1)  Senator Chuck Hagel (R, NE), as part of his recent book tour, spoke at the Brookings Institution last week about “U.S. Foreign Policy and the Presidential Campaign.” Senator Hagel, a long-time member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, examines the global challenges that the next president will inherit and the responsibilities of the presidential candidates to address these challenges.

2) Also from the Brookings Institution is a new article by foreign policy experts Peter Singer and Hady Amr titled ‘To Win the “War on Terror,’ We Must First Win the ‘War of Ideas’: Here’s How.” Originally published in the academic journal the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the analysis addresses the critical role that public diplomacy plays in improving the deteriorating image of the United States in the Muslim world. From the abstract:

“The authors argue that both public diplomacy and policies, including those on civil liberties, are vital to U.S. success in the war on terrorism and that the next U.S. president must designate this effort as a matter of highest national security importance. Many in the Muslim world believe that the war on terrorism is essentially a war on Islam; this view impedes the success of an effective foreign policy strategy. Previous efforts of public diplomacy have lacked funding, energy, focus, and an integrated strategy. The authors define six principles to improve America’s security through winning the war of ideas, including addressing civil liberties concerns, and engaging diverse constituencies in the Muslim world. Finally, the authors describe ten public diplomacy initiatives to improve U.S.–Muslim world relations.”

3) Robert Dreyfuss writes in the Nation magazine about “Obama’s Evolving Foreign Policy.” He argues:

“Perhaps nowhere else are expectations as high for what an Obama presidency will mean as in foreign policy, where many Americans–and most of the world–are holding their breath awaiting the end of George W. Bush’s wrecking-ball approach to world affairs. In some important areas, Obama would alter or reverse course…

…But in many respects, Obama seems likely to preside over a restoration of the bipartisan consensus that governed foreign policy during the cold war and the 1990s, updated for a post-9/11 world. That conclusion arises from an in-depth examination of the Illinois senator’s views as well as dozens of interviews with foreign policy experts, including lengthy exchanges with the core group of Obama’s foreign policy team and other participants in his task forces on the military, Iraq and the Middle East. It’s also based on a careful review of speeches and position papers, Obama’s 2007 article in Foreign Affairs and a key chapter, “The World Beyond Our Borders,” in his book The Audacity of Hope.

All this suggests there is a gap between Obama’s inspirational speeches and the actual policies he supports. “So far, what you’re seeing is rhetoric that we can make bold changes in our foreign policy,” says John Cavanagh, director of the Institute for Policy Studies. “But when he lays out specifics, it’s not as transformational as the rhetoric.” Will Marshall, director of the right-leaning Progressive Policy Institute of the Democratic Leadership Council, agrees. “On most of the details, he’s aligned with the general Democratic consensus,” Marshall says. Says Tom Hayden, the veteran activist and former California state senator, “At best, he will be a gradualist.”

4) An articleauthored by Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier published in the National Interest yesterday argues that although Senator John McCain “has assembled a diverse group of advisors for his campaign, should he win the presidency this fall, he will have to choose between two markedly different approaches to guiding America in the world.”

Their argument goes: “In the aftermath of the Bush administration, particularly the impact of the war in Iraq, conservative politicians and policy intellectuals are again debating the nature of the global order, the purpose and use of American power, and what, if anything, is required to legitimize the exercise of that power, particularly military force. What is striking is the extent to which the divide between the two broad groupings in the McCain campaign (the pragmatists or realists on one hand and the idealists or neoconservatives on the other) resembles the divisions that had emerged in the closing days of the George H. W. Bush administration…

McCain’s proposal to create a League of Democracies is an interesting hybrid of the two perspectives, one that symbolizes his effort to be a “realistic idealist” (this proposal also has the support of many prominent liberal thinkers). It would rely on U.S. leadership of a multilateral organization based on a community of values. But even that idea demonstrates the likely limits of collaboration among the two groups. Realists see a world where the United States needs to reach out to major nondemocracies such as China and Russia for assistance in combating a number of pressing threats, especially terrorism.

