’t got any country.”

Administration officials feared that this broadside, especially from someone so genial as “Ambassador Satchmo,” would trigger a diplomatic disaster. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told Attorney General Herbert Brownell that the situation in Arkansas was “ruining our foreign policy.” Two weeks later, facing pressure from many quarters, Eisenhower sent the National Guard to Arkansas. Armstrong praised the move and agreed to go on a concert tour of South America.

The jazzmen’s independence made some officials nervous. But the shrewder diplomats knew that on balance it helped the cause. The idea was to demonstrate the superiority of the United States over the Soviet Union, freedom over Communism, and here was evidence that an American — even a black man — could criticize his government and not be punished.

Not mentioned in the article is the contents of an anonymous letter in Armstrong’s (if you’ve ever heard me play a note, you’d know there’s no relation, well that, and there is one other characteristic) FBI file that read Armstrong “is a communist, why does State Dept. give him a passport?” 

For more on this subject, including a compelling argument that the damage on our international reputation and image by Communist propaganda pointing out America’s racial problems contributing to support at the highest levels for Civil Rights legislation, as hinted at above, see Mary Dudziak’s book, Cold War Civil Rights (review here).

Related: Winning over hearts, minds, and ears at Foreign Policy who brings to our attention U.S. Ambassador James Cason, who cut an album in Paraguay’s native language.

Where can you go and not talk about a new USIA?

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

Not at the Combined Arms Center Inter-Agency Symposium.  During the Q&A of the Stability Operations Panel:

One audience member posed a general question for the panel "what is the feasibility of reestablishing US Information Agency (USIA)?"

Answer was "We absolutely must"

A follow on question by another Audience Member was "How do we make that happen?"

The Answer was "Legislation makes that happen"

Anyone else find it fun to read questions about recreating USIA in Defense Department forums?  They happen at State (I asked Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy Chairman Bill Hybl about it — I couldn’t help myself), but it is so obvious at Defense and seemingly there’s more enthusiasm for it there as well. 

(H/T Chris Albon)

U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy: no one in PD conducts PD overseas

~ Matt Armstrong

image

Strong words from the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.  Strong and brutally honest.  The Commission, an organization reporting directly to the President, has submitted a report unlike any other before it.  Not the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Research Service, the Defense Sciences Board, or any other body has assessed the human resource element of U.S. Public Diplomacy in such depth.  The topic for this report originated with the Commission.  The findings will be presented tomorrow, Wednesday, 25 June 2008, but the report is available at the Commission’s website now.  This blog was granted permission to share the report prior to its official release. The function of the Commission is to provide independent oversight and make recommendations on the activities and effectiveness of America’s information activities and education and cultural exchanges.  It was established by the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and was originally two different bodies, the Advisory Commission on Information and the Advisory Commission on Educational Exchange.

Earlier this evening, I had the opportunity to sit down with the chairman of the Commission, Bill Hybl, to discuss the report to be publicly presented tomorrow.  Bill described a core requirement of public diplomacy is to address people and issues in local terms, including identifying common ground.  This requires engagement, something Bill noted is absent.  It also requires continuity at the very highest level, which he said has been missing with the turnover at the Under Secretary position.

A driving factor of the report, and a repeated refrain from Bill, is that the U.S. “should be able to do better.”  To this end, Bill emphasized that public diplomacy officers want to communicate with foreign populations but can’t because 90% of their job descriptions and work requirements are something else, like administration.

For the first time, we have a report that (while pulling some punches) looks at the impediments to implementing an effective public diplomacy.  This report is of particular interest for those like myself who are more interested in the structure of how public diplomacy and information activities are conducted than about the specific messages employed.

The 41-page report is split into seven sections, plus the introduction.  It is an easy read, even for the beginner not conversant in public diplomacy.  Each section begins with a background statement, followed by findings and analysis, and closes with recommendations.  The recommendations are real and often substantial.  Many are obvious, some may be easy, several will take a strong commitment and leadership from State, the White House, and Congress to implement.

