December 21

"One agent watches another agent, and all of them report. If you are an agent then you have to justify your existence with activity."

--Nikita Khrushchev, cited in Constantine Pleshakov, There is no Freedom Without Bread! 1989 and the Civil War That Brought down Communism (2009), p. 48; image from

REPORT

A Visa and Immigration Policy for the Brain-Circulation Era: Adjusting To What Happened in the World While We Were Making Other Plans, Victor C. Johnson, NAFSA. Courtesy RG.

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Florida newspaper calls Radio Martí "clunker of the highest order” - Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

Two takes on US broadcasting to Central Asia - Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy: "RFE/RL had a Radio Free Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s which, if compared with RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan of today, could be the topic of an interesting dissertation."

At the interstection of public diplomacy and public health – Paul Rockower, uscglobalhealth.blogspot.com: "A quick hola from Oaxaca before I get down to serious blogging business. My name is Paul Rockower, I'm a USC grad student currently traveling in Mexico, and on my way down to the Panama Canal. My background is not in public health, but rather public diplomacy.

However, there are some important aspects that overlap in both fields. The basis of public diplomacy is predicated on the transmission of ideas in the global sphere, and requires both advocacy and listening to be succesfully employed. The best definition of public diplomacy comes from USC Prof. Manuel Castels: 'Public diplomacy is the…projection in the international arena of the values and ideas of the public…. the aim of the practice of public diplomacy is not to convince but to communicate, not to declare but to listen. Public diplomacy seeks to build a sphere in which diverse voices can be heard in spite of their various origins, distinct values and often contradictory interests.' In this regard, public health requires the similiar tenets to be succesfully carried out." Image from

Copenhagen summit: China's quiet satisfaction at tough tactics and goalless draw - Jonathan Watts, guardian.co.uk - "At the opening of the high-level segment, China's chief negotiator Su Wei interrupted the Danish chair, the most public of a series of moves aimed at undermining the authority of the host. With the support of other emerging economies ‑ India, Brazil and South America ‑ they shot down all attempts to make emissions cuts legally binding or to set long-term goals for reducing greenhouse gases. This left little to boast about. After the unusually assertive public diplomacy of the early stages of the conference, China retreated into silent mode during the endgame."

Reflections on the Global Conference for Anti-Semitism, Jerusalem, December 17-18, 2009 – Richard Landes, Augean Stables: "I am now fully convinced that Israel’s (and therefore the West’s) problem is not a matter of hasbarah (explanation, clarification, PR, Public Diplomacy), but a cognitive

war in which the physical battlefield (where Hamas/Hizbullah/Fatah will always lose), is an adjunct to the cognitive field (where ... the drive to delegitimate Israel is succeeding). This cognitive war must be recognized. As my guru on this subject, Stuart Green, puts it, 'you can’t win the battle of the Midway if you don’t know you’re in a battle.'” Image from

The triangular relationship - Yossi Alpher, BitterLemons: "Perhaps the most striking illustration of the poor Palestinian grasp of Washington was provided last May by Abbas in an interview to the Washington Post a day before his first meeting with Obama. Having bought fully into the Obama demand for a settlement freeze, Abbas assumed there was nothing for him to do but wait a year or two until Washington delivered the goods. 'The Americans are the leaders of the world,' he stated. 'They can use their weight with anyone around the world. . . . Now they should tell the Israelis, 'You have to comply with the conditions.' ' ... How many senators did Abbas brief and consult with during that visit regarding this bombastic approach? Where did he get it into his head that revealing the (hitherto secret) details of Olmert's offer would endear him to the American public rather than paint him as a hardliner? What sort of Palestinian diplomatic and public diplomacy staff was in place in Washington to prepare and follow-up on his visit? Indeed, to what extent do Abbas and his advisers even begin to understand the American power structure with its checks, balances and nuances?"

Street exhibition marking Romanian 1989 Revolution is put up by AGERPRES - romaniapress.com: "The Romanian Revolution - 'The Road to Freedom' exhibition opened in this October at the Brussels-based European Commission headquarters, with the support of European Commissioner Romanian Leonard Orban.

Also in Brussels, the exhibition was presented as part of several public diplomacy actions staged by the Foreign Ministry and by the Romanian Mission to NATO." Image from

The House of Sweden - Our Capital's Hidden Gem- Carly Erin O'Neil: "Meant to transcend from architecture to political and lifestyle elegance, the House of Sweden was commissioned in 2002, and completed in 2006.

It is a physical representation of Swedish values such as openness, transparency and democracy; House of Sweden is the flagship of Swedish public diplomacy in the United States." House of Sweden image from article

Academic Publications 2009 – Alex Burns: Burns, Alex & Eltham, Ben (2009). "'Twitter Free Iran: An Evaluation of Twitter's Role in Public Diplomacy and Information Operations in Iran's 2009 Election Crisis'. In Papandrea, Franco & Armstrong, Mark (Eds.). Record of the Communications Policy & Research Forum 2009. Sydney: Network Insight Institute, pp. 298-310 [PDF pp. 322-334]. Presentation slides here."

Taiwan should display our Democracy to PRC - eTaiwan News: "On the first day of the fourth meeting of 'semi-official' envoys from Taiwan and the People's Republic of China in Taichung City, it is essential to recall the fundamental problems in the policy adopted toward the authoritarian PRC regime adopted by President Ma Ying-jeou and his Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) administration,

namely transparency, Taiwan-centric policies and the need to form a domestic consensus to counter the Chinese Communist Party's divide and conquer strategy. ... Even before his arrival this morning, the PRC envoy launched a gambit in 'public diplomacy' by expressing his desire to 'represent the Chinese people' and meet Aug. 8 flood disaster victims." Image from

RELATED ITEMS

Fighting a Smarter War in Afghanistan: Soldiers go home, but their knowledge doesn't have to - Ann Marlowe, Wall Street Journal: No substantial business sends its sales force out to sell a product without supplying them with market research. But we are doing just that to our troops in Afghanistan. We've spent an estimated $173 billion in fiscal year 2009 selling a product to Afghans—cooperation with their government—without much idea why some people buy it and others don't.

Myths and troop surges - Christopher Duquette, Washington Times: The proposition that a troop surge in Afghanistan would contribute to stabilizing the country, as it did in Iraq, rests on two myths:

First, the surge in Iraq caused the population to turn against the insurgents. Second, the conditions that enabled the surge to succeed in Iraq also exist in Afghanistan. Image from

In Iraq, an opening for successful diplomacy - Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post: The costs of the Iraq war have been great and perhaps indefensible. But Iraq could still turn out to be an extraordinary model for the Arab world.