Sean Aday, Henry Farrell, Marc Lynch, John Sides, and Dean Freelon, New Media and Conflict After the Arab Spring: Blogs and Bullets II. United States Institute of Peace, Peaceworks No. 80, July 2012.  Aday, Farrell, Lynch, Sides (George Washington University) and Freelon (American University) follow up their Blogs and Bullets in Contentious Politics (2010) study with an analysis of the role of social media in four Arab Spring protests (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain).  Using the analytical framework from the earlier study, they empirically test claims of “cyberoptimists” and “cyberskeptics” through research on data from bit.ly linkages (a URL shortening technology associated with Twitter, Facebook, and other digital media).  Two findings stand out.  (1) New media that usebit.ly linkages “did not appear to play a significant role in either in-country collective action or regional diffusion.”  (2) “It is increasingly difficult to separate new media from old media.  In the Arab Spring, the two reinforced each other.”

Clifford Bob, The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics, (Cambridge University Press, 2012).  Bob (Duquesne University, author of The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media, and International Activism, 2006) examines clashes between transnational activists promoting human rights, environmental, and global justice issues and rival networks of conservative activists promoting alternative goals.  Too much of the literature, he argues, has focused narrowly on global society as a more or less harmonious field of progressive NGOs.  Rather, scholars need to analyze a “contentious arena riven by fundamental differences criss-crossing national and international boundaries” in which networked activists hold irreconcilable values and spurn deliberation and compromise.  Includes Bob’s analytical framework, case studies, and assessments based on extensive documentation and interviews with key actors.

Cormac Callanan and Hein Dries-Ziekenheiner, Safety on the Line: Exposing the Myth of Mobile Communications Security, Report supported by the Broadcasting Board of Governors and Freedom House, July 2012. In this report, commissioned by the US government’s Broadcasting Board of Governors in association with the US-based NGO Freedom House, consultants Callanan (Aconite Internet Solutions, Ireland) and Dries-Ziekenheiner (VIGLO, The Netherlands) assess market data, mobile use habits, mobile technologies, and security risks in using mobile devices.  They studied mobile phone uses in 12 countries: Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.  The authors call for greater cooperation among mobile phone and operating system industries, funders of anti-censorship technologies, and mobile security app developers.

Manuel Castells, Communication Power, (Oxford University Press, 2009, paperback edition 2011).  In this deeply researched update to his Information Age trilogy on the network society, Castells (University of Southern California) puts his central theme as a question: “Where does power lie in the global network society?”  His “working hypothesis is that the most fundamental form of power lies in the ability to shape the human mind,” because the “way we feel and think determines the way we act.”  Castells’ study is a theoretical inquiry into “the connection between communication and political power at the frontier between cognitive science, communication research, political psychology, and political communication.”  He develops his concepts through empirical analysis of global networks (markets, culture, media, education, religion, crime, entertainment, and social movements) and case studies of the state and media framing, global warming, anti-corporate globalization movements, the Iraq war, and the 2008 Obama presidential primary campaign.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012).  Drawing on numerous interviews with diplomats, soldiers, aid workers, and policymakers, Washington Post reporter Chandrasekaran portrays a “good war” that “turned bad.”  Vignettes of a few exceptionally capable soldiers and civilians stand out.  But overall, widespread incompetence, infighting, and dysfunction dominate.  “Our government was incapable of meeting the challenge,” he argues.  “Our generals and diplomats were too ambitious and arrogant.  Our uniformed and civilian bureaucracies were rife with internal rivalries and go-it-alone agendas.  Our development experts were inept.  Our leaders were distracted.”  His account also is sharply critical of Afghan deficiencies, and unsparing in its assessment of operational shortcomings of British, Canadian, German, and other allies.  The book will be useful to analysts of “guerrilla diplomacy” and an “expeditionary foreign service.”

On July 5, 2012, soon after Little America’s publication, former US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker signed an op-ed in The Washington Post praising the work of US civilian and military forces.

Karin Fisher, “On International Education, the Obama Administration’s Rhetoric Doesn’t Always Match Reality,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 4, 2012.  The Chronicle’s international education reporter discusses gaps between the Obama administration’s strong rhetorical commitment to academic and cultural exchanges and actions perceived as superficial and falling short of raised expectations.  Fisher looks at funding cuts in student aid, university partnerships, and foreign language programs; regulatory issues relating to visa policies, academic travel to Cuba, and Confucius Institutes; and new reporting and oversight rules adopted by the Departments of Education and Homeland Security. 

Global Opinion of Obama Slips, International Policies Faulted, Pew Research Center, Global Attitudes Project, June 13, 2012.  In a survey of 21 countries, Pew finds  that “Global approval of President Barack Obama’s international policies has declined significantly since he first took office, but overall confidence in him and attitudes toward the U.S. have slipped only modestly as a consequence.”  Key findings: Drone strikes are widely opposed.  Many, especially in Europe, view China as the world’s economic leader.  Europeans and Japanese remain largely confident in Obama; Muslim publics remain largely critical.  Just 7% of Pakistanis view Obama positively.  Well-regarded aspects of American soft power include its way of doing business; US science and technology; American music, movies, and television; US popular culture; and American ideas about democracy.

InterMedia, Building Support for International Development: Government Decision-makers’ Perceptions of Celebrities as Champions for International Development, Topic Report 1/4, 2012.  This report — part of a larger study based on surveys and interviews with citizens and government officials in France, Germany, the UK and the US — examines government perceptions of benefits and drawbacks in engaging celebrities to advance development goals. InterMedia’s Building Support for International Development project, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, includes an overall report, five country reports, and four topic reports.  Other topic reports focus on public opinion, research organizations, and the role of non-profit organizatons in international development. InterMedia is a global research and evaluation consulting firm.

John Robert Kelley, “The Agenda-Setting Power of Epistemic Communities in Public Diplomacy,” Paper delivered at the International Studies Association Annual Conference, San Diego, April 2012.  Kelley (American University) builds on his earlier arguments about the public diplomacy roles of nonstate actors through idea entrepreneurship, agenda setting, mobilizing, and gatekeeping.  In this paper, he looks at the question of which ideas matter through an examination of links between idea generation and the power of agenda setting.  He gives particular attention to the thinking of Antonio Gramsci and neo-Gramscian critical theory.  Kelley discusses relevant literature, profiles patterns of idea entrepreneurship by epistemic communities, argues the case for their role as public diplomats acting in a nonstate capacity, and offers ideas for research.

Pauline Kerr and Geoffrey Wiseman, eds., Diplomacy in a Globalizing World: Theories and Practices, (Oxford University Press, 2012). The twenty-three chapters compiled by Kerr (Australian National University) and Wiseman (University of Southern California) in this textbook are a significant contribution to the study and practice of 21st century diplomacy.  The authors examine “diplomacy’s historical and contemporary developments; Western and non-Western diplomatic theories and practices; sociological and political theories of diplomacy; and various diplomatic structures, processes, and instruments.”  The chapters, written by senior scholars, are intended to engage students, teachers, and practitioners.  Pedagogical tools include general and special glossaries; reader’s guides, key points, and discussion questions in each chapter; and separate online companion websites for students and instructors.

Public diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find particularly useful overviews on contemporary diplomacy in the editors’ introduction and conclusion and the following chapters:

Brian Hocking (Loughborough University), “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Diplomatic System,” Chapter 7.

Jovan Kurbalija (DiploFoundation), “The Impact of the Internet and ICT on Contemporary Diplomacy,” Chapter 8.

Jan Melissen, (Netherlands Institute of International Affairs Clingendael and University of Antwerp), “Public Diplomacy,” Chapter 9.

Pauline Kerr and Brendan Taylor (Australian National University), “Track Two Diplomacy in East Asia,” Chapter 13.

Ye Zicheng and Zhang Qingmin (Peking University), “China’s Contemporary Diplomacy,” Chapter 16.

Lina Khatib, William Dutton, and Michael Thelwall, “Public Diplomacy 2.0: A Case Study of the US Digital Outreach Team,” The Middle East Journal, Volume 66, Number 3, Summer 2012, 453-472. Khatib (Stanford University), Dutton (Oxford University) and Thelwall (University of Wolverhampton) analyze the potential and challenges that faced a ten person Department of State Digital Outreach Team (DOT) seeking to participate in Internet discussions of President Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009.  The authors provide an overview of literature relevant to uses of social media in diplomacy and trends in US strategy from a “war of ideas” to “global engagement.”  The case study is based on content analysis of themes and rhetorical style, on interpretations of attitudes toward the DOT and US policies, and on interviews with members of the DOT regarding its methods and intended audience.  A thoughtful discussion of the findings, strengths, and limitations of the case, as well as reflections on whether Public Diplomacy 2.0 is worth it, make this a key read on a cutting edge issue.  An earlier pdf version of the article is posted online at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Working Paper 120, January 2011.

William P. Kiehl, ed., The Last Three Feet: Case Studies in Public Diplomacy, Public Diplomacy Council, 2012.  A collection of cases on public diplomacy in overseas contexts written by current and former US Department of State practitioners.  Includes chapters on China (Beatrice Camp), Bahrain (Rachel Graaf Leslie), Turkey (Elizabeth McKay), Indonesia (Michael H. Anderson), Brazil (Jean Manes), Iraq (Aaron Snipe), Pakistan (Walter Douglas), and “Successful Public Diplomacy Officers in the Future” (Bruce Wharton).  The book is based on a conference held in November 2011 at George Washington University co-sponsored by the Public Diplomacy Council, GW’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, and the Walter Roberts Endowment.  The book also includes conference keynote remarks by US Ambassador to Brazil Thomas Shannon, an interview with US Public Diplomacy Envoy Michelle Kwan, and interviews with public diplomacy practitioners at overseas missions.

Thomas Lum, Patricia Moloney Figliola, and Matthew C. Weed, China, Internet Freedom, and U.S. Policy, CRS Report R42601, Congressional Research Service, July 13, 2012.  In this report for Congress, three Congressional Research Service analysts discuss China’s Internet environment; the Chinese government’s Internet censorship systems; and links between the Internet, human rights, and US foreign policy towards China.  Major themes: the Internet as a US policy tool for promoting freedom of expression in China, uses of the Internet by political dissidents, the roles of US Internet companies in China, development of US Internet freedom policies globally, and promotion of Internet freedom by the Bush Administration’s Global Internet Freedom Task Force, the Obama Administration’s NetFreedom Task Force, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the US Department of State.

Andrew MacKay and Steve Tatham, Behavioural Conflict: Why Understanding People and Their Motivations Will Prove Decisive in Future Conflicts, (Military Studies Press, 2011).   Mackay (Major General, ret., British Army) and Tatham (Commander, British Royal Navy) bring years of experience in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan to this study of psychological understanding and influence in contemporary armed conflict.  Their central argument is that people’s behavior and an ability to understand and alter that behavior is becoming “the defining characteristic” of modern warfare.  Their books includes case studies, conceptual and practical issues in strategic communication, and suggestions of what influence and perception might entail in future conflicts.  Includes a foreword by US General (ret.) Stanley McChrystal, an introduction by economist and journalist Tim Harford, and a concluding chapter on “The Science of Influence” by Lee Rowland (Behavioural Dynamics Institute).