The idealists, meanwhile, believe that the lack of democracy in China and Russia is itself a major problem and places real limits on America’s ability to engage in any sort of meaningful cooperation with them. These are fundamental differences in approach. This is why Eagleburger, now an advisor to McCain, recently told the New York Times that “it may be too strong a term to say a fight is going on over John McCain’s soul . . . [but] I am convinced there is at least going to be an attempt.”

If McCain wins the presidency, then presumably we will hear more about how “realistic idealism” navigates these problems, but many observers predict a foreign policy of incoherence and division. The moment a President McCain starts going after leaders in Beijing and Moscow for their authoritarian ways, the realists will panic and look to the American business community to prevent a breakdown in relations. And if he goes easy on the Chinese, as some accused Bill Clinton of doing during his presidency, the neoconservatives will feel betrayed and start agitating, as they did in the 1990s, for conservatives to develop a “neo-Reaganite” foreign policy.

Ultimately, McCain will find that on issues such as climate change or Iran where he needs Russia and China, he will have to deal with them. He won’t be able to kick Russia out of the G-8, as he has said the United States should consider doing. Standing up for values can (and should) remain an important part of foreign policy, but McCain will inevitably have to compromise if he wants to make progress to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, for example….”

5) Finally, I recently reworked a post originally published on this blog into a longer analysis. It was published by the Foreign Policy Association’s Great Decision Analysis series, as well as by AlterNet, Reuter’s progressive news arm.

Have a great holiday weekend!

This will be the first time for foreign leaders and publics to take the measure of our candidates since they won their parties’ nominations, and it will be the first time that we in America can judge how nominees McCain and Obama — one of them the next President — present themselves abroad.

Given the excitement that Obama has generated in many countries overseas, it will be interesting to see how his activities are reported and commented on in foreign media. I can already report, having just returned from six weeks in Europe, that European mass media give Obama extensive coverage, sometimes as much as they give their own political leaders. Often this is directly lifted from American media and reflects an intense curiosity about Obama’s personality. (When Rolling Stone published an article on Obama’s choice of music for his iPod, Italy’s Corriere della Sera gave it major play, contrasting it with the country music that the NYT found on George W. Bush’s iPod a while back.)

John McCain may not inspire such fevered attention. Some of the U.S. cable commentators were amazed that McCain would travel to Columbia to defend the U.S.-Columbia free trade agreement that has become so controversial at home — even in his own party. But this is classic McCain, who is intent on building his appeal based on an image of candor and “straight talk,” which, at the end of the long campaign to come, may prove his most effective tactic, at home and abroad, for countering Obama’s charisma.

John Brown, a 20-year veteran of the US Foreign Service and currently a senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, reminds us in a recent article published in the Guardian newspaper that:

“Any new administration must work under the assumption that whatever honeymoon the outside world will have with a “non-George Bush” in the White House will be short-lived. Though Obama is generally well liked overseas, foreign leaders and publics do harbour concerns about his experience and prejudices about his ethnic background. In an era of instant communication - and revelations - no national leader today can expect permanent world popularity.

The new administration should also not give overseas audiences the false hope that its arrival on the world scene will mean a sudden, drastic departure from the policies of Bush, despite his low reputation at home and abroad. The American political system, which leads presidential candidates to adopt “centrist” positions, leaves the options for restructuring American foreign policy limited. This includes Iraq, a fiasco that will take years to settle.

While not pretending to offer a totally revamped foreign policy, the upcoming administration should, however, immediately focus on results-oriented overseas initiatives (such as closing Guantanamo, allowing far more Iraqi refugees into the US and making US embassies appear less like fortresses) that would win the approval of world foreign opinion. Unconditional overseas disaster-relief assistance, including for food, should be given the highest priority, making sure such aid is not a one-shot, made-for-US-TV publicity stunt, but a firm commitment to help countries in distress for as long as America can.”

