Public Diplomacy

I’ll let this article, published by Indian news wire Sify, speak for itself:

“Kathmandu: They made predictions - some with success and some without - about the end of the country’s royal dynasty and the end of the Maoist insurgency. Now Nepal’s cosmopolitan astrologers are predicting a victory for Barack Obama.

According to Nepal’s leading soothsayers, Republican candidate John McCain’s younger opponent will win the November 4 polls, not due to the republican’s running mate Sarah Palin but thanks to the democrat’s stronger stars.

Santosh Vashisht, who is also the spokesman of the Nepal Astrologers’ Council, says McCain, whose sun sign is Sagittarius, was born under the shadow of the evil Saturn, which would reduce his chances of winning.

Obama, on the other hand, enjoys the blessings of Taurus and Jupiter, which have boosted his prospects of victory…

…While the presidential campaign can ignore the Nepali astrologers, it can’t however afford to dismiss the Nepali diaspora residing in the US, whose number is nearly 150,000. In a report from Washington on Monday, Kantipur, Nepal’s biggest daily, said Nepalis residing in the US were rooting for Obama, wooed by his pledge for greater education and healthcare funds for the middle and lower middle class.

“Someone like Obama will be able to understand our problems,” said Babu Ghimire, a Nepali resident with two children. “Save a few, the majority of Nepalis in the US belong to the low and middle income groups…”

In the run-up to the election, there are so many relevant commentaries, polls and musings that it is best to just list a few of them below.

• Sunday’s reporting by Colum Lynch, the Washington Post’s UN correspondent, is titled “At the U.N., Many Hope for an Obama Win:”

“There are no “Obama 2008″ buttons, banners or T-shirts visible here at U.N. headquarters, but it might be difficult to find a sliver of territory in the United States more enthusiastic over the prospect of the Illinois senator winning the White House.

An informal survey of more than two dozen U.N. staff members and foreign delegates showed that the overwhelming majority would prefer that Sen. Barack Obama win the presidency, saying they think that the Democrat would usher in a new agenda of multilateralism after an era marked by Republican disdain for the world body.

Obama supporters hail from Russia, Canada, France, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere.

…”It would be hard to find anybody, I think, at the U.N. who would not believe that Obama would be a considerable improvement over any other alternative,” said William H. Luers, executive director of the United Nations Association. “It’s been a bad eight years, and there is a lot of bad feeling over it.”

Conservatives who are skeptical of the United Nations said they are not surprised by the political tilt. “The fact is that most conservatives, most Republicans don’t worship at the altar in New York, and I think that aggravates them more than anything else,” said John R. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “What they want is the bending of the knee, and they’ll get it from an Obama administration.”

• John C. Freed of the International Herald Tribune penned an interesting article exploring why (rather than declaring that, like many others have done) foreign publics, in the case, Western Europeans, favor Senator Barack Obama by such large numbers. In discussing a Harris Interactive poll conducted for the IHT, Freed reports:

“While support for Barack Obama is broad and deep among Europeans, their reasons differ substantially from Americans who support him for president… the main reason [that Americans and Europeans support Obama] is the same: Obama’s capacity for change from the policies of President George W. Bush.

But from there the two continents differ. Respondents in the five European countries surveyed are far more likely to cite Obama’s personality or his youth, while Americans are more likely to cite his approach to health care and the economy…”

• An American and former diplomat living in Brussels points out in his blog that the Obamania in Europe is due, in some part, to the blood sweat and tears of some democrat expatriates “campaigning” on the Democratic candidate’s behalf:

“If the reaction of Belgians to the US presidential campaign is typical of publics throughout Europe and the rest of the world - a recent multi-country poll commissioned by The Guardian and other papers shows that Belgians are among the world’s most pro-Obama and anti-Bush - then the United States is enjoying a massive public diplomacy bonanza. For free. Thanks to overseas Americans.For the past several months, but especially in the last weeks leading up to November 4, the services of the Democrats Abroad Belgium (DAB) “Speakers Bureau” have been much in demand. It might sound impressive, but the “bureau” is just a handful of regular American citizens who happen to be conversant in one or more of Belgium’s three official languages: Dutch, French, or German. English too: in this international atmosphere, it is often the lingua franca of think tanks, educational institutions, discussion groups and news media following the US election…

…This year, the positive impact of the Obama phenomenon is being multiplied many times over by the kind of citizen public diplomacy us Democrats (and that sole Republican!) are waging on our own dime here in Brussels. If the Democrats led by Obama win - and especially if the election is shown to be fair and square - the beneficiaries will be all Americans, for the world will see that American democracy is not just a PR story.”

