Category: Public Diplomacy

GOOOOOOD MORNING IRAQ! Engaging the people with more than foot patrols, on the air in Iraq

~ Matt Armstrong

Radio Station coverage in Iraq Noah Schachtman at Danger Room has a brief post on the transformation of a unit from traditional warfighting to being effective at counterinsurgency.  I’ll be brief as well, but not as brief as Noah, who gives the heads on an Army Times article ‘Our unit is the transformation’: Unexpected mission leads battalion to be a constant presence on the streets of Tikrit.

The second caller of the day sounded drunk. He demanded to know why the Americans had not built new schools or hospitals.

Turns out, he also was blind.

he began losing his sight five years earlier and couldn’t find a doctor.

“Now I can’t see a camel,” he told Lt. Col. Rick Rhyne, who was sitting in a cramped radio studio along with an interpreter and the show’s host, a gregarious fellow known only as Mr. Lebanon.

The blind caller blamed his failed eyesight on the U.S. presence. Rhyne, commander of the 1st Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, told the caller about the new construction and other activities coalition forces had provided that were aimed at improving lives of the locals.

The article gives some good examples of the value of personal contact and the product of building trust at the tactical level.

There is payback on the morale of our forces as well:

Pfc. Ellis Branch, also a member of the engineer unit, actually wants to be in the city.

“I like it a lot better. I can’t stand sitting in one truck for more than 10 hours up and down [Main Supply Route] Tampa,” he said. “Being boots on ground feels like you’re accomplishing something.”

One last comment: a dollar says LTC Rhyne won’t, even if scheduled, appear at the DoD Blogger’s Roundtable. 

Subtitle for this post: America’s public diplomacy wears combat boots…

Worth Reading

~ Matt Armstrong

Too much on the plate, but some links worth your time to read Wednesday morning (or whenever)

For background to both of the above, you should know about Abu Yahya al-Libi, the AQ wannabe leader who authored the points on slide 10 Marc highlights.  So, for more recommended reading:

And related to that, we have a lexicon shift finally happening in the U.S. 

Changing topics, back to the Hidden Hand story:

I’m surprised nobody commented on Effects-Based Public Affairs (possibly related) or that IO begins when Law/Policy prevents PA from engaging. 

Forthcoming: a review of Chris Paul’s book.

That’s it for now.

Strengthening State by Making It More like Defense

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

AmericanDiplomacy.org has an interesting article by three students at the Joint Forces Staff College, LTC Shannon Caudill, USAF, MAJ Andrew Leonard, USA, and SgtMaj Richard Thresher (what, nobody from the Navy or a Coastie?), titled Interagency Leadership: The Case for Strengthening the Department of State.

In short, they argue State’s geographic focus should drop its early-20th (arguably late-19th) Century European view of the world and adopt the map of the Defense Department’s Combatant Commands.  The authors argue State “should be the pre-eminent diplomatic and interagency leader abroad, but it must be reorganized to become more relevant, robust, and effective.”  They also note Congress’s reticence to fully fund State… They also note Congress’s reticence to fully fund State (no, that’s not a typo, that’s history repeating itself). 

Their recommendation is a smart one.  In fact, CSIS would recognize it as a means to implement Smart Power:

DOS should create a Regional Chief of Mission (RCM), responsible for leading and synchronizing interagency capabilities to project the full range of national power elements. This diplomatic post would work in tandem with the geographic combatant commander and ensure a diplomatic face is planted on the region, not just a military one. It would also provide a regional leader for coordinating the non-military elements of national power and take the lead role in integrating interagency approaches to fulfill government objectives.

However, beyond the importance of having leadership that understands the importance and utility of the full range of national power, there are several structural issues at State that must be dealt with, arguably before the reorganization.  These include updating the personnel system, including increasing interagency billets, and increasing professional and academic education opportunities.  Changes to these would really put State on par with Defense and would facilitate State’s New Map (a book idea for somebody… may Tom’s fifth).  This would really strengthen State and complete the transformation the authors imply is necessary.

