Because you and everyone else looking for a “whole of government” approach to public diplomacy, strategic communication, and global engagement should know, below are the members of the Foreign Operations subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations.
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Because you and everybody else looking for a “whole of government” approach to public diplomacy, strategic communication, and global engagement should know, below are the members of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (SFRC).
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What is “strategic communication”? To many, it is synonymous with public diplomacy, but are they? Is it that strategic communication is simply engagement by the Defense Department and public diplomacy is engagement by the State Department?
To many in the Defense community, strategic communication encompasses public affairs. This is reflected in the comment by a senior Defense official who noted beliefs that strategic communication is “public affairs on steroids.” Personally, I have never heard public diplomacy similarly described.
I’m interested in thoughts on the difference between strategic communication (SC) and public diplomacy (PD).
I’ll fire off the first observation on the differences for your comment:
The difference is not merely semantic but based in differences in techniques, tactics, procedures, time horizons, and audiences. On the last point, audiences, strategic communication is global as it does include public affairs, the US public and US media. From the comments from the Secretary of Defense to the “orchestra chart“, the struggle to communicate is not restricted to audiences beyond our borders. In stark contrast, public diplomacy is exclusively aimed at audiences residing out the geographic borders of the United States at the moment of contact.
Back to you. What are your thoughts on strategic communication and public diplomacy, including or ignoring my above statement.
See also:
By Peggie Duggan
Exactly who is responsible for explaining the United States to the rest of the world? Perhaps, more importantly, who is responsible for explaining the United States to her own people? The answers are the U.S. Department of State and nobody, respectively. As Dr. Phil would say, “How is that working for you?”
On a forgotten day, buried in the Congressional Record, one senator stood up and said,
Our country, I think we can all admit, has experienced a tremendous decline in international respect since 1943. At the end of World War II, due both to our leadership toward victory and to an accumulation of international prestige built over the decade, this country occupied an enviable stance.
It was liked, admired, and trusted to a degree even by conquered nations, and we had the one great Military Establishment intact in the whole world.
Now what has happened? Why has the world deteriorated? You can’t point your finger of blame at any individual or any individual policy. But when that kind of historic demonstration is before us, it seems to me that alert Americans ought to ask themselves why and what can we do about it?
This country today is being popularly blamed by much of the politically conscious population of the world for a great share of the misfortunes of the world…
Something is wrong with American policy. There is nothing wrong with American attitudes, nothing wrong with the American ideal, nothing wrong with the basic concept that we provide a lot of foreign aid and leadership and help the free world get stronger…Nobody really believes we are imperialistic. Nobody really believes we are trying to superimpose any religious creed or a political philosophy on anybody.
We do this out of an abundance of good will and out of some impulse of self-preservation, and we get attacked.[1]
From Helle Dale at The Heritage Foundation, Public Diplomacy 2.0: Where the U.S. Government Meets “New Media”:
Public diplomacy and strategic communications experts within the U.S. government are exploring the potential of the new social media in the effort to win hearts and minds abroad, especially in the Muslim world where today’s war of ideas is being fought. Enemies of the United States are already expert in using these low-cost outreach tools that can connect thousands, potentially even millions, at the touch of a computer key or cell phone button. As public affairs blogger Matt Armstrong writes,
In this age of mass information and precision guided media, everyone from political candidates to terrorists must instantly and continuously interact with and influence audiences in order to be relevant and competitive. Ignoring the utility of social media is tantamount to surrendering the high ground in the enduring battle to influence minds around the world.
… When employed strategically, social-networking sites clearly offer potential for U.S. public diplomacy to reach younger, tech-savvy audiences around the world. Social-networking sites can also be cost-effective and run with relatively low overhead. Yet, nothing can replace the power of person-to-person contact and individual exposure to American culture. Furthermore, the unevenness of global technological progress means that a variety of media will remain critical to spreading the U.S. message. As part of a clear and calibrated U.S. government communications strategy, however, Public Diplomacy 2.0 can be a valuable tool.