This is the first report to point out that there is no one overseas whose primary job responsibility is to interface with foreign audiences.  The Commission surveyed employee evaluation reports and found that direct foreign engagement was a low priority and had little, if any, positive impact on performance reviews.  This fits in with a five year old 2003 GAO report that surveyed public affairs officers and found 77% did not have a goal of “mutual understanding” in their FY04 plan.  As the report asks, if no one in the field has primary responsibility to engage and influence foreign publics, who job is it?

For a Department short on funds, precious time and money spent on training public diplomacy officers in cultural and linguistic awareness and skills are wasted.  The report portrays these officers as having little opportunity, and even less expectation, to engage foreign audiences.  Further, when they are trained, the training is better described as identifying public diplomacy and not engaging in it.  Little to no instruction is done on practicing persuasion and culturally and linguistically specific engagement.  If DOD can use simulators, real and virtual, why not State?  The report’s discussion on what was and wasn’t included in employee evaluations is startling.  For example, the first five (out of eleven) work requirements for a “senior-level public diplomacy officer at a mid-sized African post” were: “Plan, develop and implement programs…”, “Administer…”, “Supervise, counsel and support staff members…”, “Oversee the operations…”, and “Utilize opportunities to explain U.S. foreign and domestic”.  Largely, if not entirely, absent from the sample of work requirements surveyed by the commission where phrases like “Influence public discourse…”, “Shape the terms of the debate…”, “Persuade key interlocutors…”, “Correct inaccuracies and misrepresentations appearing in the local media…”, and “Appear on talk shows on television and radio…”.

To the question of whether the PD officer had an impact on how the U.S. or U.S. policy was viewed in country, the answer was typically no.  The problem is perhaps that State went too far to integrate public diplomacy, pushing a square into a round hole.  Performance reviews, the report says, are often written in ways that it is impossible to know what country the officer serves in.

Back in the United States, the fate of public diplomacy officers is no better.  Nearly ten years after the merger, or “abolishing”, of USIA, dozens of public diplomacy officers at Main State, Washington, D.C., headquarters, are administrators and liaisons that do not perform public diplomacy.

The report also points out these significant shortcomings:

  • State does not recruit for public diplomacy
  • State does not test for public diplomacy
  • State does not train for public diplomacy
  • State has a glass ceiling for public diplomats

The last bullet raises the specter that State does not value the skills or have confidence in the public diplomacy officers.  While it is noteworthy a public diplomacy officer has never held the Under Secretary position, more interesting is the under-representation of public diplomacy in senior management positions.  While State has made progress incorporating public diplomacy, it still has a way to go.  This report says, among other things, that those in the public diplomacy “cone” (career track) are not promoted to senior positions on par with their numbers vis a vis other State cones, economics, political, consular, and management.

Bill Hybl commented that it “felt different” investigating the present public diplomacy arrangement as compared to the USIA.

The Commissions recommendations are not binding but will hopefully spur action in vested parties from State, the White House, and Congress.  Public diplomacy is a keystone of our national security and must be treated as such.  It was at one time and it must be again.  We must move beyond claims that money is short and realize this is a national security imperative.  Engaging in information and ideas is ultimately cheaper tha n engaging with bullets, bombs, and combat boots.

As my conversation with Bill came to a close, he said that “if we don’t do this effectively, those who wish to do harm to us will beat us in an area where we should dominate… we can do better.”  Agreed.  We can and must do better.

Setting a new course for U.S. Public Diplomacy?

~ Matt Armstrong

There appears to be a shift the posture American public diplomacy underway.  Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy (and Public Affairs) Jim Glassman, writing in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, stakes out a stance for public diplomacy more like the aggressive information activities of the early Cold War than the passive beauty contest of the last couple of decades.  

In this op-ed, Jim describes his goal of leaving a “robust legacy” for the next administration.  In laying out what is likely the first of many position statements in the coming weeks, he demonstrates a confidence not seen in the position since (and for a long while before) 9/11:

Unlike the containment policy of the Cold War, today’s diversion policy may not primarily be the responsibility of government.  My own job, as the interagency leader for the war of ideas, is to mobilize every possible American asset – public and private, human and technological – in the effort.

