June 17

“'From that ‘decadent’ West, there came to the Soviet Union great symphony orchestras with electrifying sounds, and they came year after year, from Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland, and San Francisco. [']How could the decadent West produce such great orchestras,' we asked ourselves. 'Cultural exchanges were another opening to the West, and additional proof that our media were not telling us the truth.'”

--A Russian musician raised, as he explained, on propaganda that portrayed Soviet society as the wave of the future, while the West was decadent and doomed; cited in Yale Richmond, Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey (2008), p. 93; image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

GlobalPittsburgh's Study Pittsburgh Initiative Attracting International Students is Important for Region's Economic Development, Commerce Department Official Says - globalpittsburgh.blogspot.com: "Antwaun Griffin, Deputy Assistant Commerce Secretary for Domestic Operations, who oversees the Commercial Service, said that education is one of the most important and valuable exports the United States promotes to overseas customers.

He commended GlobalPittsburgh for its Study Pittsburgh initiative to attract international students to the region. 'From an economic perspective, international students studying in America make a meaningful economic contribution in their pocket books…but also in the relationships and shared experiences that are created on campuses,' he said. 'Attracting foreign students is an important part of public diplomacy and economic development.'" Griffin image from article

Report says USG media technology implementers and content creators "have much to learn from each other" - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting: Emlliott comment: "Decades ago, directors of the Voice of America supervised the programming, engineering, and administrative elements of VOA. The best VOA directors (like small radio stations owners) knew something about both the programming and the engineering components, and were able to combine the two for best effect. Now, with programming under VOA and engineering under IBB, that synergy may be more difficult to achieve."

CUSIB’s Reggie Littlejohn joined Annette Lantos to honor victims of communism - BBGWatcher, USG Broadcasts/BBG Watch: "The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB – www.cusib.org) Advisory Board member, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers Reggie Littlejohn, joined Annette Lantos and other distinguished guests to honor

victims of communism at the ceremony at the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, DC on June 12. Reggie Littlejohn and Annette Lantos have been outspoken defenders of U.S. international broadcasting, particularly the role of radio in providing uncensored news and information to the poorest and most oppressed groups, including women in China who are victims of forced abortions, forced sterilizations and other human rights abuses." Image from

New host for VOA's "longest running radio program," Music Time in Africa - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

[Guest contribution] Rethinking Global Diplomacy - Talyn Rahman-Figueroa, discussn.wordpress.com: "Public diplomacy is the means by which a sovereign state communicates with foreign publics, or with publics of the state that have emigrated overseas. Not only does it provide a welcome vehicle of transparent relations between governments and people, but it also makes it easier for members of the electorate to be clued-up on the activities of its elected representatives. Nevertheless public diplomacy is increasingly becoming a buzzword that diplomats pay mere lip service to. For example, when asked if their embassy was active in public diplomacy, one diplomat answered, 'Yes, we have a Twitter account'. Citizen diplomacy differs.

Ordinary citizens are given agency in building relations between different countries, and so do not have to rely on government efforts. It is described as the process whereby individual members of civil society serve as a representative overseas of the country from which they come. The Obama administration has been very vocal about the importance of citizen diplomacy, providing citizens with valuable opportunities to champion foreign relations themselves. However, this too is a one-way process undertaken by citizens, and does not implicate foreign relations between governments where policy is actually made. Even though anyone can become a citizen diplomat, an ordinary citizen is unlikely to contribute to the strengthening of international ties. ‘Grassroots diplomacy’ is an innovation that seeks to address present diplomatic shortcomings. It is a new form of political engagement, one that opens up diplomatic dialogue to citizens at a grassroots level so that they can finally become champions of their own foreign policy." Image from