Carter Malkasian and J. Kael Weston, “War Downsized: How to Accomplish More With Less,” Foreign Affairs, March/April, 2012, 111-121.  Former State Department Political Officers Malkasian (now at the Center for Naval Analysis) and Weston discuss the limitations of a full “counterinsurgency strategy” in Afghanistan (no longer sustainable) and a pure “counterterrorism strategy” (scarcely more attractive).  Their alternative: relying more on “small, elite advisory teams, living out in the field and working side by side with their Afghan counterparts,” as well as on special operations forces and airpower, in a gradual withdrawal that leaves thousands of US military and civilian advisors in the country after 2014.  For this to work, civilian and military advisors would forego “the giant bases and quick-reaction forces that now epitomize the Western way of war.”  For a profile of Malkasian’s work as a State Department Officer in Afghanistan, see Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “In Afghanistan’s Garmser District, Praise for a U.S. Official’s Tireless Work,” The Washington Post, August 13, 2011.

James Mann, The Obamians: The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power, (Viking, 2012).  Mann (a former journalist now in residence at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and author of Rise of the Vulcans, 2004) assesses the Obama administration’s foreign policy and its new generation of “largely unknown young advisors.”  Includes in-depth profiles of Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes, Special Assistant to the President and the National Security Council’s Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs Samantha Power, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Fluornoy, US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, and former Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg.

Mapping Internationalization on U.S. Campuses: 2012 Edition, American Council on Education, June 27, 2012.  Based on survey data from 3,357 US accredited, degree granting institutions, this is the Council’s third report in ten years (earlier reports in 2001 and 2006).  Key findings: internationalization has accelerated in recent years and has senior-level support, assessment of internationalization efforts and development of student learning outcomes have risen substantially, hiring faculty with international experience is more common, faculty tenure and promotion policies are often overlooked, and international collaboration takes many forms but involves a minority of US campuses.

Evgeny Morozov, “The Folly of Kindle Diplomacy” Slate.com, June 21, 2012. Morozov (Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, and author of The Net Delusion, 2011) assesses the US Department of State’s announced intent to partner with Amazon in a $16.5 million purchase of up to 35,000 Kindles to include approximately $10 million in Kindle books for libraries, reading rooms, and cultural centers.  He finds the rationale “solid — at least in theory.”  Saves money.  Problematic and censored books can be read without attracting government censors.  Promotes the US image as a technology leader.  Morozov challenges the plan, however, as likely to be counterproductive, “in an era of Flame and Stuxnet,” when the US government engineers spyware that exploits software vulnerabilities.  He also questions the selection of Amazon “with no competitive tender.”  US diplomats should experiment with new media technologies, he argues, but do so “in full awareness that their benign intentions might be misinterpreted and occasionally backfire.

Coincidentally or not, on August 15, 2012 the State Department announced cancellation of a $16.5 million order for Amazon’s Kindle touch pads, stating it intends additional market research and a review of requirements for the program.  

Steven Lee Myers, “Hillary Clinton’s Last Tour as a Rock-Star Diplomat,” The New York Times Magazine, June 27, 2012.  Journalist Myers profiles Secretary of State Clinton’s place in the Obama administration, her pragmatic approach to diplomacy, implications of her celebrity and experience as a politician, her policy priorities, and her views on “smart power.”

Martha C. Nussbaum, The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age, (Belknap Press, 2012).  Nussbaum (University of Chicago) looks at ways in which narcissistic fear of religious and cultural differences have influenced politics and ideas about national identity in the US and Europe since 9/11.  With arguments grounded in literature, history, law, and philosophy, Nussbaum examines cases that include laws banning burqas and headscarfs in Europe, Switzerland’s campaign against minarets on mosques, and the proposed Muslim cultural center in lower Manhatten.  She urges an approach that combines political principles that reflect ample and equal respect for conscience, rigorous and impartial critical thinking, and systematic cultivation of imaginative capacities that seek to transcend self-privilege and the narcissism of anxiety.

James Pamment, “What Became of the New Public Diplomacy: Recent Developments in British, US and Swedish Public Diplomacy Policy and Evaluation Methods,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Volume 7, No. 3, 2012, 337-349.  Pamment (Karlstad University) explores relationships between “new public diplomacy” concepts and recent attempts by governments in the UK, the US, and Sweden to develop public diplomacy strategies.  He summarizes policy debates and assesses evaluation methods in each country. His case studies lead him to two conclusions.  First, although improved evaluation methods are important in the new public diplomacy in each country, their role in the practice and culture of public diplomacy institutions is “unresolved and ongoing.”  Second, any paradigm shift from old to new public diplomacy in practice is grounded in “domestic and organizational concerns rather than the achievement of normative goals such as increased dialogue with foreign citizens.”

Christopher Paul, “Challenges Facing U.S. Government and Department of Defense Efforts in Strategic Communication,” Public Relations Review, Volume 38, Issue 2, June 2012, 188-194.  Paul, (RAND, author of Strategic Communication: Origins, Concepts, and Current Debates, 2011), examines challenges to US government strategic communication and suggestions for meeting them.  Challenges include: (1) popular resentment and distrust abroad, (2) difficulties in measuring effectiveness, (3) less constrained adversaries competing in the same information environment, (4) low priority, and (5) negative consequences of expedient choices.  His suggestions include “requiring desired information endstates as part of commander’s intent and separating efforts to manipulate and deceive from truthful efforts to inform, influence, and persuade.”

PBS Newshour, “With High Youth Unemployment, Making Sense of Summer Work Visas for Foreigners,” August 17, 2012.  The Newshour reports (video & text) on economic, employment, cultural exchange, and oversight issues associated with the US Department of State’s J-1 visa program.  Correspondent Paul Solmon interviews US employers, international students holding J-1 visas, US summer work employees, and representatives of the Department of State and the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange (the flagship lobby for US exchange organizations).    

Pew Research Center, Most Muslims Want Democracy, Personal Freedoms and Islam in Political Life, Global Attitudes Project, July 10, 2012.  Pew finds a continuing strong desire for democracy, including competitive elections and free speech, as “the best form of government” in six predominantly Muslim countries.  Key findings:  (1) Substantial support for “a large role for Islam in political life” with “significant differences over the degree to which the legal system should be based on Islam.”  (2) Few believe the US backs democracy in the Middle East.  (3) The economy is a top concern and trumps a good democracy in Jordan, Tunisia, and Pakistan.  (4) Majorities believe women an men should have equal rights.  The survey was conducted in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Turkey from March 19 to April 20, 2012.

David E. Sanger, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, (Crown Publishers, 2012).  The New York Times’ chief Washington correspondent’s latest book focuses on the Obama administration’s strategies in dealing with Iran, Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Arab Spring, China, and North Korea — and its aggressive use of drones and development of cyberwar capabilities.  There is much in his book for public diplomacy scholars and practitioners.  Analysis of “engagement” as “just a tactic, not a real strategy.”  Frustrations, voiced on background by US diplomats in Pakistan, on their difficulties in responding to critics of US drone attacks on Pakistani TV due to Obama’s relative silence in justifying their use.  A post-Arab Spring assessment of Obama’s Cairo speech.  Lots of both on the record and background framing by Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes and other senior officials.  Seven pages contrasting the Voice of America’s shortcomings with its successfulParazit Persian language and Iran targeted comedy program modeled on The Daily Show.  Sanger’s assessment:  “It would be wonderful to imagine that this stroke of brilliance arose from some ingenious thinking in the White House Situation Room or a conference over at the State Department.  No such luck.  It was entirely the brainchild of Hosseini and Arbabi (the show’s Iranian born stars) who do not exactly fit the VOA mold.”  And much more.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, “A Grand Strategy of Network Centrality,” Chapter 3, 45-55, in America’s Path: Grand Strategy for the Next Administration, Center for a New American Security (CNAS), May 2012.  Slaughter (Princeton University) calls for a US grand strategy that understands “the ubiquity and density of global networks” and policies “that operate simultaneously in the world of states and the world of society.”  States, she argues, should seek positions close to the center of critical networks so as “to mobilize, orchestrate and create networks.”  The biggest challenges are choosing which networks to be part of, knowing how to advance US interests within them, and fostering networked solutions to global problems without direct US participation.  Slaughter takes care to recognize a role for states as sovereign units in some “high-stakes negotiations,” but increasingly 21st century strategies will privilege effective participation in “ever-changing and ever-denser” interdependent relations among states and mixed networks of public, private, and civic actors.  Her essay is one of four chapters in this publication edited by CNAS President Richard Fontaine and Executive Vice President Kristin M. Lord. 

U.S. Government Accountability Office, DOD Strategic Communication: Integrating Foreign Audience Perceptions into Policy Making, Plans, and Operations, GAO-12-612R, May 2012.  GAO’s largely descriptive report, consisting of a cover letter to the US Senate Armed Services Committee and images of powerpoint slides, summarizes long-standing and what it describes as unsuccessful efforts by the Defense Department and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to clarify the meaning of strategic communication and provide operational guidance on its use.  The report describes “(1) DOD’s approach to strategic communication, (2) the initial actions that DOD has taken to implement this approach, and (3) DOD’s plans to reflect the roles of its interagency partners in strategic communication.”

Matthew Wallin, The New Public Diplomacy Imperative: America’s Vital Need to Communicate Strategically, White Paper, American Security Project, August 2012.  In this 40-page paper, Wallin (Policy Analyst, American Security Project, Public Diplomacy MA graduate, University of Southern California) offers a definition of public diplomacy, discusses its meaning and importance in national security, and examines structural problems and challenges in US public diplomacy.  His paper analyzes 8 case studies: The Cairo Promises, Branding the Global War on Terror, The Shared Values Initiative, Al Hurra TV, The Karen Hughes Listening Tour, Disaster Relief in Indonesia and Pakistan, The Obama Presidency, and The Tor (internet anonymity software) Project.  He assesses 10 best practices: understand the policy objective, establish a communications goal, identify the target audience, listen, establish a narrative, be truthful, follow through on policy commitments, use force multipliers, don’t reinvent the wheel, and select appropriate medium(s).  He also discusses the importance of metrics and evaluation.

Erika A. Yepsen, Practicing Successful Twitter Diplomacy: A Model and Case Study of U.S. Efforts in Venezuela, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Paper 6, 2012. Yepsen (an active duty US Air Force Public Affairs Officer and George Mason University MA graduate) combines an overview of recent public diplomacy scholarship with research on the use of Twitter by the US Embassy in Venezuela.  Her paper examines Twitter policy limitations for US diplomats that “can steer them away from the very conversations that hold the most potential value.”  Yepsen also identifies limitations in current Twitter research and proposes an “opinion leader network model” as a means to successful engagement.  She tests the model in her case study of Twitter networks in Venezuela and the US Embassy’s Twitter engagement.

