Public Diplomacy

It is natural, at a time of low approval ratings for the United States overseas, to ask again whether it made sense in 1999 to dismantle the U.S. Information Agency and move parts of it into the State Department. As Melinda points out in her post (below), John McCain has weighed in on the subject, saying he regrets having supported the measure. Madeleine Albright, who pushed the idea to its fruition, now waffles when asked whether it was the right thing to do.
Like many other “veterans” of USIA, I recall that questions about the Agency’s organization and status were always being raised, throughout the USIA’s history, both in and outside the Agency, and in and outside Government. Most of us at USIA wanted some independence from the State Department bureaucracy, but we also wanted State to pay attention to our recommendations. Some believed that if we could just get the organization right, our public diplomacy problems would be over, and foreign public opinion would reliably support the United States. Tinkering with structure and lines of authority was a way of sidestepping the awkward truth that, without good policies, even the best public diplomacy organization is ineffective.

Lately U.S. government public diplomacy has taken a beating — due to its message, not its media. Having said that, recent coverage of the US Government’s TV broadcasts to the Middle East shows that even when the USG has a good story to tell, it’s easy for Washington to stumble as it tries to get the word out.

Better policies, and better public diplomats with more funding, is the way forward. Don’t look for this to be an election issue, but it would be nice to see a McCain or Obama transition team take the matter seriously.

We have speculated before — along with many others — about Obama’s impact on foreign attitudes toward the United States. But with the Democratic nomination now safely in his hands, this is no longer an academic question. As many foreigners as Americans seem to have celebrated the milestone that Obama’s victory represents, encouraged by worldwide media coverage that resembled more a general election victory than a party nomination.

As the Washington Post and many others reported, there was an atmosphere of excitement around the world when the news finally broke. Obama’s grandmother in Kenya speaking movingly about the long road traveled, West Europeans declaring that Obama’s victory restores their faith in America’s values, Indonesians claiming him as a native son, Japanese excited because they have a city whose name is Obama (!).

This is clearly much more — or less — than a reaction to Obama’s political views. Muslims tuning in from the Middle East had to take note that the “presumptive” candidate’s first act was to address the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, and declare his “unshakable commitment” to Israel’s security. It was a speech whole sections of which, mutatis mutandis, could have come out of the Bush White House. Note, in fact, how the drumbeat of anti-Muslim insinuation against Barack Hussein Obama forces him to dial up his pro-Israel rhetoric:

I will bring to the White House an unshakable commitment to Israel’s security. That starts with ensuring Israel’s qualitative military advantage. I will ensure that Israel can defend itself from any threat - from Gaza to Tehran. Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As President, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade - investments to Israel’s security that will not be tied to any other nation. First, we must approve the foreign aid request for 2009. Going forward, we can enhance our cooperation on missile defense. We should export military equipment to our ally Israel under the same guidelines as NATO. And I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself in the United Nations and around the world.

Of course, Barack Obama does emphasize diplomacy — “clear-eyed” and “aggressive” — and does not talk, as his erstwhile opponent did, of “obliterating” Iran with a nuclear reprisal. However, at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Olmert stands accused of taking money under the table from an American businessman, a year after President Katsav plea-bargained and resigned his way out of sexual harassment and rape charges, there are more than a few things wrong on the Israeli side of the agenda. Such things do not get mentioned when talking to AIPAC.

Fareed Zakaria was right to note that we are doubtless witnessing a temporary phenomenon in the world’s reaction to Barack Obama — a celebration of the man, rather than his policies. It is a moment when, because of Obama’s remarkable personal story and inspirational rhetoric, we have an opportunity to restore America’s credibility. But whether we do so will depend on policies and their execution, not just an impressive biography and commitment to change.

In the “gotcha” spirit of our current politics, CNN is rudely replaying the archival footage of Scott McClellan dismissing Richard Clarke’s tell-all book, written after Clarke left the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11. “Why didn’t he tell the President these things when he was in the White House, rather than waiting until he left?” McClellan says from the podium of the White House Press Room back in 2004. Switch to the current White House spokesman, Dana Perino, from the same podium, speaking yesterday about McClellan’s own just-published tell-all account of the Bush Administration he once served: “The President is puzzled, and he doesn’t recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years,” Perino says, adding that Bush is “disappointed that if he had these concerns and these thoughts, he never came to him or anyone else on the staff.”

What we have here, to quote the famous line from the Sixties, is a failure to communicate. It’s hard and often hazardous to one’s career for a staffer to tell a President he’s wrong. By the same token, it’s easy, and often profitable, for a staffer, once out of office, to publish his criticisms in a book. Take your pick which explanation you find more convincing.

One of McClellan’s complaints is a familiar one – that he was misled by Bush White House officials. Many if not most White House spokesmen complain at some point about being misled or kept unaware of important developments, so this is hardly news. However, it appears that a good part of McClellan’s book is really an attack on the Administration’s motives as it tried to tell its story via the media. Here McClellan alleges that the President sold the American people on Iraq having Weapons of Mass Destruction as a pretext for conducting a militarily-led project to spread democracy in the Middle East.

If such is indeed the case, we are indeed in a sorry state. Seeing Iraq as an incubator for Middle East democracy required a lively imagination, even back in 2003. Willingly selling a war under false pretenses would be reprehensible. As nearly as one can tell from the initial reviews, McClellan makes the hypothesis without providing proof. Maybe he really wasn’t in the loop.