He continues to set a new and very active course for public diplomacy.  It is clear the “fast” tools of public diplomacy, information activities, are his low-hanging fruit to be picked and fixed in his six months in office (although four may be a more realistic number due to the normal end of term turnover), but the “slow” engagements through exchanges are not ignored. 

Invoking language more commonly seen from the Defense Department, in fact Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates is named in his essay while the Secretary of State does not, he states the need to “confront the ideology of violent extremism directly.” 

The most credible voices here are those of Muslims themselves – especially Islamists – who have publicly disavowed al Qaeda’s methods and theology. Lately such apostates include Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, also known as Dr. Fadl, who laid the foundation for the movement’s bloody ideology and has now repudiated it, and Noman Benotman, a Libyan close to Osama bin Laden who rebuked al Qaeda bluntly last year.

Our public diplomacy efforts should encourage Muslims, individuals and groups, to spread the denunciations of violence by these men and others far and wide. But non-Muslim Americans themselves should not shrink from confidently opposing poisonous ideas either.

This is followed by, as he calls it, the “diversion” that inculcates against extremism.

The task is not to persuade potential recruits to become like Americans or Europeans, but to divert them from becoming terrorists.

We do that by helping to build networks (virtual and physical) and countermovements – not just political but cultural, social, athletic and more: mothers against violence, video gamers, soccer enthusiasts, young entrepreneurs, Islamic democrats. For example, there is an emerging global network of families of Islamic victims of terrorist attacks. While winning hearts and minds would be an admirable feat, the war of ideas needs to adopt the more immediate and realistic goal of diverting impressionable segments of the population from being recruited into violent extremism.

There is a token, and out of place and seemingly forced, mention of Iran. 

More important is the end, which returns to the purpose of information activities to elicit support and build networks of allies. 

What we seek is a world in which the use of violence to achieve political, religious or social objectives is no longer considered acceptable, efforts to radicalize and recruit new members are no longer successful, and the perpetrators of violent extremism are condemned and isolated.

Military success is necessary, but it is not sufficient – for the simple reason that we face as an enemy not a single nation, or even a coalition, but a stateless global movement. Without a vigorous war of ideas, as we kill such adversaries others will take their place.

The words are one thing, but in what Defense calls the “say-do” gap, what we do must match what we say.  I’m sure Defense is fully onboard with Jim’s position.  Hopefully the White House, Congress, and State jump on as well and the Under Secretary gets a seat at the take-offs and not just the landings.

Returning to the Mirror: Sharing the U.S. Elections with the World

~ Matt Armstrong

Briefly, for the last several years, most definitely since 9/11 but arguably before, American Public Diplomacy has been rooted primarily in the “showcase” model that highlights only certain aspects of our “who we are.”  Falling on deaf ears as the pictures and words had little resonance with target audiences, it was a steep departure from our tried and tested model of a “mirror” that reflected who we are, warts and all (with some filtering of course) to foster understanding and build trust. 

Kim Andrew Elliott draws our attention to an example of returning to the mirror model.  From the “fact sheet” Sharing the U.S. Elections with the World: Public Diplomacy At Work:

On November 4, 2008, U.S. embassies and consulates will host thousands of guests and journalists to watch the election results on live television feeds from America. The U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Press Centers in Washington, D.C. and New York will hold similar gatherings for resident foreign media in the United States. These election night galas will cap months of intensive effort by the State Department’s Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs to provide foreign journalists and audiences worldwide with an understanding of the complexity and significance of the 2008 American Elections.

More than 83 U.S. embassies
and consulates conducted
320 election-related programs
by June 2008.