In a review of Yepsen’s paper, CPD Research Fellow Anoush Rima Tatevossian calls her opinion leader research method “both robust and replicable.”  It “would be useful in the toolkit of any public diplomat developing, or refining, his or her Twitter strategy: whether it be for tactical listening, strategic listening, or to actually venture into the terrain of two-way engagement.”

Recent Blogs of Interest

Robert Albro, “International Applied Humanities Networks and Global Cultural Engagement,” July 4, 2012.  Posted on CPD Blog and Public Policy Anthropologist Blog.

Ali Fisher, “Smarter Networks and Collaborative Approaches Underpin the Response to 21st Century Diplomacy,” July 20, 2012.  CPD Blog.

Craig Hayden, “Much Ado About Soft Power,” July 31, 2012.  Posted on Intermap Blog.

Donna Oglesby, “More Than You Know,” August 3, 2012.  Posted on CPD Blog.  “Dogma,” August 19, 2012; “Rainmakers,” July 28, 2012; and “Coneflower,” July 17, 2012.  Posted on Winnowing Fan Blog.

Adam Clayton Powell III, “Gallup/BBG Survey: ‘Massive’ Increase in Mobile Phone, Internet Use in Nigeria,” August 16, 2012.  Posted on CPD Blog. 

Gem from the Past

Ruth McMurry and Muna Lee, The Cultural Approach: Another Way in International Relations, (University of North Carolina Press, 1947).  Another look at this excellent book, long out of print and gathering dust on the shelf, was prompted by Robin Brown’s (University of Leeds) reference to it in his recent ISA San Diego paper, “The Four Paradigms of Public Diplomacy: Building a Framework for Comparative Government External Communication Research,” April 2012.  McMurry (a professor at Columbia University) and Lee (a journalist, translator, and researcher for Archibald MacLeish) joined the staff of the Department of State’s Bureau of Cultural Relations during World War II.  The book is a comparative study of government-sponsored cultural relations programs in ten countries: France, Germany, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

Recent compilations of Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites are posted at Arizona State University’s COMOPS Journal, Matt Armstrong’s MountainRunner.us website, and George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. For previous compilations of Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites, visit an archive created by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy.

# # #

“Public Diplomacy as An Instrument of Counterterrorism: A Progress Report”
Remarks by Ambassador (retired) Richard LeBaron

The President’s Round Table
Diplomatic and Consular Officers Retired (DACOR)
DACOR Bacon House
June 20, 2012

First let me thank DACOR for its kind invitation.  I’m delighted to see a number of mentors, former bosses, and old friends in the room.  This is a pretty savvy audience and, for better or worse, it includes my toughest long-term critic.   Many of you have served in senior positions, and at some point you realize that people aren’t always giving you completely frank feedback.   They treat you like a somewhat addled child who needs lots of positive reinforcement, and they are not about to risk the largely imagined consequences of offering constructive criticism.   A spouse or partner has no such compunctions, especially one who has observed you for over thirty-five years.    In the latter part of my career, when Jean and I would climb into the car after an event at which I gave remarks, there was a certain ritual.   First there was a bit of quiet.   If the silence was brief, it was usually followed by medium to high praise.   If it went on a bit, I knew that the grade C or below was about to be awarded, and I soon heard why.   And the grade was always on the mark.  Even when I didn’t like it, I had to agree that she got it right.   So we’ll how this goes.

In the summer of 2010, we had come back to the States for home leave after four consecutive tours overseas.  I was en route to an assignment as an adviser to the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy at State, Judith McHale.    I got a call from a couple of senior officials in her office and in the Counterterrorism (C/T) bureau at the State Department.   They proposed that I lead a new effort to use public diplomacy – that is, overt communications of all kinds – to counter the propaganda of Al Qaeda.    The President had agreed to a proposal by State to launch this new enterprise, and now they were on the hook to deliver.   They had only two guiding principles they wanted me to follow, these coming primarily from State C/T Coordinator Ambassador Dan Benjamin, who was the original author and advocate for the new entity:  it had to be a truly interagency body and it needed to draw effectively on the analytic base of our intelligence community.   It already had a name: the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC), and two or three borrowed staff.

“Now You’re Doing This?”

Once more I received a bracing reality check when I told Jean about my intention to accept this challenge.   She said, and I quote;  “Now you’re doing this?”   Indeed it was nearly ten years after 9/11, and one could have reasonably expected that such efforts had become a routine part of the broader set of programs to eliminate the activities and influence of Al Qaeda.   This was not the case, so one of my first tasks was to try to understand why previous efforts to work against Al Qaeda using public diplomacy had not endured or prospered.   I summarized my conclusions in a memo in September 2010.

But before I talk about those findings, let me insert a quick disclaimer.   I am not a public diplomacy officer and I’m not a counter-terrorism expert.   I’m an old-fashioned Foreign Service generalist who, in the course of a long career, worked quite a bit on counterterrorism issues with interagency partners and other governments and served with scores of gifted public diplomacy professionals.   So I brought to this task the normal State Department mix:  limited expertise, little time to get up to speed, and only a few preconceptions about how to tackle the problem.    And I certainly did not question the good intentions, the hard work and the commitment of people who conceived previous efforts to counter the message of the terrorists, some of whom joined the new Center.

Lessons from Previous Attempts

What I found when I spoke to people about the previous attempt to employ public diplomacy in the fight against terror was a set of inter-related issues that I thought needed to be addressed if any new enterprise were to have a chance of sustained existence, let alone success in actually carrying out the mission.    First, there was the question of leadership.   Despite lots of high-level initial enthusiasm for previous efforts, senior figures at State did not sustain their interest and they tended to treat this work as something that could be carried out by an informally cobbled together group of individuals, rather than a permanent body within the system.   Perhaps related to this first problem, other elements of State and the interagency hesitated to invest in a product that did not seem to have a strong institutional base or sustained leadership support.   Previous messaging projects had a spotty record in the way that they tapped into the intelligence community to inform their work, failing to establish systems and procedures to tap into the IC in a coherent manner.   In addition, they sometimes succumbed to “mission creep,” or conceived their mission in such broad ways, for example, the so called “war of ideas,” as to make it so diffuse that it was difficult to see where it began and ended.   I also perceived that the efforts had largely been headquarters-driven with little input from professionals in the field and very mixed buy-in from our missions abroad.   And finally, in the memo I wrote summarizing my findings, I thought it worth emphasizing that this is a “hard problem.”   There are no simple fixes.  We’re trying to influence the behavior of people who are very hard to reach and view the world through a far different prism.    It’s not really much like selling carbonated beverages or tablet computers, and we should be cautious or at least selective about the lessons we draw from the marketing and advertising worlds.

Building Blocks

As we assembled a team to build CSCC, these lessons of the past loomed large.   Frankly, the number of skeptics in late 2010, both within State and in other agencies, easily outnumbered those who thought this latest effort would somehow be different from its predecessors.   So as we built capacity, we had to constantly prove value, even before we had genuine capability to do so.   The Air Force doesn’t often fly an airplane and build it at the same time, but we didn’t have a choice.   We quickly focused on two or three key elements:  First, put CSCC on a solid institutional basis within State and the interagency.   That meant simple but basic things like obtaining a unique organizational code, thus giving the organization an identity that a bureaucratic system can comprehend.   It also meant making sure that we had the White House and National Security Council support needed in order to be seen as a truly legitimate interagency organization.   This was partly achieved through an Executive Order, which was issued a year after we started work, after we had convinced most interagency partners that we were serious.  It also meant establishing a sensible budget for at least two years.    All this sounds like a bunch of inside Washington bureaucratic baseball, and it is exactly that, but I would contend it was one of my most important contributions, because it positioned CSCC to actually carry out its mission.

I’m equally proud of the people who built CSCC.  They came from State, from SOCOM, from the Open Source Center and other IC elements and from outside government.   They brought a wealth of experience, a desire to innovate and make a difference, and a high tolerance for my idiosyncrasies.   The experience reinforced for me just how critical it is to find the right people for the job.   But let me make a very important point here: it would not have happened without Secretary Clinton’s personal interest and intervention at key junctures.   When I was at wits end in getting the kind of responses we needed to move forward, Secretary Clinton did the heavy lifting.

My next priority was to quickly build the link to the analytic side of the intel community.   This is reflected in the structure of the CSCC, with one side led by a senior intel officer who leads analysis to inform the actions of the operations side.    From the early days, the IC provided extraordinary people to serve with CSCC.  They are not only gifted analysts in their own right, they are expected to reach back into their organizations for additional specific analytical expertise needed for projects.   This integration of intelligence into the world of Public Diplomacy remains a work in progress, and we literally broke some new ground in the process.  We built at State the first PD SCIF, a secure facility in which intel analysts can readily process their products and work together more closely with communicators.   That kind of facility costs money, and it shows commitment.   And in that regard, I should mention the role of former Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy Judith McHale.  She found the money to get CSCC started, to build the SCIF, to bring on additional staff.   At the same time, she helped give us the political space to build and innovate, never micromanaging but consistently supportive.   And her successors have been equally helpful, explicitly recognizing countering violent extremism as an objective of U.S. public diplomacy.

There was another reason I thought it was so important to emphasize a strong analytical base, not all from intelligence, but from many sources.   It quickly became clear to us that we needed to spend much more effort on understanding our audience, before trying to determine the best messaging content or technique.  We commissioned work on the evolving narrative of Al Qaeda and focused increased analytical attention on its affiliates.   We enlisted outside scholars to advise us about these groups and the environments in which they operate.   We established a strong working relationship with a similar organization in the British government to build shared analytical findings.   And finally, on our analytical side, we began to develop an ability to measure our outputs and their impact.

So What’s the Product?

So what did we actually do in the way of communications?   I left at the end of February, so my information will already be dated, but let me provide a few examples of techniques we employed in the first year and a half of CSCC.    We essentially had three lines of action: digital engagement, providing tools to communicators, and working with specific country teams.

We inherited, re-focused and grew the Digital Outreach Team, now made up of twenty or so native of Arabic, Urdu and Somali.  These individuals, whose work has been highlighted often by Secretary Clinton in public statements, engage directly in discussions on online forums and produce tailored videos and social media campaigns.   Their intent is to influence the debates that take place online, making sure that there is some counter-balance to the extremist voices that encourage violence.   They don’t try to convert the converted; they do try to reduce the number of new adherents to violence.  In addition to engaging in conversations online, (all openly attributed), they use the videos they produce – mash-ups drawn from easily available sources – to reinforce the same points, often pointing to the weakness of the Al Qaeda arguments.

