January 10

"Conal Rectification"

--When a US Foreign Service officer tries to change his/her career track (for example Econ to Political); cited by Tom, "The Lexicon," Blue Safari: The explorations and adventures of an American diplomat; image from

INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGES BLOGS

See: Top 100 International Exchange & Experience Blogs 2009 - tarwa.blogspot.com

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN THE NEWS

Reading the QDDR: Women and Youth in 21st Century Statecraft - Richard Cincotta, The New Security Beat: seeking a sustainable future for a lasting peace: "To me, the QDDR’s focus on women anticipates long-term U.S. involvement in some of the world’s most politically volatile regions – parts of the Middle East (particularly the Arabian Peninsula), sub-Saharan Africa (west, central, and east), and South Asia (specifically Afghanistan and Pakistan) – where women’s status remains low, fertility is highest, the growth of young adult cohorts is most rapid, and states are at their weakest. America’s engagement with youth overseas is nearly as critical. In this case, the QDDR’s portrayal of the State Department’s commitment to communicating American values, history, and culture to young people overseas – described under 'public diplomacy' (see Chapter 2, page 60) – seems less structured.


Previous to its incorporation within State, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA, established in 1953) took the lead in opening channels between young people overseas and all aspects of American culture and the American experience. USIA’s system of libraries, located well outside embassy walls and staffed by educators rather than diplomatic staff, and the cultural events that the agency sponsored left an indelible impression on two post-World War II generations. Since the demise of USIA in 1999, its approach seems to have fallen from favor – perhaps rendered passé by global communications or made unaffordable by security concerns. Whatever the case, many diplomats feel that U.S. public diplomacy activities overseas – now sponsored by the State Department – have yet to fill the gap left by the absence of an autonomous USIA." Image from article. See also John Brown, "Public Diplomacy: 'Out' for the U.S., 'In' Overseas?," Huffington Post

Airborne Television Broadcasting Services To Audiences In Cuba - FedBizzOps.gov: "The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is seeking information regarding industry's capability to provide airborne television broadcasting services to audiences in Cuba in the manner described below." Via

Board Continues Strategic Review - bbg.gov: "The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the Agency that oversees U.S. international broadcasting, continues its strategic review


with the first in a series of regional assessments. This month’s regional review will focus on Africa and will engage internal and external experts in discussions to be held in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 11-13." Image from

New Heritage Foundation report: efforts to cease Radio/TV Martí broadcasts should cease - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

The Voice of America: Origins and Recollections II - Walter Roberts, American Diplomacy: "I am glad to be able to say that the conclusions in my previous article were correct: US Government broadcasts to Europe started on February 1, 1942 and not, as previously assumed, on February 24; and I am now in a position to add data that support my conclusions. ... In 2012, the Voice of America will celebrate its 70th anniversary.


I hope it will be on February 1. The communications revolution has resulted in many changes. Gone are the days when VOA had to rely on leased and weak short wave transmitters to broadcast its message around the world. Today, it disseminates the news as well as information about America, its society and its policy, not only through radio, but also via TV and Internet in 44 languages to an estimated weekly worldwide audience of 123 million people. The Voice of America is and will continue to be a vital function of 21st century American diplomacy." Roberts image from

Gates May Cut At Least One Army Brigade from Europe - Spencer Ackerman, wired.com: "[W]hile one brigade may be re-stationed in the U.S., Gates’ review is mostly focused on trimming the size of command and headquarters staffs . ... Gates hopes to sell the National Security Council, the State Department and the U.S. Mission to NATO on the force restructuring before taking it to the NATO council. The idea is to address European concerns about the plan before taking any steps to pull troops off the continent, so as to avoid a reprise of the public-diplomacy blunder that greeted the U.S.’s 2009 revisions to European missile defense."

Matching the Dragon - David Wolf, siliconhutong.com: "Communicate – The Future Lies With Bloodless Victors [:] "Not everything [i]s about knowledge and armaments. The Chinese know better than we that the best victories are won without fighting. And that means good communications. Elucidating America’s intentions around the world in a way designed to promote support for our goals, rather than have the US branded a loose cannon or worse, would be a good way to start. Mr. Obama began his administration that way, and the State Department is doing its part, but the military are, like it or not, diplomats in uniform, and they need to do more. First, as Hendereschedt and Sbragia urge, there need to be more interactions between U.S. and Chinese military personnel, not to try to 'win them over,' as that is unrealistic, but simply to know them better and to open more channels of communication.