Since the summer of 2007, the Bureaus of Public Affairs, Educational and Cultural Affairs, International Information Programs, as well as U.S. embassies worldwide, have worked in a variety of ways to illuminate the election process, including:

  • Foreign Journalist Reporting Trips to primary states, caucuses, debates, and conventions
  • Expert Briefings and Interviews for foreign journalists
  • Comprehensive assistance to foreign television crews
  • Election Study Tours in the United States for over 4,000 foreign government officials, academics, students and journalists
  • Speakers, over 200 to date, from academia, the media, think tanks and polling organizations have traveled abroad or done Digital Video Conferences, Telepress conferences, and Webchats
  • Articles, analyses, videos, podcasts, blogs, and interactive maps on expanded State Department international Website
  • Electronic Journals in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic

Um, Digital Video Conferences?  Is that compared to an analog video conference?  Was “digital” necessary?  And, what is a “telepress conferences”?  Who talks like that?  I’ll just assume these are key phrases for the target audience. 

Shameless self-promotion: helping future PD officers

~ Matt Armstrong

From a reader:

I have recently received a conditional offer of employment from the Foreign Service in the Public Diplomacy career track, and am undergoing the clearance process (ugh!).  Your site was a HUGE help in my prep for the oral assessment, not only as a research resource, but also to broaden, stimulate and challenge my thinking about PD.  I know it must not be easy to keep posting while you’re busy with other things, but I want you to know how much I appreciate your efforts.  One of these days I’d like to thank you in person, hopefully as a colleague.

Glad to help out. 

David Firestein’s 12 Tough Questions about Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

Last year, David Firestein visited the University of Southern California’s Center for Public Diplomacy and as “12 Tough Questions about Public Diplomacy.”  David, the senior advisor to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, intentionally wears the mantle of provocateur.  The questions are grouped into four clusters: 1) examining the “Do they hate us?” question, 2) what is the nature of the current public diplomacy challenge facing the United States, 3) is public diplomacy a form of branding, and 4) thoughts on fixing public diplomacy from the inside-out. 

If you have questions, thoughts, or answers to the presentation, feel free to post them in the comments or email me and I’ll pass them along.

Reading lists on ethnographic intelligence/human terrain mapping, and some thoughts on same

~ Matt Armstrong

Check out CTLab’s reading list on Ethnographic Intelligence and Human Terrain Mapping. 

At the same time, I’ll point out a reading list I’m putting together on the same topic (very draft at this time, subject to radical change and expansion), except it goes by the name of Public Diplomacy.  We seem to forget that the bilateral nature of exchanges and information that is what was and is public diplomacy are essentially tools of intelligence.  Cultural and educational exchange are the “slow” transmission and information activities are the “fast”, but both seek to provide intelligence on what the Other thinks, operates, and ticks and to provide the Other with insight into how you think, operate, and tick. 

Don’t tell public diplomats this, they usually cringe at the suggestion.  But that’s not how it always was. 

The difference between the two lists is the scientific approach and methodology.  One uses experts to dissect the mind of one side while the other strives to increase the awareness and knowledge of both sides about the other.  One expert imparts deep knowledge versus having many people with qualified insights.  Both are necessary, neither is fully supported. 

The Strategic Communication of Unmanned Warfare

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

Modern conflict is increasingly a struggle for strategic influence above territory.  This struggle is, at its essence, a battle over perceptions and narratives within a psychological terrain under the influence of local and global pressures.  One of the unspoken lessons embedded in the Counterinsurgency Manual (FM3-24) is that we risk strategic success relying on a lawyerly conduct of war that rests on finely tuned arguments of why and why not.  When too much defense and too much offense can be detrimental, we must consider the impact of our actions, the information effects.  The propaganda of the deed must match the propaganda of the word.

As Giulio Douhet wrote in 1928,

“A man who wants to make a good instrument must first have a precise understanding of what the instrument is to be used for; and he who intends to build a good instrument of war must first ask himself what the next war will be like.”

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has said that there is too much spending geared toward the wrong way of war.  I find this to be particularly true in the area of battlefield robots.  Much (if not all) of the unmanned systems planning and discussion, especially with regards to unmanned ground combat vehicles, is not taking into account the nature of the next war, let alone the current conflict.

Last year I posted an unscientific survey that explored how a ground combat robot operating away from humans (remote controlled or autonomous) might shape the opinions of the local host family.  The survey also explored the propaganda value of these systems to the enemy, in the media markets of our allies, Muslim countries, and here in the United States.  The survey results weren’t surprising.