I would add that there is the convergence of new and old media into Now Media makes intense focus on “new media” channels as distracting and potentially dangerous. As Helle Dale notes, person to person contact remains essential. Even in America’s social media world, studies indicate online relationships that have by real world connections are far stronger than those without.
A powerful, important, and too often ignored is the use of the online media by our adversaries. We require culturally aware, linguistically capable actors in the same languages and cultures we are operating in the “meat space.” What you see in your English-language search of Google or YouTube is not the same list as an Arabic-language search using the same .com site. How many know that? This is a far more dangerous world than many realize. Helle Dale’s recommendations are valid but are ultimately a small part of the solution. The institutional dysfunction across Government and the extreme lack of awareness of the requirements in both the executive and legislative branches overshadow any advantage of these recommendations. We have surrendered primary battlegrounds in the struggle for minds and wills. It is time to reverse this and answer counter the highly damaging propaganda of our adversaries.
Related:
A recently released and unreported report from West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center has some fuel for the struggle of minds and wills. Deadly Vanguards: A Study of al-Qa’ida’s Violence Against Muslims (PDF, 875kb) is a survey of attacks carried out by Al Qaeda that should be part of a counter-narrative to Al Qaeda’s broadly accepted proposal that they are the champions of Muslims. For too long we have accepted the propaganda of the enemy, allowing him to set the time, place, and vocabulary, all to his advantage. He declared the war was between us and them and we agreed. It wasn’t and it isn’t.
From the report:
The results show that non‐Westerners are much more likely to be killed in an al‐Qa’ida attack. From 2004 to 2008, only 15% percent of the 3,010 victims were Western. During the most recent period studied the numbers skew even further. From 2006 to 2008, only 2% (12 of 661 victims) are from the West, and the remaining 98% are inhabitants of countries with Muslim majorities. During this period, a person of non‐Western origin was 54 times more likely to die in an al‐Qa’ida attack than an individual from the West. The overwhelming majority of al‐Qa’ida victims are Muslims living in Muslim countries, and many are citizens of Iraq, which suffered more al‐Qa’ida attacks than any other country courtesy of the al‐Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI) affiliate.
It is interesting to note that the percentage of non‐Western victims increased in the more recent period at the same time that extremist scholars, pundits, and supporters are questioning the indiscriminate use of violence and the targeting of Muslims. Al‐Qa’ida leaders stress that these individuals are not formal members of the organization, but recognizes their legitimacy as scholars and intellectual contributions to the movement nonetheless.
It is a short and required read. Supporting data fills most of the report’s 56 pages. See Deadly Vanguards: A Study of al-Qa’ida’s Violence Against Muslims.
Last week, the White House announced its nominees for the Broadcasting Board of Governors. For the first time since the BBG was created fourteen years ago, the Board will change completely with the new slate of eight candidates. If all the nominees are confirmed, it will be the first time since 2004 the Board was at 100%.
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By Simon Anholt
America has just become, according to my research, the world’s most admired country.
Since 2005, I’ve been running a survey called the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index (NBI), which measures international perceptions of 50 countries. Each year, around 20,000 people in 20 countries are asked to record their perceptions of each country’s government and its domestic and foreign policies on human rights, the environment, and international peace and security; of the people of each country, their talents, education, skills and their kindess to strangers; of each country’s cultural heritage and popular culture; about the quality and attractiveness of the products and services it produces; of the landscape and climate and tourist appeal of each country; of the economic and educational opportunities each country offers its own population and to immigrants. The NBI has been conducted fourteen times, and now consists of over a billion data points recording “how the world sees the world”. A parallel study, the Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index, performs a similar analysis of 50 cities (the 2008 topline results of both surveys can be queried interactively at www.simonanholt.com/research).
If you haven’t read the National Defense Authorization of Act for Fiscal Year 2010 that came out of conference this week – and I’m guessing you haven’t – then you may have missed a potential precedent.
