December 3

“Gibson: ‘What were you most unprepared for?’
Bush: ‘Well, I think I was unprepared for war.'”

--From President Bush's interview with ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
PHOTO: TriAction Soft Power - NEW! Price: £19.99 - Classic design sports bra for medium impact - Adjustable scoop back, seamfree cup - Black or white - 32-38A; 32-40 B-D. See also (a) (b).

Worldview: The focus is on 'soft power': Obama's new security team must first rebuild America's diplomatic machine – Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Robert Gates, the current and future defense secretary, and former NATO commander Gen. James L. Jones, Obama's pick for national security adviser, advocate sweeping change in the way America pursues its security interests. Their thinking syncs with Obama's core vision. Gates and Jones want to bolster our capacity to project ‘soft power’ - diplomacy, and foreign aid for development and reconstruction. They view soft power as an essential complement to hard, military power, and as a way to prevent future conflicts. Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton supports this shift, though she sought to project a tough-guy image in the presidential race. It will fall to her to implement one of the hardest parts of the new strategy - rebuilding a State Department so depleted that it can't do what needs to be done. … At a time when America's need to engage with the world has never been greater, funding for public diplomacy has been shrinking. USIA libraries and cultural centers, where young Arabs once could interact with Americans, have long been shuttered. While terrorists set up Web chat rooms, we have no capacity to interact with a global generation that uses the Internet.”

Clinton's uncommon résumé - Helene Cooper, New York Times: “Clinton's selection has electrified a diplomatic world where officials can now anticipate the prospect of sitting across a conference table from an American former first lady and presidential candidate, with all of the drama that is attached to the Clinton story. … Clinton, Holbrooke [the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations], said, ‘understands global issues, women's rights and public diplomacy, and has watched her husband make war-peace decisions.’"

Joseph Nye Article - Will O's Blog: “I … agree with [Joseph] Nye's assertion that 'we need to adopt policies that appeal to moderates, and to use public diplomacy more effectively to explain our common interests.'"
New US administration to continue focus on ‘war of ideas’ - Barbara Ferguson, Arab News: Yesterday, Obama announced that he will keep, for at least one year, Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense. Gates has spearheaded the Defense Department’s increasing belief that after seven years of war on terror it has become apparent that final victory must be won not only on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in the hearts and minds of the people in the region. Now he is proposing developing ‘influence websites’ that would support combat commanders and local populations. … James Glassman, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, recently stressed this during a briefing with foreign correspondents, saying that communication has proved effective in the past — but in ‘the early 1990s, the US began in bipartisan fashion to dismantle this arsenal of persuasion. ‘Shortly after 9/11, the tide began to turn, but slowly. One of the biggest advocates of public diplomacy in government is the Secretary of Defense.'”

US takes ‘war of ideas’ to social networking websites - Daily Times, Pakistan: “’In the war of ideas our core task in 2008 is to create an environment hostile to violent extremism,’ said James Glassman, the US undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs. ‘We do that in two ways - by undermining extremist ideologies and by encouraging young people to follow productive paths that lead away from terrorism,’ Glassman said in a speech at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank."

U.S. Official Discusses Alliance of Youth Movements Summit: Ask America webchat transcript, December 1 - America.gov: "Jared Cohen, the summit’s international press contact, answered questions about the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit in a December 1 Ask America webchat and explained how to use social and mobile technologies to promote freedom and justice."

The Brookings Institution: Voices Of America: U.S. Public Diplomacy For The 21st Century Washington, D.C. Tuesday, November 25, 2008 - Transcript

Did Kristin Lord Miss the Point? - Project on Middle East Democracy: The POMED Wire: "Robert Satloff at MESH takes issue with Kristin Lord’s recommendations for U.S. public diplomacy in the 21st century. He says, 'In the post-9/11 era, the purpose of public diplomacy is not some amorphous desire to have America better understood or even the more pointed objective of winning the support of international public opinion for U.S. foreign policy…Today, that mission is how to identify, nurture and support mainstream Muslims in the ideological and political contest against radical Islamism….there is none of this in the Brookings report.'… POMED’s summary notes of the event in question can be found here."