Our second approach was to provide materials for use by our posts and other U.S. government communicators.  These included “communications templates” on ways to respond quickly to a terrorist kidnapping, or to employ the voices of victims of terrorism as a counter to the terror narrative, as a couple of examples.  With the Open Source Center, we developed an online community within the government to draw together useful material on our target audiences and the weaknesses of Al Qaeda and its affiliates.   For example, we collected written and visual media on one of Al Qaeda’s clear vulnerabilities – its horrible record of killing fellow Muslims.   We also supported a small grants program for a selection of our posts overseas to work with local NGOs and other groups on demonstrations of the resilience of communities in the face of terror.   With these projects, we were testing the hypothesis that resilience can be strong counter-balance to terrorism, positing that despite attacks by terror groups, countries and societies are able to move on and prosper without fundamental changes and without being mired in the chaos and fear that terrorists hope to create.

Our third area of emphasis was to design communications support for specific posts in countries confronting terror threats and incidents.  In the case of Pakistan, we helped the post develop a communications framework for countering violent extremism and we recruited two talented Pakistani-Americans to engage the Pakistani government and civil society on these issues.   Similarly we focused considerable effort on assisting our State and military professionals in the field working to counter Al Shabab in Somalia.   These programs with individual posts, which were expanding gradually when I left, work on the somewhat obvious principle that you have to be close to the problem to understand it, let alone influence it.   What we had not completely bargained for, however, was the degree of complexity in addressing the issues, and I want to come back to that later when I talk a little about lessons learned.

Role of Outside Factors

In the midst of building CSCC, two exogenous variables need to be mentioned that had a tremendous impact on our work.   First, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself afire in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia in December 2010 and thus commenced a series of events that continue to play out.   From our point of view, one of the primary effects of this was to essentially push Al Qaeda into the background, at least temporarily.   Al Jazeera, for example, had better things to cover and the people of the Middle East were focused on seizing the opportunity for democracy and not interested in the least in Zawahiri’s strange off key statements.   The second outside factor was of course the demise of Al Qaeda’s senior leadership, including Osama Bin Ladin and other key planners and communicators.   The role of the affiliates in Yemen and Somalia expanded, but the notion of a centrally organized, effective Al Qaeda receded precipitously, and thus their ability to recruit talent dropped off as well.

What Works?

Finally, we developed a pretty strong paradigm on what we thought worked and what didn’t in the substance of counterterrorism communications.   Hammering away at the weaknesses and contradictions of Al Qaeda is critical.   Our intended audience is trying to decide whether to engage in violence.  Our objective was to nudge them away from that path by sowing doubt about terrorist organizations.   We were not focused on their level of admiration or distaste for the United States; we were not focused on whether they liked us or not; we were not focused on selling the American way of life.   Others in the PD arena deal with those issues using a variety of other tools.   Our reason for being was to help reduce the pool of recruits to violence by influencing this small group and the immediate environment around them.   I did not see us as waging a war of ideas, but rather engaging in repeated focused interventions to denigrate the ideas and practices of the terrorists.  The idea of terrorism against the United States is neither widespread nor widely accepted in any part of the world, just as domestic terrorism is neither widespread nor widely accepted in this country.   To protect the United States, we felt that we needed to maintain a disciplined focus on that very small, but potentially very dangerous, group of individuals who are tempted to violence.   That’s pretty specialized Public Diplomacy and it demands considerable skill and rigor.

Lessons Learned

Let me wind up with a few lessons learned and modest suggestions.   As I said, this is specialized work.  The typical State PD officer at a U.S. missions abroad has a broad portfolio of activities that he or she manages, most of them focused on defense of current policy to foreign audiences or organizing exchange and cultural programs.   It is difficult to expect these officers, already stretched, to devote the time and effort necessary to carry out complex programs aimed at very narrow audiences.   As I left CSCC, I was coming to the conclusion that if we are to succeed in the field as C/T communicators, we need to send people to the field who are experienced and specialized in this type of work.   I sum it up this way: as a nation, we invest in and deploy SEAL teams to do very specialized, very difficult counterterrorism work.   We need to adopt the same approach to the people we ask to carry out very specialized and very difficult PD functions.   In order to effectively counter the terrorist message, they need deep foreign language skills, they need considerable experience working in the cultures where there target audience lives, and they need back up from a sophisticated analytical apparatus.   And the system and budgets need to permit the time and latitude to grow and sustain this expertise.   The seeds of this approach already exist in CSCC, in the Military Information Support Operations (MISO) teams, and in small pockets elsewhere in the system, but the time has come for an interagency focus on building and nurturing high quality in C/T communications teams, equivalent to the quality of SEAL teams.   I believe CSCC should be entrusted with that responsibility.

My second observation is about interagency cooperation.   I believe CSCC has offered a good example of an interagency effort that actually works.   We quickly assembled a team of thirty or so very talented people with a range of agency affiliations.   But this cooperation requires attention by the leadership, or it will wither and die.   As agency budgets contract, one would hope that the impulse would be to find better ways to share responsibilities and capabilities, and I think most senior officials would agree with me, in principle.   However, I fear the opposite will occur – that agencies will circle the wagons around pet programs and pull back from interagency enterprises.   Whenever we briefed Congressional staff about CSCC, they were universally supportive and staffers often asked how they could help.  I consistently told them that finding ways to recognize and reward agencies for effective interagency cooperation was at the top of my list.

A third observation concerns overt communications, that is, public diplomacy versus. various other forms of influence.   Long before I took up the CSCC job, I questioned those who said that we have to rely on other credible voices to carry the anti-terror message.   They have credibility that official U.S. government sources can’t match went the argument.   I agree that a range of other voices certainly have a place, but not for a minute do I think that the voice of the U.S. government is irrelevant or lacking an audience.   It’s one of the best brands around – people everywhere want to know what we think and many of them want us to know what they think.   They may not agree with us, but we should not mistake that for lack of interest.   The terrorist propagandists on the web, for example, often reacted in ugly ways and strong language to our Digital Outreach Team’s postings, but we know that they felt compelled to react and to defend their bankrupt ideas.

I’ll close by thanking DACOR again for this opportunity to get on the record a few observations about what I learned working on a worthy project with a group of committed, bright and fun public servants – civilian and military.   When I hear some of the current vicious commentary against government service, I can only say that those stereotypes don’t resemble the public servants I have known.   They deserve our respect and gratitude.   And I thank for your kind attention.

***

Ambassador (retired) Richard LeBaron recently left the State Department after a thirty three year career.   He led CSCC from September 2010 to February 2012.  His previous positions included Ambassador to Kuwait, Deputy Chief of Mission in London and Tel Aviv, and a variety of other positions in Washington and overseas.    

Guests posts are the opinions of the respective authors, do not necessarily reflect the opinion of MountainRunner.us, and are published here to further the discourse on activities that intend to understand, inform, and influence.

What is it about U.S. public diplomacy that we must hide it from Americans? Is it so abhorrent that it would embarrass the taxpayer, upset the Congress (which has surprisingly little additional insight on the details of public diplomacy), or upend our democracy? Of our international broadcasting, such as the Voice of America, do we fear the content to be so persuasive and compelling that we dare not permit the American media, academia, nor the Congress, let alone the mere layperson, to have the right over oversight to hold accountable their government? [Read the rest here]

Also, be sure to see Josh Rogin’s Much ado about State Department ‘propaganda’.

If you are attending the event at the Heritage Foundation today, “Understanding the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act,” at 3p ET (apparently it will be webcast), and you’re on the fence or opposed to the availability of State Department public diplomacy material domestically, would you be so kind as to provide examples from the field of what Americans should not know about?

And, if you are attending that Heritage event today, do read my post at the Public Diplomacy Council website, particularly the paragraph about the difference between access and dissemination, existing language in the law to promote the free flow of information outside Government control, and whether State should have separate coverage from the BBG.

See also:

• Congress, the State Department, and “communistic, fascistic, and other alien influences”
• 2009 Smith-Mundt Symposium report and transcripts
• Ambassador George Venable Allen, Smith-Mundt, and the Voice of America

Many of the negative narratives swirling around the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act are based on assumptions and myths that, like true propaganda, have an anchor in reality but stray from the facts to support false conclusions. These fabrications include the false assertion the Act ever applied to the whole of Government, often specifically the Defense Department (there is a separate “no propaganda” law for the Defense Department), as well the more broad and fundamental confusion, and lack of knowledge, of the nature and content of America’s public diplomacy with foreign audiences.

An honest appraisal of the Modernization Act requires an honest representation of the original Smith-Mundt Act, especially it’s so-called “firewall.” Drawing on my forthcoming book on the history of the Smith-Mundt Act, below is a brief account on the primary cause behind the Congress legislating that the State Department shall “disseminate abroad information about the U.S., the American people, and the policies promulgated by the Congress, the President, the Secretary of State and other responsible officials of Government having to do with matters affecting foreign affairs.”

It is true that Nazi propaganda and President Woodrow Wilson’s Committee for Public Information, also known as the Creel Commission, were fresh on the minds of the Congress. As with so much about Smith-Mundt, ironically, these memories had a very substantial in role in creating the demand for the Voice of America. Too often ignored, however, was the effort to protect the Government from a State Department that enjoyed little trust and confidence from the Congress. From the information activities to the programs for the “interchange of persons, knowledge, and skills,” the Congress made its clear its concerns that the State Department may intentionally, or inadvertently, undermine the American way of life for reasons ranging from the “New Dealers” to the liberal culture of the Department itself.

The concern over Government “propaganda,” the lessons from the Nazis, Fascists, Communists, Creel, and an interest to protect domestic media, were codified in the Smith-Mundt Act. The Modernization Act specifically highlights, in the peculiar way laws are written, these “safeguards”: “Such material may be made available within the United States and disseminated, when appropriate, pursuant to sections 502 and 1005 of the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (22 U.S.C. 1462 and 1437)…” In other words, to use private media whenever possible and to not have a monopoly in any medium. (The former is also a sunset clause, as highlighted by Members of Congress, the media, and the State Department, which is described in my forthcoming book.)

Perhaps it should not be surprising that most people – from pundits to practitioners to lawmakers – do not know about these protections as law makers, the media, and the scholarly community in the 1970s and 1980s focused on preventing U.S. domestic access to and awareness of what the United States Information Agency was doing abroad.

***

In 1945, the Department released a report it commissioned on the future of the international information environment. This report, emphasizing the rise of public opinion in the conduct of foreign affairs, opened with “Modern international relations lie between peoples, not merely governments.”

What we know today as the Smith-Mundt Act had a hearing on the Hill in the House Foreign Affairs Committee of the 79th Congress in October 1945, two months after President Truman abolished the Office of War Information and transferred the foreign information service to the State Department. It was known as the Bloom Bill after the Democrat chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. It was actually the second attempt by the chairman to enable the State Department to engage and inform foreign publics. The first try, in February 1944, failed to leave the committee because of too great a focus on arts.