The Armed Services Committees of the House and Senate this week authorized $55 million for the State Department for what amounts to information operations (or call it public diplomacy, strategic communication, or global engagement). This is not so-called “1207” funding that allows Defense to transfer money to State for security and stabilization – there is another $100m (or more) of security and stabilization money the SASC/HASC direct DOD to transfer to State – nor is it, for the wonk in you, “1206” or “1208” funding. This is a direct authorization for State (and BBG if you prefer to separate them out) for specific activities.
The appearance of these authorizations in the Senate bill back in July took many by surprise. This could create questions over accountability of funds and confusion over guidance by adding more cooks who generally do not confer much and speak different language in this kitchen.
The big question is whether the authorities will be funded. This is unlikely considering neither the House or Senate defense appropriators have included this in their pre-conference bills. However, the Armed Services Committees created an opportunity for the defense appropriators to send a significant message. Whether the appropriators take that opportunity is to be seen.
By Ali Fisher
We live in a networked world. Whether known as family, kinship, tribe, village, neighbourhood, community, work place colleagues, or online social network, they are all networks in the sense of being a series of relationships between different individuals.
Social network analysis (SNA) explores the relationship between actors within a network by identifying the points that people “huddle around”. Network maps allow a researcher to visualise and analyse data on complex interactions or relationships between large numbers of actors. In these maps the dots (nodes) are actors within the network and the lines (ties, edges or arcs) identify a relationship between the nodes which the tie connects.
Through the maps, groups (or cliques) can be seen more rapidly than a through a text based list. Groups that have high levels of interaction with each other form clusters of dots in different areas of the network map.
From Josh’s GAO report finds State Department language skills dangerously lacking:
About a third of Foreign Service officers in jobs that require language skills don’t have the proficiency required to do their jobs, hurting America’s ability to advocate its interests around the world, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
The report, which has not yet been released, but was obtained by The Cable, spells out the consequences of having a Foreign Service that in many cases can’t communicate with local officials or populations, relies too heavily on local staff for critical functions, and can’t respond to bad press when it appears in foreign languages.
According to the GAO, the State Department blames the shortcoming on the “recent increase in language-intensive positions.” The sad truth is the Department is struggling to undo its abrogation of responsibility under the past leadership as responsibilities were shuffled of to the Defense Department with little to not struggle.
Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) captures the essence of the recommendation in my Hitting Bottom at Foggy Bottom post when he says the State Department “must take advantage of this situation and plan strategically to meet short- and long-term diplomatic needs.”
But, as the GAO report notes, a strategic plan to address this problem does not exist. Secretary Clinton did, however, recently speak at State’s Foreign Service Institute and say increases were coming.
More to come on this.
Related:
U.S. envoys hesitate to report bad news by Nicholas Kralev at The Washington Times on the “rampant self-censorship” of “bad news” from the diplomats in the field to DC.
The Bad News: America’s good news only Ambassadors by Pat Kushlis at The Whirled View adds details to Nicholas’s article.
Ten relevant information graphics on today’s on both the consumption and creation of information today can be found at Six Revisions. To me, the one from the communications agency Burston-Marsteller was interesting, if a bit overly focused on Twitter.
Related:
Political Warfare Against the Kremlin: US and British Propaganda Policy at the Beginning of the Cold War by Lowell Schwartz. Strongly recommended if you’re interested in a relevant past ideological struggle. We cannot afford to ignore our past, especially when they had such a better grip on the requirements than we seem to have today.
Propaganda by Edward Bernays. Originally published in 1928, it is frank discussion of the reality of persuasion using the corporate world as examples. Modern propaganda, Bernays wrote, “is a consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group.”
The Just Prince: A Manual of Leadership edited by Joseph Kechichian. We continue to operate as if we are in a Machiavellian world, but we’re not. Written from an Arab-Muslim perspective nearly 350 years before the Florentine clerk wrote The Prince, the Just Prince arrives at similar ends as Machiavelli but the different views of power and authority creates different means to those ends.
