James Glassman’s post on Foreign Policy.com is thought-provoking and troubling at the same time. “It’s not about us” builds on the thesis of Admiral Mike Mullen’s argument that the U.S. has misplaced it’s faith in communication programs – public diplomacy – to realize foreign policy objectives. Admiral Mullen’s argument picks up a common refrain among critics of public diplomacy – that deeds matter more than words – and that the U.S. should focus on amending its policies to address the contours of opinion in regions vital to nation security. So what’s wrong with that? Well for starters, I think we’re beyond this observation.
For Glassman and to some extent Mullen, the problem is the focus of U.S. Public diplomacy. Their quarrel is with the goal of brand-burnishing, of getting hostile populations to “like us.” I think this is a straw-man argument – but it does suggest a troubling implication. While I’m not convinced that the State Department believes that their primary goal is to get populations to “like the U.S.,” I am concerned that I actually don’t know what the goal is other than bland assertions of “engagement.” Like many, I wonder about the strategic template used to justify and design the initiatives of U.S. public diplomacy. The term “rudderless” comes to mind – a muddle of divergent imperatives (from international broadcasting to exchange programs) – that seem to operate out of inertia and blanketed with some vague language of engagement and dialogue. Am I wrong? I sure hope I am. I should add, I’m not convinced that one strategy can justify all the various forms of public diplomacy at the same time – there’s no magic bullet public diplomacy strategy that kind bind all of what is being done into a nice logic. But I digress.
Glassman takes a shot at the term “bridge-building” – and suggests that while we can’t abandon the important long term programs (like exchanges and cultural diplomacy), we should focus on more immediate strategic communication initiatives. What would these look like? If the goal is not to polish brand U.S.A, then perhaps so-called public diplomacy 2.0 initiatives can be used to empower democratic and civic action, dialogue, etc. within countries like Pakistan to help in-country institutions embolden those stakeholders that wish to minimize the influence of extremists and regain control of their
political destiny.
I wholeheartedly agree with Glassman that a “popularity contest” tactic of press meetings and high profile “to know us to love us” events is not going to serve U.S. foreign policy goals, nor cultivate any real soft power that translates into diplomatic success. Of course I’m also not entirely convinced that the State Department is really focused on this kind of PD, it’s just the stuff that gets headlines. But I do take some issue with the arguments for the proposed new vision for PD.
The notion that the Arab and Muslim world is going through some historical analogue of the religious wars of Europe and transition towards the Age of Enlightenment does two things – first, oddly enough, it literalizes the metaphor of a “debate” in Muslim societies between extremists and modernists and importantly, makes a victory of the extremists a plausible outcome in this societal struggle. To me, this sounds like giving the extremists too much credit and clout. Second, I think this line of reasoning sounds too patronizing at best, and fuels the “American’s are arrogant” when we pronounce with orientalist confidence just how the struggle for Modernity is progressing among the Arab nations. It’s one thing for Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed of Al-Arabiya to say this on Frontline World. I’m not sure if public diplomacy planners should be expressing these sentiments.
Which brings me back to deeds and communication. Glassman is of course right to suggest that the U.S. needs to do something about supporting a political narrative that minimizes and isolates the influence of extremists – in order to start mending the public opinion problems facing the U.S. Implicitly, he suggests that public opinion can be channeled away from a focus on the U.S., to address the fundamentally “endogenous” problems in Arab and Muslim countries facing violent extremist movements. Sounds like a great idea, though I still believe that tinkering with the role the U.S. plays in the broader Arab and Muslim mediasphere is too ambitious to transform by itself (see Entman, 2008). I think that acts of public diplomacy that facilitate civil discourse in the ways that Glassman envisions is a good start – but the motives and expectations need to be clarified at the outset.
Should the U.S. lead this, or should it encourage a cooperative, open-source PD push… a multilateral effort involving nation-states and citizens in a cooperative effort to facilitate (to use the parlance of PD 2.0) communication interventions that empowers social forces opposed to religious or nationalist fundamentalism of any stripe? I think this is the strategic question that remains to be answered. If public diplomacy is to be about facilitation, listening, and dialogue (all touchstones for the supposed way forward in public diplomacy) – then I think a strategy should begin to envision a communication ethic that is inclusive, open, and cooperative in ways that I believe are still radically counter to the way public diplomacy gets rationalized as part of parochial soft power needs.