• Last week New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof opined that Obamania could facilitate the “rebranding” of America. After recounting a conversation he had with a Chinese friend, who reacted incredulously to the news that Obama-a black man–is leading the race for president, he writes:

“We’re beginning to get a sense of how Barack Obama’s political success could change global perceptions of the United States, redefining the American “brand” to be less about Guantánamo and more about equality. This change in perceptions would help rebuild American political capital in the way that the Marshall Plan did in the 1950s or that John Kennedy’s presidency did in the early 1960s.

In his endorsement of Mr. Obama, Colin Powell noted that “the new president is going to have to fix the reputation that we’ve left with the rest of the world.” That’s not because we crave admiration, but because cooperation is essential to address 21st-century challenges; you can’t fire cruise missiles at the global financial crisis.

In his endorsement, Mr. Powell added that an Obama election “will also not only electrify our country, I think it’ll electrify the world.” You can already see that. A 22-nation survey by the BBC found that voters abroad preferred Mr. Obama to Mr. McCain in every single country — by four to one over all. Nearly half of those in the BBC poll said that the election of Mr. Obama, an African-American, would “fundamentally change” their perceptions of the United States.

Europe is particularly intoxicated by the possibility of restoring amity with America in an Obama presidency. As The Economist put it: “Across the Continent, Bush hatred has been replaced by Obama-mania…” Finally, it’s time to revisit the Economist’s “Global Electoral College” map:

It does appear that the only public to strongly favor McCain is Iraq (67% to 33%). Here’s an explanation of how this global presidential election works.

With just a few days remaining until the U.S. elections, I wonder not so much how they will be interpreted as who will be doing the interpreting. There are plenty of observers and commentators, of course, most of them connected in some way to national and international mass media. But there appear to be few media figures, at least in the English-speaking world, who seem seasoned, dispassionate and wise.

Among those who remember his weekly commentaries for the BBC, who would not yearn for another Letter from America by Alistair Cooke, telling us that despite financial crisis, terrorism and war, that all is not lost? From that generation we still have Daniel Schorr doing commentaries for NPR, but his weekly conversations with Scott Simon are mainly for a domestic U.S. audience. Are there not any journalistic de Tocquevilles, who can leaven journalistic commentary with something more than a “magic map” of “red states” and “blue states?”

This question has relevance not only because foreign public opinion of the United States is so low, but because foreign publics see themselves as having a critical interest in the outcome of the vote. This blog, and others like it, have chronicled how non-Americans would vote if they had a chance. The answer is, perhaps not surprisingly, that they would vote for Barack Obama.

But the fact that the overseas polls are so lopsided in Obama’s favor is more than just a referendum on the foreign policies of Obama and John McCain. Both candidates favor more diplomacy, as the Washington Post reminds us today. The lopsided foreign preference for Barack Obama is part cultural preference, part referendum on the way that the two candidates have treated foreign public opinion. One candidate reached out to it, the other derided such efforts as the actions of an “international celebrity.”
Those who were watching and listening from abroad at that moment understood that the McCain campaign had chosen to play the “elite card” — insinuating that Obama was too “foreign,” not “American” enough, and that a candidate beloved overseas should be therefore somehow suspect at home.

No matter who wins next week, America’s image as formed in the course of this election campaign will need repair. Officials of the outgoing Bush administration will not be able to do it, and the embassy officials — public diplomats who deal with foreign media and publics — will not be authorized to do it until the new Administration takes office in January. So we will be dependent on international communicators — journalists perhaps — to help wipe the slate clean for a new beginning without sweeping all the bad news under the rug. Too bad Alistair Cooke isn’t around to help.

It’s old news now that Former Secretary of State and General Colin Powell broke with his Republican party and endorsed Barack Obama while on “Meet The Press” this past weekend (video here).

But I took particular notice to his advice on what should be the President’s number one priority once inaugurated:

(more…)

In the Washington Post today Joby Warrick and Karen DeYoung report, “On Al-Qaeda Web Sites, Joy Over U.S. Crisis, Support for McCain:”

“Al-Qaeda is watching the U.S. stock market’s downward slide with something akin to jubilation, with its leaders hailing the financial crisis as a vindication of its strategy of crippling America’s economy through endless, costly foreign wars against Islamist insurgents.

And at least some of its supporters think Sen. John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to continue that trend.

“Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush.

