Public Diplomacy

Think of it as fence-mending, image-building and playing his strong suit.

With the Republican nomination now in hand, John McCain is making the overseas trip he was forced to delay earlier this month when he still faced opposition from both Mike Huckabee and from conservatives unreconciled to his being the Republican standard bearer.

Now he’s got a chance to show the world a new face of the Republican Party, a party that has been synonymous for the past eight years with George W. Bush and, before that, with George H.W. Bush.

We do well to remember that during most of the past two decades, apart from the Bushes, there have been no prominent Republican envoys as far as foreign publics are concerned. Ronald Reagan in his post-Presidency was well known but infirm and did not travel overseas, except for a controversial speaking engagement in Japan a few months after leaving office. Nixon wrote and commented on foreign affairs until his death in 1994, but was a disgraced political figure.

During this long period, a handful of Republicans — such as Richard Lugar, Newt Gingrich and McCain — became very well known to foreign elites but remained unknown to the international public at large.

Ironically, the contentious and precedent-setting nature of the Democratic race this year means that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are much better known to world audiences than the internationally-seasoned McCain.

The stops on McCain’s itinerary — London, Paris, Israel and Baghdad — are logical places for a Republican presidential nominee to visit first. Our oldest allies, the French Republic and the United Kingdom, are eager to see a Republican leader disown, once and for all, Donald Rumsfeld’s quip about “Old Europe.” French President Sarkozy has clearly signaled a new era in Franco-American relations.

These two stops should be easy, fence-mending visits.

That leaves Israel, a symbolic show of support, and Iraq, McCain’s signature foreign policy talking point. What sort of message does this send?

The first, positive message this visit sends is seriousness. Voters at home see a Presidential nominee reaching out to key foreign allies and to our troops overseas — a stark contrast to the never-ending Democratic mudfest.

The second impression is that the trip shows off McCain’s fluency in international affairs and distracts from the disturbing economic news at home. He may need to dodge questions about the economic cost of the war and its impact on the U.S. economy, but better to face that question than to face the overall disquiet at home about the state of the economy.

Even if McCain chooses to delay discussing the grave economic indicators in the U.S. in favor of overseas travel, the fact of his foreign visit should help reverse declines in U.S. standing among foreign publics. This first post-Bush Republican overseas tour does not have to have all the answers, it simply needs to show that foreign opinion matters to John McCain.

I was sad to miss this event put on by the Center for Global Engagement in Washington, DC last week.

The event featured General Anthony C. Zinni, USMC (Ret.) and Admiral Leighton W. Smith, Jr., USN (Ret.) fresh from testifying at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill.  According to the Center, the General and the Admiral “issued a call to action to the remaining presidential candidates to elevate support for the use of “smart power.”   Issued on behalf of over 50 retired senior military officers (page 2), this is the largest endorsement from the military community that non-military tools strengthen America’s national security.” 

Brian Vogt, a senior advisor at the Partnership for a Secure America, authored an interesting blog post about the event, tying in comments from each of the three US presidential candidates on funding (or lack thereof) of the State Department.

PS: The Center for Global Engagement’s website includes handy profiles for each of the three candidates summarizing their positions on key foreign policy issues. Click here to read Clinton’s, here for Obama’s and here for McCain’s.

Richard L. Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State during President Bush’s first term, was recently  interviewed by the Washington Diplomat.

Armitage  spoke about the need to repair the U.S.’s tarnished image abroad. He told the Diplomat:

“The decline in American influence can be a temporary phenomenon. I believe most countries want us to be the indispensable nation, but they don’t want us to be rejectionist. For example, if we didn’t like the Kyoto Protocol—and I think there were good reasons for us not to like Kyoto—it was incumbent upon us to put a better idea forward. You can’t just say no.

“The great majority of nations want us to be the indispensable nation, but that is only the case when we are true to our national values. When we engage in such things as torture, when we waterboard, when we deny habeas corpus, when our actions are not consistent with our words, we engender a huge amount of cynicism.”

The Diplomatreports that Armitage outlined several key initiatives the next U.S. president should undertake:

“First, the new government should shore up U.S. alliances and work closely with multilateral institutions. There is a compelling need, Armitage said, to reverse the impression that for the United States, international law is suggestive rather than binding, that alliances are outdated and peripheral, and that international institutions are ineffectual or hostile.

Second, the United States should take a bolder and more creative approach to global development,crafting a coherent strategy on public health. For instance, Armitage pointed out that strong U.S. leadership to combat infectious diseases would save millions of lives and reflect the nation’s best traditions.

Third, the next administration should focus on global economic issues, working hard to ensure that the advantages of globalization are available— and evident—to all countries and peoples.

Fourth, the next president should employ U.S. technology and innovation to tackle climate changeand energy insecurity. Policies that reduce demand through increased efficiency, diversify energy suppliers and fuel choices, and better manage the geopolitics of key regions are crucial. U.S. leadership is needed to shape a new energy framework, Armitage argued, noting that the United States and Japan should work closely with India and China on energy issues.