Yes, a Nuclear Iran Is Unacceptable: A Memo to President-elect Obama - James Phillips and Peter Brookes, Heritage Foundation Special Report #28: “America should not try to play favorites among the various Iranian opposition groups, but should instead encourage them to cooperate under the umbrella of the broadest possible coalition. [It should] launch a public diplomacy campaign to explain to the Iranian people how the regime's nuclear weapons program and hard-line policies hurt their economic and national interests. … The U.S. and its allies should work to defeat the regime's suppression of independent media by increasing Farsi broadcasts by such government-sponsored media as the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe (Radio Farda), and other information sources.”

A Second Middle East - Marc Ambinder, Atlantic: “The congressional WMD report recommends, among other things, proritizing Pakistani stability above all else in the region; doing so would require significant amounts of economic assistance to Pakistan, and ‘involve the use of all elements of national power--including those of so-called soft power, such as public diplomacy, strategic communications, and development assistance--to counter violent extremist anti-Americanism, create a universal culture of revulsion against the use of WMD, and lower the demand for WMD by terrorists.’"

Area joins the International Visitor Leadership Program – Jamie Page, Pensacola News Journal, FL: “The Gulf Coast Citizen Diplomacy Council on Tuesday celebrated its inclusion in the U.S. Department of State International Visitor Leadership Program. The Department's public diplomacy program allows foreign, up-and-coming leaders and opinion-makers to travel the country to meet professional colleagues and citizens. It's called the International Visitor Leadership Program, in which participants only visit areas where a local citizen diplomacy council can receive them.”

Blogging the Washington DC HIF presentation - Judit Rius, Kowledge Ecology Notes : "Yesterday December 1 2008, professors Aidan Hollis and Thomas Pogge presented their Health Impact Fund (HIF) proposal at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. … The meeting convened and moderated by the President of Georgetown University, Jack deGioia, was attended by 50/60 people and was structured with two presentations by the co-authors and a panel discussion [that included] John Osborn, J.D., Member, United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.”

Foreign Ministers review progress in Mediterranean Dialogue - News, North Atlantic Treaty Organization: “NATO Foreign Ministers met with their Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) partners during a ministerial working lunch on 2 December. …The Mediterranean Dialogue Work Programme has been gradually expanded from more than 100 activities in 2004, to about 800 in 2008, 85% of which include military activities, in addition to Public Diplomacy, Civil Emergency Planning and Crisis Management.”

Ins and outs of a China courtship - H H Michael Hsiao and Alan Yang, Asia Times: “New policy initiatives such as ‘smile diplomacy’ (weisiao waijiaou), ‘public diplomacy’ (gonggong waijiaou), and ‘good neighbor diplomacy’ (mulin waijiaou) have been instrumental in Beijing's pursuit of a benign hegemony. These initiatives have one thing in common: a sophisticated use of soft power resources. … Beijing's soft power diplomacy can be broken up in three levels: first, establish solid political and fiscal connections with Southeast Asian governments via increasing foreign aid; second, explore a comprehensive cooperative framework through FTA-plus plans; third, enhance cultural attractiveness and promote pro-China understanding among ASEAN states through quasi-governmental projects. Foreign aid, comprehensive economic networking and cultural transmission form the core of its soft power resources.”

Give India weapons of self-protection - ND Batra, CorporatePower: Digital Media, Culture, And Public Diplomacy: "The US Patriot Act is a weapon of mass protection that has worked. That is what India needs. By protecting itself, India will protect the region and contribute to world peace."

Wait till you see our talking chickens: The cold war wasn't just about bombs. It was about cars, shoes and kitchens. On the eve of a major show on the era, Emma Brockes meets the American who led the attack on Moscow - Emma Brockes, Guardian: The concept of the world fair, the expo, seems quaint today. But in the 1950s, it was a chance to show people things they hadn't already seen, things that were exciting and new, even if it was at heart a big, colourful piece of propaganda. Jack Masey, now 84 and sitting in the office of his design firm in Manhattan, worked for the United States Information Agency for two decades and designed exhibits for the Agency. ABOVE PHOTO: Nixon and Khrushchev clash at Jack Masey’s Moscow Expo. COURTESY: MC