The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers. In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had “exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy.” It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.

“It will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda,” said the posting, attributed to Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the password-protected site. “Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America.”

…Some terrorism experts said the support for McCain could be mere bluster by a group that may have more to fear from a McCain presidency. In any event, the comments summarized what has emerged as a consensus view on extremist sites, said Adam Raisman, a senior analyst for the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist Web pages.”

“The idea in the jihadist forums is that McCain would be a faithful ’son of Bush’ — someone they see as a jingoist and a war hawk,” Raisman said. “They think that, to succeed in a war of attrition, they need a leader in Washington like McCain.”

Islamist militants have generally had less to say about Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Leaders of the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah expressed a favorable view of Obama during the primary campaign but later rejected the Democrat after he delivered speeches expressing support for Israel….”

Read on here.

Two reporters from abroad have separately noticed and reported that certain issues and regions have been neglected in the US presidential campaign.

First, Jonathan Marcus, a BBC News diplomatic correspondent, reported last week that “US campaign bypasses foreign policy:”

“At the outset of this presidential race it looked as though foreign policy would be one of the dominant issues in the campaign…

Adapting the United States to a fast-changing world, extricating its armed forces from Iraq, and restoring the country’s standing in the wake of “the global war on terror” would be sufficient foreign policy challenges for any new president.

Add to this the linked crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan; Iran’s nuclear programme, and the quest for Middle East peace and you have more than enough to keep any administration occupied.

Foreign policy was also expected to play a significant tactical role in this campaign. It is after all one of the big selling points for Republican contender Senator John McCain…

But out on the campaign trail, foreign policy appears to have all but disappeared as an issue in this race. Even Iraq - still one of the thorniest of problems - has fallen from the headlines…”

In the Daily Nation of Kenya last week, the headline read: “Africa mentioned only in passing in all the debates:”

“Africa has been mentioned only fleetingly in the concluded US presidential debates, a reflection of how low the continent rates.

In three debates between Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, as well as one debate between their respective vice presidential running-mates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, Africa has been mentioned only in passing as a foreign policy or security issue of concern to the US.

In the final debate between Mr Obama and Mr McCain last Wednesday at the Hofstra University in New York, there was not a single reference or mention of Africa.

In the second debate on October 7 at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, there were some passing references to Africa by both Mr Obama and Mr McCain, the focus mostly being on the situation in Darfur, Sudan, and the issue of US support for any intervention. There were also references to Somalia, the Rwanda genocide.

The first debate on September 26 at the University of Mississippi saw two fleeting mentions, both by Mr Obama, on his Kenyan origins and on Chinese presence in Africa.

According to Prof Walter Mead, a Senior Fellow for US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, the dearth of African issues at the debates cannot be interpreted to mean that the continent does not matter.

“In debates the things presidential candidates spend time on what they disagree on,” he says, “that’s not a sign that there is no interest in Africa…”

 NPR’s “All Things Considered” program ran a segment on Indonesian opinion of Barack Obama this week. Obama attended grade school in Jakarta, so one would expect Indonesia to be a bit of a”blue state.”

(Obama’s third-grade classroom at Public School No. 1. — Michael Sullivan/NPR)

Here’s what NPR reports:

“Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, and a place where America’s image has been badly tarnished by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Indonesians are keenly interested in the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, and they have a soft spot for Democrat Barack Obama, who spent part of his childhood there.

At the school Obama attended in the Menteng district of Jakarta, a security guard named Adang says he is a little tired of the reporters who come expecting to find an Islamic boarding school and evidence of Obama’s secret Muslim identity — an image encouraged by some of Obama’s political opponents in the United States.

It’s not true, says Adang, who goes by one name. He points to Obama’s third- and fourth-grade classrooms and says patiently that this is not an Islamic school.

“Yes, we have a mosque,” he says, but at prayer time there are rooms for Christians and Buddhists to pray in, too. Public School No. 1 Menteng is actually among the city’s finest, in one of Jakarta’s most exclusive neighborhoods and home to many of Indonesia’s business and political elite.

Adang says he wants Obama to win next month simply because he’s an alumnus. It would be good for the school’s image, he says, to be able to say that the president of the U.S. studied here, too…

“…The U.S. is a great superpower,” [Indonesian shopkeeper] Probowo says. “And U.S. policy is felt throughout the world. I like Barack Obama. Not because he lived in Jakarta, but because I believe he can help change America’s image, especially in the Muslim world. If John McCain becomes president, I don’t see things improving in Iraq or elsewhere. But Obama says he’ll stop the war. And that will be a good thing for everyone.”