This is a very important and sobering reminder of what challenges lies ahead for the next president–whether he be Obama or McCain. Brown goes on to give important advice for how to restore American’s “soft power” in the next administration.

But his comments that Obama might be “leading the world on” to think a new President will be a fix-all for the US’ image woes leads me to ponder what the world really expects from the next President. Is the “Obamania” from abroad spiked by Obama’s policies or his symbolism? If the latter case is true, Obama’s foreign supporters might not be as dissappointed as those in America if he didn’t enact these policies. In that case they may not feel that they have been given false hopes after all, since they were paying attention to the person, not the policies, all along.

It all comes down to this: are global publics more impressed when the US implements foreign policies they deem responsible, or when the US simply elects a leader they deem responsible? How do we differentiate how much the world likes Obama for who he is, rather than what he stands to change? Furthermore, how can we tell how much the world loves Obama simply because he represents break from the past? 

These are all questions that political psychologists would themselves grapple with. But the personality versus policies debate plays out in domestic politics as well. For example, it is often said that Americans want to elect a candidate that they can “sit down and have a beer with,” someone who understands them. But this determination competes with voters’ approval of the candidates’ policy platforms.

Here’s a hypothetical situation that might illuminate this query: Given Obama’s high approval ratings going into the election, if Senator McCain were to end up wining the Presidency and then magically fixed all of the foreign policy ”blemishes” that global publics claim dampens their opinion of the US (closing Guantanamo, getting tougher on climate change, choosing cooperation over acting unilaterally, etc.), would McCain’s approval rating reach the same levels of a President Obama who achieved the same goals?

It’s a tough question, but I would have to go with “No.” It appears to me that the Obama’s supporters around the world are paying less attention to his policies and more to his personal characteristics. And I think the idea of a “non-Bush” in the White House—whoever he may be—also factors in to Obama’s popularity. I would guess that this would give Obama the edge over McCain even if their policies equally pleased our global compatriots.

But what does this mean for US public diplomacy efforts, where those who criticize its failures consistently cry: “It’s the policies, stupid!” and “You can’t put lipstick on a pig!” It means that influencing global opinion, a primary goal of public diplomacy, is a complex process—certainly much more complex than whether or not people in Moscow, Islamabad, or Chiapas want to sit down and have a beer with the US President. This means that public diplomacy is an activity that is much more challenging than it is sometimes given credit for.

For those interested in some constructive steps towards improving American public diplomacy, I urge you to continue reading John Brown’s column.

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.

Above is a picture of the map. To enjoy its interactive features click on this link.  Go to the bottom and click on the Bush, McCain and Obama tabs and watch the red (unfavorable opinions) vanish. It’s amazing!

(Hindu God Hanuman)

The BBC reports today that a group of Indians are planning to present a statue of the revered Indian monkey God, Hanuman, to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

According to the report:

“The group decided to order the idol after they read a magazine report saying that Mr Obama carried a good luck ‘monkey king’ charm…

Hindus revere monkeys which they believe are descendents of the monkey God Hanuman. The two-foot tall, 15kg gold-polished, brass idol has been made as a present for Mr Obama because “he will be good for India if he becomes the next president,” according to Brij Mohan Bhama, leader of the group.”

One representative of the group said: “Senator Obama has a good luck charm. We don’t know whether it is of Hanuman. But the people here think it is Hanuman.”

Another representative, Brij Mohan Bhama says he is “an ardent supporter of Mr Obama - even his email identification is bhamaforobama.”

“Obama stands for change. We are hoping that he will bring about change so that oil and food prices come down,” he said. “India will progress if he comes to power.”

A long-standing member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator McCain has weighed in on this issue before he begun his presidential campaign. Now that he is bidding for the White House, here’s what Senator McCain has to say about USIA in a 2007 op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel:

“Although there are many facets in the struggle of ideas against violent Islamic extremism, there is one critical step we can take right now to improve our position. If elected president, I would establish a single, independent agency responsible for all of America’s public diplomacy. And that agency would report directly to the president.

