November 21

"Yes, 'Trane helped bring down the Wall! Or rather, not 'Trane, but what he did inside peoples' heads."

--Author Jesse Larner; John Coltrane image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Foreign policy specialists assess Obama's trip to Asia – Washington Post: "Victor Cha, Director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, 2004-07; professor of government at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service; senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies[:]

President Obama's visit was high on optics and messaging, but low on policy substance. Obama's public diplomacy message of being the first American president with an Asia-Pacific heritage worked well in Asia, where both street and elite views of him (and by association, American standing) have been highly favorable since his election. However, beyond some agenda-setting, the visit lacked any policy deliverables. In fairness to the administration, it played down expectations of such; nevertheless, presidential summits are 'action-forcing' events within and between governments -- that is, the summit enables the policy machine to make progress on critical issues that might otherwise be difficult to achieve." Image from

'No Logo' Revisited - Naomi Klein - ‎ AlterNet: "The following is from the new introduction to the 10th Anniversary Edition of Naomi Klein's classic book, 'No Logo (Picador, 2009)': The Bush administration's determination to mimic the hollow corporations it admired extended to its handling of the anger its actions inspired around the world. Rather than actually changing or even adjusting its policies, it launched a series of ill-fated campaigns to 'rebrand America'' for an increasingly hostile world. First came Charlotte Beers,

hired as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan. ... Only a few months in, the experiment was in disarray. Beers's propaganda materials were greeted with derision. ... After Beers quietly returned to the private sector, the same thing happened to her successor, Karen Hughes, when she went on several 'listening tours,' focusing in particular on forging a bond as a 'working mother' with Muslim women. ... Watching these cringeful attempts to rebrand American during the Bush years, I was convinced that Price Floyd, former director of media relations at the State Department, had it right. After resigning in frustration, he said that the United States was facing mounting anger not because of the failure of its messaging but because of the failure of its policies. ... When Barack Obama was sworn in as president, the American brand could scarcely have been more battered ... . Yet Obama, in what was perhaps the most successful rebranding campaign of all time, managed to turn things around. 'The election and nomination process is the brand relaunch of the year,' declared David Brain, CEO of Edelman Europe, Middle East and Africa, a global public relations giant." Beers image from

Can U.S. Public Diplomacy Build On Its History? - Geoffrey Cowan, Newswire – CPD Blog & Blogroll, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: "A decade ago, when congress folded the United States Information Agency into the State Department, it created the office of Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs to perform many of the duties previously performed by the Director of the USIA. The words in the title and the functions of the office can be inherently contradictory - or at least confusing.

According to its website, 'The Bureau of Public Affairs (PA) carries out the Secretary's mandate to help Americans understand the importance of foreign affairs.' Its role includes advocacy, both at home and abroad. By contrast, the function of public diplomacy is to build mutually respectful, credible, long term relationships with international audiences. There are times when those charged with advocacy can have a very different mission than those charged with credibility. At a time when we have a popular president, it remains essential to put renewed energy into the vital and sometimes very different mission of public diplomats." Cowan image from

Cleaning house at the BBG; former CNN CEO to manage - FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog: "One of the worst managed U.S. federal agencies will have a new leadership. President Obama has announced his intention to nominate former CNN chairman and CEO Walter Isaacson, a Democrat, to chair the Broadcasting Board of Governors, BBG, an independent federal agency in charge of all U.S. civilian international news broadcasting. President Obama also intends to nominate seven other new members of the bipartisan board, including Dana Perino, the former White House Press Secretary to President George W. Bush, and former U.S. Ambassador to Poland Victor H. Ashe. They would be among four new Republican members of the BBG. ... The BBG manages the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio and TV Martí, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN)—Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television. All are funded exclusively by U.S. taxpayers. The agency with the estimated $717.4 million budget in FY 2009 and nearly 3,800 employees has been consistently rated by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, OPM, in employee surveys as one of the worst managed within the federal government. Some of the current BBG members and their executive staff tried to withhold from the U.S. Congress and journalists independent taxpayer-funded studies revealing cases of serious mismanagement at the BBG and its privatized broadcasting entities, especially Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television. One of the studies described substandard journalistic practices at Alhurra, including broadcasting stattements from Holocaust deniers, and its failure to attract a meaningful audience in the Middle East."