Serviam Magazine just published what could be construed as an executive summary of a larger paper of mine to be published by Proteus later this year.  That paper is about four times longer and adds a few points with more details.  In the meantime, my article that appeared in Serviam, “Combat Robots and Perception Management,” is below.

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Going to the DHS Science and Technology Conference and other travel notes

~ Matt Armstrong

I will be in DC next week June 2-5 attending the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Stakeholders Conference at the Reagan International Trade Center.  While for the last two conference I organized and chaired panels on Science Diplomacy and Blogging on S&T, this time my role is different: I’ll be assisting DHS S&T with New Media relations. 

If you’re a blogger interested in attending the DHS conference, send me an email ASAP.  

I’ll be back in DC June 23-27 to, among other things, sit on a panel at the Foreign Service Institute. 

If you’re “just” a reader and will be at either event, let me know.  I always enjoy meeting “fellow travelers”. 

Local is Global: how the TVA board impacts America’s Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication

~ Matt Armstrong

Bartholomew Sullivan, a reporter with the 150-year old Memphis paper Commercial Appeal, wrote a couple of interesting articles on the fight between Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) on the Republican to Democrat ratio of the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority.  What seems to be a minor squabble, at least to those outside of Tennessee, is having a global impact and yet goes under-reported. 

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Censoring the United States, Preventing Domestic Discourse

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Part three of converting the National Defense Authorization Act of 2009 (NDAA) into a haphazard and piecemeal restructuring of America’s global information activities.  Part One was on the Strategic Communication Management Board.  Part Two was about creating a national strategy for public diplomacy and strategic communication.  Part Three is about censoring the domestic discourse because the media failed its responsibilities. 

By a voice vote last week, an amendment (PDF) by Representative Paul Hodes (D-NH) was attached to the NDAA.  The potential impact of the Hodes Amendment could be extreme and more reaching than the author and its supporters intend.  The amendment is based on the mistaken belief that one can — and apparently must — inform without influence and that information can be stopped at the water’s edge.

Briefly, while other parts of the NDAA puts the Defense Department in the lead of U.S. strategic and tactical communication, this amendment makes it clear that this international communication will actually be extra-national communication. 

The amendment’s first and last paragraphs:  

No part of any funds authorized to be appropriated in this or any other Act shall be used by the Department of Defense for propaganda purposes within the United States not otherwise specifically authorized by law.

DEFINITION.—For purposes of this section, the term ‘‘propaganda’’ means any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.

This language will do more to bifurcate America’s conversation with the world than most anything else could possibly imagine.  Already, as a result of the Smith-Mundt Act, the U.S. is prohibited from speaking to Americans with the same voice it speaks for foreign publics.  As the Defense Department has become the primary public diplomat for the United States, purposefully and through lack of empowering State through leadership and funds, the impact will be severe.  This legislation, as worded, prevents most Public Affairs functions which are, in fact, intended to influence the American public to influence Congress and the Executive Branch.  The most innocuous examples of this include recent efforts of both the Navy and Air Force to redefine their roles to the American public to influence Congress.  At the other end, it will mean the adversary (terrorists, insurgents, other states) speaks to Americans without a counter-narrative or meaningful and effective efforts to counter-misinformation.  It also means what the U.S. says to foreign audiences is unfit for American eyes and ears.   

Perhaps the solution isn’t just realizing the value of information, but realizing physical threats can be the same as informational threats that can debilitate through perception and disruption.  

More to come.

See also:

Developing a National Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy Strategy

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

And so the push to make the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Bill of 2009 a vehicle to fix America’s communication with the world continues.  Today, Representative Adam Smith (D-Wash) was to introduce an amendment (38k PDF) instructing the President to

develop and submit to Congress a comprehensive interagency strategy for strategic communication and public diplomacy by December 31, 2009 [and] requires the President to submit a report describing the current roles and activities of the Departments of Defense and State in those areas, as well as to assess and report on a key recommendation by the Defense Science Board, by June 30, 2009.