Second, the military needs to craft a peacetime psychological operations capability that can work alongside (but separate from) an enhanced U.S. public diplomacy effort. Deterring a challenger without resorting to violence or coming close does not happen by accident: it is the result of a concerted effort to make clear the fruitlessness of a challenge. For too long the U.S. armed forces have shunted psychological operations into the reserve, calling upon its capability tactically and only in time of armed conflict. In this day and age, if you wait for the war to start psyops, you’ve waited too long. And it needs to be strategic, not tactical." Image from

Importance of Global Maritime Security Stressed at AFRICOM-Hosted Conference - Stratsis incite: "The importance of global cooperation on maritime security has been highlighted at an Africom sponsored conference. ... This is a continuation of Africom’s public diplomacy to engage institutions in and around Africa on African security threats and perceptions."

Richard Holbrooke's Public Diplomacy: The Case of the US Cultural Center in Belgrade - John H. Brown, American Diplomacy

India’s Approach to Public Diplomacy in the Information Age - Madhavi, thetrajectory.com: "During his recent visit to India, President Obama remarked that 'in Asia and around the world, India is not simply emerging; India has emerged.' Though President Obama’s appreciation may be contested by analysts and policy makers across the globe, one dimension of India’s foreign policy has definitely ‘emerged’ during the past year – public diplomacy. The Government of India is actively


investing resources in promoting its public diplomacy campaign and the first Public Diplomacy Conference ... [which took] place in New Delhi on December 10-11, 2010. The Conference is a recent step is a series of efforts by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to energize the country’s public diplomacy. Panel discussions on day one (with live streaming) are to be followed by workshops on the second day. Public Diplomacy refers to the means by which a sovereign country communicates with publics in other countries aimed at informing and influencing audiences overseas for the purpose of promoting the national interest and advancing its foreign policy goals. In 2006 the Public Diplomacy (PD) Division was created in India’s MEA and the Division has gradually gathered steam. The Division did have a slow start and adopted the traditional diplomacy style during the initial years. However, much seems to have changed now especially after the use of Web 2.0 tools by the MEA." Image from

$8.7b deals inked in Germany - Xinhua, China Daily: "China may still find it difficult to present itself in a positive light on the global scale in what has been a U.S. dominated global headspace. But, it certainly has gone to great lengths to work on very targeted public diplomacy. This is one that shows some considerable foresight to ramp up relations and partnership starting from the Germany weeks in Nanijing culminating to the Shanghai World Expo. Certainly it looks like a lot of cross-pollination – of ideas, between officials and staff, volunteers and the public."

Zayed Diplomatic Academy announces new initiatives - Press Release, ameinfo.com: "Dr. Federico Velez, Managing Director of Zayed Diplomatic Academy explained that Zayed Diplomatic Academy aims to provide the nation with a cadre of professional diplomats ready to confront the challenges of the 21st century diplomats and equipped with the knowledge and analytical skills to serve as intelligent advisors to their government.


"The Academy's different programs, especially the masters program, include courses on International Relations, International Economy, Public Diplomacy, Oil and Politics, Security Studies, Regional Studies and courses on the Legal and Administrative Structure and Foreign Relations and Foreign Relations of the United Arab Emirates.[']" Image from

Upcoming Events! - Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah: "In Search of Understanding: The Foundation for a Culture of Peace In Search of Understanding is a public diplomacy initiative fostering the culture of peace created and carried out by Dr. Mohamed Kazem, counselor at the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, currently seconded to the Foundation for a Culture of Peace. The initiative aims at the alleviation of problems related to mutual lack of understanding and distorted stereotypes and negative imagery among people of the world. This will be accomplished through a synergy of diplomacy, lyrics, music and photos. This synergy is used to stress what is shared and common among us all, ideally culminating in enhanced mutual understanding and acceptance."

Swiss Islamic Shura council launches first European workshop dealing with media - abna.ir: "The Swiss Islamic Shura Central Council organizes this month seminars and workshops in inter-cultural communication and media praxis.

Oscar Bergamin, Chief of presidential Staff and responsible for Public Diplomacy of the Council is leading these Muslim focused trainings. Bergamin is a Swiss convert and former editor and journalist." Image from

A Fair Day's Work - Laura McGinnis, manIC: "One of the nice things about living near D.C. is that there's plenty of free entertainment in the form of museums, including the National Building Museum, which I visited last Friday. The museum is currently running an exhibition called 'Designing Tomorrow: America's World's Fairs of the 1930s,' and while the exhibit's focus is primarily domestic, it does have some public diplomacy significance. World's Fairs, as Armand Mattelart has noted, are elaborate metaphors with global symbolic significance.



