September 21

“Chimerica -- and the global asset boom it has created -- will remain a reality and no mere chimera.”

--Niall Ferguson and Moritz Schularick (2007), regarding the symbiotic economic relationship that has developed between the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America

“We are living through the end of a phenomenon that Moritz Schularick of Berlin's Free University and I christened Chimerica’"

--Niall Ferguson (2008)

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

US diplomacy via blogosphere could respond faster – Angelo, hoi polloi: “[Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs] Glassman’s conference call talks of how the US is finding its footing in the untested middle ground of diplomacy. (Do we begin to call this social media diplomacy?) He speaks of a digital outreach team that engaged, via blog posts, the media adviser to Iranian President Ahmadinejad. But what about the rest of the world through the lens of Dipnote? Coverage of India, and China are very slim. What’s its view of civil rights in Myanmar or Sri Lanka, for instance? Not one entry there."

Conference of the public diplomacy bloggers - Kim Andrew Elliott Discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy: "James Glassman ... convened a teleconference of bloggers to discuss U.S. public diplomacy and especially the State Department competition inviting people around the world to create three-minute videos completing the phrase 'Democracy is... .'" Mr. Elliott’s own comments on the teleconference: "All the important bloggers covering public diplomacy were there. I, of course, was not invited. Didn't even know about it until it popped up in a Google search. Probably just as well, as I don't really think of myself as a ‘blogger.’ And I'm planning to remove ‘public diplomacy’ from the title of this website. Other bloggers … do a better and more thorough job of covering the subject. Furthermore, it is my position that if a nation's international broadcasting is to be successful, it must be credible. And to be credible it must be separate from a nation's public diplomacy. And maybe that's why I am not invited to public diplomacy events.”

9/11 PIPA Poll Watching - Patricia H. Kushlis, Whirled View: “Seems to me that as long as the US is perceived as arrogant, anti-Muslim and militaristic, the more likely foreigners will believe the Al Qaeda line. The first actions the US should take, therefore, to change these perceptions are to declare death to the global war on terror and to shutter Guantanamo. Beyond this, I think the US made a huge mistake in 1999 when it abolished the US Information Agency, the only US governmental institution that coordinated and implemented the media, cultural and educational programs that tended and enhanced America’s public face abroad. … [F]rom what I can see, the fragments of USIA that remain (either under the Broadcasting Board of Governors or the State Department) are ill-equipped, ill-funded, ill-coordinated and ill-staffed to embrace the rapidly changing international media environment effectively.”

Is anti-Americanism a failure of US diplomacy? – cwleonard, Globo Diplo: "We thought a lot about anti-Americanism after 9-11, but the discussion has seemed to wane, perhaps out of frustration. What can be done, anyway? The modern-day Tocqueville, Bernard-Henry Lévy writes an open letter to the next President, touching on higher ed, the case of Russia and IR, and public diplomacy … And don’t miss Nick Cull (11 Apr 2007)–one of the best minds working on public diplomacy–who gives a useful overview of how anti-Americanism fits within this framework….as well as Kenneth Osgood (3 Oct 2007) for a historical view of America’s campaign for ‘hearts and minds’ in the Cold War."

Us Public Diplomacy - Winning Arab Hearts And Minds By Promising To Sell Out Israel - Omri Ceren, Mere Rhetoric: "It's true. Palestinians really hate Bush. I mean, they really, really hate Bush. No matter how much money and military equipment he throws at them, they can't get over his stubborn refusal not to honor dead terrorists. If nothing short of selling out Israel will satisfying the Arab and Muslim world, then how exactly is Obama going to make the Arab and Muslim world like us?"

Ahmadinejad should separate Judaism from Zionism by showing ... - Editor: Myself (English):"The U.S. who has directly or indirectly murdered millions of Iranians (through support for Saddam and also shooting the civilian aeroplane in the 1980s among other things) and intends to starve millions of Iranians to death though its sanctions can never fool Iranians by its silly practices of 'public diplomacy'."