Boats, blunders and backbone: Public diplomacy must be modeled after military, considering every situation threatening Israel's image as a conventional attack  - Jeremy Ruden, jpost.com: "Micha Lindenstrauss is saving the best for last. With his tenure as State Comptroller ending in just a few weeks, he released the long-awaited report as to the government’s performance in the Turkish flotilla debacle in May 2010. The report was less than flattering toward Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, his ministers and the IDF. The report really takes to task the decision making process employed by the prime minister and the IDF. Unlike other military connected operations, the flotilla was something which could have been prepared for in advance. The intelligence community knew the IHH was planning to try and break the Gaza blockade months ahead of time. ... [T]he flotilla incident was probably the single worst hasbara (public diplomacy) fiasco Israel has experienced in over a decade, and that includes the Second Lebanon War. It turns out that at least some of that damage could have been avoided. .. [An] aspect which must be taken very seriously is the lack of coordinated public diplomacy effort before, during and after the incident. Reading between the lines of the various articles written in the Israeli press, it’s clear that one of the major problems is too many cooks in the kitchen. Both the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Foreign Ministry were chastised in the report. In response, senior officials from both branches went on the defensive. Officials at the Foreign Ministry went so far as to say that they were the first to kick into damage control mode during the confrontation, despite the lack of information from the army. Minister Avigdor Liberman even suggested that his office should be the one speaking to the foreign press. The questions remain: Who exactly is in charge of dealing with public diplomacy at this level and is there anyone coordinating the message? I suspect that the answers will depend on who you ask and which day of the week they get the question. The logistics of dealing with situations like this, though, should be clear. Public diplomacy must take the format from the military, considering every situation which threatens Israel’s image as if it was a conventional attack. Hasbara war rooms, coordinating all of the players, must be manned 24 hours a day and on alert for potential threats. Extensive preparations need to be made weeks in advance in cases such as the flotilla. If there’s an ongoing story, every correspondent needs information immediately. If we don’t provide it, they’ll only be reporting the narrative eagerly handed out by our enemies. Pertinent data coupled with background information must be made available to the international media. At all costs, we must avoid the situation where the reporting has spiraled out of control with lies, slander and fake or doctored visuals. The price for failure in the media war is very high. There might not be Israeli dead or injured but every time an opinion is changed from pro to anti-Israel is a loss."

Effective diplomacy in the age of social media - Ramesh Thakur, japantimes.co.jp: "Far from being rendered irrelevant by technological progress, where governments can communicate with one another directly on a need-to basis, diplomacy has become an increasingly critical instrument in an age of interdependence and globalization. Responding to the ever-changing world around it, diplomacy has evolved and adopted new tools and techniques to respond to the new demands and expectations. The numbers and types of actors have multiplied, from governments to national firms, multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and regional and intergovernmental organizations. The content of diplomacy has expanded to embrace a broad array of the different sectors of public policy and government activity that extend well beyond the traditional 'high issues' foreign policy. The levels at which diplomatic discourse takes place, and does so simultaneously, range from the local to the national, bilateral, regional and global. And the apparatus and machinery of foreign relations and diplomacy have been continually altered in response. Princeton University professor Anne-Marie Slaughter argued some years ago that the key to successful foreign policy in today's world is networked diplomacy, and that the United States enjoys a competitive edge in this type of new diplomacy. She said war, business, media, society, even religion are all networked. So is diplomacy: 'managing international crises requires mobilizing international networks of public and private actors.' NGOs also network to multiply their effectiveness. Jorge Heine, a professor who also has served as Chile's ambassador to South Africa and India, believes that we are witnessing a shift from 'club' to 'network diplomacy.'

The former is based on a small number of players, a highly hierarchical structure, written communications and low transparency. 'Network diplomacy' is based on a much larger number of players (particularly of civil society), a flatter structure, a more significant oral component, and greater transparency. One of the most powerful tools of networked diplomacy in turn is the existence of strong, vibrant and successful diaspora communities spread across the influential countries of the world today. This is especially true of overseas Chinese and Indians in their tens of millions. They provide a network platform both for China and India as countries of origin, and for host countries to use them to build and deepen relations with the two most dynamic economies of recent decades. One of the world's big stories last year was the Arab Spring. And one of the intriguing elements, a story within the story, was the use and role of social media tools by the protestors to stay connected, organize events, and generally to evade attempts at censorship and control of the narrative, pace and trend-line of events. This began and was most prominent in Egypt, but it also was a feature of Libya and remains a window into the unfolding events in Syria. Less well-known is how social media also was used as an effective tool of diplomacy. This is an account of one such episode involving India and Indians, drawn together from information and raw data sent to me by Navdeep Suri, joint secretary of public diplomacy for India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), with the permission of the principals concerned. In July 2010, MEA became India's first government department to start using Twitter as part of its communications strategy. In February 2011, its head, Foreign Secretary — Vice Minister — Nirupama Rao (now the ambassador to the U.S.), became the first senior diplomat in India to begin using Twitter for official use. As the security situation deteriorated in Libya, India became increasingly concerned about the fate and welfare of 18,000 of its citizens living there. While the government tried to organize the evacuation of this large number of people, MEA decided to use Twitter to communicate timely information about the evacuation schedule, by air and sea, from Tripoli, Alexandria and Benghazi. As MEA's twitterati following on the subject quickly swelled by hundreds each day, the ministry began to receive substantial information about nationals trapped in Sirte, Brega, Sabah, Misratah, and elsewhere. ... By March 3, New Delhi had hired RED STAR 1 from Sicily, which was able to evacuate the Indians trapped in Misratah (and some other Indians who made their way there from Sirte), as well as a few people of other nationalities. Like many government departments in India and other countries, MEA is used to being at the receiving end of endless complaints from citizens disgruntled about the quality of service they receive on sundry matters. On this occasion, MEA received well-deserved bouquets, such as: 'great job rescuing Indians from troubled spots. Rest of the corrupt, inefficient and bloated Indian bureaucracy take note' and 'Passengers landing in Bombay even have connecting flights arranged by govt! Outstanding work by Govt!' More importantly, it is a useful case study in the utility of social media tools in connecting the government with people who are normally well outside their range, but who can be a useful channel to send out time-urgent critical information and to receive equally valuable information from sources on the ground. Ambassadors in other conflict-afflicted countries have since been instructed to use Twitter to similar ends." Image from

