Public Diplomacy at the Foreign Policy Table

Summary: Public Diplomacy Officers make valuable contributions to U.S. foreign policy, but some PDOs are uncertain about their vital role in developing policy and  how or when to seek to influence policy discussions.  The good news is that PDOs are welcome  to participate in and thereby  improve the interagency foreign policy process.  For those still outside the process, joining the discussion is neither difficult nor mysterious.  The special insight PDOs bring to foreign policy formulation can be invaluable in messaging our policies.   

Public Diplomacy was once limited to U.S. government activities undertaken abroad.  Over the past two decades, PD has developed into activities we conduct with a variety of audiences in other countries.  In either stage of development, public diplomacy has been an important part of U.S. foreign policy.  Take, for example, my former colleague Erika Kuenne.  There are fewer intricate foreign policies issues than the U.S. relationship with Taiwan and China.  To wide acclaim, Erika recently received the State Department’s Mark Palmer Award for the Advancement of Democracy.  Using a savvy mixture of public diplomacy tools and methods, Erika built demonstrable support for Taiwan while simultaneously countering Chinese influence across Europe.

Achievements such as Erika’s underscore PD’s potential to improve Washington policy debates, but lingering barriers such as negative attitudes, lack of access and the vagaries of administration keep some Public Diplomacy Officers out of the policy formulation loop.  These barriers are not insurmountable; however, they are legacy issues that will tumble with small effort.  And tumble they must.  As the Atlantic Council observes: “How a policy will be communicated and received by foreign publics should be considered as a matter of policy itself.”

What Public Diplomacy Brings to the Table

American public diplomacy has been a particularly important tool  to highlight the varied stories of Americans, both positive and negative, that strengthens the alloy of our nation’s mettle.  PD projects American values of diversity, democracy, liberal trade and security guarantees at the local, regional and national levels overseas.  Public Diplomacy Officers take the pulse of the host nation in daily interactions with journalists and editors, academics and students, researchers and scientists, politicians and activists, businesses and NGOs.  PDOs develop an understanding of how U.S. values and interests are perceived at all levels of a society, then use that knowledge to implement as well as to inform U.S. policy.

Public diplomacy alone will not stop a war or climate change or human rights abuses.  For example, PD is unlikely to change the behavior of the regime in Pyongyang as we have no access to the public there and the North Korean leaders do not give a hoot about the court of global public opinion.  Where citizens have no say in their governance, public diplomacy has limits, but it is nonetheless an effective tool in the overall approach by helping to marshal support for U.S. policy.  PD’s isolation from the policy process damages a policy and thus the national interest.  The launch of the AUKUS agreement serves as a recent example of that tenet.  Its counterpoint is the effective use of public diplomacy deployed to counter and dismiss Moscow’s narrative on its threat to Ukraine.

As PDOs can bring so much to the foreign policy process, it is necessary to look at some reasons why many PDOs are not involved in policy discussions.  Generations of public diplomacy officers are familiar with the lament of U.S. Information Agency Director Edward R. Murrow after being blind-sided by the Bay of Pigs invasion: “… if they want me in on the crash landings, I’d better damned well be in on the takeoffs.”  Public diplomacy, USIA’s mission, had no part in the policy discussions on the invasion, and the policy catastrophe was made worse as a result.  Murrow’s sixty-year-old quote echoes still down State’s corridors, but fewer Public Diplomacy Officers are asking for access to policy making today; and it is time to cede the lament to history.

Changing Attitudes

Effective Ambassadors abroad and Assistant Secretaries at home regularly turn to PDOs for advice and policy analysis.  I worked for Ambassadors who believe that public diplomacy is critical to a successful policy.  That this is not always the case should come as no surprise.  A few Department leaders see public diplomacy sections as service providers; people who organize speeches or interviews, conduct student exchanges, or mount exhibits of American art.  Other leaders conjure Murrow’s worst fear, treating public diplomacy as the diplomatic equivalent of the morning-after pill, a way to make an undesired or embarrassing situation go away.  PDOs do these things, but never without a policy justification, and offer valuable analysis of how PD activities can advance policy.

On our side, too many PDOs willfully remain outside the policy loop.  If they are waiting for an invitation, they will stay outside.  PDOs need to walk into the process, sit down and take part in the conversations with the rest of the State Department, the Defense Department and the intelligence community.  Reluctance to get involved in the policy process arises from a flawed focus on what we do rather than why we do it.  PD conversations in, and reporting from, embassies can too often dwell on programmatic details rather than the results we achieve.