I recommend the essay. 

Smith-Mundt: a symposium to discuss its purpose, intent, and impact (the symposium that isn’t likely)

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Policy and strategy makers from all corners of America are finally realizing that the so-called “War on Terror” is a war of ideas – a war of information.  It is now accepted that cultural understanding and public opinion are equally as important as any bullet or any bomb.  Indeed, the ability of the United States to collect and disseminate information will be vital to the security of the nation for the foreseeable future.  Yet the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, an outdated Cold War relic designed to create an effective counter-propaganda capability through information activities and exchanges, to protect the American people from communist sympathizers (mostly within State), and to protect the American broadcast industry from government-funded competition, is hamstringing U.S. information capabilities.  It is one of the most influential laws affecting America’s ability to fight the War of Ideas, and it is not helping.  And yet, so few really understand this law, it’s purpose, their intent, or even worse, its real impact today.

The “little” matter of Pentagon Public Affairs “co-opting” media analysts has brought to the public sphere — once again — the issue of Smith-Mundt, whether realized it or not.  The amount of misinformation about legislation designed to counter misinformation, ah the irony, is enormous and reverberates through Congress, the Pentagon, and across the traditional and new media discussion spheres. 

Last year, John Brown, formerly of USC’s Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review, and I began talking about putting together a conference in the sixtieth anniversary year of Smith-Mundt.  Six months ago, we began sending out a proposal for an academic conference to promote and discuss new scholarly research on the subject.  No takers so we changed the format to a more accessible symposium (with shorter lead time required for speakers… no longer would papers be required) and despite significant interest (most of the panels are tentatively filled and many have expressed interest in attending), we could not find an organization to fund our modest event. 

Continue reading “Smith-Mundt: a symposium to discuss its purpose, intent, and impact (the symposium that isn’t likely)
“ →

What’s Behind the Hidden Hand is the Real Story

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

David Barstow’s Behind the Analysts, the Hidden Hand story about the Pentagon’s manipulation of the media’s military analysts misses the point in the quest for sensationalism.  On the one hand, this is a story about leveraging a group to relay talking points, which sounds a lot like the White House Press Corps in general during a popular Administration, or a host of other media-government interactions, some of which Barstow mentions.  On the other, this highlights a selective view of domestic influence operations and a failure to look holistically at the importance of global perceptions in the Defense Department under former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. 

I won’t get into the first point, but will make a few comments here on the second.

First the obvious question: isn’t this a violation of Smith-Mundt, the law perceived as prohibiting the propagandizing of Americans by their government?  The short answer is no, it isn’t.  Smith-Mundt, which institionalized the Voice of America as well as cultural exchanges to counter adversarial messages, only covers activities by selective parts of the State Department, specifically those that communicate with audiences beyond our borders.  It doesn’t cover the Department of Defense, but Defense has self-imposed the restriction through a rule, not legislation by Congress or military doctrine.  BUT, Defense has liberally applied the concepts of Smith-Mundt, limiting information operations and PSYOP (see also here).

Much more important is that Public Affairs, that entity that informs without influencing, actively and effectively engaged in perception management on the home front while dismissing the real war of perceptions, the war of ideas of in Iraq and around the globe.  For me, this is a key point that reflects less on Tori Clarke and more on Rumsfeld. 

One last comment, this story makes Tori Clarke’s “outing” of the Office of Strategic Influence more interesting.  Fighting to protect her turf, she proved her skill at manipulation and disinformation at exposing an office that is the essence of public diplomacy and more specifically the United States Information Agency (which highlights the void created by an absent and/or hamstrung State Department that Defense moved into).  Between Clarke and Karl Rove, we could have built a formidable information capability to attack the enemy and their propaganda, which at times was increasingly attractive because of our failure to understand the power of perceptions and the impact of the “say-do gap.”  Too bad she couldn’t be better utilized for good to restructure our information assets from Public Affairs to Information Operations to PSYOP to Public Diplomacy (nothing should be read into the order). 

