June 19

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PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

TONIGHT, 6/19/12 Center Stage Brings Contemporary Performers to U.S. and Cultural Diplomacy to Main Street - posted at  thevalleyvoice.org: “The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage Washington DC Live Webcast of the concert [:] Tonight the U.S. Department of State will raise the curtain on its groundbreaking cultural diplomacy initiative, Center StageSM, which is bringing performing artists from Haiti, Indonesia, and Pakistan to the United States to engage American audiences in 60 medium- and small-sized towns and cities. Tonight’s artists will include two music groups from Pakistan. Singer-songwriter Arieb Azhar and the rock band noori . This concert is open to the public with no cover, but if you can’t make it out or aren’t in the D.C. area, you can join us on the Kennedy Center’s Live Webcast of the concert! For a full list of artists and performance dates, visit here. Both of these artists have concerts coming up in your area [.]

Center StageSM builds on Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vision of ‘smart power,’ which embraces the use of a full range of diplomatic tools, in this case the performing arts, to bring people together and foster greater understanding. Center StageSM is a public diplomacy initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. It is administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts in cooperation with the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations, and with support from the Asian Cultural Council, the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. ... Diplomacy doesn’t just happen in conference rooms or at embassies. It can burst out in classrooms and dance studios, on town greens and at local landmarks, in coffee shops and arts centers, moving from person to person, between artist and arts lover. Center StageSM (www.centerstageUS.org) is a groundbreaking program designed to bring diplomacy to Main Street by bringing ten striking foreign performing ensembles to the U.S. for month-long tours from June-December 2012. Sufi-rock bands from Lahore…master Haitian troubadours… puppetry and Hip Hop collectives from Yogyakarta… power-house contemporary dance companies from Port-au-Prince and Padang… Acclaimed at home but little-known to many Americans, performing artists from Pakistan, Haiti, and Indonesia will tour the U.S. from June through December 2012 as part of Center StageSM. The tours include a range of community engagement activities in over 60 different towns across the country, including performances, workshops, discussions, artist-to-artist exchanges, and community gatherings. The Center StageSM website and social networks will make on-tour activities accessible to thousands of others in the U.S., in the artists’ home countries, and around the world.” Image from article

U.S. State Department Fact Sheet: U.S.-Russia People-To-People Contacts -
posted at randomgovernmentpressreleases.blogspot.com: "From: U.S. State Department U.S.-Russia Cooperation On People-To-People Contacts Fact Sheet Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs June 18, 2012 The United States and Russia are increasing people-to-people connections through education, culture, sports, media, and other professional interactions. Interaction among our nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), artists and arts groups, businesses, academics and young athletes is growing. The objective of these mutual efforts is to promote the mutual understanding required to build lasting ties between our two peoples. In the field of cultural and public diplomacy, the 'American Seasons' program in Russia continues to bring a wide spectrum of cultural offerings to the Russian public. In April, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra completed its first tour to Russia in more than two decades. Also, Native American flutist R. Carlos Nakai closed out the Library of Congress series on traditional American folk-life that included gospel, bluegrass, and Zydeco and Cajun music. In May, jazz legend Herbie Hancock performed in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Later in the summer, the Eli Yasmin Blues Band will tour Russia. U.S. audiences applauded the return of the Bolshoi Ballet to the Kennedy Center in June and anticipate the Mariinsky Ballet’s visit in October. The 'Russian Seasons' cultural program in America will begin this summer, including as part of the bicentennial celebration of Russian settlement at Fort Ross, California, in July. High-profile U.S. and Russian media, educators, and business professionals will continue their discussion on the evolving practice of journalism in October in Washington, D.C. Our NGO partners, the International Center for Journalists and the Moscow Union of Journalists, with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, are working to launch a new exchange later this year to place young journalists from Russia in American news rooms and vice-versa. In the education arena, we are working with Russia to promote educational exchanges at all levels. In February 2012, U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul and then-Russian Minister of Education Andrei Fursenko signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Educational Cooperation between our two countries. This MOU has laid the groundwork for discussions on expanding and co-funding the Fulbright Program. Similarly, the American Association of Universities and the Association of Leading Russian Universities are partnering to place Russian science-and-technology students at U.S. universities. The Fulbright program will offer two summer schools in Russia: 'Sustainable Development and Public Administration' at the Higher School of Economics and 'Green Technology' at Kazan Federal University.