American students study abroad despite weak economy: According to a new study by Open Doors, the number of American students studying abroad increased by 8.5 percent in 2008 - Paige Maynard, College News: "According to the Open Doors news release, Judith A. McHale, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs said, 'The State Department strongly supports study abroad through such programs as the Fullbright Program, which is sending its largest number ever of U.S. students abroad this year,

and the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program--which in two years has doubled the number of U.S. undergraduates with financial need whom we support study abroad.' 'More students are eager to study in newly popular study abroad destinations such as China, India and the Middle East. The language and cultural skills they acquire along with their academic experience will have a profound effect on their lives and careers,' said Allan E. Goodman, CEO of the Institute of International Education, according to Open Doors." Image from

No Change in Climate of Waste at State Department – Helle Dale, Heritage.org: "The challenge thrown down this week by the U.S. State Department to the world’s home video makers is an ambitious one — apparently nothing less than changing the climate of the planet. 'Change Your Climate, Change Our World,' is the title of the State Department’s new public diplomacy campaign in the run-up to the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in mid-December. This is hardly an appropriate use of US taxpayer money or effective public diplomacy for the United States as it advances a tendentious political agenda, not knowledge of the United States."

National Iranian American Council versus VOA Persian - Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

Former Radio Pakistan official critical of VOA relays in Pakistan - Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

International broadcasting to Czechoslovakia, 1989 - Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

1989 And the Fall of the Wall: Did Reagan Do It? - Jesse Larner, Huffington Post: "And the Wall wouldn't have fallen without cultural resistance from the Plastic People of the Universe and Orange Alternative.

Not without all those millions of Russians and Poles and Hungarians who tuned in to Voice of America, not necessarily to hear the news—the BBC was more reliable for that—but to hear John Coltrane and The Beatles. Yes, 'Trane helped bring down the Wall! Or rather, not 'Trane, but what he did inside peoples' heads." Via; image from

It is not yet Time for a Palestinian Confrontation with the Obama Administration - Raghida Dergham, daralhayat.com: "The leaders of the Palestinian Authority have committed yet another mistake by wearing the garb of public diplomacy, prancing in the spotlight and engaging in unnecessary battles, thereby aborting a good idea, one that would have had fair chances of success, had it remained the topic of stern talks behind the scenes in capitals and at the United Nations.

Such media ruckus on the Palestinian side was met by an emotional Israeli media campaign that misrepresented the fundamental purpose and ruined the efforts of the Palestinian and Arab side to have a resolution issued at the UN Security Council, one orbiting around delimitating the borders of the Palestinian state as closely as possible to the 1967 borders and linking the Gaza Strip to the West Bank by swapping lands between Israel and Palestine within the framework of equivalent exchange." Image from

NATO online video clips win two top awards - ISRIA: "NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division picked up the Econ Awards' top prize for '2009 Communications' for its online video clips Run, Basement and Staircase, in Berlin on 19 November 2009.The video clips also won a Platinum Award in the category 'Best Film/Interactive Media'. The Econ Award is conferred by Handelsblatt and the Econ publishing house in Germany."

Interview: Planning for the unthinkable - a Nuclear Iran - Tovah Lazaroff, Jerusalem Post, posted at Doc’s Talk : "[American military analyst Kenneth] Pollack said that under former president Bill Clinton he was in charge of the public diplomacy campaign to show people that the Iraqi sanctions were not harming civilians.