This deserve more treatment than I have time for here right now.  More later, either in this blog or elsewhere. 

See also (external links):

See also (internal):

Mapping the Iranian Blogosphere

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

imageThere’s an interesting report from Harvard’s John Kelly and Bruce Etling.  Their paper, Mapping Iran’s Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere, breaks some conceptions of Iranian bloggers and what they blog about.  Understanding who is saying what is critical in any information environment, but in the New Media environment of a simultaneous compression of time (instant communications) and suspension of time (persistency that permits time-shifted access to content), understanding the target audiences is more important.  It is also easier if you have the Rosetta Stone that bridges language, culture, shape and form.  As Kelly and Etling note,

…where there are topics of interest in a society, there will often be collection of blogs connected to each other (and to other online resources) by many links. This simple insight, on the scale of a society, nation, or linguistic community, has a remarkable implication. Unique as a snowflake, the network structure of a society’s blogosphere will reflect salient features of that society’s culture, politics, and history. A society’s online communities of interest, social factions, and major preoccupations can be seen and measured, their words read and analyzed, through a combination of structural and statistical analysis and textual interpretation.

In their analysis, Kelly and Etling identified four top-level groups of bloggers:

  • Secular/reformist. Includes secular/expatriate and reformist politics and contains most of the ‘famous’ Iranian bloggers, including notable dissidents and journalists who have left Iran in recent years, as well as long time expatriates and critics of the government.
  • Conservative/religious . Includes conservative politics, religious youth and ‘Twelver’ (Shi’a who believe the entire purpose of the Islamic Republic is to prepare the way for the 12th Imam’s imminent return) and features bloggers who are very supportive of the Iranian Revolution, Islamist political philosophy, and certain threads of Shi’a belief.
  • Persian poetry and literature. The third major structure in the Iranian blogosphere is devoted mainly to poetry, an important form of Persian cultural expression, with some broader literary content as well.
  • Mixed networks. The fourth group of blogs is different from the first three in that its structure is looser and less centralized. It does not represent any particular issue or ideology, but rather the loosely interconnected agglomeration of many smaller communities of interest  and social networks, such as those that exist around sports, celebrity, minority
    cultures, and popular media.

They note that blocking by the government is mostly against the first group above, the secular/reformist.  Their exploration of blocked blogs outside this cluster is this interesting as well.  They also note geography isn’t widely used in blocking and that readers inside Iran may not care, or know, the blog they are reading is authored in Los Angeles or Tehran. 

Radio and television can be used to engage a country, but let’s not forget the internet.  This report deserves a careful read to engage and leverage one component of New Media against an ideological adversary. 

Understanding the value of exchanges… including inter-agency exchange with State

~ Matt Armstrong

Pat Sharpe at Whirled View has a timely post on a small but telling example of the lack of real transformation at Foggy Bottom.

State Department people admit that they do a terrible job of lobbying Congress, and the general population is still obsessed with the old striped pants, cookie-pushing stereotype, which is correctly seen as irrelevant in todays world. As a result of this oversight and/or ineptness, the American diplomatic function is chronically starved for money and many posts abroad go unfilled because the budget cant absorb the cost of the needed personnel.

Sometimes I think the State Department takes a secret pride in this state of affairs, as if lobbying is just too crass and ordinary people aren’t worth communicating with. Yes, gestures are made. Speakers are sent out. Diplomats-in-residence are lodged at various universities. “Citizen diplomats” are recruited to entertain foreign visitors funded by the State Department. But all this is a drop in the bucket. So the habitual refusal/inability to engage perpetuates the snobby elitist image. A perfect feedback loop.

In a way, the building of expensive fortress embassies abroad, of which the monster nearly finished in Baghdad may stand as somewhat inflated symbol, mirrors this insular habit of mind: there’s us—and the rest of you. That was the State Department attitude even when American diplomats were allowed to mingle and roam freely in the countries to which they were posted. Many hardly ever left the embassy compound; even the reporting officers seemed to spend more time reading newspapers than getting a first hand look at what the journalists were writing about. Admittedly, I exaggerate—a little.