Testifying on behalf of the need to make the Voice of America permanent, as well as other information and exchange activities, was the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. This Assistant Secretary position, barely a year old, reflected the Department’s growing appreciation of the changing world.

The Bloom Bill was referred to the Rules Committee in December 1945 where it stalled. In February, the Rules Committee chairman, Eugene Cox (D-GA), informed the State Department the bill would not move forward because, according to Cox, ten of the twelve committee members were against anything the State Department favored because of the “Communist infiltration and pro-Russian policy” of the Department. Later, when Cox and the Rules Committee did finally allow the bill to move on, the ranking minority member of the House Appropriations Committe, John Taber (R-NY), called for a “house-cleaning” of the State Department to “keep only those people whose first loyalty is to the United States” before any funds would be appropriated for the Bloom Bill.

In June, the bill was amended by Rep. John M. Vorys (R-OH) “to remove the stigma of propaganda” and address the principle objections to the information activities it was authorizing. Inserted were the true “anti-propaganda” elements of the law, referred to in today’s Modernization Act as sections 1437 and 1462. The international information dissemination should only be conducted if it was needed to supplement the activities of private agencies, or lack of activities or lack of private agencies. Further, the State Department was prohibited from acquiring a monopoly in “broadcasting or any other information medium.” Lastly, the private sector leaders were to be invited to review and advise the State Department in its work. (The following year, when the Bloom Bill was reintroduced as the Smith-Mundt Bill, Rep. Everett Dirksen (R-IL) refined the outside advisement amendment with an amendment that established the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information, later renamed as the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.)

On July 20, 1946, the Bloom Bill passed the House by a two-thirds vote. It was blocked in the Senate by Sen. Robert Taft (R-OH). Taft said later at the Ohio state Republican convention that the Bloom Bill and VOA suppressed “independence of thought and speech and of the press” as VOA and State “attacked all prominent opponents of left-wing philosophy” and aided in “building up a left-wing and even Communist philosophy in the news papers and on the radio.”

The bill was resurrected in the 80th “Do Nothing” Republican Congress as a Republican bill under the stewardship of Rep. Karl Mundt (R-ND) and Sen. Alexander Smith (R-NJ). There were more hearings on privatizing VOA, this time by the Senate Appropriations Committee. While the Associated Press and the United Press opposed Bloom and Smith-Mundt, many major media organizations actively backed the Bloom and Smith-Mundt, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, the Washington Star, and the Chicago Times.  CBS and NBC produced a combined 42% of VOA’s output. David Sarnoff, president of RCA, and Philip D. Reed, chairman of GE, wrote favorable editorials supporting Smith-Mundt. CBS, NBC and other media industry leaders read a joint statement at an appropriations committee hearing, stating “We regard the maintenance and development of international broadcasting as a matter of vital importance to the United States. Private industry cannot finance international broadcasting on the scale required.” Signing the statement were Sarnoff; Reed; Niles Trammell, president of the National Broadcasting Company; Walter Evans, president of Westinghouse Electric Corporation; Wesley I. Dumm, president of the Associated Broadcasting System; Walter S. Lemmon, president of the World Wide Broadcasting Foundation; and E.J. Boos, vice president of the Crosley Radio Corporation.

But the distrust of State remained. Rep. Fred Busbey (R-IL) sought to delay the bill until the State Department was cleaned up: “I believe there should be in the State Department an Office of Information and Cultural Affairs, but it should be free of communistic, fascistic, and other alien influences.” Congressman Clare Hoffman (R-MI) believed the exchange program was for the State Department to establish an espionage net directed against the United States.

Eugene Cox, now an advocate for Smith-Mundt, termed the international information programs an “activity which is essential to the security and welfare of the country.” Cox asked, “Are we to deny ourselves the right to tell our own story?”

The House approved the Smith-Mundt Bill in June 1947 before the summer recess. It was approved by the Senate in December and signed into law January 27, 1948.

***

It was the intent of the 79th and 80th Congresses that the U.S. media and the Congress would provide vigilance and safeguards to protect the American people, and the Government, from State Department information created for and disseminate to foreign audiences. In 1972 and 1985, however, the Congress decided that neither the media nor the Congress could be trusted to filter USIA material to the American public resulting in a FOIA exemption for USIA material. In other words, a FOIA request for USIA material would be denied. Adding to the irony surrounding the Smith-Mundt Act, the 1967 Advisory Commission on Information recommended, a year after passage of the Freedom of Information Act, that the “de facto rather than de jure” prohibition on domestic dissemination should be eliminated to reflect the “open-door” policy implemented through FOIA on the government.

The result is what the Government says and does in the name of the American taxpayer is hidden from view. The transparency, oversight, awareness and accountability, contrary to the intent of the Congress sixty-four years ago, are gone. The so-called Second Mandate of the USIA to inform Americans about the world is gone.

As the prohibition is on availability and not consumption, the prohibition many assert should remain in place, if not strengthened, means the websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds for VOA, RFE/RL, and other BBG websites, as well as the websites and Facebook pages of the U.S. Embassies, should not be available to computers inside America. This was clearly not the intent of the 79th and 80th Congress. Indeed, the oversight was of such importance to the Congress that it established an advisory commission to supervise worldwide programming and activities of the State Department. That commission was not renewed by the Senate last year.

When discussing the Smith-Mundt Act, let’s keep the debate on the facts and personal views and concerns and not make assertions and attributions based on myths of the past. Likewise, it is important to remember that access is not the same as dissemination.

See also:

• 1948 Brookings Institute report recommending Americans be able to see VOA and other State Department material for foreign audiences: “what is safe for foreign audiences to get should be safe for our own people.”
• 1967 report of the Advisory Commission on Information
• Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 introduced in the House
• Public Law 80-402 - the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, as signed into law on January 27, 1948. (H.R. 3342)
• Reforming Smith-Mundt: Making American Public Diplomacy Safe for Americans by Matt Armstrong at World Politics Review
• ACLU statement supporting the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012: ”This is therefore more a question of government transparency and accountability than government propaganda, and the ban should be dispensed with.”

ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, “Arab Youth Survey 2012,” May 2, 2012. In this fourth annual survey of young Arabs in 12 countries, 82 percent say economic concerns, “fair pay and home ownership,” are their top priority, displacing “living in a democracy” as their greatest concern. Other findings: optimism about the future and trust in government have increased; lack of democracy and civil unrest are viewed as obstacles to progress; the UAE is seen as a model country; views of France, China, and India are more favorable; and “news consumption skyrockets” with TV viewership declining and online activity up dramatically. A 24-page White Paper, “After the Spring,” discusses the survey’s findings and methodology.

Robin Brown, “The Four Paradigms of Public Diplomacy: Building a Framework for Comparative Government External Communications Research,” Paper delivered at the International Studies Association Conference, San Diego, April 2012. Brown (University of Leeds) urges a comparative research agenda that looks at why public diplomacy is the way it is — an approach he distinguishes from an agenda grounded in how to make it better. He discuses four ideal types that give rise to fruitful propositions about the purposes and nature of public diplomacy and how it should be conceptualized: (1) public diplomacy as an extension of diplomacy; (2) public diplomacy as national projection, now viewed as nation-branding; (3) external communication for cultural relations; and (4) external communication as political warfare. Brown discusses the utility of these paradigms for understanding organizational differences and mapping changes across time and countries.

Caitlin Byrne, “Public Diplomacy and Constructivism: A Synergistic and Enabling Relationship,” Paper delivered at the International Studies Association Annual Conference, San Diego, April 2012. Byrne (Bond University) looks at ways in which constructivist theories of international relations can inform public diplomacy practice. She draws on Australia’s approach to diplomacy and explores what diplomatic practice offers as “a vehicle for operationalizing constructivist approaches.” A diplomacy practitioner turned scholar, Bryne approaches the connection between theory and practice “with an element of caution” and keen awareness of its possibilities.

Derek Chollet and Samantha Power, eds., The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World, (Public Affairs, 2011). Chollet (author of The Road to the Dayton Accords: A Study of American Statecraft) and Power (founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University) compile essays by Holbrooke’s colleagues, journalists, and others who had a special relationship with him. Includes contributions by Kati Marton, Strobe Talbott, E. Benjamin Skinner, Jonathan Alter, Gordon M. Goldstein, Roger Cohen, Derek Chollet, James Traub, John Tedstrom, David Rhode, and Samantha Power. The essays provide insights into Holbrooke’s personality, opinions, diplomatic skills and style, and events in his life and career. For an essay-length critique of the book and an argument that “Holbrooke’s actions and philosophy were problematic,” see Ted Galen Carpenter, “The Hagiography of Mr. Holbrooke,” The National Interest, Number 119, May/June 2012, 71-80.

Eliot A. Cohen, Conquered Into Liberty, (Free Press, 2011). Cohen (Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies) looks at how two centuries of conflict among British, French, Canadians, Americans, and Indians in the corridor between Albany and Montreal shaped a “distinctive American way of war.” Because Americans episodically “discover” public diplomacy in wartime, there is much of interest to diplomacy scholars and practitioners. An early French advantage over the English in woodland diplomacy and propaganda. Lessons learned by the American colonies from British mistakes. Canada’s “practical anthropology” skills in engaging Indian cultures. Mastery of Indian languages by French Jesuits. America’s use of armed conflict as an instrument of democratization. In a public letter distributed widely to the citizens of Quebec, Congress wrote: “You have been conquered into liberty, if you act as you ought.” Instructions to Benjamin Franklin for his diplomatic mission to Canada in 1776 contain this early “say-do” gap in American diplomacy: “You are to establish a free press . . . and give directions for the frequent publication of such pieces as may be of service to the cause of the United Colonies.”

Edward Comor and Hamilton Bean, “America’s ‘Engagement’ Delusion: Critiquing a Public Diplomacy Consensus,” International Communication Gazette, March 28, 2012. Comor (University of Western Ontario) and Bean (University of Colorado, Denver) challenge the central concept of engagement in the Obama administration’s diplomacy. Their claim: engagement’s conceptual emphasis on dialogue and interaction masks intent in practice to use social media and other tools of engagement to persuade audiences to support US policies. An “ethical public diplomacy,” they contend, should embrace genuine rather than contrived dialogue.

Creating an Independent International Strategic Communication Organization for America: Business Plan, SAGE: Strengthening America’s Global Engagement, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, March 2012. The SAGE business plan offers a roadmap for creating a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation — a “flexible, entrepreneurial, and tech-savvy partner” that will complement government public diplomacy. The plan draws on recommendations in reports by the Brookings Institution, the Defense Science Board, the Council on Foreign Relations and others. It was developed by five nonpartisan working groups consisting of some 80 former government practitioners and experts from the private sector and civil society. It was launched in Washington on March 26, 2012, at meeting hosted by Woodrow Wilson Center President Jane Harmon with a panel that included former US Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, former State Department Director of Policy Planning Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Goli Ameri, and SAGE Project Director Brad Minnick. For a brief summary and comment, see Matt Armstrong’s Mountain Runner blog of March 27, 2012.