Probowo is Muslim, but says he doesn’t care that Obama is Christian. Religion isn’t relevant, he says, and what matters is how Obama looks at the world and uses his ability to shape America’s foreign policy for the better….”

I recommend giving it a listen.

NPR has already reported, and I have already blogged about views of McCain from a certain Asian nation with which he has history. In case you missed it, here it is.

It comes as no surprise that the United States is leaving Grosvenor Square, the historic park in the heart of London that was home to the U.S. embassy since 1938. This is part of a regrettable trend, in which the State Department builds drab, fortress embassies on the outskirts of foreign capitals, leaving American diplomats more secure but also more isolated from the political environments they are supposed to understand and communicate with.

Worse, the State Department, by its own admission, can’t fully staff these buildings, old or new. This is because it’s easier to propose, support and implement projects that promise physical security than it is to put real people in the field — people who might actually inform and influence the environments that seem so unsafe.

This is the baleful balance sheet on what has become an American retreat from the public forms of overseas diplomacy. It is by no means a new story, but it bears repeating in the light of recent reports (see Melinda Bouwer’s latest “Diplomacy” blog). The truth is that while America has retreated into fortress embassies, all the activities that once represented official America’s effort to reach out to the publics of foreign countries — exhibits and concerts, film showings, literary evenings, bi-national centers, American libraries — all these things are now gone, tagged passé. Also gone are the official American magazines and publications that were once published in dozens of languages around the world. Official American radio and TV broadcasting — such as the Voice of America — is also a shadow of its former self.

In its place there is virtually nothing — because all that remains is virtual. The State Department produces splashy Web sites and holds discussions in the virtual “Second Life.” How can this replace real contact with real people? For all the value of instantaneous communications technology, nothing can replace direct face-to-face contact and broad, public engagement. The retreat of American public diplomacy behind the walls of fortresses and into the Internet is just that — a retreat.

The public face of America overseas is now most likely military. That is why there is more discussion of public diplomacy at the Defense Department than at State. That is why the most forceful arguments for public diplomacy come from the Secretary of Defense instead of the Secretary of State. And that is why Defense has more resources — much more — for public-diplomacy type activities than our diplomats themselves have.

Robert Kagan writes that the decline in America’s popularity did not begin with George W. Bush’s presidency. True. It began when when we took America’s popularity for granted and then, facing budget constraints and terrorist attacks, decided to take refuge in new technology and fortress embassies.

The Washington-based non-profits Search for Common Ground and the Consensus Building Institute have produced a major new leadership group report on improving U.S. relations with the Muslim world. Titled “Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World,” the two groups released the report last month to a packed house at the National Press club.

The report presents the consensus of 34 American leaders in the fields of foreign policy, national security, politics, business, religion, education, public opinion, psychology, philanthropy, and conflict resolution on how to improve dialogue between the U.S. and the Muslim world. Some of these include former diplomats Madeleine Albright, Richard Armitage, Dennis Ross, among many other distinguished leaders.

According to the report’s authors, “the primary objective of the report is to provide new strategies for reducing tensions with Muslim countries and communities around the world. The core point of the report is that it is possible to meet both U.S. interests and the interests of the vast majority of Muslims around the world who seek peaceful coexistence, by addressing the main sources of tension in new ways.”

From the Executive Summary:

1. Elevate diplomacy as the primary tool for resolving key conflicts involving Muslim countries, engaging both allies and adversaries in dialogue

• Engage with Iran to explore the potential for agreements that could increase regional security, while seeking Iran’s full compliance with its nuclear nonproliferation commitments
• Work intensively for immediate de-escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a viable path to a two-state solution, while ensuring the security of Israelis and Palestinians
• Promote broad-based political reconciliation in Iraq, and clarify the long-term U.S. role
• Renew international commitment and cooperation to halt extremists’ resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan
• Provide top-level U.S. leadership to resolve regional conflicts and to improve coordination with international partners

2. Support efforts to improve governance and promote civic participation in Muslim countries, and advocate for principles rather than parties in their internal political contests

• Build the capacity of government institutions to deliver services, and of citizens to participate in governance
• Advocate consistently for nonviolence, pluralism and fairness in political contests
• Use U.S. leverage with authoritarian governments to promote reforms in governance
• Assess the value of engagement with political representatives of armed and activist movements case-by-case, based on their principles, behavior, and level of public support
• Support political transitions and the consolidation of reforms in countries at critical “turning points”