On October 1, the Broadcasting Board of Governors will mark the tenth anniversary of its establishment as the sole overseer of U.S. publicly funded overseas broadcasts. We recommend a bipartisan Executive and Legislative Branch commission to review U.S. international broadcasting based on these [eight] principles:
1. Restore and reinvigorate VOA English radio worldwide. …
2. Ensure that all United Nations languages and those judged by the State Department and NSC as critical to national security be broadcast interactively by VOA on radio, television and a variety of Internet, social networks and cell phone platforms. …
3. Re-establish a VOA Arabic website. …Audience claims by Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa in that arc of crisis have been questioned by the GAO and Middle East specialists. Lack of an official Voice seems counter to U.S. interests in a strategically important region.
4. Name a qualified professional as Director of International Broadcasting to coordinate all the publicly-funded overseas networks, exercise most day-to-day management functions, and report to the Board. …Board members must be nationally known foreign affairs, journalistic and corporate level management professionals committed to the credibility of all networks cited below and principles contained in the VOA Charter and surrogate mission directives.
The fourth (of eight) point above is important. In my recent post on the failure to appoint members to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, I did not mention the Director of International Broadcasting, which is, as the authors above note, is the day-to-day manager of America’s non-military international broadcasting. The position has been vacant for four years.
Related:
Written by Cdr Steve Tatham, Royal Navy, 
“Tactical Strategic Communication!” (PDF, 192kb) is a necessary read for communities interested in strategic communication and the operations of our adversaries. Steve is a Director of Research at the UK Defense Academy and the author of Losing Arab Hearts and Minds: The Coalition, Al Jazeera and Muslim Public Opinion.
“Tactical Strategic Communication!” describes how strategic communication must be holistic, agile, and awareness of both the adversary and the target audiences (related: Call Haji Shir Mohamad ASAP!). In a twist on the “guy in a cave” mantra popular on this side of the Pond, Steve notes how the Taliban transformed and adapted to their new environment:
The early years of the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan were not known for their press freedom. Technology was unwelcome, images of human beings considered apostate and world public opinion largely irrelevant to an organisation that actively sought to return afghan society to that of the Prophet Mohamed’s time. Yet the success of Al-Qaeda’s manipulation of the media in its global insurgency, and more latterly in its operations in Iraq, had not gone unnoticed.
My article “Hitting Bottom at Foggy Bottom” is online at ForeignPolicy.com:
Discussion over the fate of Foggy Bottom usually focuses on the tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the troubles of public diplomacy, and the rise of special envoys on everything from European pipelines to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Americans would benefit more from a reassessment of the core functionality of the U.S. State Department.
Years of neglect and marginalization, as well as a dearth of long-term vision and strategic planning, have left the 19th-century institution hamstrung with fiefdoms and bureaucratic bottlenecks. The Pentagon now funds and controls a wide range of foreign-policy and diplomatic priorities — from development to public diplomacy and beyond. The world has changed, with everyone from politicians to talking heads to terrorists directly influencing global audiences. The most pressing issues are stateless: pandemics, recession, terrorism, poverty, proliferation, and conflict. But as report after report, investigation after investigation, has highlighted, the State Department is broken and paralyzed, unable to respond to the new 21st-century paradigm. …
Read the rest at ForeignPolicy.com. Originally titled “Fixing State” (my title was too staid and the “State of State” was taken), it highlights forgotten or ignored structural and capacity issues at State that contributed to Defense leadership in foreign policy and public diplomacy.
Related Posts:
USAID challenges reflect greater problems at the State Department looks at the importance of development. (See also The Intended ‘Psychological By-Products’ of Development on the psychological effects of the Marshall Plan; and from last year, USAID and Public Diplomacy.)