Angry Arab – Mike, My Humble Ravings: "The New York Times reported that Washington 'insists that the Baghdad government give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations,' a demand that 'faces a potential buzz saw of opposition from Iraq, with its…deep sensitivities about being seen as a dependent state.' These 'deep sensitivities' are regarded as a form of third world irrationality and emotionalism, which have to be overcome by a well-crafted combination of propaganda (called 'public diplomacy') and coercion."

Conservatives claim to boost arts funding contradicts substantial cuts - Press Release, Liberal.ca, Canada - Following John Baird and Jim Flaherty’s so-called expenditure review in 2006, [Canadian PM] Harper scrapped the $11 million from the public diplomacy budget and cut $4.6 million from the Museum Assistance Program.

Diplonuts and other creatures – Pachoris, Sunday Leader: “[For] the first time in the history of our [Sri Lankan] diplomatic service … one of our diplomats has gone to the extent of promoting another country [Nepal] … very publicly. I have not been in the media vocation long enough to remember most of the post-independence history of our foreign service and what it has done over the years to promote and safeguard the interests of the country it has been called upon to serve. The more senior members of Paradise Club however who have spent decades in the foreign and civil services were hard put to find a single example of this kind of ‘public diplomacy.’"

NATO operation in Afghanistan most complex in Alliance history - Lyubomir Tasev, FOCUS News Agency: "The NATO operation in Afghanistan is the most complex one in the Alliance’s almost 60-year history, official of the Public Diplomacy department told journalists, quoted by Focus News Agency’s correspondent. … The official has noted the key message NATO has to sent to the public is that Afghanistan will not be won or lost by military means, and that it all boils down to politics."

Danish diplomat missing after bombing - Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia: A Danish diplomat is missing after the devastating suicide bomb attack on the Marriott hotel in Pakistan's capital Islamabad, the Danish foreign ministry said today. "We are concentrating right now on finding the Dane who has been missing since yesterday,'' Klavs Holm, ambassador for public diplomacy at the Danish foreign ministry, said.

RELATED ITEMS

The Spectacle of War: Insurgent video propaganda and Western response - MountainRunner

Public Diplomacy and the 2008 Presidential Elections - Melinda Brouwer, Foreign Policy Association: The Guardian reports from Brazil: “Welcome to Obama-mania, Brazil-style. Few countries have embraced the idea of the US’s first black president as enthusiastically as Brazil, a country with one of the largest Afro-descendant populations on Earth yet where black faces remain a minority in politics.”

A lively Baghdad, back from the dead - Dexter Filkins, International Herald Tribune: The "surge of American troops is over. The Iraqis are moving to take their country back, yet they wonder what might happen when the Americans' restraining presence is gone.

Truthiness Stages a Comeback - Frank Rich, New York Times: In Bush’s case, the lies lobbed over the heads of the press were to sell the war in Iraq. That propaganda blitz, devised by a secret White House Iraq Group that included Rove, was a triumph. The twin-pronged strategy of truculence and propaganda that sold Bush and his war could yet work for McCain.

The fleecing of America - Roger Cohen, International Herald Tribune: What have we heard from the new centers of wealth and power -- China, India, Brazil, Russia, the Gulf states - about America's financial agony over the past week? Zilch. Well, not quite. When asked about the crisis, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, said: "What crisis? Go ask Bush."

Rough Week, But America's Era Goes On - Niall Ferguson, Washington Post: Certainly, if the talk of a "unipolar moment" after the collapse of the Soviet empire was hubris, then the credit crunch has been a very American nemesis. But it is much too early to conclude that the American century is over.

Express Man Who Duped Hitler - Paul Callan, Sunday Express: A new book, Churchill’s Wizards, by broadcaster Nicholas Rankin, tells how writers, journalists and artists created elaborate camouflages and fiendish propaganda to deceive the Germans in two world wars. In the Second World War the British became masters of these dark arts.