The self-righteous reliance on the supposedly self-evident persists, it seems. A little bird told me of a recent visit to the State Department by National Security Agency interns. The group was bused in from their Maryland campus, an hour’s trip each way. They spent three hours at State, including lunch. Even though some handlers shared lunch with the interns, which allowed the burgers and pizza to be flavored with a little information, the visit contained little more than two hours of substance. All the briefers (and handlers) were NSA people working at State. Their role was to tell their young colleagues about the NSA role at State.

In short, the NSA interns didn’t have a single briefing about State or a single briefing by a State Department officer. No one, evidently, thought it important that they learn something about the role of diplomacy in today’s complex world.

It’s possible that the State Department attempted to insert some diplomatic content into the program and was contemptuously rebuffed—and yet it’s hard to believe that NSA would have refused to permit its junior officers to be exposed to a couple of hours of briefing about State by State. Given State’s self-admitted failure to maintain effective liaison with its funders in Congress, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if the powers that be in Foggy Bottom just couldn’t be bothered. IF I’m wrong, please let me know.

See also Hard Power, Soft Power, Smart Power. 

Hard Power, Soft Power, Smart Power

~ Matt Armstrong

Ernest J. Wilson, III, the Dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at USC, has an article in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences (sub req’d) titled “Hard power, Soft Power, Smart Power.” 

In this paper Ernie argues the zero-sum relationship between hard and soft power must be replaced by a dynamic application of power, hard and soft, across a continuum appropriate for time and place known as Smart Power. 

Continue reading “Hard Power, Soft Power, Smart Power
“ →

Public Diplomacy Conference: Murrow at Tufts

~ Matt Armstrong

Today and tomorrow is promises to be a good discussion on public diplomacy at Tufts: Murrow 100th Anniversary Conference on “Public Diplomacy and International Citizenship.”  See the program here. 

The primary purpose of the conference is to elicit and facilitate the presentation of research, including faculty and student research (drawing upon seminar papers, M.A. and M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. theses, conference papers, etc.), in the field of Public Diplomacy, broadly conceived to encompass not just informational activity and communications systems and flows (and related techniques and technologies) but also educational exchange programs, cultural projects, foreign correspondence, the role of public opinion, government-business and government-civil society interaction, and inter-civilizational dialogues involving individuals and groups as well as governments and international organizations, at various levels and on different scales.

Particular topics on which panels have been proposed so far include: the various challenges facing officials conducting government public diplomacy, U.S. and other; international exchanges (educational, professional, cultural); diplomacy and ICT/media; PD and international business; the role of public diplomacy in conflict situations; and the public diplomacy of international organizations (UN system, WTO, other multilateral institutions). The “public diplomacy” of national political campaigns and the state branding efforts of “green” countries also have been suggested as possible panel topics for the conference. Other ideas may also be considered.

While the topics are broad, this is primarily an internal discussion as conference panelists are primarily Tufts alumni with some current students.  That said, I am very interested in what was said in this morning’s panels “Public Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution” and “Public Diplomacy and National Security” and especially the panel later today: “Government Public Diplomacy: Contemporary Challenges.”  Tomorrow’s “Nation Branding” will be interesting, but, and no offense to Switzerland, I would have suggested somebody from Sweden (a post on that country’s PD is forthcoming). 

I won’t be there but if you are, I’m interesting in your take-aways from what will surely be valuable discussions. 

See also:

Recent Testimony on Science Diplomacy by the NSF Director

~ Matt Armstrong

It isn’t often that a you hear about science diplomacy being discussed at the highest levels.  Earlier this month the Director of the National Science Foundation, Dr. Arden L. Bement, testified before the House Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Science Education on the importance and value of science diplomacy.