Taking its lead from last year’s U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication, the Smith Amendment instructs the U.S. Government to put public diplomacy and strategic communication in direct support of foreign policy objectives, specifically in the areas of counter-terrorism and countering ideological support for terrorism (CIST).  The amendment requires consolidating USG’s communication leadership and the consideration that one or more positions at the National Security Council be created. 

Today, I spoke with Rep. Smith about this amendment.  We talked about State’s capacity — he acknowledged the universal truth that State is under-resourced — and the de-professionalization of the public diplomacy corps as a result of the merger —  he agreed and said the same occurred in the development sector.  The Congressman said it was his intention to empower the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (which should be Jim Glassman as Senator Coburn is no longer blocking his confirmation).  The Congressman worked with the House Foreign Affairs Committee to craft the language and does not seem to favor any specific recommendation.  (Rep. Smith and Representative Mac Thornberry (R-TX) are behind the NDAA section on the Strategic Communication Management Board.)

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American Public Diplomacy Wears Combat Boots: Proposed Strategic Communication Management Board to advise the Secretary of Defense

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 4 Comments

The leadership of information and policy and implementation is once again to be merged.  The Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009, H.R. 5658 (as reported in House), would establish the Strategic Communication Management Board (SCMB) “to provide advice to the Secretary on strategic direction and to help establish priorities for strategic communication activities.”  While members of this advisory body may and are likely to come from all parts of the government, it consolidates the shaping and execution of government-wide strategic communication, our public diplomacy with the world, within the Defense Department.  

H.R. 5658 is sponsored by Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) and co-sponsored by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA).  The Senate version does not include the same language.  No word on whether Section 1031 (see below) will survive negotiations.

According to House Armed Services Committee report 110-652 the decision to create the body is fallout from the dissolution of the Strategic Communication Integration Group just a couple of months ago. 

The committee is concerned about the state of strategic communication and public diplomacy (SC/PD) efforts within the Department of Defense. The committee believes that the dissolution of the strategic communication integration group (SCIG) was a major setback to the coordination of SC/PD efforts. While the SCIG resources and authority may not have been adequate to completely manage the Department’s SC/PD effort, the Board remained a focal point within the Department and positively contributed to the effort to mitigate conflict and confusion.

The advisory board will provide the leadership that used to be come from and be vested in public diplomacy professionals.  This is, however, an increasingly rare breed with the passage of time, the personnel system in State, and overall a failure to understand what is necessary to effectively conduct a vigorous information and education campaign with the peoples of the world. 

Well intentioned, this Congressional recognition that leadership of U.S. Government-wide strategic leadership in public diplomacy is missing but this choice further militarizes America’s public diplomacy and foreign policy.  Instead of addressing the shortcomings of and strengthening civilian institutions, Congress chose a path of least resistance.  This places Defense policy at the head of communication, driving it, shaping it, and likely at the forefront of implementing it.  Communication is thus in support of Defense policy and subject to Defense priorities.  As the House Report notes,

The committee believes that the SCMB’s near-term priority should be the development of a comprehensive Department-wide strategy that can be used to effectively inform and guide the disparate and vast community involved in strategic communication activities. Such a product should simultaneously serve as a Department perspective for informing a more comprehensive government-wide strategic communication strategy.

While on its face the SCMB may not broaden the Defense Departments mandate and area of operation, it represents a further entrenchment of the Pentagon as the sole protectors of our national security.  We’ve seemingly forgotten the range of the tools of our national power. 

Perhaps the best contemporary example of the problem of putting DoD in front of strategic initiatives with foreign populations is AFRICOM.  Despite it’s noble (and necessary) aspirations, and despite its novel organizational plan that inserts the State Department at the co-deputy level, AFRICOM has been unable overcome its Pentagon-parentage. 