There's no kind of atmosphere – Sophie, Vox: “I have an essay due on the 11th that I haven't started yet; although I have bought a big book on public diplomacy that I need to read and then everything will be okay.” LEFT: Sophie

RELATED ITEMS

'The world is moving past' USA in higher ed - Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY: The USA has made modest gains since the early 1990s in preparing students for college and providing access, a report says today. But other countries are advancing more quickly, and if trends continue, the picture is only going to get worse.
The IFC Media Project: Bill Kristol & Pentagon Propaganda - Meghan O'Hara, Huffington Post: The Pentagon's Iraq war propaganda strategy worked so well only because so many of our news outlets failed to question where they were getting their information, and who was giving it.

Islamic extremists being coaxed toward YouTube - Reuters

The age of 'celebrity terrorism' - Paul Cornish, BBC News: In a novel twist, the Mumbai terrorists might have embarked on propaganda of the deed without the propaganda in the confident expectation that the rationalisation for the attack -- the narrative -- would be provided by politicians, the media and terrorism analysts. If so, then Mumbai could represent something rather different in the history of terrorism, and possibly something far more disturbing even than global jihad. Perhaps we have come to the point where casually self-radicalised, sociopathic individuals can form a loose organisation, acquire sufficient weapons and equipment for a few thousand dollars, make a basic plan of action and indulge in a violent expression of their generalised disaffection and anomie. These individuals indulge in terrorism simply because they can, while their audience concocts a rationale on their behalf. Welcome to the age of celebrity terrorism.

More War; More Terror: The Mythology of the War on Terrorism - William Blum, Counterpunch: An insidious myth of the War on Terrorism has been the notion that terrorist acts against the United States can be explained, largely, if not entirely, by irrational hatred or envy of American social, economic, or religious values, and not by what the United States does to the world; i.e., US foreign policy. Terrorism is an act of political propaganda, a bloody form of making the world hear one's outrage against a perceived oppressor, graffiti written on the wall in some grim, desolate alley. It follows that if the perpetrators of a terrorist act declare what their motivation was, their statement should carry credibility, no matter what one thinks of their cause or the method used to achieve it.

U.S. builds cases on dangerous detainees - By Jim Michaels, USA TODAY: The U.S. military has launched a massive legal review to build criminal cases against at least 5,000 detainees considered dangerous in an effort to keep them behind bars when Iraq's government assumes legal authority over them.

Across the globe, a cautious welcome for Clinton - Ethan Bronner, International Herald Tribune

Not One Anti-War Voice: Obama's Kettle of Hawks - Jeremy Scahill, Counterpunch: The problem with Obama's appointments is hardly just a matter of bad vision on Iraq. What ultimately ties Obama's team together is their unified support for the classic US foreign policy recipe: the hidden hand of the free market, backed up by the iron fist of US militarism to defend the America First doctrine.

Can Obama Stay the Course? - Robert Scheer, Nation: The problem with Obama's national security team is not that he has picked hawks who he cannot control; they are all professionals, who took the job expecting to go along with his game plan. The danger here, as with his economic advisers, is only that Obama may stop being Obama, the agent of change who electrified a nation.

Why Susan Rice Won't Be Calling John Bolton – Dayo Olopade, New Republic: Rice will assume a "cabinet-rank" position as UN ambassador that gives her more sway than perhaps even Bush UN ambassador John Bolton, whose indifference to his own jurisdiction was legendary. It's that she will bring an entirely different philosophy of global interaction to the UN.

Closet Centrist: In Obama's Cabinet, the Audacity of Moderation - Michael Gerson, Washington Post: Obama's personnel decisions have effectively ratified Bush's defense and economic approaches during the past few years.

Obama Gives Political Ambassadors Their Pink Slips - Glenn Kessler, Washington Post: The incoming Obama administration has notified all politically-appointed ambassadors that they must vacate their posts as of Jan. 20, the day President-elect Barack Obama takes the oath of office, a State Department official said.

The Meaning of Mumbai: South Asia, the new arena – Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com: The Mumbai massacre comes at a time when the U.S. is about to switch battlefields in its avowedly "generational" war on terrorism, from the Middle East to South Asia. As we move our forces eastward into Afghanistan and, inevitably, Pakistan, the events in Mumbai light up the geopolitical landscape like lightning at midnight, prefiguring a new and even bigger quagmire than the one we're supposedly leaving behind in Iraq.