Continue reading “Recent Testimony on Science Diplomacy by the NSF Director
“ →

Benjamin Franklin Awards for Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

My alma mater won an award! The U.S. Department of State has a new award for “outstanding leadership in advancing America’s ideals through public diplomacy by offering a positive vision of hope and opportunity rooted in America’s belief in freedom, justice, opportunity and respect for all.”  The Benjamin Franklin Awards for Public Diplomacy were given in several categories: Non-Profit (Search for Common Ground), Academic (USC, see below), Corporate (Johnson & Johnson), and Individual (Dave Brubeck, see Marc Lynch’s post on Brubeck here). 

Academic Category Award Winner: University of Southern California

Located in Los Angeles, the University of Southern California (USC) is one of the world’s leading private research universities. In August 2003, the University established the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School (CPD) as a partnership between the Annenberg School for Communication and the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences’ School of International Relations. CPD is a joint research and professional training facility dedicated to furthering the study and practice of public diplomacy as it is practiced around the world. In 2005, USC created the first graduate-level teaching program in the world devoted exclusively to public diplomacy, and will graduate its first full Master of Public Diplomacy class in May 2008. We honor the University for its vision in developing the world’s premier research facility in the field of public diplomacy and for its excellence in educating the next generation of public diplomacy practitioners. Adam Clayton Powell, III, Vice Provost, Globalization, accepted the award on behalf of the University of Southern California.

Yes, they’ll graduate the “first full Master of Public Diplomacy class”, but two of us finished early… Adam, who had more than a hidden hand in creating the Center, picked up the award. 

GO TROJANS!

Another Book Review of Yale Richmond’s Practicing Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

For another review of Yale Richmond’s new book, Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey, checkout at Pat Kushlis at WhirledView:  

…Richmond explains well how politics influenced cultural exchange and that the work of cultural officers in the Soviet Union – of which I was one – was often as much political as it was cultural. He also recognized that cultural exchange was a two way street because through “cultural exchange we learned much about each other.” And he stressed that “while the immediate objective may have been improved mutual understanding, the long-range objective was a more stable relationship between the two countries.”

Richmond concludes in his “Afterword” by asking whether public diplomacy practices learned during the Cold War could “serve as a model for defeating terrorism and anti-Americanism in the world we live in today.” His nuanced answer in which he emphasizes the need for patience – Rome was not built in a day and the Cold War lasted decades – as well as the necessity for policy makers to be “aware of the public opinion consequences of their decisions” is far more “yes” than “no.”

Yet Richmond also cautions that those who are “expected to practice public diplomacy should also have some input into the decisions” that govern its implementation and that increased funding and a larger public diplomacy staff will not alone win support for American policies. I agree.

Read her whole review here.

When History Repeats: Troubles at VOA in 1946 are Remarkably Similar to the Troubles at VOA in 2008 (Updated)

~ Matt Armstrong

image Sixty-two years ago, Congress was so troubled by the operations of the Voice of America that it slashed the appropriation for the State Department’s Office of International Information and Cultural Affairs, known as OIC, in half.  At the time, not only were broadcasts of dubious quality hitting the airwaves (including many from private media contractors), but a lack of accountability of the personnel and content producers.  Congress was not questioning the act or need to propagandize, it was simply responding to the extremely poor quality and haphazard nature of U.S. efforts in light of communist inroads into Western public opinion.
Some Congressional Republicans feared a peacetime VOA would be bias towards a Democratic Administration.  Others thought the “whispers” from State in the war of contemporary war of ideas at the beginning of the Cold War were symptomatic of a larger problem of communist sympathizers within State, a problem made worse by a rash of spy scandals.  America’s information systems were ill and the cure was the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, formally known as Public Law 402: The United States Information and Educations Exchange Act of 1948.