In 2011, more than 4,600 Russians studied in the United States, many with the help of academic exchange programs like the Edmund Muskie Graduate Fellowship. There is also increasing demand among U.S. students to study in Russia, and nearly 2,000 American students are now doing so annually. The U.S.-Russia Virtual Science Challenge for youth was launched this year, and will link online U.S. and Russian high-school students in bi-national teams to investigate real-world solutions for the management and storage of nuclear waste. In another new youth program, the Iowa Writer’s Program will invite ten of Russia’s best young authors for an exchange with young American writers. Bilateral youth sports exchanges will continue in 2012, with American swimmers traveling to St. Petersburg and Russian beach volleyball players traveling to California in July. American ice hockey players plan to travel to Moscow for a sports exchange in the fall. Following ratification by the Russian Duma, we look forward to the bilateral adoptions agreement entering into force. This agreement will establish safeguards to better protect prospective adoptive children, provide greater transparency into the adoption process for prospective parents, and foster additional family links between U.S. and Russian citizens. People-to-people exchanges are the foundation of U.S.-Russian efforts to build those bridges of understanding that enable the dialogue and cooperation needed to address global problems." Image from

Public Schedule for June 19, 2012 - posted at edwardcampbellmedia.blogspot.com: "UNDER SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS TARA SONENSHINE 9:00 a.m. Under Secretary Sonenshine addresses Critical Language Scholarship Students, at L’Enfant Plaza Hotel, in Washington, DC. (CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)"

Snapshot: Foreign Service Grievance Board 2011 Statistics, Up 25% from 2010 - Domani Spero, DiploPundit: "No cases were filed in 2011 involving the Peace Corps or the Broadcasting Board of Governors (which includes Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, TV Martì, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks)."

US President and Vice President don’t travel abroad together, should IBB Director and Deputy Director be different? - BBGWatcher, USG Broadcasts/BBG Watch

Is DoD Strategic Communication Going Away? - To Inform is to Influence: IO, SC, PD, what's in a name: "Public Affairs and USD – Policy share responsibility for Strategic Communication for the United States Department of Defense but word on the street, now confirmed by insiders, says that the Public Affairs office for SC, known as the Communication, Planning and Integration Directorate is slowly but surely being dissolved. As far as anyone can tell, none of the responsibilities shared between OSD (PA) and USD(P) are being transferred to USD(P). On this matter, at least one SC senior expert has stated: ‘StratCom isn’t an organization in OSD any more, it’s a process.’ This fails to answer how this process is managed without a staff, but I’m sure that has been addressed, because we all know that processes don’t run themselves. Or not." Image from

Who is gutting Strategic IO? - To Inform is to Influence: IO, SC, PD, what's in a name: "First JMISC went away last year, especially the Behavioral Scientist Branch or BSB. Now the Communication, Planning and Integration Directorate or CPI at OSD-PA is being phased out, and without an announcement (and they belong to Public Affairs, no less). The US Army War College’s Information in Warfare group is being phased out. At National Defense University, Dr. Dan Kuehl, the titular head of academic IO, is leaving for a job at Mercyhurst College in Erie, PA and nobody seems to be replacing him. The Army’s doctrine doesn’t preach IO, it will be all about Inform and Influence Activities. Most of the other Services don’t 'do' IO, they do cyber or EW. As far as we can tell, NOBODY will be teaching senior leaders about IO and especially not how or why IO is performed at the strategic level. We have one or two long term IO projects ongoing and POM’d but that is constantly under attack, usually as a result of shoot from the hip aiming from congressional staffers who usually don’t know the first thing about IO, SC or PD beyond infowars.com (which should not be anyone’s source of information about anything). Have we done that pitiful a job of educating our decision makers? Lessee if I have this straight… Somehow our senior-most leaders think they can now ‘throw some IO dust on a problem’ if a crisis occurs and somehow we can magically create a reliable, trusted source of information that we expect to inform and influence a target audience – during a time of crisis. Somehow we are going to recruit cultural, language and area specialists and squat and produce products for social media, radio, newspaper, tweets, and all other forms after performing proper in-depth Target Audience Analysis? We learned that lesson with Special Forces, they can’t go away between wars. We’ve learned that about EW. We’ve learned that about MISO/Psyop. Between wars we expect somewhat of a loss in some capabilities, but to cripple all future strategic influence activities?"