'We came up with so many smart ways to get the message out that no one would die, and that it was all because Saddam was taking the money and using it to build palaces,' said Pollack. None of that held water when Iraqis complained that children were dying as a result of the sanctions, said Pollack. Crippling sanctions very quickly become unsustainable, he added." Image: Sanctions are killing the children of Iraq

Public Diplomacy - Z. Williams, SIS640: The Group Four Blogging Corps: "This week[']s readings proved to be quite interesting and I particularly enjoyed Joseph Nye’s article entitled, 'Public Diplomacy and Soft Power.' There are two points in particular that I found to be quite interesting. First, I found Nye’s discussion of the “paradox of plenty” to be interesting. 'Paradox of plenty' means that 'when people are overwhelmed with the volume of information confronting them, it is hard for them to know what to focus on.' ... Secondly, Nye makes the argument that a dimension of public diplomacy should include the 'development of lasting relationships.' In particular, he uses the example of exchange programs to highlight his point."

James J. 'Jim' Gavigan USIA Officer - T. Rees Shapiro, Obituaries, Washington Post:

"James J. 'Jim' Gavigan, 76, a retired officer at the U.S. Information Agency, who for a time oversaw operations in Europe, including during the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, died Oct. 20 ... . In 1960, Mr. Gavigan joined USIA, now part of the State Department. He served for 36 years and retired in 1996 as executive officer of European operations." Courtesy LB; image from; [PDPBR compiler's note: Jim Gavigan, who will be greatly missed, used to keep a pink flamingo in his USIA office.]

RELATED ITEMS

Twitter this: The means exist to rupture Internet censorship in China and Iran -- if the State Department will cooperate – Editorial, Washington Post: The Obama administration has already done plenty to appease the Chinese regime. The least it can do is act on the president's own words about the value of free information -- and help give Chinese their chance to Twitter.

Foreign policy specialists assess Obama's trip to Asia – Washington Post:

The Post asked foreign policy experts if Obama's trip was a success or an embarrassment. Contributions from Michael Auslin, Michael Green, Victor Cha, Danielle Pletka, Douglas E. Schoen, Richard C. Bush, Elizabeth C. Economy, David Shambaugh and Yang Jianli. Image from

Assessing the China Trip – Editorial, New York Times: President Obama was elected in part because he promised a more cooperative and pragmatic leadership in world affairs. We support that. The measure of the success (or failure) of his approach won’t be known for months, and we hope it bears fruit. But the American president must always be willing to stand up to Beijing in defense of core American interests and values.

Obama in China: What the media missed Even through a veil of censorship and propaganda, the Chinese people managed a clearer view of Obama's visit than the US media did - Tish Durkin, theweek.com: In short, if a goal of this trip was to foster a feeling among the Chinese that they can and should work with the U.S., that goal was certainly achieved.

Friend in need is a foe in deed - Victor Davis Hanson, Washington Times:

There is a growing sense that America is in fact hemorrhaging -- as both friends and enemies abroad smell blood in the water. The president through conciliation and concession -- not to mention constant talk - is trying to superficially restore the influence we once earned by virtue of our economic power and self-confidence in our exceptional past and singular values. Image from

Bowing to 'world opinion' - Thomas Sowell, Washington Times: In the string of amazing decisions made during the first year of the Obama administration, nothing seems more like sheer insanity than the decision to try foreign terrorists who have committed acts of war against the United States in federal court, as if they were American citizens accused of crimes.

U.S. Fears Iraqis Will Not Keep Up Rebuilt Projects - Timothy Williams, New York Times: In its largest reconstruction effort since the Marshall Plan, the United States government has spent $53 billion for relief and reconstruction in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, building tens of thousands of hospitals, water treatment plants, electricity substations, schools and bridges.

But there are growing concerns among American officials that Iraq will not be able to adequately maintain the facilities once the Americans have left, potentially wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and jeopardizing Iraq’s ability to provide basic services to its people. Image from

Shun censorship and distorted propaganda: Dalai to China - dnaindia.com

Propaganda techniques used in advertising – Marcela, Propapolitan.

Image from