In 2008, and again there’s trouble at VOA.  I have a copy of the five-page letter dated 4 April 2008 Senator Tom Coburn, MD, (R-KY) sent to Stephen Hadley, the National Security Advisor, detailing his issues with VOA’s Farsi broadcasts.  The Senator is troubled by not just the VOA but its oversight organization, the Broadcasting Board of Governors.  His three major concerns are:

  1. A lack of transparency in both VOA and BBG
  2. A lack of accountability in both VOA and BBG
  3. Absence of guidance and coordination from Key Policy-Making Agencies (State, Defense, Homeland Security, National Security Council, etc)

I agree with the essence of his arguments: we’re paying too much for services, the quality of staff and content is questionable, and there’s no accountability or transparency. Each of these, ironically, were foundational reasons for Smith-Mundt!  In other words, most of the Senators complaints are rooted in modern distortions of Smith-Mundt that institutionalized VOA to address the same problems sixty years ago.

Sixty years ago, Smith-Mundt imposed in-sourcing and citizenship requirements in the face of questions of loyalty and counter-productive broadcasts.  The absence of transparency can be traced to distorting and ill-conceived amendments to the Act in 1972 and 1985 that were contrary to the purpose of the act.  I could go on, but I won’t here (go here for more).

One interesting example, not related to Smith-Mundt, the Senator highlights is the VOA’s “terrorists are freedom fighters” policy posted on VOA’s blog (VOA’s blog would a) violated Smith-Mundt if they ever post any part of a transcript online and b) didn’t host it on a free service like blogspot).  The discussion of the use of the “t-word” is, well, interesting.  See for yourself.

In addition to long overdue reforms of BBG, the Senator wants to install three new governors (he doesn’t say who he wants to replace): Cliff May, Scott Carpenter, and Enders Wimbush.

However, while I agree with the Senator’s criticism of VOA, I suspect he wants to swing the pendulum too far to the other side.  Regardless, the cure from the doctor from Oklahoma is not holding up Jim Glassman’s nomination.  The position of Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy (and, by the way, for Public Affairs) should not remain empty any longer.

Instead, I urge the good Senator to instead convince his House colleagues (I understand from discussions last year that his colleagues in the Senate are already open to the idea) to revisit Smith-Mundt, especially the distorted modern perception that pervades not just our civilian information agencies but our military services as well.  This Act, the fix for similar complaints nearly exactly sixty years ago, is the root of most of his complaints.  Any promises the Senator extracts from the White House to satisfy his valid concerns laid out in his letter will be met, under current conditions, by artificial and false firewalls stemming from modern incorrect interpretations of Smith-Mundt.

Book Review: Practicing Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

imageFriend and colleague, John Brown, reviewed Yale Richmond’s latest book, Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey, at AmericanDiplomacy.org.  From John’s review:

In his memoir, Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey, Yale Richmond tells us what public diplomacy is in a lively and personal way, by recounting his many experiences, in Asia and Eastern Europe (as well as Washington, DC), as a Foreign Service officer (FSO) handling press, educational, and cultural affairs during the second half of the past century. Thanks to his subtle, engaging, and witty narrative about his distinguished 30-year career, the reader learns a great deal about how public diplomacy is carried out in the field by a model FSO (for what overarching policy purposes, however, is not covered in detail by this slim volume).

Richmond’s elucidating anecdotes about the key persons he met throughout his career abroad underscore that public diplomacy — as Edward R. Murrow, the Director of the United States Information Agency (USIA) during the Kennedy administration, famously said — “is not so much moving information or guidance or policy five or 10,000 miles. … The real art is to move it the last three feet in face to face conversation.” Focusing on individuals (rather than governments), public diplomacy encompasses an infinite variety of activities, some of which can have important (but hard to quantify) long-term consequences: from building “national consciousness in a new country” (Richmond on what he did while posted in Laos in 1954-1956) to organizing educational exchanges, a “vital part of Public Diplomacy” (to cite Richmond again) which (in the case of the Soviet Union, where Richmond served 1967-1969) can be effective “in bringing about change in a country that had isolated itself from the West for so many years.”

Read the whole review at AmericanDiplomacy.org as well as an excerpt shows the style of most of the book.  It does not read like a text book, but as a series of first hand experiences told by a remarkable individual that, as Pat Kushlis remarked, is “one of our very best practitioners” of public diplomacy. 

