September 21

"Oh, yes, and Mr. President, about those Poles, grant them visa-free travel to the United States!"

--New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, referring to the U.S. president’s cancellation last week of plans to place missile interceptors in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic, an announcement made on Sept. 17, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland; image from

ANNOUNCEMENT

(courtesy of John Ferguson, Executive Director, American Voices):

"American Voices is back from a busy summer of cultural engagement with the Middle East and Central Asia through our YES youth performing arts academies and donations of music scores and instruments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt and Lebanon. Please find links below to ... YouTube channel and teaser for the documentary currently in production, Camp Unity, about our programming in Iraq." Ferguson image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Public Diplomacy 2.1: TEDGlobal Fellow Evgeny Morozov argues that the US should upgrade its social media outreach - design mind: "American diplomats should stop trying to explain the country’s often inexplicable foreign policy in 140 characters or less.


Instead, they should use the Internet to sell the very idea of America, and there is no better way to do this than to open up the country’s vast cultural riches to the rest of the world — in cyberspace. Allowing the global public to view what America’s best universities, libraries, and museums have to offer from the comfort of their browsers must be at the heart of any 'public diplomacy 2.0' efforts." See also. Image from

Obama has hung the Iranian democracy protesters out to dry in the 2010 budget – Iranian.com: "Congressional Research Service report--May 19, 2009--Obama has hung the Iranian democracy protesters out to dry in the 2010 budget. Page 44: As shown, $67 million has been appropriated for Iran democracy promotion ($19.6 million through DRL and $48.6 million through the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs/USAID). Of that, as of October 2008, $42.7 million has been obligated, and $20.8 million disbursed. Additional funds, discussed in the chart below, have been appropriated for cultural exchanges, public diplomacy, and broadcasting to Iran. However, the Obama Administration did not request funding for democracy promotion in Iran in its FY2010 budget request, an indication that the new Administration views this effort as inconsistent with its belief in dialogue with Iran."

Obama’s Cowboy Foreign Policy - B. Daniel Blatt, GayPatriot: "Yeah, people may like Obama more abroad. So, I guess it does help to some extent being the anti-Bush. But, with Obama, it’s all about feelings, not results. He hasn’t been able to translate the good will he has gained in foreign circles into working relationships with our allies abroad.

And what his predecessor may have lacked in popular approval, he often made up for in strong personal relationships with world leaders not bound and determined to frustrate U.S. foreign policy. If his image were such that President Obama and Secretary Clinton thought we needed to 'reset' our foreign policy, well, that has more to do with the Presdent’s standing abroad (as measured in popular polls) and media coverage of the previous Administration than it did with his relations with our allies. Oh, yes, and the ineptitude of his Administration’s public diplomacy. Alas, that his successor’s public diplomacy doesn’t seem much better." Image from

One in five Iranians "follow" VOA or BBC - Kim Andrew Elliott Discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy: "Twenty percent is a large audience for international broadcasting. The question does not specify how often they they view or listen. The standard measure in international broadcasting audience research is viewing or listening or accessing in the past week."

Boca man recalls how his Army unit spread messages through music in Iraq on a makeshift radio station - Andrew Marra, Palm Beach Post: "On the barracks rooftop it seemed like poor weaponry, throwing out feeble FM frequencies in the hail and thud of Sadr City sniper fire, mortars and bombs. But on the streets of that immense Baghdad slum, where Army Sgt. Alan Coffman often went door-to-door in the sand-strewn streets with a helmet, gun and translator, it sometimes seemed like one of the best things going. It wasn't quite Radio Free Europe, but then again no one had instructed Coffman and the rest of his team on just how to start it up. ... [T]he only FM music station broadcasting in a sprawling Shiite slum in suburban Baghdad that is home to more than 1 million people [was] [t]he 'radio in a box,' as they called it, [with] an eight-mile range, a playlist of Iraqi pop garnered from local CDs and - inserted between songs - pro-American messages translated into Arabic. It was all part of the job for Coffman and his team. He was a psychological operations guy." Via

The Giant’s Rival, Part Two: The US Response - Paul G. Buchanan, Scoop.co.nz: "The US has political authority over Guam, the Northern Marianas and American Samoa. It maintains close ties to the Freely Associated States (FAS--Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau) and maintains military bases on Guam and the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. … Otherwise the US maintains a limited diplomatic presence throughout the region, having reduced its consular presence in the 1990s. After the 2007 PICL meetings the US opened a public diplomacy office in its embassy in Fiji,

following the restoration of the Peace Corps regional office in Suva in 2004 (the US embassy in Fiji is the hub of its diplomatic presence in the PIF outside of Micronesia)." Image from

The 21C Family of Man opening - Paul Rockower, Levantine: Rockower, in remarks at the opening of his 21c Family of Man photo exhibit: “While the world may indeed be a narrow bridge,

it is the role of public diplomacy to widen that bridge. It is the task of public diplomacy to widen that bridge so that more and more people will not live in fear of the world that exists on the other side, and so that they will not be afraid to cross that bridge.” Image from

Scotland's standing 'needs work’: "Scotland's former 'ambassador' in the United States has called for a diplomatic charm offensive to help patch up relations with America - BBC: Susan Stewart, who was a Scottish affairs official in the US, said a campaign of public diplomacy is needed after the Lockerbie bomber release. … American relatives of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing expressed outrage at the Scottish government's decision to free Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds in August. Their opposition was echoed at the highest levels in President Barack Obama's administration. But the former first secretary for Scottish affairs at the British embassy in New York believes the damage to Scottish-American relations can be repaired."