“InterMedia’s Ali Fisher Discusses the Changing Digital Landscape,” Intermedia, December 21, 2011. In this brief video interview with Wilton Park Chief Executive Richard Burge, Fisher (InterMedia’s Associate Director of Digital Media) discusses advances in social media, tools that enable digital programming by non-specialists, and anticipated changes over the horizon.

John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life, (The Penguin Press, 2011). George Kennan, widely acclaimed as one of America’s most accomplished diplomats, is not usually thought to have contributed to the rise of public diplomacy in the second half of the 20th century. In this masterful biography, however, Gaddis (Yale University) shows there is much that public diplomacy scholars and practitioners can learn from Kennan’s career, organizational changes in the Department of State, and events with which Kennan was associated. Examples include:
– Kennan’s views on the psychological effects of actions, particularly his view that racism at home undercut diplomacy and America’s standing abroad.
– His entrepreneurial diplomatic style and willingness to take personal and professional risks in the field and Department of State.
– His public speaking in the United States at the request of Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs William Benton.
– A strong belief in professional education as a necessary complement to training.
– His storied role in creating a grand strategy studies curriculum for soldiers and diplomats at the National War College.
– His contributions to the creation of the National Committee for Free Europe and Radio Free Europe.
– His founding role and effective use of the State Department’s policy planning office as an instrument of strategic planning.
– State’s one time insistence on education as well as training. Kennan as a junior officer was sent to Tallinn and Berlin not only to learn Russian but for post-graduate studies — with instructions to gain “an education similar to that which an educated Russian of the pre-revolutionary era would have received.”
And much more.

Fergus Hanson, Revolution @State: The Spread of EDiplomacy, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney, Australia, March 2012. Written while on a four-month professional Fulbright research project in Washington, Hanson (Research Fellow and Director of Polling, Lowy Institute) enthusiastically contends the “US State Department has become the world’s leading user of ediplomacy.” His study examines State’s use of Ediplomacy in eight program areas, with knowledge management, public diplomacy, and Internet freedom taking the largest share of resources and staff. Hanson’s sweeping and problematic conclusion: “State now operates what is effectively a global media empire, reaching a larger direct audience than the paid circulation of the ten largest US dailies and employing an army of diplomat-journalists to feed its 600-plus platforms.” He argues that Australia’s foreign ministry has “some catching up to do.”

Craig Hayden, “Audience, Mechanism, and Objective: A Comparative Framework for Soft Power Analysis,” Paper presented to the International Studies Association conference in San Diego, April 2, 2012. Hayden (American University and Intermap Blog) offers an alternative to categories of resources and behaviors in Joseph Nye’s analytical concept of soft power. Hayden’s constructivist methodology seeks an understanding of soft power through a pragmatic and contingent perspective grounded in three categories: (1) audience and scope, or the subjects and objects of soft power; (2) mechanism, the ways actors connect resources to behaviors; and (3) objectives, or the range of outcomes anticipated from effective uses of soft power. His article explores his reasoning in brief case studies of uses of soft power by the US and China. He examines what he calls “the facilitative turn” in 21st century networked diplomacy and provides helpful references to current literature in public diplomacy scholarship.

Nat Kretchun and Jane Kim, A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media Environment, InterMedia, Washington, DC, May 2012. In this report, Kretchun (Intermedia) and Kim (East-West Coalition) show “how North Koreans’ growing access to a range of media and communication technologies is undermining the state’s monopoly on what its citizens see, hear, know, and think.” Drawing on research among refugees, travelers and defectors from North Korea, the authors conclude that despite lack of evidence that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un plans to loosen state control of media and information, the reach of uncensored media is expanding and giving many North Koreans alternative news and views.

Teresa La Porte, “The Legitimacy and Effectiveness of Non-State Actors and the Public Diplomacy Concept,” Paper delivered at the International Studies Association Conference, San Diego, April 2012. La Porte (University of Navarra) examines the rise of civil society organizations as public diplomacy actors. She proposes an approach to public diplomacy that goes beyond dialogue and networking in state-centric terms to include actions by non-state actors. Her paper explores what this might mean in terms of analytical concepts and boundaries. She calls for taking analysis beyond a focus on actors as “subjects” to a focus on the “objects” of their actions. Two such objects, the “legitimacy” of actions and “perceptions of effectiveness,” she argues, are important pre-conditions to recognizing civil society organizations as diplomatic actors. She discusses these pre-conditions in the context of two practice scenarios and the European Union’s public diplomacy.

Marc Lynch, The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East, (Public Affairs, 2012). Lynch (George Washington University) brings scholarship, Arabic proficiency, his standing as a leading voice in online discourse, policy advisory connections, and a deep understanding of the Arab public sphere to this account of the origins and implications of changes in the Middle East. Hard power and wealth will continue to matter, he argues, but loosened state control, independent mobilization of activists, and unification of Arab political space are generating three challenges that will matter more: (1) the ability to credibly align with the Arab public on its core issues will become a greater source of influence; (2) unified political space will increase linkages between issues in the region; and (3) the ability to intervene in the domestic politics of others, while resisting penetration of one’s own politics, will determine whether a state is a player or an arena for the proxy wars of others. Lynch’s pragmatism and historical insights form the basis for an assessment of America’s grand strategy and public diplomacy in the region.

Meridian International Center and Gallup, “US Global Leadership Track,” The U.S.-Global Leadership Project, April 20, 2012. Findings in Gallup’s third annual survey of international perceptions in 130 countries show median global approval of US leadership at 46%. Three countries “experienced double digit gains. Many more showed double digit losses. Africa gave US leadership the highest median approval rating, while the Americas gave it the lowest. In Europe and Asia, approval ratings held relatively steady.”

Metzgar, Emily T., “Public Diplomacy, Smith-Mundt and the American Public,” Communication Law and Policy, 17:1, 67-101. Available online: January 9, 2012. Metzgar (Indiana University) explores political, legal, policy, conceptual, and practitioner issues relating to the US statutory ban on domestic dissemination in the Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 as amended (aka, the Smith-Mundt Act). Her article, framed in the context of US international broadcasting, looks at consequences of continuing or ending the ban and potential policy advantages that might result from its repeal. Includes numerous references to current and historical literature.

Joseph S. Nye, “Soft Power — Culture and Society,” Keynote address at the launch of Macquarie University’s Soft Power and Advocacy Research Center (SPARC), Sydney, Australia, April 17, 2012. Nye (Harvard University) discusses concepts of soft power in the context of the “rise of China,” US relations with China, and evolving relations between China, India, and Australia. His address (with Q&A) is available as a 90-minute ABC “Big Ideas” video and audio webcast. Macquarie’s SPARC Center seeks to advance the study and practice of soft power and public diplomacy through research, education and training, post-graduate courses in public diplomacy, and other initiatives.

Office of Inspector General, US Department of State, “Inspection of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs,” Report No. ISP-I-12-15, February 2012. In a 68-page report (some sections redacted), State’s Inspector General concludes that the Department’s exchange programs “enhance mutual understanding” and “are increasingly aligned with foreign policy priorities.” Their effectiveness is undermined, however, by “long-standing institutional weaknesses.” Key judgments include employee resistance to changes “fundamental to operating efficiently,” needed senior management restructuring, “unfettered growth and weak regulation” of the Summer Work Travel program, inadequate strategic planning, and deficiencies in program monitoring and evaluation.

PBS NewsHour, “China’s Programming for U.S. Audiences: Is it News or Propaganda?” March 23, 2012. The NewsHour’s Ray Suarez reports on CCTV’s news programs for American audiences recently launched from a state-of-the-art broadcast studio in Washington, DC. Includes views of CCTV America’s director Ma Jing and news anchor Philip Yin and analysts Susan Shirk (University of California) and Philip Cunningham (Cornell University).

Shawn M. Powers and William Youmans, “A New Purpose for International Broadcasting: Subsidizing Deliberative Technologies in Non-transitioning States,” Journal of Public Deliberation, Vol. 8, Issue 1, 2012, 1-14. Powers (Georgia State University) and Youmans (George Washington University) argue “a scaled down standard of deliberation is appropriate” in failed or failing states that lack advanced communication infrastructures, high literacy rates, and other elements of highly developed public spheres. Their paper examines the potential for international broadcasting strategies that seek to complement traditional roles by finding new purpose in “the development and promotion of deliberation technologies.”

Gary Rawnsley, “Approaches to Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in China and Taiwan,” Paper delivered at the International Studies Association Conference, San Diego, April 2012. Rawnsley (University of Leeds and Public Diplomacy and International Communications Blog) analyzes Taiwanese and Chinese views of soft power, their adaptation of the Anglo-American model of soft power, and their contrasting public diplomacy strategies and practices. He argues each faces different challenges that undermine their soft power capacity: Taiwan’s need to acknowledge limitations of its cultural approach to soft power and China’s struggle to bridge gaps between its outputs and how audiences perceive their credibility.

Philip Seib, Real-Time Diplomacy: Politics and Power in The Social Media Era, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Seib (University of California) uses the Arab Awakening of 2011 as context for analyzing two questions. How have the speed and reach of information flows changed theories and practices of diplomacy? And how are social media affecting political structures and activism? His book provides an overview of political and media revolutions in the Middle East, comparisons of traditional and “rapid-reaction” diplomacy, a discussion of expeditionary diplomacy and public diplomacy, and analysis of debates on how social media tools are changing networks and creating ripple effects beyond the Arab world and beyond politics.

Science & Diplomacy, Center for Science Diplomacy, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In this new online quarterly journal, the AAAS provides “a forum for rigorous thought, analysis, and insight to serve stakeholders who develop, implement, and teach all aspects of science and diplomacy.” Articles in the first edition include: “Science and Diplomacy: The Past is Prologue,” “Science Diplomacy and 21st Century Statecraft,” “Nunn-Lugar: Science Cooperation Essential for Non-proliferation,” “South African Science Diplomacy,” and “Rediscovering Eastern Europe for Science Diplomacy.” The editors (Vaughan Turekian, Tom C. Wang, and Caitlin Jennings) welcome submissions from scholars and practitioners. (Courtesy of Alan Kotok)

James Stavridis and Evelyn N. Farkas, “The 21st Century Force Multiplier: Public-Private Collaboration,” The Washington Quarterly, Spring 2012, 7-20. Admiral Stavridis (Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO, and Commander, US European Command, EUCOM) and Farkas (Senior Advisor for Public-Private Partnership) discuss growing US collaboration with private sector and civil society organizations to leverage their expertise and skills to mutual advantage in defense, diplomacy, and development. The authors view this “whole of society” approach as a step beyond an interagency “whole of government” approach. The biggest obstacle to such collaboration: “the mindset, mainly on the government side.” The biggest gain: enhancing US innovation, efficiencies, and effectiveness.