Where’s Jim Glassman? And was it enough for Sen. Coburn?

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

I’m told that Mark Twain once said that the trouble with history was that it repeats.  It is surprising how much the events surrounding our public diplomacy and overall political communications mirror the trauma of the same in the 1940s and 1950s.  Sixty years ago, the House and Senate decried the poor quality of our propaganda and outreach, some of which, while good intentioned, backfired.  Today, among other problems, Jim Glassman’s confirmation as Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy is being held up for the same reason. 

Frank Gaffney, Jr., writing in The Washington Times, lets the cat out of the bag on why Jim Glassman has yet to be confirmed in the nearly sixty days since his confirmation hearing.  What’s the hold up?  The good Senator (R) from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn, wants a promise of more VOA into Iran, among other things.

You don’t suppose the Senator’s hold had anything to do with the President’s recent interview with Radio Farda.  Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t.  Regardless, here’s Gaffney:

As it happens, Radio Farda and its official U.S. counterpart, the Voice of America’s Persian Service, have reportedly engaged in recent years in practices that have raised questions about whose side they were on. Whistle-blowers and independent monitors have repeatedly warned that these agencies broadcast into Iran programming that actually advances not the cause of freedom, but the agenda of the Iranian regime that President Bush has correctly decried. Improvements have been made at Radio Farda by Jeff Gedmin, the new and highly regarded head of RFE/RL, but concerns about program content persist.

Such concerns have outraged Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security subcommittee charged with overseeing U.S. international broadcasts. A champion of transparency in government, Mr. Coburn has for years sought to obtain transcripts of all Farsi-language broadcasts from those charged with managing the relevant radio services: the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).

Unfortunately, understandable frustration that successive commitments to provide such transparency have gone largely unfulfilled, due to the unfunded cost of transcribing many thousands of hours of programming, has had a most undesirable result. Mr. Coburn has put a hold on the nomination of James Glassman, the current BBG chairman, to become what amounts to America’s combatant commander in the War of Ideas.

Sen. Coburn’s concern has an eerie ring of familiarity if we return to the debates behind something originally called Public Law 402 (4mb PDF).  Sixty years ago, Congress wielded the budget axe when it didn’t like what it was seeing and hearing.  Today, it’s a lone Senator.  Sixty years ago, Smith-Mundt was passed to fix our information systems in a divisive Congress.  Today, we have empty reports and a lone Senator preventing the filling of a position that is quickly becoming more marginalized with each passing day out of necessity.  Ok, so history doesn’t repeat itself completely, but we’re not done yet. 

Senator Coburn knows that we need to fix our information program, but holding Glassman’s nomination hostage isn’t the solution.  The Senator wants more promises that things will change, but he’s looking for a tactical change when a strategic restructuring is required.  Mr Gaffney is right that we’re disarmed in the war of ideas, but putting Glassman in office won’t be the missing link Gaffney suggests ("America’s combatant commander in the War of Ideas").  There is much more required here that Senator Coburn, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee can do, steps that his predecessors sixty years ago took that have since been perverted and distorted to become not the tool of engagement but a major hindrance.  Move from the tactical to the strategic Senator Coburn and you’ll find you’ll have broad support. 

It goes without saying there’s more to come on this.

See also:

What is Public Diplomacy?

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Not too long ago, Marc Lynch and I had a back and forth on the utility and purposes of Smith-Mundt, a law that today is used not to give America a voice in a global informational struggle — the purpose for which it was passed — but to impose artificial constraints that are unique among our peers and our adversaries. 

That discussion included an interesting (and incredible) statement that public diplomacy was not about advocacy.  I completely disagree, as I wrote in Understanding the Purpose of Public Diplomacy.  Crucial to understanding the purpose of public diplomacy is understanding what it is. 

So, What is Public Diplomacy?

Continue reading “What is Public Diplomacy?
“ →

Talking about the Principles of Smith-Mundt

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

I had hoped that my response to Marc Lynch’s challenge would spark a discussion on Smith-Mundt. It did. First, there was a request to fill in some details and do a cross-post. Now, Marc helps with his comments on my post.

