From Facebook: The importance of cultural diplomacy

[Author and respondents not mentioned, in the interest of their privacy.]

3 hrs · 

The importance of cultural diplomacy for any country's national security. Exhibit A:

Koreas to carry single Olympic flag

North and South Korea will march under one flag at the Winter Olympics and field a joint hockey team.

BBC.COM

LikeShow more reactions

Comment

Comments

This headline made me think of a great 2014 transcript from the US Advisory Commission on PD. In particular, see Rick A. Ruth's quote - here he talks about the United States, and obviously this case is different, but the principle is the key (btw the whole transcript is great reading.) "On a larger scale, cultural diplomacy programs allow rapprochement without concession. This goes back to what most people know as “ping-pong diplomacy.” But we do it now on a much broader, much more sophisticated scale. Bu essentially, if you can have representatives of the United States and another country with whom relations have been strained, or difficult or non-existent, and you need a venue to come together and a reason to come together, that does not seem like either side is conceding anything politically to the other, you can do that through cultural diplomacy. I do not know when the day will come or how it will come when we will have something approaching normal relationships with Cuba or North Korea or Iran. But I can tell you -- and you can take my marker home with you today -- that one of the very first events that will happen when that day comes will be a bilateral cultural diplomacy event. It will be sports, it will be youth, it will be film, it will be music, and it will be in one those categories. That is no small thing. It is not because those cultural diplomacy activities are meaningless, it is because they are so meaningful that they will lead to broader more fruitful political discussions."
https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/228529.pdf