VOL. VIII NO. 10 May 04-May 17, 2012 - The Layalina Review on Public Diplomacy and Arab Media

Leveraging "Cool Japan" - Christina Dinh - A Hard Look at Soft Power: Global Public Diplomacy: "Japan’s main public diplomacy objectives are to 'deepen understanding of Japan among people in other countries and boost Japan’s image overseas'. Anime and manga have both been two cultural tools used by the Japanese to leverage their soft power influence. The concept of 'Cool Japan' has had a large attraction overseas. Japanese traditional as well as contemporary values are reflected in its 'Cool Japan' brand. As more and more people become aware and familiar with cultural aspects such as anime, manga, and K-pop, Japanese cultural values become more accessible to the outside world. 'Cool Japan' works as a branding instrument for soft power where it presents a unified, cultural message of Japan. ... In the international realm, it has been difficult for Japan to overcome the negative aspects of its colonial past. Tensions between South Korea and China regarding past historical events will take greater public diplomacy efforts than just 'Cool Japan'. It will be interesting to compare the Chinese and Japanese diplomacy efforts and changing economic situations. Will Japan’s public diplomacy efforts be enough to escape the shadow of a rising China?" See also.

How to boost the capitalization of the Ukrainian brand - Olga Pikulska, kyivpost.com: "When Simon Anholt, a British expert in the field of branding and public diplomacy, made a groundbreaking statement back in 1998 that countries and nations could be compared to big corporations, this made a splash in the scientific circles and the government. Obviously, prosperous countries are now resorting to the same strategy of building image as the leading brands do.

A country with vague reputation, though, is deemed to be an outsider on the world economic arena. It’s high time we rethought how to withstand the manipulations from outside, and to boost the profitability of the national brand. The desire [is] to get more Ukrainians excited about the national identity issues." Image from article, with caption: Supporters of the German national soccer team kiss an Ukrainian girl prior to an Euro 2012 Group B match between Germany and Portugal, in Lviv, Ukraine, Saturday, June 9, 2012.

Re-branding Canada: from the siege of Sarajevo to Rio+20 - Daryl Copeland, ipolitics.ca: "How times have changed. After a flurry of activity in the second half of the 1990s – the land mine ban, International Criminal Court, children in conflict, blood diamonds, the Responsibility to Protect – it has been over a decade since Canada attempted any significant diplomatic initiative. The progressive Canadian state is being

Even mainstream commentators are coming to the realization that Canada’s image and reputation, credibility and influence in the world are not what they once were. After coasting for years, our free ride is over. The one-time champion of North-South relations and sustainable development has been recast as the fossil of the year, and the international community is taking note."Copeland image from article

Embassy 101: Who Does What? - tabbiesintow.blogspot.com: "Public Affairs Officer - PAO [:]Like Consular, this section is also divided into two areas: cultural affairs and press affairs. Public Diplomacy officers work in this office. The cultural affairs side works on educational and cultural exchanges, for example bringing students from here to there and vice-versa and bringing US artists (music, dance, theater, art) to the host country. The press side arranges interviews with local press of US officials and build public awareness of the US."

Amnesty's Shilling for US Wars - Ann Wright, opednews.com: "The new Executive Director of Amnesty International USA -- Suzanne Nossel -- is a recent U.S. government insider. So it's a safe bet that AI's decision to seize upon a topic that dovetailed with American foreign policy interests, "women's rights in Afghanistan," at the NATO Conference last month in Chicago came directly from her. Nossel was hired by AI in January 2012. In her early career, Nossel worked for Ambassador Richard Holbrooke under the Clinton Administration at the United Nations. Most recently, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations at the U.S. Department of State, where she was responsible for multi-lateral human rights, humanitarian affairs, women's issues, public diplomacy, press and congressional relations."

European Studies in Turku - The ogre of the tale: "My name is Louis Clerc. I am a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History in the University of Turku, Finland. My research interests are in contemporary international history. More specifically, I deal with the History of Franco-Nordic relations, public diplomacy and the history of diplomatic practices."

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Photo of the Day: Former Taliban Fighters Smiles Creepy for the Camera - Domani Spero, DiploPundit: GHŌR, Afghanistan (May 28, 2012) – Former Taliban fighters hold rifles as they prepare to hand them over to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan during a reintegration ceremony at the provincial governor’s compound. The re-integrees formally announced their agreement to join the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program during the ceremony.