Passed sixty years ago as Public Law 402, the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, the Smith-Mundt Act was to equip the U.S. in a contemporary “war of ideas” and address the danger poised “by the weapons of false propaganda and misinformation and the inability on the part of the United States to deal adequately with those weapons.” It is with some irony that the Act today is itself misunderstood and misrepresented. One might say Smith-Mundt needs, well, its own Smith-Mundt.

Continue reading “Talking about the Principles of Smith-Mundt
“ →

Understanding the Purpose Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

Marc Lynch’s comments this week on my “powerful and pointed case” sparked a much needed discussion on what I see as the most significant piece of ignored legislation in all the reports and conversations on public diplomacy and strategic communications. My response is in two parts. This post looks at the definition and purpose of the thing called “public diplomacy” sparked by a statement by one of Marc’s readers. A second post responds directly to Marc’s “mixed feelings” of my critique of Smith-Mundt.

To start, Marc opened his post with a statement from Donna Marie Oglesby, a former counselor for the United States Information Agency in the Clinton Administration:

McCain appears less interested in public diplomacy than in what we used to call advocacy and is now called strategic communication. His interest is in the “war of ideas” and advancing American objectives in the global information battle-space."

While Public diplomacy is a nebulous concept without an agreed upon definition, a central tenant has always been to influence foreign audiences. At its heart, public diplomacy, and its precursors, has always been about advocating a position, inhibiting or preventing the adoption of adversarial positions, and is by nature a tool of national security, American or otherwise.

Continue reading “Understanding the Purpose Public Diplomacy
“ →

Headlines and Links

~ Matt Armstrong

Some quick links to other posts you should read.  No time to comment.

Also, in case you missed it, from Inside the Pentagon (sub req’d):

The Pentagon’s Strategic Communication Integration Group (SCIG) ceased to exist this month, opening a new chapter in the department’s efforts to communicate with the world. Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England decided not to renew the group’s charter, so it expired March 1, officials familiar with the decision told Inside the Pentagon. The termination of the group was not announced publicly. …

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen complained that officials are too fixated on the word “strategic” when in reality the lines between strategic, operational and tactical issues are blurred almost beyond distinction, particularly in the realm of communications (ITP, Jan. 10, p1). In a memo to England, Mullen argued that U.S. deeds — not Pentagon Web sites or communications plans – are the best way to impart the country’s intentions on the world stage. The Pentagon should focus less on promoting its own story globally and more on listening to Muslims worldwide and understanding the subtleties of that community, the admiral wrote. …

And then lastly, since this has been the week of putting forth operational and strategic arguments on the use of information and persuasion, and as one colleague has noted my, um, disagreement with Smith-Mundt (although he makes one statement that’s untrue, I’ll let you figure figure out which of the three it is), a piece of domestic propaganda that today we think is illegal across the board (which reminds me of this distantly related post):

Synchronizing Information: The Importance of New Media in Conflict

~ Matt Armstrong

My post over at the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy shifts gears from the strategic to the operational.  Synchronizing Information looks at the need to synchronize our information systems to effectively engage asymmetric adversaries using New Media. 

The effectiveness of information campaigns today will more often dictate a victory than how well bullets and bombs are put on a target. Putting information on target is more important when dealing with an asymmetric adversary that cannot – and does not need to – match the military or economic power of the United States and her allies.

Insurgents and terrorists increasingly leverage New Media to shape perceptions around the globe to be attractive to some and intimidating to others. New Media collapses traditional concepts of time and space as information moves around the world in an instant. Unlike traditional media, search engines and the web in general, enable information, factual or not, to be quickly and easily accessed long after it was created.

The result is a shift in the purpose of physical engagement to increasingly incorporate the information effect of words and deeds. Thus, the purpose of improvised explosive devices, for example, is not to kill or maim Americans but to replay images of David sticking it to Goliath.

Read the rest here.