December 22

“Whoever it was who suggested an international treaty banning National Day receptions should be canonized.”

--Sir David Gore-Booth, British Ambassador to India, 1999

“On arrival we unwittingly caused some offence by enquiring the name of the first village we passed through on leaving the airport, which turned out to be the capital city of Managua.”

--Roger Pinsent, British Ambassador to Nicaragua, 1967; rule Britannia image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Israel, A Bird's Eye View - Ari Bussel, NewsBlaze - "Earlier this week, Israel's Business Conference by Israel's leading financial paper Globes was held in Tel Aviv. Two and a half days of Israel's business and government elite gathered in one place. ... The CEOs of Google Israel, 888 and other top communication/Internet providers participated in a panel. ... Preceding the panel discussion ... Jared Cohen ... [a] member of the Policy Planning Staff of Secretary of State Clinton ... presented what the USA is doing around the globe. Cohen emphasized the role of new technologies in transforming public diplomacy and foreign policy. He gave the examples of Kenya and Afghanistan where salaries are paid via cell phones, thus cutting corruption and increasing efficiency. In 2008 in Kenya, $1b was paid through transfers over cell phones. He recalled interviewing young Persian kids in Iran during a stay in 2004-2006. They were using Blue Tooth technology in a way we in the West are not accustomed. They were able to communicate in a short range of a few hundred yards. He asked 'are you not afraid?' at which they laughed saying that no one over thirty understands what they are doing.


He also told the story of Twitter. The US Government does not actively dictate to businesses what to do (at least not yet), but when the rebellion in Iran was at its height, Twitter was about to shut down for pre-scheduled maintenance. The founder of Twitter was summoned and urged to re-schedule the maintenance. That enabled communication in Iran to continue, despite the crackdown on dissidents." Cohen image from

Pakistan's northwest frontier: You can report for VOA as long as you don't say you report for VOA - Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

A long and confused disquisition about "psychological warfare" - Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy:

Responding to misleading comments by Ali Abdu, Eritrean minister of information, interviewed by Shabait.com (Asmara), 18 December 2009, Elliott writes: "1) Eight members of the BBG are nominated by the president, but the board must have four Republicans and four Democrats, and they are all subject to Senate confirmation. 2) VOA's budget is separate from that of State, and State does not outline or supervise VOA content. 3) The BBC director general is not appointed by the Queen (except, perhaps, ceremoniously), nor even by the Prime Minister. He/she is selected by the BBC Trust, whose members are appointed as described here. 4) BBC programs are not required 'to go in line with the policies of the British government.' See, for example, the BBC World Service operating agreement." Image from

Some of the murkier news about VOA - Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

Cultural (Diplomacy) Requires Visa Reform - James Ketterer, Global Engagement:


"Last month I wrote about an interesting report from the Brookings Institution on how the US can expand cultural diplomacy with the Muslim world - and why that would be beneficial to all involved. Now, New York University’s Center for Dialogues has a released a report, 'Bridging the Divide between the United States and the Muslim World through Arts and Ideas: Possibilities and Limitations.' Among many other things, the report urges the Obama Administration and Congress to revise visa restrictions and elements of the USA Patriot Act that inhibit organizations from bringing Muslim artists to the United States." Ketterer image from

JFQ Dialogue – Joint Force Quarterly (issue 56, 1st quarter 2010): "Ambassadors to the World: A New Paradigm for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication By Robert D. Deutsch Public Engagement 101: What Strategic Communication Is, Isn’t, and Should Be By Kristin M. Lord “Strategic Communication” Is Vague: Say What You Mean By Christopher Paul"

Soft power, retours d'expérience du monde entier - altiplano, Casus Belli:

"Le USC Center on Public Diplomacy vient de mettre en ligne une étude du professeur Nicholas J. Cull consacrée à la diplomatie publique à travers de nombreux retours d'expérience. On y lira en particulier une typologie des différentes formes de diplomatie publique mises en oeuvre dans différents pays du monde. La France apparaît ainsi comme un pays qui privilégie la diplomatie culturelle grâce à des opérations internationales d'origine étatique. Le Japon mise plutôt sur les échanges universitaires pour soigner son image internationale; les Etats-Unis utilisent leur réseau diplomatique pour faire valoir leurs positions auprès de la presse mondiale. La Grande-Bretagne, pour sa part, recourt à son dispositif de radio-diffusion international. Quant à l'ex-URSS, sa diplomatie culturelle reposait, selon Nicholas J. Cull, sur la 'désinformation' et la 'guerre psychologique'. L'auteur recense également les différentes contraintes inhérentes à ces types de diplomatie publique : informations mises en circulation, gestion du temps, infrastructures nécessaires, proximité ou éloignement avec les gouvernements..." Image from

NATO to expand Internet connectivity in Afghanistan - Milaz.info: "On 21 December 2009, the NATO C3 Agency and the Public Diplomacy Division of NATO have completed the signature process of the Letter of Agreement in support of the 'SILK-Afghanistan' project. This is a significant step towards expanding broadband Internet connectivity for higher education throughout the provinces in Afghanistan."

