September 14

“When in charge, ponder. When in trouble, delegate. When in doubt, mumble.”

--American political philosopher James Boren; Boren image from

“Although its roots are plainly widespread, public diplomacy remains an American invention. It speaks of the need, not just to dominate, but to be loved.”

--British researcher Philip Conway, "U.S. Public Diplomacy & Barack Obama: Change or Continuity?"

BOOK REVIEW

Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq by Susan A. Brewer - John H. Brown, American Diplomacy:

"The main value of Professor Brewer’s volume is providing much information on the message and tools of U.S. home front propaganda when the country is at war. But her claim that the motive behind this propaganda is a constant American-elite strategy for global 'expansion' and 'dominance' is rather vague." Image from article.

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

President Obama’s Pitch to the Muslim World: Public Diplomacy or Policy? – Col. Norwell B. DeAtkine, American Diplomacy: "An American expert on Arab affairs evaluates President Obama’s Cairo speech from the Arab perspective and concludes that it is likely to prove much less 'historic' than many Western observers tend to believe."

Call For A New
State Department - Christopher Albon, CTlab: "Matthew Armstrong, public diplomacy expert and blogger, has called for a State Department revolution in a new Foreign Policy piece. Matt argues the State Department has failed to fulfill its core mission of public diplomacy, and in its absence the Department of Defense and other entities have filled the void. The article is more than a hatchet job, offering a lengthly recommendation for where the State Department should go from here." Image from

Toward a "giant shaggy unorganized world" of international newsgathering " – Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy: "In its present structure of competing, overlapping, feudal bureaucracies, the sum of USIB is much less than its parts. The journalism of USIB would also have to remain independent, a requirement that will be undone if calls to 'coordinate' its output under a new strategic communication scheme are enacted."

Public Diplomacy move by US Military: Rendon Group out - PR Strategy and Application's [sic] Blog: "In an earlier post the controversial vetting of embedded journalists by the Rendon Group was discussed. There was concern that the evaluation of positive, negative, and neutral stories, relative to US missions, was being used as part of the background check for vetting embedded journalists. Rendon Group had the vetting contract. Here is part of the story from Stars and Stripes:

'The Bagram Regional Contracting Center intends to execute a termination of the Media Analyst contract,’ belonging to The Rendon Group, said Col. Wayne Shanks, chief of public affairs for International Security Assistance Forces–Afghanistan. The announcement follows a week of revelations by Stars and Stripes in which military public affairs officers who served in Afghanistan said that as recently as 2008 they had used reporter profiles compiled by The Rendon Group, a private public relations firm in Washington, D.C., to decide whether to grant permission to embed with troops on the battlefield.' 'The decision to terminate the Rendon contract was mine and mine alone. As the senior U.S. communicator in Afghanistan, it was clear that the issue of Rendon’s support to US forces in Afghanistan had become a distraction from our main mission,' said Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, in an e-mail sent Sunday to Stars and Stripes. Image from

Get Smart: Combining Hard And Soft Power http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65163/joseph-s-nye-jr/get-smart By Joseph S. Nye, author of The Powers to Lead - Reviewed by William P. Kiehl - American Diplomacy: "For Professor Nye, 'contextual intelligence is the intuitive diagnostic skill that helps policymakers align tactics with objectives to create smart strategies' or to combine hard (military) power with soft (public diplomacy, broadcasting, exchange programs, development assistance etc.) power in an integrated strategy. The fact that the United States spends several hundred times as much on hard power as on soft power troubles Nye as he points out that in the information age, success is not just the result of 'whose army wins but also of whose story wins.'" Kiehl image from

U.S. Public Diplomacy & Barack Obama: Change or Continuity? - Philip Conway, Circling SquaresThoughts and reflections on life and other problems: "I've decided to publish some of my essays from the past year on this blog. Out of eight I've written, there are four that aren't too crap to share with whoever mistakenly stumbles across them. This post contains my dissertation. It may be of interest to students of public diplomacy, or international relations theory. … [The dissertation is] U.S. Public Diplomacy & Barack Obama: Change or Continuity? "