The larger context for this discussion is our Election Year, the outgoing President’s low approval ratings, and the efforts of so many Republicans to distance themselves from the White House. Much like a consumer product fallen into disrepute, the Republican Party is looking to re-brand itself. The first step is to do some brand research, which Representative Tom Davis, Republican from northern Virginia, does in one of the most remarkable documents of this election year. The 20-page document is well worth reading in its entirety. He writes: “Members [of Congress] and pundits waiting for Democrats to fumble the ball, so that soft Republicans and Independents will snap back to the GOP, fail to understand the deep seeded antipathy toward the President, the war, gas prices, the economy, foreclosures and, in some areas, the underlying cultural differences that continue to brand our party.”

As Davis makes clear, Republicans overall need a new image. McCain will not help, since he is not branding himself as a Republican, but rather as a patriot (to the conservative audiences) and as an environmentalist and maverick (to independents and Democrats).

McCain is following his strategy rather well, and is immeasurably helped by the disunity among the Democrats. No matter what Hillary says, she is John McCain’s greatest ally. Not only is she sowing doubts about Obama’s “electability,” she is undermining the image of the Democratic Party right now by fighting the Party’s authority to impose discipline on party leaders in Michigan and Florida.

It may yet turn out that, in this remarkable year, Democrats as well as Republicans will find their brand out of favor with most Americans, and the selling of the next President will begin with the “selling” of a new brand for each candidate. Pity the incumbent members of Congress who haven’t read Tom Davis’ memo.

Today’s Wall Street Journal carries an interesting summary of how the world’s regions seem to feel about Hillary, Obama and McCain. That Barack Obama would be popular in Africa, Indonesia and the Mideast is perhaps no surprise. But he also appears to be quite popular in Europe, where I’m writing from this week. On the other hand, in Italy, my informal sampling of opinion showed that Hillary had her supporters as well — including among men. One told me he preferred her over Obama because “she has more scars” — more experience.

So far, despite his travels, John McCain doesn’t seem to have captured the popular imagination abroad. With the Republican contest now ended, McCain gets less coverage in the United States and, correspondingly, less coverage abroad. In Southeast Europe, Clinton’s admission that she exaggerated the danger she faced when she visited Bosnia in 1996, provoked unflattering news stories. The occasional story about John McCain’s shortcomings does not resonate much overseas. Perhaps this is because the U.S. media’s coverage is generally positive (see Neal Gabler’s piece in the NYT). For whatever reason, John McCain is more a cipher to the public — at least here in Europe.

ZAGREB — President Bush leaves for Europe in a few days. Likely one of the last foreign trips of his Presidency, Bush’s five-day visit to Kiev, Bucharest, and Zagreb offers him a chance to work on his image and his legacy — each in bad repair. The timing is both good and bad.

First the good: The NATO Summit in Bucharest, centerpiece of his trip, is the largest meeting ever of NATO heads of state and government, and comes with the kind of “visuals” that White House media relations staffers love: “group photos” of international statesmen with the U.S. President at the center, handshakes across conference tables, impressive dinners, exotic backdrops, and plenty of symbols of U.S. authority and prestige. He also visits Ukraine, a possible future member of the alliance, and Croatia, scheduled to receive a formal invitation to join NATO during the summit. Both of these countries have fresh memories of threats to their security (Ukraine in relation to Russia, Croatia in relation to Serbia), and therefore a broadly welcoming attitude toward NATO and the United States.

So far, so good. The less than favorable aspect to the trip’s timing lies in the still-rancorous dispute between Greece and Macedonia — that is, between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (its official name at the UN). Macedonia is another would-be NATO member and is expecting a formal invitation to join. But Greece adamantly opposes allowing the tiny Balkan state to have the same name as Greece’s northernmost province. Inexplicably, this long-standing objection has been allowed to fester during the lengthy process of Macedonia’s preparation for admission to NATO. Barring a last minute breakthrough, this unresolved dispute over nomenclature makes the alliance seem inept or careless in its Summit preparations.

Another awkward but much more substantive issue is Afghanistan. The open-ended deployment of US and NATO forces to Afghanistan is the alliance’s first real “out of area” challenge and it is far from clear that it is going well. Germany, for example, has opposed sending its troops from the relatively secure areas of northern Afghanistan to the dangerous areas of the south, where US, British and Canadian forces are in daily and deadly contact with Taliban fighters.

This conflict tends to get relatively little coverage in the US press but it is, in fact, the closest thing to a front line in the fight with armed Islamic terrorists. Now, because of the disagreement within NATO over burden sharing, this is a troubling portent for the alliance’s future.

As Nicholas Burns, the outgoing Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and former US Ambassador to NATO, put it last month:

NATO has now had to face an existential crisis of sorts. We are fighting in Kandahar, Oruzgan, in Helmand and Paktia provinces, United States military forces, with the Dutch and the Canadians and the British and the Estonians and the Romanians. But most of the other NATO allies are deployed to the west and to the north. When we have a firefight, as we did, a major firefight with the Taliban in September, and need tactical reinforcements, it’s incumbent upon the NATO allies to come to the support of those NATO allies engaged in the combat. That did not happen in September. And too many of our allies have said that they’re quite willing to be garrison troops in the northern and western parts of the country that are relatively quiet and peaceful, but not willing to come down to where the Taliban is crossing the border in great numbers and where al Qaeda is also taking on the American, Afghan, and those NATO allied forces that I named.

This is fairly ominous language and signals that, within NATO, consensus on Afghanistan is at risk.
Of course, having a fixed date well in advance of a Summit can serve the useful purpose of being a deadline by which solutions to knotty problems must be achieved. So we may find that the seemingly esoteric problem of Macedonia’s name and the existential problem of NATO’s deployments in Afghanistan will be solved, after all, before the 26 leaders meet in Bucharest late next week. (more…)

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.