During the Cold War, the United States Information Agency, or USIA, was responsible for providing citizens across the globe with accurate information about what America stood for and enabling first-hand exposure to all things American. In 1999, I supported a plan to integrate USIA into the State Department. In theory, this reform was supposed to ensure the coordination of our public diplomacy with our government-to-government relationships. In practice, it made public diplomacy an orphan.

Dismantling an agency dedicated to promoting America and Americans amounted to unilateral disarmament in the struggle of ideas. Communicating our government’s views on day-to-day issues is what the State Department does. But communicating the idea of America, our purpose, our past and our future is a different task. We need an independent agency with the sole purpose of getting America’s message out in a factual and persuasive manner: managing radio and TV broadcasts to those in need of objective news; establishing American libraries with Internet access throughout the world; sending Americans overseas and sponsoring foreigners’ visits to America for educational and cultural exchanges; and creating a professional corps of public-diplomacy experts who speak the local language and whose careers are spent promoting American values, ideas, culture and education. And it should recruit the best and brightest not just from the ranks of the Foreign Service but from business, academia and the media.”

This subject was recently breached in an interview with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on the Global Wire, the US Center for Global Engagement’s new web-based show which interviews policy makers about the US role in the world.

The show’s host asked Albright to give the incoming President advice on which bureaucratic structure best suits the US’s public diplomacy operations for the 21st century. Here’s how the discussion went:

“Host: The U.S. Information Agency, when you were at the State Department, which you oversaw this process, it was merged—the U.S. Information Agency was merged into State. Senator McCain wants to recreate USIA, and your advice to him on that would be?

Albright: Well, I think, I know there’s been a lot of criticism about what we did on this. I think we’d have to make sure about what its mandate was. It was very connected with the Cold War. I think it’s not so much whether it is a separate agency or not, but whether in addition to delivering a message abroad, it is also listening to what the people on the ground are saying. Otherwise, one of the issues that I’ve always argued about, what is the difference between public diplomacy and propaganda, and public diplomacy is actually the listening part as well as the telling part of the message.

I don’t think that we have the cadre or the group of people that fully understand enough what’s happening, let’s say, among Muslim communities. And so there has to be a group of people that understand the cultural and religious aspect of societies, then bring them in and have them be capable of talking about it in language that makes sense to the people listening to it. Part of the problem when this administration first took over, they started making movies about Muslims in America that just were, I think, insulting to Muslims that don’t live in the United States.

Here’s a brief summary of their findings on these two issues:

“Favorable views of the United States have increased modestly since 2007 in 10 of 21 countries where comparative data are available. Perhaps more importantly, the polling finds many people around the world paying close attention to the U.S. presidential election. Moreover– except in countries that are extremely anti-American – those who are paying attention generally believe the next president may well change U.S. foreign policy for the better. In nearly every country surveyed, greater numbers express confidence in presidential candidate Barack Obama than in John McCain”.

Last week the Washington, DC-based think tank the New America Foundation hosted a Pew representative for a discussion of these findings. To view this discussion, which includes commentary from National Journal columnist Bruce Stokes, click below:

Also note that in eleven countries most people to not think that either candidate will do the right thing.

(Obama in Kenya, courtesy of the New York Times)

Barack Obama likes to highlight that his internatinal exposure distinguishes him from his Republican opponent.  His birth in Hawaii, travels to his father’s native Kenya, four years spent in Indonesia, and even a college trek through Pakistan and India, have given him quite the international worldview.

Now that he is running for President, having an international worldview appears to be paying off–especially in terms of his reputation abroad. Let’s call it travel karma that is now coming back to give him a big boost in the international rankings.

For example, Sara Schonhardt reported this week from Jakarta that:

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