Strategic Public Diplomacy, Proceedings of the CEI Dubrovnik Diplomatic Forum, May 20-22, 2010, sponsored by the Diplomatic Academy, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Republic of Croatia, in cooperation with the US Embassy in Zagreb. In these conference proceedings, recently published online, diplomats from US and European countries explore issues and challenges in the study and practice of public diplomacy. Topics include public diplomacy in support of EU membership, nation branding, the role of cultural diplomacy, the Internet and social networks, and international foundations. The purpose of the Dubrovnik Diplomatic Forum is to encourage international debate from practical and academic points of view and to promote understanding of concepts, methods, skills and techniques of diplomacy and diplomatic training. (Courtesy of Mladen Andrlic and Tihana Bohac)

Gaye Tuchman, “Measured and Pressured: Professors at Wannabe U,” The Hedgehog Review, Spring 2012, 17-29. In one of several essays on “the corporate professor” in this edition of the Review, Tuchman (University of Connecticut) explores ways in which professors “have bought into or been shaped by the corporate culture of the university and seem strangely inarticulate about the purposes and worth of higher education.” She finds professors anxiously pursuing the metrics of productivity and impact often with more enthusiasm than administrators. Frank Donoghue (Ohio State University) in “Do College Teachers have to be Scholars?” (pp. 29-41) focuses on the motives of adjunct and tenured faculty and the consequences of the surge in adjunct hires for learning, scholarship, and society. Ethan Schrum (Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture) provides “A Bibliographic Essay on the University, the Market, and Professors” (pp. 43-51).

“U.S. International Broadcasting: Impact Through Innovation and Integration,” Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), 2011 Annual Report, Released April 16, 2012. The BBG’s report summarizes activities of US funded broadcasting services: Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio and TV Marti, Radio Free Asia, the Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa, and the International Broadcasting Bureau.

Guido Westerwelle, “Explaining Europe – Discussing Europe,” Federal Foreign Office, Federal Republic of Germany, February 29, 2012. Germany’s Foreign Minister outlines “a new concept on communicating Europe” in a paper presented to the Federal Cabinet. He argues it is time to look beyond Europe’s debt crisis to the future of “Europe as a political project,” because “there can be no bright future for Germany without a united Europe. The paper discusses three communication themes: building confidence among European neighbors, promoting Europe in the world, and campaigning for Europe in Germany. (Courtesy of Anna Tepper)

R. S. Zaharna, The Cultural Awakening in Public Diplomacy, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, Paper 4, 2012, April 2012. Zaharna (American University) looks at culture as an under-examined force relevant to every aspect of communication between nations and publics — and to every aspect of public diplomacy “from policy, to practice, to scholarship.” In part one of her paper, she discusses the importance of culture as a fundamental dimension of public diplomacy that nevertheless “gets lost in political, economic, and bureaucratic factors.” In part two, she explores ways to “develop cultural awareness and knowledge [of others and self] and learning how to recognize culture’s eloquent signs in communication, perception, cognition, values, identity and power.” Her study does not focus on culture as a tool of public diplomacy. It is about awareness of the intersection of culture and public diplomacy and implications for study and practice.

Ethan Zuckerman, “A Small World After All?” The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2012, 44-47. Zuckerman (Center for Civic Media, MIT) sees a central paradox in an age of connection: “while it’s easier than ever to share information and perspectives from different parts of the world, we may be encountering a narrower picture of the world than we did in less connected days.” Studies of social media find a locality effect in which users are more likely to connect with those in close physical proximity. “The Internet has changed many things,” he argues, “but not the insular habits of mind that keep the world from becoming truly connected.”

Blogs of Interest
Robert Albro, “Aspiring to an Interest-free Cultural Diplomacy?” April 26, 2012. “Cultural Engagement as Glocal Diplomacy,” May 12, 2012. Posted on the CPD Blog and Public Policy Anthropologist Blog.
Craig Hayden, “Terministic Compulsion” [on definitions and terms in public diplomacy], April 13, 2012. “Some Lessons from ISA 2012,” April 10, 2012. Intermap Blog.
Matt Armstrong, “Public Diplomacy Achievement Awards 2012,” May 8, 2012. See also Public Diplomacy Alumni Association website. “Science and Technology for Communication and Persuasion Abroad: Gap Analysis and Survey,” May 1, 2012. MountainRunner Blog
P.J. Crowley, “Actions in Beijing Speak Volumes,” May 7, 2012. Mary Jeffers, “Everybody’s Talking About World Press Freedom Day,” May 3, 2012. William Lafi Youmans, “The Transitive Problem,” April 25, 2012. Take Five, The IPDGC Blog on Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.

***

Gem From the Past

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” (December 11, 1945) pp. 954-967 in John Carey, ed., George Orwell: Essays, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002). Orwell’s classic essay continues to serve as a superb guide to good writing for students and scholars. His insights on problematic political uses of “meaningless words” such as “freedom” and “democracy” — words for which there is “no agreed definition” and each user “has his own private definition” — also continue to prompt reflection. What is the point of using such words, he asks, other than as perhaps some kind of general praise or framing of a positive good? Such words whose multiple meanings cannot be reconciled, Orwell argues, allow countries and individuals to use them for purposes that lack meaning and mask differences in application and intent. Orwell’s views come to mind at a time when US broadcasters (and other public diplomacy practitioners) proclaim the following mission statement: “To inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”

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Recent compilations of Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites are posted at Arizona State University’s COMOPS Journal, Matt Armstrong’s MountainRunner.us website, and George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. For previous compilations of Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites, visit an archive created by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy.

# # #

(see the FAQ on Smith-Mundt and the Modernization Act here)

The Modernization Act was approved last night to be included in the House’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act now being debated. The Rules Committee approved the inclusion last night, a move that was not intended to challenge jurisdictional issues. Adding this to the NDAA, which is sure to pass and soon, rather than as a stand-alone foreign affairs bill, reflects the House’s imperative to change the Smith-Mundt Act to better enable and support America’s national security and foreign policy writ large. A State Department authorization bill, which this would normally be included with, has not passed the Congress in years.

Below are highlights of the bill:

• Specifies Smith-Mundt applies only to the State Department and the BBG, in doing doing so extends the Act over the entire department instead of just the public diplomacy side of the Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.
• The bill applies to material produced after the bill is passed into law. The existing regime for making content available remains intact to limit the burden on the agencies.

• The bill emphasizes, in legislative language, existing law (that remain untouched since 1948) requiring the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to maximize the use of private resources and to not have a monopoly (22 USC 1462 and 22 USC 1437, respectively), the real “anti-propaganda” protections in the law.

Applying the Law to State and BBG

Specifying the Smith-Mundt Act only applies to the BBG and the State Department counters a myth that has grown over recent decades that the law applies to the whole of government. Even a 2006 Defense Department review of Smith-Mundt found that while the law did not apply to Defense, the legal advice from a lawyer was that in the absence of a clear instruction (i.e. law) from Congress, the Defense Department should consider the law as applicable to its activities. This is equal to Defense making law but more accurately reflects an inaccurate reading of the law, its language and the past intent. (The legislatively minded will note Smith-Mundt is found in Title 22 of U.S. Code, covering State Department activities, and not Title 10 of U.S. Code covers Defense Department activities.)

This particular myth was generally part of the false characterization of the Smith-Mundt Act as an anti-propaganda law. This label likely stems from 1985 when Senator Zorinsky labeled USIA material as propaganda if it were to be available inside the U.S. An amendment by Zorinsky led a federal court to block Freedom of Information Act requests on USIA material for a time (during which time the Congress removed the propaganda label from foreign government material disseminated within the U.S.).

The “disseminate abroad” language in the original legislation was intended to protect the U.S. Government from the State Department, which the Congress did not trust at the time as they felt State was too soft on Communism and filled with socialists and Communists.

Removing this restriction will allow departments to engage globally. There is and remains “anti-propaganda” language in (seemingly) all appropriation bills, and many authorization bills, passed by the Congress.

The Modernization Act extends coverage of the Smith-Mundt Act over the entire Department of State. Previously it arguably applied only to the public diplomacy side of the Office of the Under Secretary of State of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Other bureaus in State restricted their engagement according to their own individual view of the law.

Removing the restriction of domestic access to content — the law never specified someone in the U.S. could not use the material, just that it should not be available to a person inside the U.S. — eliminates virtual restraints on global engagement. Legally, the American public is not supposed to know what Michelle Kwon, for example, does when she is traveling abroad on behalf of the State Department as that is a public diplomacy trip. The concern of violating Smith-Mundt permeates not just State, even coming up in a conversation on whether to put an American on a foreign government radio program, but other departments as well.

The result will be greater awareness of and oversight over what is said and done with taxpayer money. This was a strong recommendation of the 1967 Advisory Commission on Information, predecessor to the recently closed Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy:

The American taxpayer should no longer be prohibited from seeing and studying the product a government agency produces with public funds for overseas audiences. Students in schools and colleges all over this country who are interested in government, foreign affairs and international relations should not be denied access to what the U.S. government is saying about itself and the rest of the world.

Not Retroactive

To prevent a potentially significant burden on State and BBG to make all past material immediately available, the Modernization Act applies only to material produced after it becomes law and restates the 12-yr rule for all past material.

This rule of making USIA, and not State and BBG, material available after 12-years was intended to prevent access to the material in slower times as scholarly research wasn’t down for many years after an event. The Modernization Act should revert the availability of past material to the original language: a reasonable time.

Maximize the Use of Private Resources

The Modernization Act emphasizes the original “anti-propaganda” sections of the Smith-Mundt Act. These were put in place to “remove the stigma of propaganda” and as a response to the contemporary Freedom of Information movement that both caused Smith-Mundt and was part of the resistance to Smith-Mundt in 1943 through 1947. (Shameless plug: details on this in my forthcoming book on Smith-Mundt.)

The section “Policies Governing Information Activities” (22 USC 1462, or Section 502 in the original legislation) is not only intended to prevent government propaganda by ensuring other voices are heard, but it was also intended to be a “sunset” clause of international information activities:

In authorizing international information activities under this chapter, it is the sense of the Congress (1) that the Secretary shall reduce such Government information activities whenever corresponding private information dissemination is found to be adequate; …

22 USC 1462 should be read as a guiding principle today: the information provided by the Government should not be otherwise available to the target audience. In other words, material produced by State and the BBG should be exceptional.

Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy

The Modernization Act does not refer to, or reauthorize, the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy that was in the original legislation to provide oversight over and advocacy of public diplomacy by the Government for the Secretary of State, the President, and the Congress. For more on the Commission, see http://mountainrunner.us/pdcommission/.