The Fairs of the 1930s, set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and World War II, emphasized the role of science and consumerism for national ascendancy, themes that survived World War II and the Cold War and continue to influence public discourse today. The exhibit's design is engaging and includes posters, still photographs, models and films--my personal favorite features a Typical American Family marveling at a wisecracking, cigarette-smoking robot named Elektro (portending, evidently, a future in which tobacco products are plentiful and Cs in short supply). ... A museum blog offers more information about the Fairs' international aspects. World's Fairs and Expos continue to serve as tools of nation branding. However, the U.S. withdrew from the Bureau of International Expositions in June 2001, due to a lack of Congressional funding, and has not rejoined, leaving private enterprise to fill the void. The exhibit runs through mid-July and admission is free."

I Can Be Charming, Dammit! - Heather, Adventures Around the World: A foreign service officer's perspective on life abroad: "I'm not a people person. There, I said it. I don't enjoy chit chat with acquaintances or small talk with people I'm never going to see again. I'm not interested in what some random person's kid's second grade teacher said about his artistic abilities. Nor do I care about some other random person's hellish traffic stories. As you can imagine, the Foreign Service - and Public Diplomacy work especially - forces these exact scenarios on me regularly.


I've gotten pretty good at faking it and if there's wine involved, I may even enjoy a conversation. Recently I was asked to attend a not-very-interesting function on behalf of the Front Office. Front Office: Thanks for attending this. Just go, be charming for a couple hours, then leave. Smart-ass friend*: Heather? Charming? Me: I can be charming, dammit! And so I was. *I realized that most of the people I consider to be friends are smart-asses. I'm not sure what that says about me." Blogger image from entry

Response rates - Molly, Public Diplomacy and Student Exchanges: Experiences of American Students in Britain: "I tried to do it properly. I contacted the head of the US-UK Fulbright Commission, and he agreed to give me access to the current participants. I wrote up an informed consent form and he sent it out to them. It's been almost 2 months, and I've only gotten 3 back. Of those 3, only one has actually completed the survey--and it's the one guy who I've already interviewed in person! Absolute failure. So I wrote up a new, very broad, very general survey this morning. I posted it on Facebook, and I'm posting it here. If people actually respond, I'll email them an informed consent form and do it properly again. I'm just trying to cast my net a little wider...because 1 response just isn't going to cut it."

RELATED ITEMS

From ugly to just plain American: Diversity stateside, the weak dollar and the rise of other global powers have changed how U.S. visitors act overseas and how Europeans see them - Gregory Rodriguez, latimes.com: Far from projecting an image of narrow-minded superiority, Americans abroad today are more reflective of the country's expanding diversity and cultural sophistication. They come from a broader array of backgrounds and traditions.


It also stands to reason that we are less "ugly" abroad because more of us confront and negotiate all sorts of cultural differences in our lives stateside. From small-town Indiana to suburban Atlanta, Americans are bumping shoulders with people from many backgrounds and negotiating cultural difference every day. This cultural openness also comes at a time when the U.S. dollar is losing its dominance. That fact alone could easily be behind the change in attitude. Uncaptioned image from article

Author warns of Russia's and China's 'Spinternet' - Ellen Messmer, IDG News Service: Is the Internet, with its blogs, tweets, e-mail, Web and social networking sites, a force to change places such as Iran, China, Vietnam and Russia into Western-style democracies with the West's ideas about freedom of expression and political rights? While that's an article of faith among much of the Western media, academic and political elite, says Evgeny Morozov in his provocative new book "The Net Delusion," he calls this "cyber-utopianism, a quasi-religious belief in the power of the Internet to do supernatural things." The more realistic view, he counters, is that the Internet has become an effective tool that authoritarian governments are artfully using to propagandize their citizenry, crush dissidents and stifle freedom of speech. And Morozov cautions that Internet titans such as Google, Twitter and Yahoo, companies with American roots, are increasingly regarded with suspicion abroad as possible tools of the U.S. government.

S. Korean hackers trade cyber blows with N. Korea - AFP: Computer hackers from South and North Korea are waging an apparent propaganda battle in cyberspace, less than two months after their militaries traded artillery fire across the tense sea border.