Jamaat's real sustenance - Mosharraf Zaidi, The News International - "In the 2002 elections, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) scored what was by all accounts a surprise victory in NWFP and parts of Balochistan. For a gang of unkempt exploiters of the tender religious sentiments of Pakistanis who had never been successful in electoral politics, winning the entire NWFP province was a bonanza unlike anything they'd previously experienced. ... What the MMA was able to do very successfully (and what American public diplomacy has failed in countering so miserably) is marrying anti-Americanism

with Islam, and concurrently, marrying the American presence in Afghanistan as a vast conspiracy of the kuffar (infidels) to take over Muslim land." Image from American Historical review, with following note: "Cover Illustration: Anti-Americanism has not always been the kind of front-page news that it currently is, but it is a wide-ranging phenomenon with a long and complex history. Hostility toward the United States around the world has ebbed and flowed in response to a variety of factors, from U.S. foreign policy to capitalism to the pervasive influence of U.S. culture and the overall "American way of life."

Towards a critical pedagogy of comparative public diplomacy: pseudo-education, fear-mongering and insecurities in Canadian-American foreign policy – Comparative Education (Routledge), informaworld.com: "Author: Wayne Nelles Abstract Little research has examined public diplomacy as a comparative education issue, particularly regarding social-psychological, economic and political fears or personal and national insecurities. This paper discusses American public diplomacy as a mostly Cold War strategy adapted to post-9/11 national security interests, fears and desires. It further explores differences, similarities, and debates in Canadian media, policy documents and academia, in response to American political, economic and military pressures or demands for a 'North American' (i.e. joint American-Canadian) security approach. From a critical pedagogy perspective the paper argues that modern public diplomacy has been a dubious, pseudo-educational, fear-mongering concept nurtured by academics, politicians and military leaders as part of an American foreign policy, military security and propaganda strategy. The paper further shows that post-9/11 Canada, problematically, adapted its own public diplomacy policies to serve American interests. Further research is needed to examine more closely public diplomacy's impacts on Canadian education."

RELATED ITEMS

In Defense of America - Roger Cohen, New York Times: America expects people to name their price. Europe tends to price people’s names. The American genius, for all its original sins (and slavery was a great sin), lies in a combination of an essential optimism and an essential pessimism about human nature so articulated by the nation’s founders as to make self-correcting renewal the nation’s core identity.

Russians Wary of Cyrillic Web Domains - Clifford J. Levy, New York Times: The Kremlin has long been irritated by the way the United States dominates the Internet, all the way down to the ban on using Cyrillic for Web addresses — even kremlin.ru has to be demeaningly rendered in English.

The Russian government, as a result, is taking the lead in a landmark shift occurring around the world to allow domain names in languages with non-Latin alphabets. Russians themselves, though, do not seem at all eager to follow. Cut off for decades under Communism, Russians revel in the Internet’s ability to connect them to the world, and they prize the freedom of the Web even as the government has tightened control over major television channels. Image from

Utilizing Conservative Principles of Propaganda – machinepolitick.com

3D Nazi propaganda to be auctioned: A rare piece of 3D Nazi propaganda designed to show the German army's march across Europe is to be auctioned - telegraph.co.uk: The rare boxed set of stereo cards were a basic version of "virtual reality" and allowed families and children feel like they were on the front line from their living rooms. They were dreamt up by Hitler's evil war machine and showed the progress of the army as it conquered the West. Rich Nazi families, who were able to buy them with special viewing glasses, were the target audience for the goods, created by propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.


His idea was those who could afford the luxury items would be more likely to produce people of officer class material than the poorer members of society. Goebbels image from

ONE MORE QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

“Can it be that in wading through the plethora of business plans, capability reviews, skills audits, zero-based reviews and other excrescences of the management age, we have indeed forgotten what diplomacy is all about?"

--Sir Ivor Roberts, British Ambassador to Italy, 2006