3. Help catalyze job-creating growth in Muslim countries to benefit both the U.S. and Muslim countries’ economies

• Support policy reforms to secure property rights, facilitate transactions and promote investments
• Partner with governments, multilateral institutions and philanthropies to make education a more powerful engine of employment and entrepreneurship
• Use public-private investment partnerships to reduce risk, promote exports and fund enterprises
• Use trade agreements to reward economic reform and spur investment
• Manage energy interdependence and diversify resources

4. Improve mutual respect and understanding between Americans and Muslims around the world

• Use public diplomacy to reinforce changes in policies and actions
• Dramatically expand cross-cultural education, people-to-people and interfaith exchange
• Promote greater depth and accuracy in news coverage and programming
• Invest in cultural diplomacy through arts and entertainment programs, to deepen mutual understanding and challenge stereotypes
• Involve the Muslim-American community as a bridge

Here’s a great documentary video about the present state of U.S.-Muslim relations, and the engagement project on media partner LinkTV.

This is a very important report that couldn’t come at a better time in U.S.-Muslim relations. I look forward to following the actions of this group.

From the Pew Global Attitudes Project:

“Trickle-Down Global Economics: World Already Saw U.S. Influence as Negative

Around the globe, people are anxiously following the U.S. financial crisis as it evolves into a worldwide meltdown.

People nearly everywhere realize that what happens in the American economy can have a big impact on them.

But even before this fall’s financial crisis, a 24-nation Pew Global Attitudes survey conducted in March-April 2008 found that many in other countries already felt the U.S. economy was having a negative impact on their own country’s economy.

The survey also found that publics around the world were giving their national economies increasingly negative ratings.

With the U.S. receiving at least some of the blame for the world’s increasingly dour economic outlook, this adds yet another challenge for America’s global image…”

What are the experts saying about the impact of the financial crisis on the U.S. image? The Council on Foreign Relations’ new blog, the CFR Forum has been discussing this very issue. On the blog there is a thriving conversation among some of the most preeminent thinkers in the US. Here’s a few entries:

From CFR Fellow Adam Posen:

“I side with those (from Nye to Setser) who say this is not the end of US relative power, and that fiscal constraints will not be hugely binding.

Regarding the latter, what Japan’s actions in the 1990s show us is that fiscal policy when properly used can be effective, that running up debt in what is clearly a temporary situation is not automatically inflationary (note that yen also had a sustained major depreciation and Japan had neither rising interest rate nor inflation), and that it is net debt, not gross public debt that matters (see the work of Broda and Weinstein).

What I am much more concerned about is the US having lost the intellectual or “model setting” leadership in the global economic community. This is in large part deserved because we did get sloppy with our regulation and supervision, we were too arrogant to others, and we did too little to submit our own policies to international institutions (even under Clinton, though obviously much worse under Bush)….”

From Heidi Crebo-Rediker, Co-Director GSFI, New America Foundation:

“To Sebastian’s original forum question: is there a relationship between the financial turmoil and US power. The answer has to be yes – for both internal and external reasons.

The internal reasons are more obvious: a strong economy is critical to the ability of the US to lead, to fund national security needs, and to generate public support for any truly necessary engagement abroad to protect national security interests. This crisis has a ways to play out with consequences to the US economy ranging from bad to catastrophic (with other countries now facing similar prophesies).

A home-first bias will temper foreign aid programs, just at a time when a cash rich beneficiaries of this decade’s wealth transfer out of the US are able to use financial clout for foreign aid programs or even as outright foreign policy tools. Heading deeper into debt (increasing dependence on Chinese, Japanese, Russian… reserves) could potentially limit our foreign objectives as well (see Brad’s excellent Sovereign Wealth piece).

The external impact of this crisis on US power has yet to play out, but early warning signals are not good. Over the past few years, one could count on Putin to rave about revising the world’s financial architecture (US at the center) to benefit the emerging world economic powers. We counted on a rising China buying into a legacy system it benefited from and not rocking the boat. Now we hear from friends and foes that the time to rebuild the entire financial and monetary system of the world has come.

Today we focus on saving the global banking system, but after the dust settles, real questions will emerge about free-market capitalism and the role of the state (not least of which will be because the UST will rival ADIA in assets under management). It would be naïve to write this one off as a bubble born of a perfectly fine free market system – back to business as usual in a year - in the eyes of the rest of the world…”

There is much more to read on this subject in the Forum. I recommend taking a look.