Less than a month after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, but before his inauguration, I was one of those who thought that when he sat behind the Resolute desk, he would understand the need to set aside his “candidate” personality in the face of “presidential” responsibilities. I was bold enough to write out the…
This article appears in the July-August 2020 issue of Foreign Service Journal. Posted here with permission from the Journal, this version includes endnotes. The text was submitted to the editors on April 30 and finalized on June 8; this version also includes notes to sources published through July 9, 2020. By Donald M. Bishop…
I am a decade retired, but 31 years in the Foreign Service, 25 overseas, give me a feel for the difficulties – no, the agonies — of the Public Diplomacy officer now serving abroad. Everyone in the world with a smartphone has witnessed the horrific killing of George Floyd. All have seen the protests, tear…
The President’s Deputy National Security Advisor, Matthew Pottinger – who speaks fluent Mandarin and worked for seven years as a journalist in China — recently gave a speech on the 101st anniversary of China’s May Fourth Movement of 1919. [1] China Digital Times reported “government authorities” issued this order the next day: “Strictly delete any reposts,…
“One of the great American fallacies is the notion, prevalent among people in all walks of life, that all we need to do is to explain ourselves, our policies, and our way of life to foreign peoples and they will love us — or at least will understand and sympathize with our point of view.” …
When Public Diplomacy practitioners engage with counterparts from other nations, they must listen carefully when universal values are discussed. They must find ways to clarify goals and values when language may obscure them. Abraham Lincoln addressed this point in a plain way in his “Address at Sanitary Fair in Baltimore: A Lecture on Liberty,” on…
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian has promoted at least two blame-the-U.S. conspiracy theories about the outbreak of the coronavirus. Secretary of State Pompeo’s reaction to these allegations may have been sharp because the Chinese accusations so echo an infamous 1980s Soviet disinformation campaign – that the AIDS virus had originated at a U.S. Army…
Around the globe, citizens and netizens are focused on the coronavirus – how not to be infected, how to prevent the virus’s spread, how it is stressing systems of medical care, and how long preventive measures must continue. The crisis has more than medical and economic dimensions, however. It has given rise to what some…
“Churchillian.” That’s a word being used to describe the St. Patrick’s Day Ministerial Broadcast – what Americans would call an address to the nation – by Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland Leo Varadkar on the coronavirus. “This is the calm before the storm – before the surge,” he told Ireland’s people. The speech is worth…
“In the [information environment], we are being challenged every single day. Our competitors are contesting us daily, seeking to sow disinformation, probing cyber defenses, stealing intellectual property, conducting reconnaissance in places we wouldn’t even consider part of the battlefield – like our universities, industry and online applications like games. They’re challenging norms of behavior in…