House Appropriations Concerned Pentagon’s Role in Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy examines the theory of House Appropriations and Walter Pincus that “State should be doing this”.
Defense Department Plan on Strategic Communication and Science and Technology is a report that noted a need for leadership and coordination in strategic communication programs earlier this year.
American public diplomacy wears combat boots from May 2008 highlighted the leadership in basic engagement the Defense Department was exercising in the absence of an effective alternative.
Developing a National Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy Strategic also from May 2008 highlights Congressman Adam Smith’s (D-Wash) effort to get the country’s efforts in global engagement on track.
The Cost of Keeping the Principal off the X from October 2007 is particularly relevant post on State’s view of the world. This issue resurfaced with the recent “outing” of the behavior of both the contracted Kabul security and the lack of action by the Department. See also an event I put on October 2006 titled American Mercenaries of Public Diplomacy.
Much has been made of made of Congressional concerns over the Defense Department’s role in strategic communication and as the de facto leading public diplomat in policy, engagement, and personnel. At first the lack of informed media coverage – and shallow or error-filled when it exists – is ironic considering the subject, but there it is part of a trend when considering that in general public diplomacy and the laws governing it are also subject to misinformation and misinterpretation (PDF, 140kb).
When The Washington Post reported on July 28 on the House Appropriations decision to slash $500 million from the estimated Defense budget request for strategic communication programs – for 10 (ten) programs which should have been “IO” (information operations) programs, a minor difference – Walter Pincus mentioned requests from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees (HASC and SASC, respectively) that preceded the House Appropriations – Defense Subcommittee (HACD) action. For your reference, the actionable items for the Defense Department in the area of strategic communication from the reports of the HASC, SASC, and HACD are below.
It has now been eight years since 9/11 and we finally seem to understand that in the modern struggles against terrorism, insurgency, and instability, the tools of public diplomacy are invaluable and essential. We live in a world where an individual with a camera phone can wield more influence than an F-22 stealth fighter jet. The capability of engaging public audiences has long been thought of as the domain of civilians. But for the past eight years, the functions, authorities, and funding for engaging global audiences, from anti-AIDS literature to soccer balls to development projects, has migrated from the State Department to the Defense Department. It seems whole forests have fallen over the same period on the need to enhance civilian agencies – be it the State Department or a new USIA-like entity – to provide a valid alternative to the Defense Department who most, even the detractors, agree was filling a void left by civilians who abrogated their responsibility for one reason or another.
This summer may be a turning point. Some in Congress have unilaterally decided that 2010 is the year America’s public diplomacy will stop wearing combat boots. Sounds good, right? This is the future most, including analysts and the military, have wished for. The military has been the unwilling (if passionate once engaged) and often clumsy surrogate and partner for the State Department in representing the US and its interests in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the world through what the House Armed Services Committee now calls “military public diplomacy.” In some regions, State is almost wholly dependent on Defense money and resources to accomplish its mandate.
Courtesy of Bruce Gregory, Professor of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University.
September 9, 2009
Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.
Bruce Gregory
Adjunct Assistant Professor of
Media and Public Affairs
George Washington University
(202) 994-6350
BGregory@gwu.edu
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The professional development course “Understanding and Engaging Now Media” examines the convergence of “new media” and “old media” into “now media” with the purpose of educating and empowering the student to be a more effective information actor. Today, news and information is simultaneously instant and persistent, global and local, as it seamlessly moves between print, broadcast, cellular, and social media. Increased access to information changes the relationship between producer and consumer of news and information which in turn creates, engages, and empowers new communities and communications pathways that empower journalists, bloggers, analysts, activists, diplomacy, terrorists, insurgents and nearly everyone else. Understanding this environment, the tools, techniques, and purposes is essential in the modern information environment.
Yours truly, Matt Armstrong, will teach this course over three consecutive evenings, 6p-9p on November 10, 11, and 12 in Alexandria, VA (2 blocks from a Metro stop).
More information and registration can be found at the AOC website.
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