The SCMB should not be under the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (or his designee), but under an empowered Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy that drops the “and Public Affairs” distinction for reasons of bureaucracy and institutional cultural but combines the elements of domestic and international communication to focus on the global information environment.  This should be the first step toward separating and resurrecting a new and independent agency along the lines of the United States Information Agency, but updated, to provide a professional development path and separate policy and implementation to protect continuity, legitimacy, trust, all of which requires a substantial degree of independence to avoid the tactical pressures of White House politics.  This agency (or some other organizational unit) would not only be on the take-offs and crash-landings of policy, but sit at the National Security Committee table, rather than advise somebody who advises somebody else. 

In the meantime, Congress continues to place policy and information activities within the same organization, the very defect many say was the chief problem of moving the United States Information Agency into the State Department.  This is also a chief defect Congress sought to correct when it debated and passed the Information and Educational Exchange Act sixty years ago, the Act more commonly known as Smith-Mundt. 

It is time Congress stepped up to the plate and acknowledge a whole-of-government approach is required.  The current architecture of America’s information programs is broken and too often we speak with a voice that wears combat boots, using the wrong language, or not speaking at all. 

The language of SEC 1031 is misleading.  Today’s fight is not just a psychological fight of ideology with those the Defense Department is (properly or improperly) assigned to deal with, but one of relevance as the prestige and strength of our economy and diplomacy degrades. 

The text of Section 1031 is below the fold.  Thanks CS for the tip on H.R. 5658.

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Of budgets and priorities and the War of Ideas

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

It has been noted that the whole of the U.S. Government is not engaged in the War of Ideas.  This war, the inappropriateness of the noun “war” notwithstanding, is a war of information, of understanding, discourse, perceptions, and confidence.  It is, at its essence, a psychological struggle that requires a holistic effort and intelligent staffing and budget priorities.  However, increasing budget numbers can only do so much if the whole picture isn’t being considered. 

Success for an Information Age economy, requires strength, stability, and confidence.  The gravest threat to the United States is not a weapon of mass destruction, but weapons of mass disruption.  This type of WMD is not restricted to “dirty bombs” or attacks on unprotected chemical industries, water supplies, or food supplies.  It can, and will likely, be more subtle. 

image In Unrestricted Warfare, two Chinese colonels, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, describe a new type of war, a “non-military type of war which is prosecuted by yet another type of non-professional warrior.”  What the colonels go on to describe isn’t the sympathetic Muslim with access to a few pounds of explosive material, but a “financier” or a “stock speculator” or a “media mogul” who, for their own reasons, wreak havoc in a special kind of terrorism.

Worse, we can do it to ourselves, which we are. 

The blogosphere jumped on the recent announcement that RFE/RL let go a key analyst: Daniel Kimmage.  With Kathleen Ridolfo, who was also fired, Kimmage was co-author of Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War Of Images And Ideas and author of the more recent Al-Qaeda Media Nexus: the Virtual Network Behind the Global Message.   Kimmage will undoubtedly land his feet, as will the other analysts. 

imageThe budget cuts that have Kimmage and others going elsewhere, as well as the demise of Newsline, is in part an indication that we’re losing the War.  The steep decline of the dollar against the Czech Koruna has made operations significantly more expensive.  While a short-term solution is to increase funding for RFE/RL, under the Broadcasting Board of Governors.  The BBG could re-allocate is scarce funds from questionable ventures or increase spending, but that’s plugging the hole in the dike. 

The long-term solution is to look deeper and inward and realize the United States is threatened by more than physical attacks, but psychological and economic attacks that may or may not be orchestrated, or even engineered by outsiders.  Some may look at this as symbolic of the end of empire, but it is simply losing focus and playing too tactically. 

The announcement from RFE/RL is really just a small issue dealing with an amount, as friend Marc Lynch points out, “which doesn’t even amount to a rounding error in the Pentagons budget” (or David Betz’s point that the whole RFE/RL budget is the equivalent to 1/2 of an F-22 pilot). This cut is symbolic of a deeper failure that we must confront if we’re to win the War of Ideas and if “victory” will have any meaning at all. 

Very briefly, let me say a few words on what should be a longer and separate post: Does Smith-Mundt apply to the BBG and does it apply RFE/RL’s to-be-launched English-language website (www.rferl.org).  In my opinion it is supposed to based on the intended coverage of the Act.  Should it?  No, and if you’re a reader of this blog you knew that.