Finally, the next president should pay closer attention to public diplomacy, although Armitage cautioned that this does not entail a slick marketing campaign.”

Armitage explained: “I don’t see public diplomacy as an exercise in the U.S. talking louder or talking more. Nobody out there doesn’t understand the U.S. The question they have is: Do we understand them? A large part of public diplomacy should be to hush up and listen. Everyone knows what we want and what we think. Let’s hear what they think and what they want. People would be so shocked it might have a salutary effect. Maybe there is some common ground.”

Is that the existential question? There’s been much made of recent comments by Obama advisers that came back to bite them. Economic adviser Goolsbee talked to the Canadian Consulate in Chicago regarding NAFTA, Samatha Power told a UK journalist that Hillary was a “monster.” Both learned the hard way that campaign advisers are fair game in this overheated contest.

I worry that the tone of this campaign will get uglier and every comment will get such scrutiny and opposition spin treatment (which is in turn picked up by the press) that the quality of public debate will suffer. If Benjamin Barber is right (see Desa Philadelphia’s post below) in saying that the candidates can no longer discuss candidly trade and other issues, and candidates’ advisers are chastened not to speak out, we will be left not with a campaign but a race to the least common denominator of politics: pandering. And then we will get the kind of thoughtless and superficial policies in the next President that the public now rightly condemns.

The good thing about the campaign for the U.S. Presidency is that it is getting unprecedented attention both at home and abroad. The not so good thing is that, because of what used to be known as the “CNN factor” (now “Youtube” and the Blogosphere), media reaction is instantaneous, unfiltered, “raw.” NPR is doing a good job of taking a more distanced, nuanced view of how the world sees the U.S. campaign. Its dispatches from Iraq, South Africa, China and Britain can be accessed here. I highly recommend them. I will also be heading to Europe in the coming days and will be trying to gauge foreign perspectives on the race and sharing them with readers here.

Given the pressures on candidates to pander, it may very well be that the best place now to observe the campaign is from a distance.

A six-country poll conducted in November, 2007 by The Financial Times, France 24 and Harris Interactive explored various aspects of the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign.

The poll found that publics in the U.S., Great Britain, Spain, France, Germany and Italy favored Hillary Clinton as the next U.S. president. Senator Clinton ranked first among the 10 candidates offered to respondents when asked both “who would be the best U.S. president” and “who is the most likely to be elected president?” Rudy Giuliani came in second, with support particularly coming from Spain and Italy.

In one of the more intriguing findings, the poll shows that Americans and Britons are more positive towards the idea of electing a black president, while the French, Italians Germans and Spanish are more positive towards a female president.

To quote the press release:

“Over half of adults in France (56%), Spain (56%), Germany (55%), and Italy (53%) as well as a plurality (43%) in Great Britain, believe that electing a woman as president would have a positive effect on the USA.

Similar numbers in France (57%), Germany (56%), Italy (53%), Spain (51%) and Great Britain (36%) believe that electing a woman would have a positive effect on America’s relationship with other countries.

The one exception is in the U.S. Just three in ten (29%) Americans believe electing a woman would have a positive effect on the USA while one-quarter (26%) say it would have a negative effect and 23 percent believe it would have equally positive and negative effects.

When it comes to America’s relationship with other countries, just under one-quarter (23%) say a female president would have a positive effect, one-quarter (25%) an equally positive and negative effect and three in ten (31%) a negative effect.

Looking at the possibility of the first black president, the numbers are not as strong. Half of Spaniards (50%) and pluralities of French (49%), Italians (44%), Germans (43%) and Britons (43%) believe electing a Black man would have a positive effect on the USA.

Again, Americans are less positive as just one-third (33%) say this would have a positive effect while 28 percent say the effect would be equally positive and negative. The numbers are similar for the effect this would have on America’s relationship with other countries.

Pluralities in all five European countries (between 42% and 48%) believe the effect [of a Black president] would be positive while just 28 percent of U.S. adults believe the effect would be positive on the relationship with other countries.”

Public Radio International’s “The World” program broadcast a segment about these findings of the poll. You can listen to it here.

The poll also finds that two-thirds of Americans, a majority of Italians, Germans and Spaniards, and a plurality of Britons think the U.S. election is extremely or very important to people in other countries. Only one-third of the French respondents felt the election is extremely or very important to other countries.

Those Europeans polled–except for Italians–feel that Iraq is the most urgent foreign policy issue for the new president.  Majorities in France  and Spain and strong plurality in Italy (48%) believe the next U.S. president should withdraw all American troops from Iraq.