Exacerbating the lack of PD’s voice in reporting is the time-consuming accountability requirements laid down by Congress.  We will remain responsible stewards of public funds, but PDOs must also engage in policy debates.  Looking at the program trees instead of the policy forest fosters a view of public diplomats as service providers rather than substantive officers with a strategic mission.

Gaining Access

Murrow was asking for access; Kuenne shows that we have it, but not all PDOs have access to the same information that other officers have.  This is because not all PDOs hold top secret clearances in its highest form.  This needs to change across the Department.  Public Affairs Officers, the leaders of their sections, must have access to the same intelligence and reporting that other section heads have.  But access gained must be access used.  This can be difficult because most PAOs do not have desk-top access as other sections do.  Having to walk to a secure office, however, is never an excuse for remaining uninformed about Mission activities and reporting.

For Embassy Front Offices and State leaders, Public Diplomacy, like every other section, is a factor in policy deliberation and formulation only to the extent that PDOs provide substantive input.  Senior officials want informed, well considered, and well-reasoned advice from as many voices as possible.  When any office gives the impression that it is either poorly informed about the Mission-wide perspective, or has a narrow view of Mission goals, or seems too parochial in focusing on its own interests, that office’s advice is degraded.

Another way to gain access and influence the policy formulation process is to contribute to the Mission-wide reporting along with their colleagues from the political and economic sections.  Any country’s media, disinformation, education system, NGO activities, and human rights organizations are all PD responsibilities, and PDOs should provide analysis on these subjects.  Expert examination of these areas, timely reported to Washington, will improve overall Mission performance.  This should be easy, but there will naturally be turf battles as PDOs undertake the effort, the challenge is to add value to everyone’s turf.

Find the Room

Another challenge is that rarely is there a single moment when policy formulation “starts.”  Policy evolves with events, among other things, and rarely is it new.  The process takes place in various offices or corridors while the average PDO is out on the street engaging the public.  Then there is the need to build relationships with colleagues reluctant to talk to officers who talk in public.  Being there is difficult for the officer in a one-person section or understaffed offices who are under the gun to produce a plethora of Washington-sponsored programs as well as comply with mandatory accountability reports, but it must happen.  The State Department can help in these situations by fully staffing field offices and further developing its PD Tools reporting suite so that mandatory reports are less time consuming and of as much benefit to the  field as it is to Washington elements.

In Washington, PDOs should focus sharply on whether policy decision-makers have a realistic understanding of foreign publics, a grounded view of the PDO’s role, and a reasonable expectation about what we can achieve.  Policy decision-makers often overestimate PD’s ability to sway publics or hold skewed views of those affected by a policy, either thinking we need only support of a sliver of the elites or that we need the support of the entire population when the answer invariably lies somewhere in between.  PDOs who provide reasoned advice on such considerations are critical to policy debates and they must be present at the debate to provide the advice.

Give us an R!

One factor that would help bring public diplomacy more fully into the policymaking process is appointing an Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy.  That this senior State Department position remains empty a year into the Biden Administration does not bode well for changing attitudes or gaining access for PDOs and using their expertise to further the Administration’s goals.

This Administration is not unique in its delay.  Created in 1999, when USIA melded into the State Department, this position rarely is held by a public diplomacy practitioner, and not held long by those appointed.  In the last two decades, every appointee jumped ship less than two years after assuming office.  Worse, while there they spent too much time rewriting organization charts to suit the crisis of the day rather than offering strategic guidance.  An Undersecretary determined to be a policy player will help finish the job of fully integrating public diplomacy into the policy process while giving a much-needed strategic guidance to PDOs at home and abroad.

The danger to the progress made by PD in policymaking is the increasing tendency to run policy delivery like a political campaign.  Although we all talk about PD “campaigns,” they are not the stuff of the electoral process.  PD is not a simple exercise in marketing.  We try to get large numbers of people to reconsider their strongly held beliefs, not choose a different brand of soap.  Our efforts will not succeed with short-term, get-out-the vote approaches.  Thus, we need a practitioner, not a campaign staffer as Undersecretary.  An Undersecretary can ensure that PD is efficiently and effectively advancing the foreign policy of the United States by resisting short-term approaches, but first we need an Undersecretary.

Filling the Open Seat

The door to the policy-making process is open to Public Diplomacy Officers, but the PD seat too often is empty.  Many more of us need to accept the invitation.  The good news is that things are changing.  PDOs are making themselves part of the process following training at the Foreign Service Institute or from the demands in the field.  PD officers are raising expectations of themselves as well as recognizing the foreign policy benefits of good public diplomacy reporting.  The result is more effective policy development and implementation for the United States.  To sustain this process, all practitioners need to grab a seat at the table.

The opinions and characterizations in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. government.