On the King’s of War blog David notes Kimmage is scheduled (still?) to speak next week, 21 May 2008.

The email announcement from RFE/RL president Jeffrey Gedmin describing the cuts and a new resource is after the fold. 

Continue reading “Of budgets and priorities and the War of Ideas
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Public Diplomacy Awards

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Worth noting is the Public Diplomacy Alumni Association, formerly the USIA Alumni Association, announced its 2008 achievement awards. 

Jonathan Henick, for outstanding efforts an personal commitment, courage and creativity promoting and defending freedom of speech and independent journalism in the repressive environment of Azerbaijan.

Foreign Service National Staff, Rangoon, Burma, for outstanding efforts and perseverance in promoting democracy and human rights in Burma. Through exchange programs, the American Center library, English teaching, publications, donated book programs and media outreach, (they) creatively and courageously brought to bear a broad range of public diplomacy tools and programs while operating in a challenging environment, often at great personal risk.

Nicholas Papp, for outstanding initiative and creativity in revitalizing and modernizing Taiwan’s EducationUSA program and extending its outreach to broader publics through the innovative utilization of new media and technologies.

Clearly the staff in Rangoon have their work cut out for them in the aftermath of the cyclone.

For more, go to PDAA’s web site.

Headlines and Links

~ Matt Armstrong

Nominated but not confirmed Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Jim Glassman will speak at Heritage on May 15, 2008.  This will be his first public speech since becoming the Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors last June and while focused on his BBG job, surely he’ll talk about public diplomacy. 

Read Peter W. Singer’s How To Be All That You Can Be: A Look At The Pentagon’s Five Step Plan For Making Iron Man Real

Back in January, FOX News interviewed some SIGMA at a DHS S&T event in Los Angeles.  The interview is online…

Colleague Shawn Powers is co-principal investigator of the Al-Jazeera English Research Project.  Congrats on the funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. 

CSIS’s PCR Project passes along a Washington Quarterly graphical representation of 2002 and 2007 Pew Research polls (still with me?) of the decline in favorable opinions of the U.S.

U.S. Public Diplomacy Update: nothing new to report

~ Matt Armstrong

Nothing's new in PD, move along

It is the beginning of May 2008 and according to the Department of State’s office of the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, the office has done nothing interesting since 31 December 2007.  That’s nice.

You really can’t blame State, though.  A new boss went through the nomination hearings (quickly and quietly), but his confirmation has been held up by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).

A question for Senator Coburn: in your opinion, are we really better off without an Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy (and Public Affairs) than with Jim Glassman?  While Jim won’t be able to do much substantial work in the short time left (made shorter by the Senator’s hold on Jim’s confirmation), he will be able to set up the next Administration, and next Undersecretary, for success, which is critical to the national security of this country.  With it unclear whether a Republican or Democrat will be in the Oval Office, isn’t it prudent to make your mark now when you can, rather than wait until you’re in the opposition?  Regardless of your view of Jim Glassman, is keeping the office vacant really in America’s best interest?

Coburn-Hadley_2008On why the Senator from Oklahoma continues to block Jim Glassman’s confirmation, read his letter to National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley that I referred to in this earlier post.  

See also:

Recommending terminology: DHS and NCTC docs are available

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has the original Department of Homeland Security and National Counter Terrorism Center documents encouraging changing the terminology in the “War on Terror.” 

Here’s the DHS report, dated January 2008: Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims (searchable PDF, 5.5mb).

Here’s the NCTC report is an executive summary of the DHS report above, dated 14 March 2008: Words that Work and Words that Don’t: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication (searchable PDF, 1.4mb).

A long time ago I had a boss tell me something, pay attention to the listening you’re creating.  These recommendations follow that same dictum.  It’s not what you say, but what they hear that matters. 

I have only skimmed them, so no deep remarks now except that to repeat these are long overdo.  haven’t read them yet, so no remarks I haven’t had a chance to read yet.  I am, as always, interested in your observations and comments.

H/T Counterterrorism Blog