The poll gives voice to some interesting concerns Europeans have about the next administration’s role in the world:

“Two-thirds or more in the five European countries (between 65% and 77%) believe the U.S. president should be an equal voice among all western leaders. In the U.S., just under half (46%) also agree with this idea, but one-third of Americans (34%) believe the new president should be the leader of the Western world.

This new president also has an important role in ensuring peace among the nations. Majorities in Italy (70%), the U.S. (61%), Great Britain (53%) and Spain (52%) as well as pluralities in Germany (48%) and France (44%) say the U.S. has an extremely or very important role in ensuring peace among the nations of the world.”

Journalists like to make fun of the Hollywood Foreign Press (I’ve done it, I admit), that handful of perk-hungry foreign reporters who decide the Golden Globe winners. They put on a good show but do they really affect the real voting? The Oscar voting?

Well the political foreign press is showing they indeed have clout. You know it’s truly an international Presidential Election when a high-level campaign aide has to resign over comments printed in a foreign newspaper.

Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power exited the campaign today after The Scotsman printed a story in which she called Hillary Clinton “a monster.” The story by Gerri Peev titled “‘Hillary Clinton’s a monster’: Obama aide blurts out attack in Scotsman interview” quotes Power as saying: “She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything,” The comment, says the article, is proof of the Obama camp’s true feelings about Clinton. (A debatable claim, even in light of some of the other things Power said to the reporter, like “You just look at her and think, ‘Ergh’. But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive.”)

The story might also offer Americans a glimpse of some of the hard-nosed coverage that’s happening in the international press. Maybe it will drive some traffic to the online editions of their campaign coverage which, contrary to a lot of stateside reports, isn’t just fawning. While an American reporter might not have printed Power’s comment, honoring her “that is off the record” statement, Peev simply sums that up as Power “hastily trying to withdraw her remark.”

This type of reporting could influence November’s results.

Benjamin Barber, the author of the international bestseller Jihad vs. McWorld, was the latest guest speaker at the USC Center for Public Diplomacy’s “Conversations in Public Diplomacy” series on Thursday March 6th. Barber, who teaches at the University of Maryland in addition to doing high-profile political consulting work for many governments, titled his talk “Obama vs. Hillary vs. McCain: Does Anyone Understand Public Diplomacy and Interdependence?” His answer? Yes, but don’t expect to hear any of this year’s Presidential candidates own up to it; because that would mean admitting some harsh realities about global economic interdependence that won’t sit well with American voters.

Barber has been fleshing out this argument lately. In a March 4th piece on The Huffington Post titled “Protectionism, Profits and Pandering” he writes that while Republican candidate John McCain can hide behind his party’s “truth of sorts” that “unadulterated free trade serves the interests of global business” and is therefore good for the economy, the Democrats’ party politics (and demographics) means they’ve had to reduce their discourse to myths about bringing exported manufacturing jobs back to the United States.

Barber told the USC gathering that in order to succeed Clinton and Obama have had to sell their blue-collar electorate on the promise of a resurgent blue-collar America even though they fully understand that the realities of the global economy don’t support the rhetoric. Democrats “can’t say the reality of globalization is there is no going back, the manufacturing jobs will not come back.” The result is the candidates sound like they’re espousing mercantilist and protectionist policies that “simply don’t work anymore.” They’re stuck with a “19th century political tool kit” to address 21st century problems.

So should the Democrats start leveling with the electorate? Barber, who says either Clinton or Obama would be better than McCain, isn’t recommending it. He points to the Obama campaign’s strife over reports that chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee reassured the Canadians that their candidate’s speeches about rolling back NAFTA are more “political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.” Goolsbee denies the remark. Barber seems convinced the story cost Obama votes in Ohio and Texas. The harsh truth, he said yesterday, will have to come from outside the campaigns: “Those of us who don’t need to get elected need to speak honestly.”

On the Public Diplomacy front, Barber says Obama would be the “quick fix” for America’s seriously tarnished image abroad, calling him a “walking emblem of Public Diplomacy because we are a multicultural nation.” Then he hedged by saying that electing a woman President would do wonders for America’s reputation.

If only these Democrats would make up their minds already!!

The US media has given some much need attention to the US Presidential candidates’ foreign policy platforms this week.

 On Sunday, the Washington Post hosted an online question and answer session with Senator Barack Obama. Some of the topics covered include democracy promotion, policy toward cuba, the Isreali Palestinian conflict, and US-Islamic world relations.

On Monday, Public Radio International broadcast a discussion about the relative importance of foreign policy experience in choosing a presidential candidate. PRI also broadcast a segment in which Senators Clinton and Obama question eachother’s foreign policy experience in advance of the big primary days on Tuesday.

John Isaacs, Executive Director of the nuclear watchdog Council for a Livable World authored this useful analyisis of the three candidates stances on a variety of hot-button foreign policy issues.

Continuing the theme of Obama supporters and musical cultural hybrids, I couldn’t help posting this Bollywood music video.

Enjoy!