Lessons to Be Learned From Dow 36,000 - Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture: "1. Call it the audacity of cluelessness: Let us congratulate James K. Glassman and Kevin Hassett, the authors of the incredibly money losing advice in their book Dow 36,000, on their 10 year anniversary. The book forecast that lofty number would be obtained in 3 to 5 years; it was published precisely 10 years ago today. … Perhaps even more astonishing is that these two authors continue to work in fields that rely on their judgment and analytical abilities: Glassman served in the Bush administration as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, 'leading U.S. efforts against terrorist ideologies.'”

(That ought to help you sleep at night). Image from

Reading :: The Reagan Imprint: Ideas in American Foreign Policy from the Collapse of Communism to the War on Terror By John Arquilla - Clay Spinuzzi, Spinuzzi:A blog about rhetoric, writing, reading, information technologies, telecommunications, research methods and methodologies, genre theory, activity theory, actor-network theory, distributed cognition, work fragmentation, lifehacks, net culture, and distributed knowledge work: "Arquilla singles out five ways in which 'Reagan transformed American grand strategy' (p.215): [among them] From propaganda to public diplomacy. Arquilla emphasizes that Reagan was the first president to use the term 'information strategy' – and the first president of the Cold War to actively pursue one. The Great Communicator rejected "the propaganda that had characterized the war of ideas before him," and in contrast, 'his strategy consisted of steadily increasing presssure on our adversaries by communicating directly with those people they were oppressing' (p. 219)."

September 20, 2009 Expanded Office Hours – paul, 217.1a Introduction to the Graphic Arts - "Hello, everyone! Hope you have a great holiday tomorrow - if you're around Newhouse, check out the public diplomacy panel at 2pm featuring David Pogue (NYT tech editor) and Marjane Satrapi (of Persepolis fame). This isn't for extra credit, but it looks like an awesome panel."

About Me - Just Thought You Should Know: Traveling, Self-Reflection, Frustrations, Life, Food, and the Freedom to Write When I Want About What I Want: KRISTINA

"SoCal native, traveler, bibliophile. Pursuing marketing, corporate comm, public diplomacy, & csr. Teaching English in Samut Prakan, Thailand, from October 2009 - March 2010."

CULTURAL DIPLOMACY

Art, Reality and Cultural Diplomacy - Rita J. King, DIP's Dispatches from the Imagination Age: "The central question of cultural diplomacy in many ways is: If humanity is to earnestly attempt to outpace our current path of collective destruction with acts of trailblazing creativity, how can this sacred act, which undermines the underlying conditions that lead to violence, best be accomplished?"

In Castro Country, Giving a Concert for Peace Cuban Exiles Decry Event, but Leading Latin Music Acts Perform Before Hundreds of Thousands in Havana - William Booth, Washington Post: "Rock-and-roll diplomacy came to the communist isle on a smoldering afternoon, as hundreds of thousands of Cubans filled the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana on Sunday and sang along to a dozen international musical acts led by the Colombian singer and peace activist Juanes.

The free 'Peace without Borders' concert was criticized by hard-line Cuban exiles in Miami as a propaganda coup for the Castro brothers, and that it might have been. But for thousands of young Cubans, it was a rare treat to hear a lineup of global Latin music stars, such as Olga Tanon of Puerto Rico and Miguel Bosé of Spain. … Juanes had previously met with Obama administration officials, and being a 17-time Latin Grammy winner who has become a kind of roving diplomat in Latin America, he got to see Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. She gave her blessing to his participation in the concert. … Next up … : The New York Philharmonic is coming to play a series of concerts at the Teatro Amadeo Roldan in Havana at the end of October."

RELATED ITEMS

The Bad News: America’s good news only Ambassadors - Patricia H. Kushlis, Whirled View: [S]kewed, feel-good reporting from an Embassy too often helps to produce skewed, bad analysis that can result in skewed and hence bad policy decisions.

Attitudes and Action: Public Opinion and the Occurrence of International Terrorism - Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleková, Science: The predictors of terrorism are unclear. This paper examines the effect of public opinion in one country toward another country on the number of terrorist attacks perpetrated by people or groups from the former country against targets in the latter country. Courtesy Alan Kotok. Full text by subscription.

This week, the world is watching Obama: As the president steps before the United Nations for the first time -- then meets with G-20 counterparts -- he sees a chance to prove himself at home

- Christi Parsons and Paul Richter, latimes.com. Image from

Our Missile-Defense Race Against Iran: The Bush-era plan was the best of the realistic alternatives - Ilan Berman, Wall Street Journal

Last Chance for Iran - Daniel R. Coats, Charles S. Robb and Charles F. Wald, Washington Post: President Obama's primary objective during and after negotiationswith Iran must be marshaling international support for more robust sanctions.

Back to Bagram – Editorial, New York Times: As it works to shut down the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, the Obama administration faces a no less pressing challenge in bringing the larger military detention center at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan squarely within the rule of law and fundamental notions of fairness.

More of world's talented workers opt to leave USA - Emily Bazar, USA TODAY:
More skilled immigrants are giving up their American dreams to pursue careers back home, raising concerns that the U.S. may lose its competitive edge in science, technology and other fields. "What was a trickle has become a flood," says Duke University's Vivek Wadhwa, who studies reverse immigration. Image from

Information as the New Arms Race: An official report last week reveals weaknesses in our effort to prevent another 9/11 - L. Gordon Crovitz, Wall Street Journal: The document refers to the mission objective to "combat violent extremism" versus what the Bush administration's determination to "defeat terrorists at home and abroad." Combating is weaker than defeating. Also, a mission that had been defined in 2005 as to "prevent and counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction" has been reduced to "counter WMD proliferation." Another change: the deletion of the Bush mission of "promoting the growth of freedom and democracy."