by Craig Hayden

Many thanks to James Glassman for his thoughtful response to my comments about his exchange with Marc Lynch over the strategic implications of “PD 2.0.” I’d like to respond and address some of his arguments about the relationship between a “Grand Conversation” and a “War of Ideas.”

On the problems of using facilitative programs to “inject” the U.S. message, Glassman writes:

“Yes, we risk contaminating the conversation so that it won’t be listened to. But I do see the conversation as being a message-bearing methodology. It does not have to bear a message, but it can. Certainly, conversation as valuable for its own sake: when bad arguments are exposed to the light of day, they lose their power.”

Agreed, and I did admit that employing a message-strategy isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Surely, leveraging facilitation to insert U.S. messages can be construed as advocacy – and that might rub against the “Open Source” mentality suggested by Ali Fisher. But, the point of facilitation is to recast the credibility of the actor through the communication practice – not necessarily the message. Engaging the audience as something other than a monolithic and inaccessible entity, cynically addressing instrumentally expedient audiences, is the normative principle here. Facilitation allows actors representing the U.S. (FSO’s or whoever) to connect more as peers. Granted, the ethic of this strategy isn’t necessarily new, and much of U.S. PD has historically been about relationship building, listening, and facilitation of some sort. Glassman’s notion amplifies the concept in the domain of information and communication technologies.

But if the experience of the Digital Outreach Team is any guide – the exposure of “bad arguments” is still a relative matter, and I’m not sure if those kinds of encounters are currently more than so much “talking past each other” exercises. Maybe someone can weigh in on this.

Glassman also questions my claim that the “Grand Conversation” is incompatible with the “War of Ideas.” I admit that the U.S. can use both as operational ideas to entail policies, objectives, and the policy scene. Aside from the seeming non-sequitur of winning the “war’ through a ‘conversation’ – I agree there’s nothing essential about the incompatibility. What I was really getting at were two things:

A) Policies tend to follow logics of how they are justified. So, for example, if we have a war on terror, we’re not deploying cops, we’re deploying troops. We’re not out to diminish or dissuade, we’re out to destroy. I’m concerned about the terministic compulsion that comes with conceiving of something as a “war” – especially when a war implies conflict with a legitimate and threatening actor. If the goal is transform the operational environment (the ‘scenic’ objectives of US foreign policy), I think it starts with our terminological strategies of narrating the scene itself.

And some terms ring louder than others. Like War. When the BBG declared that Radio Sawa and the nascent Al-Hurra were going to be perceived as legitimate (and not as propaganda) – Norm Pattiz touted the value of the BBG “firewall” from policy-makers. I think it’s fair to say that kind of nuance never really translated to the audiences as intended. I wonder if the “BBG-as-firewall” argument was even considered as deliberate obfuscation and misdirection.

Which leads to point B…

B) Extremism is real, and so is Islamic terrorism. But the “War of Ideas” infuses the enemy with the kind of dramatic role they dream of fulfilling. The U.S. should not engage in a “cosmic war” at any level, linguistic or otherwise. I don’t mean to dismiss the threat of terrorism – but the real threat is giving reasons to more “moderate” publics to tolerate extremist elements, and persuasive evidence for such movements to feel they can in turn compel publics into tacit acceptance. This is Lynch’s argument in a nutshell. As Jarret Brachman‘s excellent research has suggested – extremist rhetoric is pretty darn crazy. Let’s not add any gloss to their efforts.

The War of Ideas smacks of the binary logics that are grist for the conspiracy theory mill in the Arabic “hidden transcript” – the commonplaces that connect the dots back to an existential campaign against Arabs and by extension, all Muslims. A Grand Conversation, however, doesn’t foreclose opportunities to directly squash terrorist activities. It doesn’t “kill” extremist movements with some kind of argument contest either. Rather, it might succeed by de-legitimation and further isolation of extremist perspectives.

For me, the “War of Ideas” was always about motivating a domestic constituency for public diplomacy. It was not a term suggestive of policies and communication themes. Hence the need for something like “the grand conversation” to provide a helpful description for elaboration. But it’s this disconnect that I think gets U.S. policy planners in trouble, when global audiences have access to our efforts at persuading ourselves on the proper course of action.

As for facilitation – On Youtube, Facebook, Second Life, or whatever… I think the communication methods speak volumes about intention and respect for the “target” audience. Performing (sincerely) the rituals of listening are part of this strategic direction. And the gains should be considered in long-term horizons, much like the relationship-building of exchange diplomacy.

As Robert Entman argued, public diplomacy campaigns of media advocacy at best would result in getting the U.S. perspective in the mix. Facilitation exercises like this are part of that strategy (as is news management), for as Joseph Nye described, a significant challenge is just getting messages through in the wash of readily-tailored information already available to crucial audiences enmeshed in their own social networks. But more importantly, I think facilitation can help to demonstrate the respect that global audiences seek, without sacrificing the beliefs and strengths behind the American position.