A Visit from Roger Cohen, part 2 - Ren's Micro Diplomacy: "More from Roger Cohen’s talk with our class. Again, paraphrased. … 'My fear with sanctions is two fold Iran has already worked with sanctions for some time and Iran knows how to circumvent them. Sanctions in Iran are basically surtax. You pay 10-15% more for goods, but you get the goods. They come in through Dubai. China in the last decade has become a major trading partner. Iran is awash in Chinese goods. I’m very skeptical that Russia and china will ever really come on board and support sanctions. And then you are back to carrot and stick. You are back to what the bush administration was doing. I don’t think the public diplomacy so far has been very effective. I think BBC Persian is a huge success (TV).'” Image from

Nominal fee for ESTA to communicate US entry policies, promote tourism - American Visa Bureau: "The US Congress has passed a bill to establish a non-profit corporation to communicate United States entry policies and promote tourism, business and scholarly travel to the country. if (The Bill, known as the Travel Promotion Act of 2009, is currently being considered by the House of Representatives and if approved will see a nominal fee added to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) for international tourists. Representative Bill Delahunt introduced the bipartisan bill, along with Representative Roy Blunt, in an effort to address the decline in overseas nationals visiting the US and to act as an economic stimulus and exercise in public diplomacy. The Senate voted 79-19 to approve the Travel Promotion Act, and Delahunt has said he is determined to see the bill enacted into law."

Israeli Minister reaches out to Swedish Jewish community in wake of Aftonbladet scandal - Maureen Shamee, European Jewish Press: "As part of a project to foster close attachment between Israel and the European Jewish community, Israeli Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein

will address members of the Swedish Jewish community in a live satellite broadcast on Tuesday. This new project, which is called 'Shevet Achim' (Sitting with Brothers), was formed together with the European Jewish Fund (EJF) established in 2006 at the initiative of Moshe Kantor, President of the European Jewish Congress, for the very specific goal of strengthening Jewish life in Europe." Edelstein image from article

Expanding the Afghan War: The West's insatiable appetite for Global Military Domination - Rick Rozoff, Media Monitors Network: "[A]n American news agency released a report titled 'Middle East arms buys top $100 billion' which said 'Middle Eastern countries are expected to spend more than $100 billion over the next five years' the result of “unprecedented packages…unveiled by President George W. Bush in January 2008 to counter Iran….' The major recipients of American arms will be three nations in the Persian Gulf – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq – as well as Israel. Other Gulf states are among those to participate in this unparalleled arms buildup in Iran’s neighborhood. … A week ago Nicola de Santis, NATO’s head of the Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative Countries Section in the NATO Public Diplomacy Division, visited the United Arab Emirates and met with the nation’s foreign minister, Anwar Mohammed Gargash. 'Prospects of UAE-NATO cooperation' and 'NATO’s Istanbul Cooperation Initiative' were the main topics of discussion."

Virtualpolitik: an electronic history of government media-making in a time of war, scandal, disaster, miscommunication, and mistakes - Jan Blogging: "Elizabeth Losh is the Writing Director of the Humanities Core Course at U.C. Irvine where she teaches courses on digital rhetoric and public communication. Her research specialty is digital rhetoric and the discourses of information culture, especially the study of electronic ephemera that expresses themes of nationalism or globalization.

There are many alliances between the 'Virtual State' (that the author defines as – 'the systemization of post-Weberian bureaucracy in cyberspace, organized predominantly around the maintenance of ‘files’) and the advertising and marketing industries that create and coordinate messages. Four specific 21st century fields in government rhetoric (public diplomacy, social marketing, risk communication, and institutional branding) occupy different niches in this larger alliance between government and the persuasive industries. The author emphasises that: 'Without a serious commitment to institution-building, the virtual state is given little to do but surveil its citizens.'”

Recently released books – The Hill Times (Canada): "Displaying start of article containing 361 words - Branding Canada: Projecting Canada's Soft Power through Public Diplomacy, by Even H. Potter, McGill-Queen's University Press, 368 pp. Book's blurb: 'In offering the first comprehensive overview of the origins, development, and implementation of the country's public diplomacy. Branding Canada offers policy advice and advances the thinking on public diplomacy in general.'"