Users of the South's popular website dcinside.com have claimed responsibility for hacking into the North's Twitter account and its official website, and leaving messages denigrating the ruling Kim family. Image from

Foreign media among websites blocked in "Tunisia's bitter cyberwar" - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Probing Israel's leftist NGOs is democracy at its best: The majority of the public has become convinced that human rights groups are extreme and seek to force their radical values on others - Ronen Shoval, Haaretz: In the past year, a vigorous public debate has been waged in Israel between dozens of heavily funded organizations that call themselves human rights groups and several other organizations claiming that those groups have cynically exploited the human rights discourse as a propaganda tool for defaming the Israel Defense Forces and isolating Israel. On the one side are organizations that charge Israel with carrying out war crimes, including those involved in hounding senior Israeli officials abroad or in calling for the boycott and divestment of Israel.


These organizations believe that Israel is an anti-democratic, militaristic and racist regime. The public debate that has taken place in Israel over the past year has underscored the fact that Israel is a democratic state of the highest order. Image from

The Holocaust, Palestine and the Arab World: Gilbert Achcar interviewed - Arwa Aburawa, The Electronic Intifada: AA: The main argument of your book is that Arab attitudes towards the Holocaust and anti-Semitism -- in contrast to widespread clichés about Arabs -- are quite complex, contradictory and have changed over the course of history. What are some of the main political movements and figures which influenced Arab attitudes towards the Holocaust? GA: The Zionist narrative of the Arab world is based centrally around one figure who is ubiquitous in this whole issue -- the Jerusalem Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who collaborated with the Nazis. But the historical record is actually quite diverse. The initial reaction to Nazism and Hitler in the Arab world and especially from the intellectual elite was very critical towards Nazism, which was perceived as a totalitarian, racist and imperialist phenomenon. ... After 11 September and the Islamophobic trend increased sharply, especially in the United States, the Zionists seized the opportunity to intensify their anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian propaganda since most Palestinians are Muslims. There's a widespread discourse about so-called Islamofascism which tries to weave a narrative that starts with the Mufti and ends with Bin Laden, Hamas and Hizballah, with every opponent to Israel in between, be it Gamal Abdel Nasser, Saddam Hussein or Yasser Arafat. So it is important to challenge these attitudes, just as it is necessary to fight those attitudes in the Arab world and among Palestinians that are facilitating this kind of propaganda." Achcar image from article

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

"Here is a list of words and patterns I've noticed diplomats like to use, either in formal correspondence or just everyday conversation. The example sentences following the words are my own, and are not culled specifically from anything I actually read. They are written in a way to show a plausible diplomatic usage.

1. Mercurial: 'The opposition party leader had a mercurial way of dealing with the press - sometimes he was open and forthright, and just as often he would be dismissive and rude.'

2. Affect: 'The minister had a sensitive and submissive affect, often crossing his arms or hiding his hands; and he was careful to avoid direct eye contact for more than a few moments.'

3. Transformational: Yep - we use this word only slightly less than the military does. I don't like it much.

4. Strategic: State Department writers don't use the terms 'strategic, operational, tactical' the same way the military does. In fact, they never say "operational' or 'tactical' they just say 'strategic.'


5. HHE: The military has HHG, household goods. State has HHE, household effects.

6. PCS and TDY: Same usage as in DoD and most of federal govt. (permanent change of station / temporary duty)

7. Pack out: Refers to packing up HHE to PCS. Makes me think of camping.

8. Cone: Career tracks are called cones. Diplomats come in five conal flavors: Public Diplomacy, Economic, Political, Management, and Consular. Similar to MOS or AFSC in military parlance.

9. Conal Rectification: When an officer tries to change his/her career track (for example Econ to Political). Not a fun process; sounds painful. Requires a conaloscopy, and the copay is often cost prohibitive.

10. Personal Pouch: Diplomatic pouch services for mailing personal letters and small items of non-commercial value. Only used in remote postings where normal mail is not reliable or not available. 'Dude, don't touch my personal pouch.'"

--From Tom, "The Lexicon," Blue Safari: The explorations and adventures, of an American diplomat; image from

MORE WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

"The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) is seeking information regarding industry's capability to provide airborne television broadcasting services to audiences in Cuba in the manner described below. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes. It does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP in the future. This RFI does not commit the U.S. Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. BBG is not at this time seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals.


All who respond are advised that the U.S. government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI. All costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the Interested Party's expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFP, if any is released. In the event a solicitation is released, it will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) website. It is the responsibility of potential offerors to monitor the FedBizOpps website for additional information pertaining to this RFI." Image from