Republican AND Democratic Sponsorship

This bill is a bipartisan effort between Republicans (Thornberry) and Democrats (Smith) at the front. This mirrors the passage of the original Act. In December 1945, the House Foreign Affairs Committee referred the Bloom Bill to the floor. Named after the  chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, a Democrat, it gained bipartisan support in a Democratic House where opposition tended to fall along divisions of geography and cosmopolitanism. It passed the House but failed in the Senate, blocked by the Republican Senator Taft, a proponent of the Freedom of Information movement, who believed in freedom of information and felt Government should stay out of the information business. The bill thus died in the 79th Congress.

The bill was picked up in the 80th Congress by the Republicans Congressman Karl Mundt and Senator Alexander Smith. The 80th Congress, with both chambers under Republican control fought President Truman on nearly everything and was nicknamed the “Do Nothing Congress.” Nevertheless, it recognized the importance of the U.S. becoming actively engaged in the global struggle for minds and wills and it passed the Smith-Mundt Act with substantial bipartisan support, including Taft’s. The Congress recognized the increasing importance of information and public opinion. On January 7, 1948, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended passing the legislation, stating that propaganda campaigns against the U.S. called for “urgent, forthright, and dynamic measures to disseminate truth.” The committee report said:

The enactment of the bill is essential if we are to have mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other nations which will serve a fair and lasting foundation for world peace. Today that peace is endangered by the weapons of false propaganda and misinformation and the inability on the part of the United States to deal adequately with those weapons.

Truth can be a power weapon on behalf of peace. It is the firm belief of the Committee that HR 3342 [the Smith-Mundt Bill], with all the safeguards included in the bill, will constitute an important step in the right direction toward the adequate dissemination of the truth about America; our ideals, and our people

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 should have similar bipartisan support at a time when public opinion has an even greater role than over six decades ago.

This update to the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 removes restraints imposed by Senators in 1972 and 1985 that reflect the changing nature of international politics where public opinion mattered relatively little. It was zero-sum bipolar politics with the substantial negotiations done behind closed doors rather than in the minds of people. Smith-Mundt was created and passed in a time when the struggle for minds and wills of people mattered. We are again in such an era.

What are you thoughts on the proposed changes to the Smith-Mundt Act? Comment below or write a guest post.

See also:

• Public Law 80-402 - the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, as signed into law on January 27, 1948. (H.R. 3342)
• Public Law 92-352 Domestic Distribution - the amendment by Senator Fulbright (“The Radios should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics“) that inserted “shall not be disseminated” into the legislation. (see page 6 of 11, or page 494 by the printed page numbers.)
• Smith-Mundt Symposium Report - a public discussion with a diverse group of stakeholders on the purpose and means of U.S. public diplomacy.
• The Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy Caucus by Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX)

A future edition to the above list will be in my book on the (real) history of Smith-Mundt that focuses on 1943-1948, including the contemporary Freedom of Information movement.

Looking into the future from the past is often fascinating. A Bell Labs film from 1961 on the changing communication environment predicts the future information age as it projects its technology into the future. This includes machine to machine communication, online ordering, e-commerce, and cellular phones, is no different. The underlying purpose is preparing the audience for change.

AT&T provides a setup for the film from their archives, including:

This film breaks into approximately two parts — part I: the problems of the present, and part II: the way those problems could be solved by the technology of the future. This film not only serves as almost the birth of the information age, it also projects that technology far into the future.

The commercial products that would allow this connected, computer-communicating network? They’re basic, but at the time seemed radical:

* The wireless Bellboy Pager, which was introduced commercially in 1962
* The Data-phone, which was supposed to revolutionize business communications
* The videophone—shown as a credit-card-reading vertical two-way television
* The card-reading phone or automatic dialer, which would dial a number from small plastic punch cards, introduced in 1961
* Oh, and package delivery via rocket (which had just been tested in 1959).

Some quotes from the film:

“For where change once moved as an hour hand on a clock, now it rockets at a speed the mind’s eye can hardly follow.”

“This world now grown so small in time and distance, grows larger in challenge and opportunity.”

“We must speed up our recognition of change.”

“Change jostles change.”

(H/T CTOVision)

By Alan Heil

(This post originally appeared at The Public Diplomacy Council.)

For well more than a decade, Korea experts who specialize in international media have been examining the impact of foreign broadcasts and DVDs on users in North Korea. They have done so through a combination of in-country surveys and debriefings of defectors from North Korea, refugees and travelers abroad. In annual reports, Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders invariably have ranked that country as having the “least free” media in the world. Yet the curtain of near total silence appears to be opening as never before in North Korea.

In a landmark study released May 11, “A Quiet Opening,” Nat Kretchun, Associate Director of InterMedia Survey in Washington DC, and Jane Kim, Korea Projects Coordinator of the East West Coalition’s office in Beijing, conclude that a substantial portion of the North Korean population now has access to external media, through foreign TV, radio and DVDs. Foreign DVDs and smuggled mobile phones brought into the country from China or South Korea are contributing to the awakening. Awareness of the outside world has grown exponentially among North Koreans since the late 1990s.

In the words of a 45-year-old woman, Hamkyongnamdo, who left North Korea a year ago this month: “I think now, almost all citizens listen or watch. You can tell when you talk to them… they will use South Korean words. In North Korea, there is no such phrase as ‘no doubt.’ When they use a word like that , you think, ‘that person watches, too’.” Or, as a 27-year-old woman named Yanggangdo, who left the North earlier last year, put it: “At first, I watched outside media purely out of curiosity. However, as time went by, I began to believe in the contents. It was an addictive experience. Once you start watching, you simply cannot stop.”

According to Kretchun, there is a strong link between foreign media exposure and positive perceptions of the outside world, implying that the influx of foreign media contributes to a more aware North Korean citizenry. DVDs and South Korean soap operas are especially popular. And the recent opening of North Korea to Western journalists has been striking. Last month, North Korean officials invited a group of reporters from Western and Asian media into the country for a firsthand, eyewitness observation of the centennial of the late Kim Il Sung’s birth. The foreign press also was invited to witness what turned out to be an aborted long-ranch missile launch.

Among those witnessing the launching — and taking photographs of it for his network’s website — was Voice of America Korean Service correspondent Sungwon Baik. He produced dozens of eyewitness radio reports and two television news features during and following his trip. It was his second journey to North Korea, and clearly his most rewarding. A North Korean official escort expressed displeasure when Sungwon, at a briefing, inquired how Pyongyang could spend so much on missiles as food shortages ravaged sections of the country.

The InterMedia study notes that about 27 percent of those who have left North Korea or travelled abroad had access back in the country to VOA, Radio Free Asia, or other external networks. As Kretchun puts it: “Parallel to increased foreign media access is an increased willingness by North Koreans to share information with others they trust, creating an information multiplier effect. Sharing of illegal foreign content is a key factor in strengthening horizontal bonds between North Korean citizens. This breaks down the state’s top-down monopoly on the supply of information and ideas.” There is substantial evidence of what would have been unthinkable just a few years ago: North Koreans gathering together to watch illegal DVDs.

As Harvard historian and Public Diplomacy Council member Joseph S. Nye Jr. observed in a lecture last week: “Power with others, and not power over others” is smart power’s strong suit in the 21st century. “ Sometimes,’ he added, “ it’s not the army that wins — it’s the story.” Or, in the words of two young residents of Hyesan City, North Korea, quoted in the InterMedia Survey report. In the words of one: “I was told when I was young that South Koreans are very poor, but the South Korean dramas proved that just isn’t the case.” And in the words of the other: “Accessing foreign media didn’t change my life, but it changed how I analyze my life.”

***

Alan L. Heil Jr. is a former deputy director of VOA, author of Voice of America: A History and editor of Local Voices/Global Perspectives: Challenges Ahead for U.S. International Media.

Guests posts are the opinions of the respective authors, do not necessarily reflect the opinion of MountainRunner.us, and are published here to further the discourse on activities that understand, inform, and influence.

Tomorrow, May 10, InterMedia will host a conversation based on their new report, A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media Environment. The event starts at 9a and ends at noon. It will be at the Reserve Officer Association building at One Constitution Avenue NE on Capitol Hill.

InterMedia requests your RSVP by email. The agenda is below.

The event will be webcast live.

Introduction:

• Daniel B. Baer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor

Presentation:

• Nathaniel Kretchun, Associate Director, InterMedia; Principal author of A Quiet Opening

Panelists:

• Dr. Abraham Kim (moderator), Vice President, Korea Economic Institute
• Marcus Noland, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, The Peterson Institute for International Economics
• Martyn Williams, Blogger, NorthKoreaTech.org and Knight Journalism Fellow, Stanford University

Closing Remarks:

• Amb. Robert R. King, U.S. Special Envoy, North Korea Human Rights Issues

(L-R) Larry Schwartz, Jean Manes, Heather Eaton, Rob Nevitt, Lynn Roche. Jean Manes and Heather Eaton are 2012 achievement award winners. Lynne Roche, of State Department's Africa bureau, accepted the award for Sharon Hudson-Dean. Frank Schwartz nominated Jean Manes. Rob Nevitt chairs the PDAA awards committee. (Photo: A. Kotok)

2012 PDAA Awards Recognize Public Diplomacy Excellence

The Public Diplomacy Alumni Association, formerly the USIA Alumni Association, gave its 2012 achievement awards to U.S. public diplomacy professionals working in Zimbabwe, Okinawa, and Washington, DC. The announcement is below.

Successful public diplomacy requires leadership, imagination, resourcefulness, and determination, and in many cases under challenging conditions. The Public Diplomacy Alumni Association (PDAA, formerly USIA Alumni Association) recognizes outstanding achievement by individuals and teams at overseas posts and at State Department headquarters that display these qualities, among others.

The three winners of this year’s recognition of public diplomacy achievement — the 15th awards in the series that has become an annual event — took place at PDAA’s 2012 annual dinner on May 6 in Washington, D.C.

Heather Eaton, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Consulate General, Naha, Okinawa, Japan In recognition of her innovative leadership and creativity in advancing U.S. strategic objectives in Okinawa — despite an historically difficult public affairs environment and limited resources — by building a collaborative network of American and Japanese civilian and military PD professionals, educators, librarians and volunteers to expand U.S. outreach and refocus programming to core security-related themes.

Sharon Hudson-Dean, Counselor for Public Affairs, U.S. Embassy Harare, Zimbabwe In recognition of her exceptional courage, creativity and perseverance — in the face of daunting political and communications challenges – in cultivating new and effective platforms for U.S. engagement with Zimbabwean youth, women, opposition groups and a hostile media , building American and Zimbabwean partnerships and exchange alumni support for public diplomacy efforts, and harnessing the power of social media to outstanding effect.

Jean Manes, Director of Resources, Office of Policy, Planning and Resources (R/PPR), in recognition of your outstanding initiative, insight and determination in leading a thorough strategic review of Department of State public diplomacy personnel and budgets, effectively advocating for public diplomacy resources and field-directed input, and tutoring a generation of PD managers in building the foundations for long-term resource planning.