At Least Some Accountability - Editorial, New York Times: American forces in Iraq have relied far too heavily on private security contractors who have operated with no real legal accountability. The trigger-happy tactics of these armies for hire have alienated Iraqis. The fact that they have been out of reach of Iraqi law has been an especially bitter pill to swallow. The next administration must quickly reduce its reliance on the private armies so favored -- and so protected -- by the Bush administration.

DC to Delhi: Only Our Missiles, not Yours - Laura Flanders, Common Dreams: Rice may manage to stand in solidarity when she arrives in India this week. But when it comes to advising caution, urging diplomacy and discouraging reprisal attacks, it's hard to imagine that Bush's Secretary of State will be able to do any of that with a straight face.

What India needs – Editorial, Washington Times: America, Britain and other allies can play a vital role by helping India outline a counterterrorist strategy, as the international community seeks to ensure that there is stability in nuclear-armed India and its Pakistani neighbor.

Let's Give Pakistan the Attention It Deserves: The Mumbai attack is the latest wake-up call - Bernard-Henri Levy, Wall Street Journal: Like his predecessor, President Zardari lacks the means to break the back of criminal elements within the ISI and Pakistani military. To an even greater extent, he lacks the backing of those who associate it with the darker side of his own administration. And therein lies the challenge -- perhaps the most frightening of our era. After the bleeding of Mumbai, it is time the entire international community -- not just those in the region -- took notice.

The Iranian threat: Mullahs are ready. Is the U.S.? - Peter Huessy, Washington Times: The new administration will have a lot of support if asks for all of us on a bipartisan basis to do what we need to do - deploy missile defenses in Poland and the Czech

Still Preparing to Attack Iran: The Neoconservatives in the Obama Era - Robert Dreyfuss, TomDispatch

Obama Urged to Quickly Engage Iran, Syria - Jim Lobe, Antiwar.com: The incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama should move quickly to engage Iran without preconditions and to promote an Israeli-Syrian peace accord, according to two veteran Middle East experts whose views are likely to have influence over Obama's just-announced foreign policy team.

Afghanistan, Another Untold Story - Michael Parenti, CommonDreams.org: The war against Afghanistan, a battered impoverished country, continues to be portrayed in US official circles as a gallant crusade against terrorism. If it ever was that, it also has been a means to other things: destroying a leftist revolutionary social order, gaining profitable control of one of the last vast untapped reserves of the earth's dwindling fossil fuel supply, and planting US bases and US military power into still another region of the world.


PHOTO by Photographer to the Tsar: Prokudin-Gorskii

An opportunity with Russia - Andranik Migranyan, Washington Times: Allowing Russia to become a full-fledged member of new Euro-Atlantic security structures would make Mr. Obama a truly great political figure, one able to put an end to the Cold War. Indeed, a true end of the Cold War involves integrating Russia into the Western community where it would have both significant rights and serious obligations before its partners in the area of preserving international peace and security.

Don't Rush to Declare the U.S. Done - Alexei Bayer, Moscow Times: In their criticism of Washington, Russian leaders are actually far more restrained than a large portion of their people.

Don't placate Russia: Bear down on the Bear - Helle Dale, Washington Times

The Other Enemy, Still There... Kosovo faces Russia and radical Islam - Stephen Schwartz, Weekly Standard: Confronting both Russo-Serbian and Islamist threats, Kosovo is a microcosm of the dangers faced by those responsible for the exercise of American power across the globe.

The Strategic Economic Dialogue Works: China and the United States are cooperating to solve the financial crisis - Wang Qishan, Wall Street Journal Asia: Mr. Wang is vice premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China.

Mexico's plea to Obama: Curb drug use: With an internal war on narco-gangs, Mexico needs the US to reduce its drug addiction - Editorial, Christian Science Monitor

What should we do with Bill? - John Gartner, Baltimore Sun: There is one obvious role that Bill Clinton is uniquely qualified to play on the world stage: peacemaker.