(Department of Defense photograph by Lt. j. g. Joe Painter/RELEASED. We’d like to know what they were told to make them smile like that. If you’ve been fighting the Coalition Forces and now have to hand over your weapons to the GIRoA, would you be smiling like that, too? But, why? Image from entry

Catching the winds of change in Cuba - Laura Bly, USA TODAY: Last month, in response to reports of "abuses" in the programs, the Treasury Department tightened regulations for its "people-to-people" licenses for travel to Cuba. U.S. companies now must provide a sample itinerary, assign a representative to each tour and explain how the exchanges would "enhance contact with the Cuban people, support civil society, and/or help promote the Cuban people's independence from Cuban authorities." But for curious Americans willing to pay a premium and play by the rules, "it's the shortest distance you'll ever travel to enter a completely different world," says Peggy Goldman of "people-to-people" license holder Friendly Planet Travel. The Cuban government just raised its rates for hotels and other tourist services by about 25% for U.S. operators during the upcoming winter season. As a result, he says, many of those 130 tour companies, museums and other organizations — some of which already charge upward of $500 per person, per day — will be forced to scale back their trips.

Divorcing Pakistan: Simply put, the interests of Washington and Islamabad do not align. Neither do our preferred forms of paranoia - Andrew J. Bacevich, latimes.com: In the Greater Middle East — the geographic expanse in which the global war on terrorism has been largely waged — the Obama administration has now abandoned any pretense of liberating or pacifying or dominating the Islamic world. Through a campaign of targeted assassination (supplemented in the case of Iran with cyber attacks) the aim is now merely to keep adversaries off-balance in a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. In that context, Pakistan serves chiefly as a target-rich environment.

Pakistan's potential willingness to use that arsenal is what ultimately makes it so dangerous — and should give U.S. policymakers pause before they give that country the back of their hand, as the United States has done so many times before. Image from article, with caption: An activist of the Pakistani political and Islamic party Jammat-e-Islami (JI) is seen protesting in Karachi last month. During a recent visit to India, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta publicly stated that U.S. leaders were "reaching the limits of our patience" with Pakistan.

Egypt’s generals grab for power - Editorial Board, Washington Post: On Monday, the State Department said that the military must honor its commitments to allow a transfer of power to civilian control and that its decisions “will have an impact on the nature of our engagement.” We hope the message is being stated more bluntly in private. If the generals suffocate Egyptian democracy in the cradle, U.S. military aid must cease.

Egypt’s Democracy Interrupted - Editorial, New York Times: Egyptians made their revolution and ultimately must make it succeed. The reformers are going to have to regroup. They will be stronger if they work together. And they will be stronger if they have less equivocal backing from the Obama administration, which was quiet for too long. It sent the wrong message in March when it resumed military aid to Egypt — $1.3 billion annually — after a five-month hiatus, even though the generals had not repealed the emergency law or dropped prosecutions against employees of four American-financed democracy groups.

The Betrayal of Egypt’s Revolution -  Sara Khorshid, New York Times: If the Obama administration genuinely supports the Egyptian people in their pursuit of freedom, then it should realize that democracy will take root only through the revolutionary path that started on the streets in January 2011 — not through the dubious ways of the Mubarak-appointed military council.

A Leaderless World: Signs of disorder grow as American influence recedes - Review and Outlook, Wall Street Journal: The substitute for U.S. leadership is not a new era of U.N.-administered peace.

It is often a vacuum filled by the world's nastiest actors. There are always limits to U.S. power, and American leadership does not mean intervening willy-nilly or militarily. It does require, however, that an American President believe that U.S. pre-eminence is desirable and a source for good, and that sometimes this means leading forcefully from the front even if others object. Image from

The Decline of Democracy: Greece displays the post-liberal variety, Egypt the pre-liberal one. Both are rotten - Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal: Not only in Egypt, but in Tunisia, Turkey and Gaza, popular majorities have made a democratic choice for parties that put faith before freedom and substituted the word of God for the rule of law.

McGurk Pulls Out - Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well:  For perhaps the first time, ambassador nominee Brett McGurk has withdrawn himself. In a letter sent Monday to Obama and Hillary, McGurk said he was removing himself from consideration for the job with a “heavy heart.” He said he was doing so after consulting with his most recent wife, Gina Chon, because he believed it was in the “best interests of the country, and of our life together, to withdraw my nomination and serve in another capacity.”

Alcohol plays role in reports involving the Secret Service: Records show DUIs - Jim McElhatton, Washington Times: One U.S. Secret Service special agent drank too much alcohol and got caught after a minor traffic accident. Another agent got nabbed after driving into a telephone pole. Yet another got arrested after getting stuck in a ditch. As the Secret Service deals with the ongoing fallout from an embarrassing prostitution scandal, newly released records are laying bare the extent of drunken driving and other alcohol-related misconduct over the years.