Middle Power's Soft Power - Global Public Diplomacy: "[M]iddle powers are in a unique position because while they are present and involved in different issues, they are oftentimes not on a level in which they are able to compete with major powers. Being removed from this competitive context allows them to relate to major powers in a non-threatening way. This can be both positive and negative for the country’s soft power."

CULTURAL DIPLOMACY

Bringing Cultural Diplomacy to Main Street America - Imperial Valley News: "On Tuesday, Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs Ann Stock will launch Center StageSM at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Center Stage is a cultural diplomacy initiative that brings performing artists from Haiti, Indonesia, and Pakistan to the United States to engage American audiences in 60 medium and small-sized towns and cities.

The first wave of performing artists will include two music groups from Pakistan. Singer-songwriter Arieb Azhar and the rock band noori will travel to the United States and participate in a range of activities, such as performances, workshops, discussions, artist-to-artist exchanges, and community gatherings." Image from

"Culture" vs. Cultural Diplomacy - John Brown, Notes and Essays: "[T]he most memorable cultural diplomacy -- cultural relations among nations supported by a government -- is cultural diplomacy that  represents, at its best, the highest forms of culture as created by artists throughout the world."

RELATED ITEMS

Book review: Daniel Klaidman’s ‘Kill or Capture’ and David Sanger’s ‘Confront and Conceal’ - Dina Temple-Raston, Washington Post: When President Obama put an American-born radical imam named Anwar al-Awlaki on a list for assassination two years ago, liberal critics howled. Awlaki was a rock-star propagandist for al-Qaeda’s arm in Yemen who recruited new followers over the Internet. He posted fiery sermons in idiomatic English and called on all who listened to attack the West. We already know how the story ends. A drone found Awlaki in the deserts of northern Yemen last September.

And as two Hellfire missiles sealed his fate, he became the most controversial kill of the Obama presidency. Awlaki was a U.S. citizen summarily executed without due process or a day in court. For some of Obama’s early supporters, it seemed like deja vu all over again: A president who campaigned on hope and change appeared more like the status quo. For those of us covering the events, there was a general sense that the decision to target Awlaki had been difficult for the White House. Now, with the publication of the two new books cited above, it appears that we may have had it all wrong and that Obama is more aggressive in his counterterrorism policy than any of us thought he would be. Both authors also seem to have concluded that this president, who promised hope and change, has spent three-and-a-half years trying to balance his liberal ideology with old-fashioned pragmatism.  Image from

Iran’s High Card at the Nuclear Table - William J.Broad, New York Times: The Iranians have managed to steadily increase their enrichment of uranium and are now raising their production of a concentrated form close to bomb grade. The West might cringe. But Iran’s justification could be the same as that of Belgium, France and the Netherlands. The countries, all signers of the nonproliferation treaty and subject to regular atomic inspections, use highly enriched uranium to make the radioactive isotope molybdenum-99, which is widely used in medicine for diagnostic scans and cancer treatments.

Punish the Russian abusers - Editorial Board, Washington Post: Momentum in Congress appears to be swinging behind a bipartisan initiative to couple the Jackson-Vanik repeal with a new human rights provision. The Magnitsky act, whose prime author has been Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.), would sanction Russian officials “responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

The bill is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who uncovered a $230 million embezzlement scheme by Russia tax and interior ministry officials, then was imprisoned by those same officials and subjected to mistreatment that led to his death. What’s most important is that Congress send Mr. Putin and his cadres the message that their lawless behavior will have consequences. Image from

‘The Obamians : The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power ,’ by James Mann - Gideon Rose: The basic template for American foreign policy has been relatively constant for almost seven decades now and needs only tweaking and updating, not fundamental revision. The central task facing each new administration is pretty much the same: figuring out how to consolidate, protect and extend the liberal international order that emerged in the West after World War II.

Al Qaeda's desperate move - Mohammad Jamil, thefrontierpost.com: After Osama-bin-Laden (OBL) was killed by US Navy SEALs in

Abbottabad, Al Qaeda has unleashed propaganda against Pak Army. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published a study in May 2012 titled 'Emerging Al Qaeda strategy targeted at damaging Pakistan Army in Muslim eyes, assassinating its senior officers, annihilating it after US drawdown from Afghanistan in 2014'. Image from