Former NATO Ambassador Volker joins SAIS Center on Transatlantic Relations - Sonja Matanovic, The JHU Gazette: "The SAIS Center on Transatlantic Relations has announced the appointment of Kurt Volker,

a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, as managing director and senior fellow, effective Sept. 8. 'We are delighted to have Kurt Volker join SAIS and the Center for Transatlantic Relations,' said Daniel Hamilton, CTR executive director. 'With 23 years of government service, Ambassador Volker brings to the center a wealth of experience in U.S.-European political, economic and security relations, as well as in media and public diplomacy.'" Volker image from

Commentary: Bush confidante backs Hutchison over Perry - Peggy Fikac, chron.com: "There's an echo of George W. Bush's 'uniter not divider' mantra as his chief loyalist, Karen Hughes, boosts U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's bid to unseat Gov. Rick Perry. Hughes,

who worked with Bush from Texas to Washington, joined Hutchison on her announcement tour last month to pronounce the race a choice between 'someone who divides and someone who delivers.' … Several political scientists saw no drawback for Hutchison in Hughes' message or ties to Bush, particularly in a GOP primary. They said Hughes wasn't seen as part of the hardball politics of Bush advisers like Karl Rove, who also is an informal Hutchison adviser. She left as White House counselor before Bush's first term ended, then became under secretary of state for public diplomacy in his second term. 'She was never really a leading articulator of the divisiveness message within the Bush administration. She kind of pulled away before that really came on line,' said University of Texas at Austin political scientist Bruce Buchanan." Image from

RELATED ITEMS

The ArmorGroup Issue - Life After Jerusalem: The Musings Of An American Indian, Public Diplomacy-Coned Foreign Service Officer: “I had not planned to discuss the ArmorGroup issue here. For those who haven't heard (though I think you'd have to be living under a very large rock not to), there are serious allegations of misconduct on the part of ArmorGroup, the contracting firm that handles security at our embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. … What I do want to say though, is that they are NOT representative of all contractors. I worked with contractors from two different companies while in Jerusalem. I found them to be very professional and I was happy to have them there. They kept us safe, never mistreated or disrespected any of the local staff or local community, and were never outrageous in their behavior. I was happy to have them there protecting me.”

Only Decisive Force Can Prevail in Afghanistan - Lindsey Graham, Joseph I. Lieberman, and John McCain, Wall Street Journal: The U.S. walked away from Afghanistan once before, following the Soviet collapse. The result was 9/11. We must not make that mistake again.

At last, we have the right strategy and the civilian and military leaders on the ground in Afghanistan to carry it out. This is a must-win war. And now is the time to commit the decisive military force necessary to prevail. Image, from an article stating that "As vice president, Cheney was the decisive force pushing America into war."

Growing risk of a Taliban offensive Arnaud de Borchgrave – Washington Times: The Viet Cong strategy was not to take their 27 cities but to show they could enter the cities with impunity and cause much havoc and damage before pulling out. A similar offensive in Afghanistan could be successful with or without coalition troops protecting major cities. Taliban insurgents, looking like any other group of civilians at rush hour, could infiltrate and surround government buildings with concealed weapons. An Afghan Tet offensive is a growing danger.

Time to Deal in Afghanistan - Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post: In a few years, Afghanistan will still be poor, corrupt and dysfunctional. But if we make the right deals, it will be ruled by leaders who keep the country inhospitable to al-Qaeda and similar terrorist groups. Image from

The 'Forgotten War': Iraq is entering a crucial period. Is the Obama administration paying enough attention? – Editorial, Washington Post: The administration cannot afford to remain detached from the momentous political process in Baghdad.

The picnic

that brought down the Berlin Wall: In one of history's hidden turning points, a gambit by Hungarian officials opened the door to the collapse of the Eastern Bloc - Michael Meyer - latimes.com: The founding fiction of our Cold War "triumph" -- that it validated decades of containment and militarist confrontation -- gives way to a more nuanced appreciation of the other forces that were at work. Among them: the actions of others, often unnoticed by the rest of the world. Image from